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January 09, 2007 | Greg Ness: Congratulations. AdAge Just Named You Agency of The Year.

Following in the footsteps of Time magazine naming “You” person of the year, Advertising Age magazine has named “You,” the consumer, as agency of the year. From consumers putting video clips of Mentos and Diet Coke fountains online, to an amateur-produced commercial that will appear in this year’s SuperBowl (vote here), consumers are participating in a realm that, until recently, was ruled mostly by advertising agencies.

January 03, 2007 | Greg Ness: Apple’s Overwhelming Christmas Success

In spite of Microsoft’s launch of Zune, and a host of other less publicized imitators, Apple, and their iPod/iTunes empire, shows no signs of slowing down. According to Hitwise, visits to iTunes on Christmas Day were 413 percent ahead of the previous Christmas. Sales for their iTunes e-commerce site on Christmas Monday were 1222 percent ahead of the previous Monday. Guess what people got for Christmas?

Sales to Apple’s online store were up 110 percent Christmas Day 2006 over Christmas Day 2005. Hitwise reported that visits to the iTunes site “outnumbered visits to Zune.net by 30 to 1.”

January 02, 2007 | Greg Ness: 2007: The Year of The Super-CMO

Marketing is a tough way to climb to the top rung of the corporate ladder. Several studies have confirmed (see Wharton story, free sign-up required) that through the 1970s, most CEOs came up through the marketing ranks. However, starting in the 1980s, the finance department started edging out marketing as the way to the top job(s) in corporations. Today that is even truer. Why?

December 29, 2006 | Greg Ness: Looking Forward to 2007

Following up on yesterday’s post, it’s now time for 2007 to take the spotlight. We’ve already mentioned some important trends this week, but as is so often the case the week before the new year, there are a number of other interesting stories highlighting trends and predictions that can help people and businesses plan for the weeks and months ahead.

A great place to start is with “70 products, services and trends that will help to define 2007.” The list was compiled by Marian Salzman, EVP and chief marketing officer at JWT Worldwide. Here’s the first ten on list:

December 28, 2006 | Greg Ness: Looking Back at 2006

As often happens at this time of year, people reflect on the year past and the year future. It gives us all a reason to look backward and forward to put things into perspective for important, upcoming decisions. That’s why we would like to take this opportunity to point you to some important stories that help make sense of it all. We’ll cover 2006 today, and more on 2007 tomorrow.

Time magazine always does a great job of wrapping up the year and their latest issue doesn’t disappoint. You’ll find 25 top ten lists, that help summarize the news from every viewpoint.

December 27, 2006 | Greg Ness: Top 10 Marketing Trends For B2B Marketers In 2007

B2B Magazine has listed ten important trends for business-to-business marketers in 2007.  While this list is similar to other 2007 marketing predictions we’ve mentioned here recently, the B2B story makes it clear that marketing is becoming increasingly dependent on new media creativity and sophisticated data-driven insight to succeed. Here’s the list:

1. The rising influence of CMOs. Marketing’s importance is on the rise and B2B Magazine reports a new third generation of CMOs will arise with “much higher levels of accountability and influence.”
2. Web 2.0 will continue to explode. The opportunity here for B2B marketers will be “to connect with customers and build loyal communities of users.”

December 23, 2006 | Greg Ness: Where Marketing Is Headed In 2007

There are plenty of viewpoints about where marketing is headed in the near future, but most of these perspectives are from pundits who represent the “selling” side of marketing. That is why it is great to see these 10 marketing prognostications from Bob Liodice representing the client “buying” side of the business. Liodice is CEO of the Association of National Advertisers (ANA), a large group that influences a great deal of the collective spending, thought and clout for advertising and marketing in any given year.

December 22, 2006 | Ron Lee: New Year’s Resolution: Practice Safe Search

It’s dangerous territory out there in online search land. In a “tech toys” category, type in “ipod nano,” “mp3 music downloads” and “winmx,” and nearly a quarter of the search results could lead you to a site with unsavory practices—so says a study from McAfee SiteAdvisor .

December 19, 2006 | Ron Lee: There’s Still Time for Holiday-Shopping Slackers

Attention shoppers. Order today online, and we’ll get your package delivered before Christmas using standard shipping.

As reported in the Dec. 18th New York Times, thanks to the growth in e-commerce, shippers and online retailers are getting more efficient in their handling and delivery of holiday packages, so much so that they are now able to offer those holiday-shopping procrastinators extra days to order online and still receive standard shipping rates.

December 18, 2006 | Greg Ness: Company Marketing Chiefs Turning Away From Large Traditional Agencies

Over half of Chief Marketing Officers (CMOs) agree large, traditional agencies “are ill-suited to meet online marketing needs” in a survey sponsored by Sapient. These same advertisers felt traditional firms “have difficulty thinking beyond traditional print and TV media models.”

December 15, 2006 | Greg Ness: B2B Marketers To Focus On Customer Acquisition and More Online in 2007

The 2007 Marketing Priorities and Plans survey conducted by B2B Magazine reveals a couple of important trends. Here is what B2B marketing managers listed as their primary goal in 2007:

New customer acquisition (62.3%)
Brand awareness (19.5%)
Customer retention (11.0%)
Other goals (7.3%)

December 09, 2006 | Greg Ness: The Average American: Then and Now

Marketers often look at demographics (age, income, education, etc.) to better understand audience characteristics and to plan marketing strategies. A recent story in Forbes about the average American in 1967 and the average American today has some interesting statistics that illustrate how much things have changed in almost 40 years.

U.S. Population 1967: 200,000,000
U.S. Population 2006: 300,000,000

Median Household Income 2006: $46,325 (up 32% from 1967 when adjusted for inflation).
Average Household Net Worth: $465,970 (up 83% from 1967 when adjusted for inflation).