Archives

Archive for October, 2009

“Why Y Women”

I subscribe to MediaPost’s Engage: GenY Blog, and this week’s article I found very interesting. Kristine Shine’s wrote about Gen Y Women’s sphere of influence on lifestyle trends, how technology and social media help them expand their sphere of influence and how marketers can target and communicate with this group.
The part that stuck out the [...]

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The Heart and Soul of Youth – Smart Marketers Get It

We get millions of questions per day and a new user every 6 seconds. We know a lot about our young audience and one thing is abundantly clear: Our teens and young adults care passionately about the world around them — both globally and locally. They ask us questions about the environment, about health care, [...]

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When McDonald’s Monopoly goes Mobile, it gets personal.

McDonald’s has been experimenting with integrating their Monopoly game into various new engagement channels. This year, they are using Mobile (SMS shortcode 96363) as a participation mechanism — as an optional alternative to the traditional, tangible game board that we’ve used since the game’s inception. Alternatively you can play via a Facebook application or online [...]

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Twitter + Foursquare + ChaCha = Zen

Indianapolis just got Foursquare.  Right now I’m passively vying for the number 1 spot, but there appear to be two people that are more mobile and social than me.  That’s okay though, I’m still the mayor of ChaCha’s HQ, a Starbucks, my neighborhood coffeeshop, and my favorite neighborhood bar.  I’m totally psyched about Foursquare and [...]

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Do U Spk Txt?

Happy Friday!  I thought we could have a little fun to celebrate the end of the week, by having a bit of an interactive blog post!
Part of my job at ChaCha is writing ad copy for our National advertisers.  Often times, we are tasked with the goal of writing copy that is relevant to our [...]

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Marketers’ Mobile Budgets to Increase 2-4x in 2010

Online Media Daily reports stats from Michael Wehrs, president of Mobile Marketing Association, who they interviewed at the CTIA Wireless I.T. & Entertainment and International 2009 in San Diego:
Wehrs noted that marketers are beginning to move more of their budgets to mobile, because:
- Mobile results are easily segmentable, by device, age, and location.
- [...]

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Agencies and Clients: One Size Doesn’t Fit All

I read an article recently in Ad Age Daily from Anne Bologna, CEO of a small advertising agency called Toy. I met her briefly at a conference called “What Teens Want” and we talked about different approaches for a start up like ours, how to effectively talk to teens and how to best serve agencies [...]

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Let’s Try to Avoid Causing a Mobile-Marketing Revolt

Freddie Larker, who blogs over here, wrote a fantastic piece for AdAge about marketers, over time, kill the medium.  Or at least dilute it.  With all its promise, mobile may be next.  Eek!
Simply put, I’m excited about the potential of mobile marketing and particularly the convergence of social networking and mobile. New capabilities on phones [...]

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Simplicity by Design: Coloring with black and white, Part 3

As I was driving the other day, I saw a car window decal that looked a little like this (I was too late in snapping a photo while driving):

Halve the complexity
As a designer, my selective perception tends to dwell on this sort of thing: Why would it need to say “Hoosier Fan” when the singular [...]

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Parents, Teens, Texting and TV

When is the message “What are you doing?” not nosy parental intrusion?  When it’s asked via a text message.  This weekend, that message, texted by my husband to our son, got the response “Watching the Bears”.  A phone call at the same time would likely have gone unanswered.
Parents are finding that often the best way [...]

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