Cool New Marketing Technologies: Caught and Served

Archive for the ‘Digital Marketing’ Category

Virtual Events for Pharma #VEP11 – How to Create Impact and Maintain Compliance

By Greg Jones

If you’ve ever wanted to check out a virtual event live, here is your chance. Starting at 12:30 pm today, We are hosting “Virtual Events for Pharma #VEP11 – How to Create Impact and Maintain Compliance.” Here is a description of the event:

The life sciences industry is in the midst of a virtual revolution. No longer are national and global meetings constrained by venue or geography. Today, life science professionals can gain access to industry expertise, content, and news with the click of a mouse through a virtual engagement platform. Learn how your company can leverage this new trend to dramatically increase your reach to both external and internal audiences while also ensuring compliance with the requirements of our industry.”

We are using the Unisfair platform, and have a number of experts lined up to talk including:
-Taren Grom, Editor-in-Chief, PharmaVOICE
-Derrick Wood, SVP, Creative Services, Cramer
-Peggy Robinson, Directory of Strategic Alliances, Veridex (J&J Co.)
-Brent Arslaner, Vice President, Unisfair

If you plan on attending, the twitter hashtag is #VEP11
If you are interested in the subject matter, the virtual event platform as a solution, or just getting your networking on, come check it out. The keynote starts at 12:45 pm.

/end shameless plug

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Posted in Branding & Design, Creative Approach, Digital Marketing, Event Solutions, Healthcare Marketing, Marketing Technology, Virtual Events, Webcasting | Comments Off

Forrester’s CMO Mandate: Adapt or Perish

By Steve Gogolak

CMO Mandate PDF

Forrester published a lengthy report back in November of 2010, just in time just too late to have a major impact on 2011 marketing budgets, titled, “CMO Mandate: Adapt or Perish.”  I came across the report again as Who’s Blogging What sent out a notice featuring the report a few days ago. I thumbed through it once again to see if there was anything I had missed that might be interesting now that we’re half way through Q1 2011 and the marketing business has clearly returned with a vengeance.

ADAPT Temonilogy Chart

Key Points

  • Organizational Restructuring is paramount.   The author of the report, Chris Stutzman, stresses that marketing organizations need to become more nimble, honing the ability to react quickly to unexpected change.
  • Experiment.  We’ve heard this a million times and the key is to understand what you pour significant effort into vs what you simply try out.  The argument here, and I agree completely, is that a small experiment is never a bad idea, even if it leads nowhere.
  • HEROs.  Highly Empowered and Resourceful Operatives.  Catchy term that plugs Forrester’s book, Empowered, but the concept is sound.  Put the best people in a position to affect and influence the organization, empower them with proper resources and then stand back and watch what they do.

Quite possibly the most difficult change that any and all organizations will have to make is the need to personally participate in digital communication. What social media has truly done to companies is expose the people behind them by emphasizing that there ARE people behind them.  Now consumers and business buyers EXPECT to have access to those people, their opinions and thought leadership (because everyone has to be a thought leader now).  Suddenly executives who thought they only had to face inward to talk to their own organization now have to turn around and face the massive crowd that expects them to say something intelligent… and frequently.

Self Diagnostic

Self Diagnostic

This is a really useful tool to see where you stand.  Check out the complete report for more info about how to apply it.

Posted in Digital Marketing, Social Media Marketing | Comments Off

Clever MSN Ad on Pandora Gives Free, 3 Day Pandora One Access (Ad Free)

By Greg Jones


I love Pandora, but I’m too cheap to pay for the ad-free version called Pandora One, therefore I get assaulted several times an hour with annoying audio ads… Until today. Today I loaded Pandora, listened to a few hours of music, completely ignoring the ads, until one from MSN came on offering a free 3 day trial to Pandora One – so I did what I never do, I clicked!

The Pandora player reloaded, the Ads are gone for 3 whole days, and the background/sidebar ad is going to stay MSN branded instead of cycling through the normal bevvy of advertisers. This is awesome for me, because I don’t want to pay for Pandora One, and don’t want to listen to ads. This is also awesome for MSN, because they know I will have 24 hours of exposure (3 days x 8 hours) to their ad, they also get the satisfaction of knowing none of their fellow advertisers will be served to my desktop. They have in effect, sponsored my listening for a short period of time. They just gave me something of value for interacting with their brand. This is also awesome for Pandora, because they are constantly struggling to find a happy balance between paying the bills and keeping their listeners happy.

I hope more people take note of ads that give back. This instant reward forms an immediate connection between individual and a brand. Pretty worthwhile if you ask me!

Posted in Branding & Design, Creative Approach, Digital Marketing, Marketing Technology, Social Media Marketing, User Experience | 1 Comment »