Source: The Ad Club Last Monday, a few AMPers had the pleasure of attending the Ad Club's Women's Leadership Forum. We heard from inspiring women who shared their unique personal stories. Read what inspired us most. Takeaway #1 - Push the status quo. "Just because a process or solution is not broken does not mean it should not be fixed. Constantly look at processes that are working and think about innovative ways to make them better. Don't let the immediate issues get all of your attention! Have conversations with people outside of your discipline. Often this space is where the best ideas are formed. Go from the gut ' instead of the head. And, nurture the places that feel natural to grow into. If we stay in one lane, in neutral, we are never going to have enough momentum to climb the hill when it appears." - Katelyn Nadeau , Director, Shopper Marketing Takeaway #2 - Anything is possible. "My biggest takeaway was that anything is possible. You can change directions and if you have the courage, you will still come up successful." - Meredith Rice, Director, Integrated Marketing Group Takeaway #3 - No experience is wasted. "A common theme among most of the speakers was that past experience, no matter how unrelated it seems to what you are currently doing, is extremely valuable. Previous careers can inform and strengthen your perspective in a new role. Innovation and a strategic mindset definitely comes from forward thinking individuals, but it also requires wisdom and deep understanding of what you have learned in the past." - Magda Losonczy, Account Director Takeaway #4 - Don't wait for it. "Don't wait to be asked to lead nine times ' go for it after the first." - Sarah Wickman, Account Supervisor What are the most inspirational speeches, quotes or stories you've heard? Share them with us by leaving a comment below.
AMP Agency is thrilled to be named a finalist for four Ad Club Media Maven Awards in the following categories: Best Use of Print - Boden Best Use of Social Media - John Hancock Best Use of Out of Home - Icelandair Best Plan for Campaign Spending $1M or Less - John Hancock According to the Ad Club, "Since its inception, the Annual Media Maven Awards has sought to honor and recognize those media plans and professionals that have the creativity and curiosity to rethink everything media within the New England marketing and advertising community. The awards represent the very best media campaigns, plans, and ideas, as well as the people, agencies, and brands responsible for bringing them to life. Voted on by some of the top marketing and media executives in the country, ranging from traditional to digital, multi-cultural to B2B, all-star to rising star, and exemplify the standards for creating, planning, and executing effective media initiatives." To view the full list of finalists, click here.
On Tuesday, we attended the annual Ad Club EDGE Conference at Royale. Per usual, it was an awesome showcase of some great 40 mg levitra thinking, inspirational speakers, and a taste of things to come for the next 12 months in marketing innovation, and technology. And it was by far the classiest collection of folks that have ever stepped foot inside the old Roxy at the same time. The day started off with a quick application demonstration from DJ Patil (@dpatil) and Andre Charoo (@acharoo) of @color. Color was the official app of EDGE, and though it's still not out for Android (I felt slightly left out), it was very cool to see all of the photos come together from the event as the day progressed. If you don't know Color yet, check it (and the $41million they raised a few months back) out here: http://www.color.com/press. After the Color demonstration, the day was split into 3 sessions, STORY TELLING, TOOLS, and GAMES. Since it was a long day, and people love sound bites, I'll be brief with the recap and give you just that. STORY TELLING Every brand has a story, and being able to clearly articulate your brand story is paramount when trying to get consumers interested in it. One of the best stories of the day was from Johnny Earle from Johnny Cupcakes. He went from hustling candy bars in school to hustling t-shirts at worldwide locations simply by living by the mantra: reinvent yourself constantly, take risks, don't sell out. Boom, sound bite. Up next, Deb Roy from Bluefin Labs scared the pants off of privacy advocates everywhere when he showcased their latest project which maps and links conversations going on throughout the social space to various media channels. I couldn't do their technology justice, but you have to check it out here: http://bluefinlabs.com/. When discussing Timberland's brand story, Jim Davey opined: 'Brands are becoming more and more like media companies and the best stories win.'? Just think about the opportunity that YouTube alone offers brands who want to disseminate content. Social media and the internet as a whole offers brands the opportunity to take marketing content from a traditional ad and build upon it through multiple media sources quickly and cheaply. Though it wasn't necessarily a marketing story, Sean Carasso, from Falling Whistles told us all a remarkably inspirational story of resilience and hope. Check their story out here: http://www.fallingwhistles.com/main/. TOOLS The Tools session focused on both tool developers and brands who are using existing technology to create improved brand interactions. Companies like Smarterer (way cool, check it out: http://smarterer.com/), and Locately (http://www.locately.com/) are developing solutions while brands like Harley Davidson, The Boston Globe, and Boston's own Taranta Restaurant are using current technology in new ways to improve their consumer's brand experience. To see what they're doing, check these out: Harley Davidson: http://www.harley-davidson.com/en_US/Content/Pages/HOG/HOG.html Taranta Restaurant: http://www.marketinglagniappe.com/blog/2011/05/15/qr-codes-utilized-by-taranta-as-a-marketing-lagniappe/ The Boston Globe: sorry no visuals for those not in attendance, but those who were did receive a sneak preview of the new BostonGlobe.com (this could be big) GAMES It wasn't all fun and games during the games section of the conference. It was also educational and thought provoking. Amy Jo Kim (@amyjokim) from Shufflebrain led off the session with some sound advice, 'don't automatically think of badges and points, think of user experience.'? And when exploring game development, she encouraged the audience to map out the desires of consumers based on the social engagement axis ' is the desired behavior tied to expression, exploration, competition or collaboration? Map that out, and then start game design. Additionally, brands like Zipcar and Perkstreet Financial shared how they've applied gaming mechanics to their business to drive consumer engagement and sales. At Zipcar, gaming is a core part of their experiential marketing efforts, while Perkstreet is redefining how the financial industry offers rewards (and that's saying a lot since the financial industry wrote the book on loyalty programs and rewards points). We're excited to apply all of the learnings from this year's EDGE conference and are already looking ahead to next year. What do you think will be on the Edge in 2012?
On Monday, a few of us from AMP attended a great Ad Club event with Dennis Crowley (@dens), co-founder of the location based social networking website Foursquare at the NERD Center in Cambridge. I've known about Foursquare for a while, but it was a great opportunity to hear directly from one of the creators not only how it started, but where it's going. With growth rates rivaling Twitter, the 1 million user mark close at hand and a potential $100 million buyout from Yahoo, Foursquare is about to get even more attention in the coming months. Here are some really interesting things we picked up at the event. What's the deal with Foursquare? If you don't know, Foursquare is a service that allows you to 'check-in'? at just about everywhere you go ' work, shops, bars, and even public transportation. Every time you check in, you get points, and have the opportunity to unlock badges ' everything from Newbie for first timers to Mayor for the person that checks in the most. Foursquare was initially built to share your location with people you know and want to meet up with. Crowley mentioned he had always been intrigued by dots on maps, and one day asked 'why can't the dots be people?'? While Facebook and Twitter are places for thousands of friends, Foursquare lets you stay connected to those closest to you. Since its launch, Foursquare has grown into a larger platform that now allows you to simultaneously gather reviews/recommendations from a larger peer community. Like most social media services, what was originally built as a means of keeping up with friends, is now turning into a service many brands are now trying to leverage to reach their most loyal consumers. Isn't everyone doing location based features now? While Twitter, Facebook and others have location as a feature, the biggest point of differentiation with Foursquare is the competitive nature of it. Crowley mentioned that with Foursquare it's all about 'the screen you see after check-in'?. Twitter and Facebook allow you to say where you are, but won't show you who else is there. The gaming aspect of Foursquare ' the badges, the points ' is what keeps people active on the service. Where is this technology going? Right now, you collect badges and points for every interaction you have. At the moment, they're strictly for bragging rights. In the future there might be some additional functionality where you can use badges and points to cash in for rewards. Additionally, there's the whole idea of web 3.0 that involves anticipation and building technology to tell me and others not only where I am, but where I'm going or should go. How can brands get into the mix? At the very least, every check-in is a mini ad for that location. It's basically telling your friends, I care enough about this place to let you know I'm there. That's word of mouth advertising in its simplest form. Crowley did stress that Foursquare is not planning on 'making badges to make badges'? for brands. In order for brands to successfully integrate with Foursquare, there needs to be some sort of actual application for users ' just check out what MTV and Bravo are doing to connect regular folks with their reality 'stars'?. They want advertisers/brands to add value to the platform not just use it to advertise. In the near future, there will be additional research and data gathering opportunities as well. Eventually, participating brands will be able to access a dashboard that shows them who, when, and how often people are checking in. This could lead to some great consumer insights with cross-cut data. If we know that consumers who check-in at your business are also over indexing somewhere else, there will be opportunities to understand where else to reach consumers and how to cross-promote.
