A new subset of affluent women dubbed “Marketing Multipliers” spends twice as much as other affluent women on consumer electronics and fashion, and uses dramatically more online and offline word-of-mouth to drive increased purchases, according to a study from The New York Times, reports MarketingCharts.
Last Friday a headless horseman galloped eerily across Chicago’s building facades. The night marauder rode for four hours between the Loop and Wrigleyville.
Advertiser and agency interest in viral video is growing quickly, and 70% of ad-agency and media-buying executives plan to increase budgets for viral video marketing in 2009, according to a study from Feed Company, writes MarketingCharts.
Unilever’s Vaseline set forth on an unusual research project in a small town in Alaska. Setting up a storefront, the company began giving away free bottles of lotion and asking recipients to name the person who had recommended they come out to grab their freebie.
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Nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of CMOs and marketing execs say their ad budgets will decrease because of the troubled economy, but more of their money will go toward digital/interactive marketing than before (see charts), according to a survey (pdf) from Epsilon, writes MarketingCharts.
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Kraft and General Mills have launched word-of-mouth networks in the hopes of harnessing the positive force of chatter during a time when food prices are soaring and consumers are tightening their hold on purse strings.
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Nearly 70 million people (69.9 million) tuned in to watch the debate between Sen. Joe Biden and Gov. Sarah Palin last Thursday, according to Nielsen Media Research - more than the 56.7 million who watched the 1984 debate between Vice President George H.W. Bush and Geraldine Ferraro.
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The U.S. Army has just unveiled the “Army Experience Center” in a major mall in Philadelphia, in the hopes of signing recruits after they have had the opportunity to “virtually experience multiple aspects of the Army,” says secretary of the Army Pete Geren.
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Radio and word-of-mouth are the top sources for “music influencers” (those who are influential online among digital music fans) to discover new music, according to a new study from Jupiter Research.
In what may seem like a belated move, BabyCenter.com has launched a social network for what it calls “the largest parenting community online.” The network is available in public beta at community.babycenter.com.
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The forecast for emerging media spending - nearly 30 percent in ‘08 and 26 percent in ‘09 - by Magna’s director of Industry Analysis Brian Wieser is, understandably, more optimistic than his colleague Robert Coen’s for traditional media, reports paidContent.org (via MarketingCharts).
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Kozy Shack, maker of rice and chocolate pudding, is sponsoring the New York Mets, with tubs of the pudding being sold individually at Shea Stadium as well as being included in children’s meals. And the snacks are selling so well that Kozy Shack has begun developing a marketing division specifically to reach out to other stadiums, as well as to casinos and cruise lines.
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Word-of-mouth (WOM) conversations that take place in person and over the phone are overwhelmingly more prevalent tha those online, according to a study released last week by the Keller Fay Group and media agency OMD, writes MarketingCharts.
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Some 71 percent of U.S. consumers rate corporate America’s reputation as poor, but consumers still will buy, recommend and invest in the most visible companies that focus on building their corporate reputations, according to the ninth annual Harris Interactive Reputation Quotient (RQ) survey, MarketingCharts reports.
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Consumers who regularly do their homework online before buying products in a store are a wealth of information and like to share their findings via word-of-mouth, according to an analysis of BIGresearch’s most recent Simultaneous Media Survey (SIMM 11, Dec. 07) - writes MarketingCharts.
McDonald’s is celebrating the 40th birthday of its Big Mac sandwich with a contest on MySpace.com which invites consumers to remix McDonald’s most famous jingle.
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People over age 40 participate heavily in word-of-mouth and value personal recommendations and expert opinions, but they have not embraced social networking or blogs despite being heavy users of other online services, according to a ThirdAge/JWT Boom study, writes MarketingCharts.
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The world’s first hand-knitted billboard has been created in the U.K. by Sky TV and the Women’s Institute, to launch a campaign seeking to find a Women’s Institute member to become a presenter on Sky Learning.
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Mike Hess, director-global research and consumer insights for Omnicom Group’s OMD, New York, says that cause marketing should not only have a positive ROI, but should generate a better return than other marketing efforts.
One of the web’s first video darlings, Amanda Congdon of Rocketboom fame, returns to her roots with Sometimes Daily, an “interactive variety show that is embedded into my life,” Congdon says.
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