The 2009 ANA Masters of Marketing Conference took place in early November in Phoenix, Arizona, and was headlined with the theme “Growth—Defying the Recession.”  Marketers from around the nation gathered to discuss, brainstorm and debate marketing tactics to bring success to their companies and the industry as a whole.

Neil Golden, CMO for McDonald’s, offered his perspective on the future of the business using the over-arching idea of “Leading with Ethnic Insights.” Golden stated that the most effective universal campaigns represented a cross-cultural approach—by combining marketing ideas specific for the African American, Asian American and Hispanic markets, a fusion was created to resonate across all cultures.

Golden even went as far to remark that these minorities groups are the trend setters, and their preferences set the tone of the general marketplace campaigns.

Rochelle Newman-Carrasco wrote an article commending Golden. Though I find Newman-Carrasco’s points valid, she fails to address the point that we still have a ways to go in terms of the ethnic market perspective and efforts. For example, the growing number of Arab Americans in the metropolitan areas or the large amount of dollars accrued by Russian Americans.

Some government agencies, such as the U.S. Army and the FBI, have begun a broader outreach because of staffing language requirements. Even fewer corporate companies are acknowledging such ethnic groups by using advertising dollars.

Golden’s speech is definitely a step in the right direction, but more steps must be taken to recognize the rest of those contributing and residing in the U.S. Branching out to these new waters can advance a brand or company and be part of the boost the industry needs to “defy the recession.”

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As public affairs officials determine how government agencies should use social networking sites to communicate with the public, the rest of the governments employees are busy communicating on their own site, Govloop.

Govloop was developed by former DHS IT Specialist Steve Ressler and is often described as “The Facebook for Government.”  It was designed to give government employees, government contractors, students, and those who are simply interested in the government a forum to share ideas and information.

In logging into Govloop, it does resemble most of the other social networking sites out there.  Each member has a profile and can join groups, send messages, update their status, and add friends.  Where Govloop differs however, is in the content.  The conversation and blogs posted on Govloop truly do stick to current topics and issues within government.   Sections dedicated to upcoming events and job openings also provide a forum for members to share valuable information to one another.

One reason the conversation has remained focused on topics such as (links for Govloop members) teleworking , enabling collaboration , and diversity is due to Ressler’s explicit statements on Govloop etiquette.  He explains that members shouldn’t overly promote their company, service, or event, and that open debates are encouraged but says not to “excessively criticize any idea or person.”

With around 20,000 members, Govloop has proved to be so successful that NIH is now funding a forum aimed at becoming “The Facebook for scientists.”

By: Jameson Strotman, Allied Media Corp

jameson@allied-media.com

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Twitter User Categories

Twitter is simple.  Twitter posts contain a maximum of 140 characters.  Posts can be witty, coy, or simple lead-ins to links.  I’m currently operating two twitter accounts; in my experience I’ve witnessed a number of different types of Twitter users.  I argue that there are three types of sophisticated users: the Engagers, the Feeders, and the Observers.  This observation comes from several months of using Twitter every day.  I remain open to new user classifications.

The Engagers have tended to be the more sophisticated, web savvy, early adopter types.  These people are the pioneers, who have paved the way for the rest of the folks on Twitter.  Even though they have paved the way, I’m not sure they will remain long enough to shape the future of this specific tool.  This question should be left for another day.  The Engagers are folks like Kristie Wells, President and Founder of Social Media Club.

The Feeders are organizations or people representing organizations, such as Guy Kawasaki, who use Twitter as a feed to blog articles, websites or news articles.  In the words of Kawasaki: “I repeat a handful of my tweets because I don’t assume that all my followers are reading me 24 x 7 x 365. This is the same reason that ESPN and CNN repeat the same news stories (without updates, simply identical reports) throughout the day.”  News organizations, companies, and government entities all fall into this category.

The Observers are the final group.  This category consists of everything from the casual user – who tweets once a week – to the regular user who comments on social, cultural, political or entertainment trends.  This category consists of both light-hearted Twitter users as well as users with a more deliberate cause, such as political demonstrators in Tehran.  Observer users can reach very different results, as 28 year old Justin Halpern recently learned.

Currently, I am tweeting from two different names for two very different reasons.  On one name, I represent Allied Media Corp. on twitter as primarily a Feeder.  I’m increasingly trying to move this name into an Engager role in order to reach potential clients and other interested parties.  On another name, I am an observer – but am attempting to grow into an Engager’s role.  In which category do you find yourself or your organization?

These categories lead me to several other questions.  Some of these others have asked recently.  Is Twitter a search tool or is it a form or social media? Are Twitter lists appropriate? Will categories matter as demographics change?

Matt Tyrrell

mrtyrrell@allied-media.com

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Changing Face of America

The ethnic and racial composition of the United States has changed dramatically since 2000. The 2010 Census results are projected to show this trend continuing. Therefore, the U.S. Census Bureau is placing special emphasis on securing a complete and accurate count for those sectors of the United States population that have historically been under-counted. This includes Russian speakers.

For the first time in the history of the Census, Questionnaire Assistance Centers (QAC) will be opened to aid Russian speakers. Russian-language forms will be available to order over the phone through a toll-free number. Bilingual Census personnel at QAC’s also can help Russian-speakers to fill out English forms that they receive in the mail.
In addition to providing access to Russian-speaking employees at the Questionnaire Assistance Centers, the Census Bureau is hiring bilingual census workers. These census workers will visit areas with high concentrations of Russian speakers. A Census Bureau employee will visit the respondent at their home and collect the answers in person if this respondent does not fill out and mail back the census form on time.

Another way that the Census Bureau hopes to increase participation within Russian community is through in-language 2010 Census brochures, fact sheets, and frequently asked questions that are available for download on the census Web site, www.2010census.gov. Russian-American organizations and community leaders across the country are encouraging participation in their communities through distribution of these in-language materials.

The 2010 Census form will be the shortest in history. This simple form consists of 10 easy questions and takes just a few minutes to complete and send back via mail. The questions ask for information such as name, gender, age, date of birth, race, and whether respondents own or rent their home. There are no questions about immigration status, Social Security Numbers, political or religious affiliation. All responses are used for statistical purposes only, are strictly confidential, and are not shared with anyone, including any other federal agency.

The results obtained from the 2010 Census data will determine how $400 billion in funds are allocated to states for the development of hospitals, schools, police stations, roads and other critical community services.

Over the last 10 years, the face of our nation has changed dramatically, but in order to know precisely how much it has changed, the U.S. Census Bureau encourages every person residing in the United States to participate in the upcoming census.

Elena Lauterbach.
Eastern European Team Lead at Allied Media Corp.

elena@allied-media.com

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On November 9, 2009 the international conference “Doing business with Russia 2009” took place in Washington DC, hosted by the Russian Trade Representation and the Russian Cultural Center. The speakers discussed a number of important topics including: the current business environment in Russia, Russian-American business collaboration, and new market opportunities in Russia. Overall, the focus of the conference was on international trade opportunities and how the global economic crisis has affected business relationships between the U.S. and Russia.

Investments from the private American companies have declined since the beginning of the crisis, and strict laws along with the unpredictable political situation in Russia continues to impede the establishment of trade relations between these two countries. Andrey Dolgorukov, Trade Representative of Russian Federation to the United States commented, “Over the past twenty years, our bilateral trade relationships have experienced ups and downs, and it is no secret that often these changes were influenced by political relations.”

The afternoon portion of the conference was dedicated to Russian investors of the U.S. market. According to Mikhail Grin, President at Grand Metro Consulting, there are two groups of entrepreneurs investing in the U.S. economy. The first group represents the commodity sector, including such well-known companies as Gazprom, Lukoil and Nornickel. The second group comprises producers of consumer goods, such as meat and dairy products, chemical, engineering, consulting and wood-processing companies. These two groups differ dramatically in size, they have different profits, and entered the market at various times. However, these companies are alike when it comes to learning from American companies; they actively organize the labor structure within the company based on successful American models.

What I took away from the conference, is that the “Reset” button has been pushed between the U.S. and Russia. Despite the global economic crisis, the business relationships between the U.S. and Russia remain strong. And to make this relationship even stronger, companies can utilize Russian-speaking professionals in the U.S. Such practice will help with language barriers, cultural relevancy and overall effectiveness.

Elena Lauterbach.
Eastern European Team Lead at Allied Media Corp.

elena@allied-media.com

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Earlier this week, I went up to New York City to show our rough cuts to our client.  For someone in the marketing industry, this is a pretty standard process in ANY campaign.  That being said, I don’t know how many people from the industry are actually reading this blog, so I thought it might be a fun to give everyone some insight into what takes place when dealing with an outreach marketing campaign.

Now, I could go over the whole campaign, beginning to end.  I could go over the strategic planning for our media plan, the internal logistics of our day to day operations, or the process our PR goes through when pitching a story to the media.  That would be very informative but let’s be honest, the most fun part of any marketing campaign is what you see on TV, a newspaper, the internet; the CREATIVE.

First, let me set it up a bit.  You see, the agency I work for a multicultural agency that is specialized in reaching out to smaller, “emerging” (Middle Eastern, South & Central Asian, Eastern European) ethnic audiences.  The client is a large government agency looking to reach out to the wide range of demographics that make up the whole of the United States.  It is my agency’s responsibility to not only reach out and disseminate information to six different “emerging” language audiences nationwide, but develop the creative concepts for these language groups as well.

We started a couple of years back, when we came up with and tested three different tag lines.  We used focus groups to test these tag lines and we were lucky enough to come out with one, clear cut winner.  In some cases, coming up with a tag line can be a lengthy process and we were lucky to avoid that.  We then went to the drawing board, came up with different ad concepts to reach out to these audiences, showed them to the client for approval, and tested them against each other in copy testing focus groups.  For this first round of copy testing, we showed four different TV commercial concepts in video story board format and four different print ad concepts with place holder images.

We then came back with the audience’s feedback, made the necessary adjustments and showed our client’s stake holder’s the original creative concepts with our proposed revisions.  Showing the creative to the campaigns stakeholders is an important part of the process.  Stakeholders hold influence in companies, agencies, and even in marketing campaigns.  Keeping the stakeholders informed and pleased is an important part of the creative process and though one must be mindful of adhering to all of the stakeholder’s advice, one should always include what they can in the creative while staying true to the integrity of the work. In our case, though we appreciated all and included some of the stakeholder’s feedback, we needed to keep in mind what is best for our audience and in turn, the outcome of the campaign.  With their feedback included, we then went out for a second round of copy testing where this time we showed four radio commercial concepts (voice over’s with sample music created from TV concepts) and eight total print ad concepts (four older revised against four new concepts).

With all the feedback collected, we then had to choose which creative concepts we would move forward with and what adjustments would be made to the creative to make them more effective and allow for the best possible results on this the campaign.  We then took our final decisions to the client, showed them our ideas and received their approval.

Up next, PRODUCTION .

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Government Transparency

I recently attended the Adobe Government Assembly at the Ronald Regan Building in Washington, DC.  The event was very well done with speakers from organizations such as DHS, DOD, and EPA.  Government employees and government contractors gathered to discuss and consider the idea’s of government transparency.

While many topics were debated, one question that emerged was “how does the government share ideas and ask for feedback from the public, without sharing too much, or creating unrealistic expectations?”  As Al Kamen’s Washington Post column examines, (washingtonpost.com), even the “super secret” NSA is conversing with the public on Facebook.

An extremely bright panel including Alan Cohn (Strategic Plans-DHS), Price Floyd (Public Affairs-DOD), and Dee Dee Myers (Former White House Press Secretary) debated how to handle public interaction and information sharing, while answering questions from the crowd (answering questions from the public about how to answer questions from the public?!?).  Myers pointed to the release of the White House Visitor list (bbc-white house list) as an example of how sharing some information increases the demand for more information.  The public responded to the list by saying, “Thanks for telling us who was there, now tell us why they were there and what they were talking about!”

While the panelists agreed that this can become problematic, they also agreed that it isn’t something to be afraid of and that it is the reality of today’s world.  The days of government communication to the public being a one way street are over.  Today, US Government officials aren’t only deciding what to share with the public, but what to tweet, what to re-tweet, and how to respond to difficult wall posts.

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11/06/09

The Beginning

So I’m sitting here, wondering what I should blog about, wondering what innovative concept I can come up with in order make my mark in the social media arena.  I’m wondering if there is any point to wondering these things at all until I realize that being INNOVATIVE doesn’t mean coming up with a new CONCEPT, but rather an angle or idea that can make ANY concept more effective.

People spend a lot of time trying to be early adopters, never taking the time to look back at establishments in a field that could be improved.  For example, blogging, everyone is doing it, I’m doing it right now.  Blogging is a tool, used by individuals with a cause, to spread their word to others who share a common interest.  In short, it is a tool that connects people.  I guess this is why blogging is considered social media.  But how can I come up with an innovative way to use this tool to connect me to the people I want to connect to.

But before I go any further, let me tell you a little about myself.  My name is Paul Young.  I live in northern Virginia, right outside of Washington DC.  I work for a multicultural marketing firm in the area and have recently been exposed to the idea of utilizing social media for the purpose of marketing.  This then brought me to the idea, “how can I use social media to help find solutions for MY clients?” That said, I need to learn about all the different aspects of social media and experience them firsthand.  As my father used to say, “There’s no better way to learn how to swim than to jump right on in.”

Today, I’m going to embark on a journey, into the world of social media and this post is my first step.  Every week, I’m going to read blogs (and respond to them), write blogs (I think the term is blogging, j/k), watch online videos, make online videos, tweet, network, and find any way possible to connect with people.  And though this idea might not be NEW, I think I can still make it innovative by adding a little bit of spice.  My journey into the world of social media is going to be a multicultural one.

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Observance of Halloween, which dates back to Celtic rituals thousands of years ago, has long been associated with images of witches, ghosts, devils and hobgoblins.  Over the years, Halloween customs and rituals have changed dramatically.  Today, many of the young and young at heart take a more light-spirited approach.  As a result, modern Halloween is often a fun night around the neighborhood, out on the town and sometimes a fun moment at the work place.

The National Retail Federation (NRF) consumer intentions survey released on October 6, 2009 found that Americans plan to spend on average 2.7 % more of their money in celebrating Halloween this year.  The NRF provided a breakdown of average spending as follows: $24.17 on Halloween costumes, $20.39 on candy, $18.25 on decorations and $3.73 on greeting cards.  Overall expected spending for this year’s celebration is expected to reach $5.77 billion.  But these are only expected and projected numbers while Halloween is a time to have fun and enjoy your company.

Below is a picture of several employees from Allied Media Corp., whose mission is to help clients effectively communicate to the specific ethnic communities here in the U.S. and overseas.  Last Friday, this diverse team with multilingual capabilities also enjoyed the end of the week in the office with a touch of laughter and funky costumes in honor of the Holiday.

Hope you had a Happy Halloween!

Hope you had a Happy Halloween!

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Social Media Basics

twitter = tool

twitter = tool

What is Social Media?  Why does Social Media matter?  Where do I fit in?  These are some of the questions constantly being asked in offices and cubicles around the country and around the world every day.  In actuality, the questions are more direct and less casual; driven by fear many ask: but what’s our ROI?  Social Media, the buzz word, has a safe place among serious integrated marketing campaigns, so let’s be clear about what we’re talking about.  Social Media or New Media is a conversation that bridges the divide between a social cause and an activist, a product and a consumer, or a tag-line and a consumer.  Marsha Lindsay wrote a nice piece on social media about the evolving conversation economy.

Social Media matters: traditional, unidirectional, media won’t reach all main stream audiences; it certainly won’t target in-language ethnic communities – an increasingly important ability.  As some bloggers have noted on recent Census survey information, including Allied Media Corp.’s Johanna Kinsely, the American consumer continues to become increasingly segmented.  Social Media matters today because it allows large organizations to hold conversations both internally and with their respective audiences.  Of course, the implicit assumption here: increasing information leads to better understanding.

We all fit in.  Social Media in all of its metaphysical glory has demands.  Social Media must be: user centric, agile, omnidirectional and creative.  Social Media is content, as Guy Kawasaki takes note of Brian Halligan’s notes.  Content within content – that’s deep.  Before I digress, Social Media allows for individual agency and this can be explored through tools such as Twitter.  Last Friday, I had a chance to listen to Shel Israel speak at the last Blog Potomac unconference speak about his latest book Twitterville.  It was an interesting conversation about conversing online.  We all fit in.  Go find your voice and jump in.  I’m looking forward to your comments – thanks!

@mattRT

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