The programming committee continues to impress with the quality of the monthly presentations they plan and host. If you need proof, just look at the more than 200 MIMA members and guests who showed up at the Metropolitan Ballroom bright and early Wednesday morning for the July event: a panel discussion on integrated communications.

The panel format works well for challenging topics, such as integrated communications, for a number of reasons. You get to hear more than one point-of-view. You get to learn from some of experts we have right here in our local professional community. And you get to participate in the conversation yourself, as was evidenced by the many thoughtful questions and insights offered by the audience.

Moderator Andrew Eklund, CEO and Founding Partner at Ciceron, set up the conversation by showing three charts describing the media environment that underscore the degree of difficulty marketers have with integrated communications.

The first chart showed media channels available in 1975. It featured a dozen or so data points – television, radio, newspaper, outdoor, direct mail, etc. – and corresponding arrows pointing at how they touch the consumer of the media. Very neat, organized and easy to look at.

The second chart showed the media channels available in 2008. With the addition of digital media, the number of data points and delivery arrows mushroomed. Imagine a chaotic web created by a hyperactive spider on mescaline. (That’s a powerful and dangerous mind altering substance, kids; leave it alone.) There were many nods of agreement when this slide was displayed.

The third chart showed the media channels available in 2010. With the addition of social media, the number of data points and deliver arrows was so dense that it was, indeed, a solid black box, with every pixel filled with information. This got a few knowing, and nervous, chuckles.

Eklund then opened the discussion by stating that, with our evolving media environment, integrated communications is like a holy grail to marketers and asking if we have found it.

Paul Ratzky, Interactive Director and Vice President at Olson, observed that the concept of integrated communications keeps changing, because the integrator is shifting from the agency to the consumer, as people select their own channel pathways. Which means marketers need to follow their audience and deliver messages in the audience’s preferred channel, as opposed to trying to move them into the marketer’s channel of choice.

Glenn Karowski, Managing Director, The Business of Ideas, added that effective integrated communications is about conversation and relationships. And the key is to be a good listener.

When asked who is responsible for listening to consumers (marketing? branding? advertising?) Erik Erickson, Owner of Erickson McGee, LLC and former Vice President and Creative Director for Target commented that we are still in the early stages of figuring out how to listen. And that figuring out what to do with what we hear is the next big challenge.

Download the podcast (available soon, please check the Resources section next time you visit this website) and listen to the complete conversation for a number of practical insights. And be sure to leave your comments here, to share the key take aways you think are important.

What is crowd sourcing, you may ask? It’s like a new-fangled online contest combined with an old-fashioned cattle call – where project-based jobs are posted, creative-types submit their entries and the winner(s) receive the prize: compensation for the time and talent they invested. It’s a new paradigm, with the potential to revolutionize the way creative services professionals work, and the way businesses utilize creative services.*

Crowd sourcing is the act of making social media productive

This according to MIMA’s June’s speaker, John Winsor, a leading strategic marketing and product innovation thinker especially known for his work in collaboration, co-creation and crowd sourcing.

He is a serial entrepreneur who has started and sold successful businesses, a respected author of four business books and the CEO of Victors and Spoils, the world’s first creative/ad agency built entirely on crowd sourcing principles. And he had the 200+ MIMA members and guests present at the Calhoun Beach Club the morning of the 16^th alternately nodding enthusiastically with approval and recoiling in horror. What could create such a dramatic range of responses?

Crowd sourcing may democratize the creative class and displace the agency model

As Winsor observed, technology is driving change in the workforce. Transparency is flattening organizations as walls become more porous. A digital workforce has the latest tools and can work anywhere at any time. The rise of the curator class has created a new generation of social and creative directors and editors. And the economy has accelerated the death of the middle man.

Together, these disruptive forces could spell the end of the old agency model, which is based on bringing talent and resources together in one room to get the job done. For example, Winsor said one of the top performing graphic designers in his agency’s emerging crowd sourcing network is a young, stay-at-home mother from Serbia, who is “beating” many of the experienced agency professionals who submit entries.

Crowd sourcing has the potential to liberate you or destroy you

Winsor shared a personal story from his background in publishing. In the mid-80s, he spent $30,000 annually on professional typesetting services. A $2,300 investment in a Macintosh Classic and a laser printer allowed him to reinvest the savings in other magazine properties and grow his businesses. He also pointed out that many successful agency designers got their start by taking advantage of tools developed during the “desktop publishing” revolution.

These technology changes created opportunities for some, while putting a whole industry of highly skilled craftsmen – typesetters, key liners, camera operators – out of work. Today, we are at a similar point, where only those who adapt to changes will remain working in their chosen field.

Crowd sourcing is gaining in popularity

Chief marketing officers are under pressure to perform. They want the best work AND the best value. Winsor gave one recent example. For his client’s previous brand campaign, their agency of record had four creatives, who came up with eight ideas and delivered two campaigns. Victors and Spoils brought 1,000 creatives onto the job. They came up with 105 ideas and delivered nine campaigns. All for 25% of what was billed by the agency of record.

Businesses aren’t the only winners, though. Entrepreneurial creatives (read: disciplined, talented freelancers) appreciate the freedom and independence the crowd sourcing model offers. And because no one can be an expert in all the new and evolving roles people play in the creative/marketing world, crowd sourcing gives creatives and marketers alike the freedom to diversify and specialize without pressure to be a jack of all trades and a master of none.

Crowd sourcing is …

How would you finish the sentence? Which concepts do you agree with? What don’t you like about it? What other “take aways” made an impression on you. Please leave your comments.

* Tip of the hat and a nod to one of my former employers, a leading innovator in staffing and project outsourcing called Creatis, Inc., whose former tag line/brand promise was “changing the way creatives work … and the way businesses utilize creative services.” We had some great clients and truly amazing people who were committed to the business model.

On possibly one of the most quintessentially pleasant mid-spring evenings cherished by Minnesotans who’ve endured the long, cold dark, approximately 200 MIMA members and guests chose to resist the temptations of warm sunshine and the lingering scent of lilacs drifting through the air to instead convene at Solera on the 19^th for the May event.

Crazy? Hardly! These Twin Cities-area marketing professionals were all eager to listen to local-girl-done-well-for-herself, Porter Gale – VP of Marketing at the brand innovator, Virgin America Airlines.  And as the photo gallery shows, a good time was had by all.

Some of you may remember when, once upon a time, she was at Martin Williams. Indeed, some of her old cronies were in attendance to help keep her on her toes. On this day, she flew in from San Francisco to talk about how her company uses interactive channels, including social media, to make limited marketing dollars go, well, farther.

If you’ve flown in the last 20 years or so, your airline experience may have focused on enduring the process of getting to your destination rather than enjoying the journey. One of the things Minneapolis advertising legend Ray Mithun used to say is: “If 13 is unlucky for someone, it must be lucky for someone else. We decided, at the start of our business, to be someone else.”

While Gale did not refer to this tenet of the agency that bears Mithun’s name, the point is: in an industry full of brand mediocrity, Virgin America decided to be lucky number 13. The heart of its marketing strategy, according to Gale, is to position the airline as different from anything else in the category. The company’s goals are to create an airline people love and to reinvent travel.

When Virgin America profiled its customers, the company realized its best customers are opinion leaders who enjoy using social media and other new technology. So it is using this information to help distance itself from the competition and chart a new course for airline travelers by using three innovative social media marketing approaches.

• Create buzz-worthy experiences
• Engage customers and listen to them
• Connect with customers on a genuine level rather than “marketing at them”

Gale’s slide set and the podcast from her presentation both provide details on how Virgin America executes on these approaches. Check the resources section next time you visit this website, as they should be available soon. Perhaps some ideas may translate well to your company and industry? Or spark creative marketing ideas of your own?

She left lots of time for questions and answers. And audience members responded by asking her to elaborate on many different topics. Following are selected insights on social media shared by Gale.

On customer relationships

“Social media should be authentic, real and honest. People should follow because they want to.”

On celebrity endorsements

“Most of the people fly Virgin already and just do it for ticket trades. We look for natural relationships matched to a purposeful reason for the endorsement.”

On co-branding partnership opportunities

“We don’t have an agency helping source our partnerships. We believe in ‘less is more’ and ‘going deep rather than broad.’ Chemistry and fit is important to us, as is having a fair and equitable relationship.”

On marketing team structure

“Sir Richard (Richard Branson, major shareholder and corporate “celebrity”) is a risk taker. If you believe in taking risks, you need to empower your people.”

On measuring ROI

“Our guests are using social media. Since they will talk, we joined the conversation. We look at how our social media strategy affects customer relationship management.”

On the pace of change

“If someone says they are social media experts, you should question them.”

Which memorable concepts did you take away? What quotable quotes made an impression on you? Why was listening to Porter Gale and schmoozing with your MIMA colleagues the best use of your time on one of the few remaining warm, yet bug-free evenings left to enjoy this spring? Please share your comments.

On a blustery November morning, nearly 400 MIMA members and guests convened at the Depot in downtown Minneapolis for the monthly presentation and networking event.

It was standing room only; the crowd buzzing with conversation beforehand, listening intently during the program (and laughing together at the speakers’ humorous comments) then asking thoughtful questions before departing. And if this kind of participation continues to increase, the nation’s largest regional Internet Marketing Association may need to start reserving larger venues – a la convention centers or sports arenas.

7:30 am comes pretty early for most peoples’ schedules. At that hour, what could possibly bring together so many marketers, innovators, entrepreneurs, creatives, new media types and others who are curious about latest developments in the interactive space where technology and business intersect?

In addition to the quality of the content, it might be the opportunity to share ideas and inspiration – over coffee and a tasty breakfast – with leading thinkers in our industry. If you have attended events before, you know. If you have not, make a point of attending a future event to see for yourself.

This month’s program, the Constant Challenge to Acquire and Convert, served up some classic marketing strategy with a heavy emphasis on contemporary interactive tactics. The information was presented by John Barton, Vice President of Creative Services of Sight Marketing and Tom Masterman, Associate Director, Earth Collaboratory Initiative for the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota.

Far from being a boring theoretical lecture or a dry technical discussion, John and Tom made their presentation equal parts education and entertainment. Effortlessly switching back and forth between the roles of straight man and comedian, it was like watching the Smothers Brothers* talk about what’s going on in the interactive world instead of current global geo-political affairs.

Indeed. Interspersing smart marketing ideas with smart aleck commentary made a fairly content-heavy presentation stream by effortlessly. And they wisely provided key take aways and practical “how to” ideas you can take back to the office and begin using right away. All in all, an excellent way to start the day.

Take away number one: Measure everything – don’t accept unfocused targets or unmeasurable social media.

Associated action item: Go to wefollow.com or twazzup.com and listen.

Take away number two: Be organized – coordinate tactics, separate measurement (drive traffic for each tactic to a different URL, use different key code, etc.) and plan for data-driven relationships.

Associated action item: List campaign elements and expected outcomes, then make sure you can isolate what is driving results for each.

Take away number three: Get personal – know the story for each individual … so you can write the next chapter.

Associated action item: Take your customer service manager out to lunch, and your sales manager out for drinks, and ask a lot of questions that will help you gain insights into your customers’ relationship with your products, services and brand.

For more details, please review the take away slide they provided.

* Cultural reference for the younger crowd: The Smothers Brothers were a popular comedy duo in the late 60s known for liberal politics and championing social causes. Look them up on YouTube. You’ll laugh at more than the turtleneck sweaters. And you might think about what is happening in today’s news.

On August 12, about 200 MIMA members and guests gathered after work at the Metropolitan Ballroom in Golden Valley to sip cocktails, snack on hors d’oeuvres and network. And a fine evening was had by all.

Our guest speaker for the evening was John Dames, Design Director at CoolFire Media who traveled up the Mississippi from St. Louis to share his experience as a designer who has “done it all.” From print design to motion graphics to commercials, and now, most recently, iPhone applications.

John’s philosophy is simple. “My goal is now and has always been to make stuff. Not talk about it, write about it or think on it. But find a way to get it done and execute.”

Sounds like a common sentiment from most of the designers I know. One of the first things he said by way of introduction to his presentation was that he wasn’t a public speaker. So the evening depended kind of heavily on samples from the CoolFire Media reel that he brought with him as examples.

With that in mind, here are some gold nuggets taken from an hour and a half of ramblings, tangents and free-association on the subject of designing across platforms. This was all good right-brain stuff, after all. You just had to really listen for it.

General observations
“When taking on a new design challenge, it’s okay not knowing everything about the tools you are using. What you don’t know means you innovate.”

“Less people, money, resources and time has forced the return of the holistic thinking role of a designer.”

“Talent can trump depth and infrastructure any day. With the right people you can accomplish great things with small teams.”

“Designing across platforms allows marketers to more effectively create the user experience they want their audience to have.”

“Designers are now taking a more defining role in developing the user experience.”

Strategies for success
1. Take a holistic approach to production. “Want to do everything. Be happy doing anything.”

2. Allow cross pollination of disciplines. “Don’t just execute ideas – feel empowered to have ideas and share them with others on the team.”

3. Encourage blurring of roles. “Who knows where design is going to take you. Listen to everyone.”

What is coming next culturally and business wise?
“More advertising and branding messages will be integrated into content.”

“The internet is becoming more codified, less of a content dumping ground.”

“Media is all independent of the medium it appears in.”

“Procedural culture is driving change – nothing stays the same.”

“Design will become even more relevant, to help facilitate effective communication.”

Conclusion
What gold nuggets did you leave with? Reply to this blog post with some of the highlights you found meaningful.

On behalf of MIMA, welcome to the Feed!  We kicked off the 2008 MIMA Summit this morning with a keynote presentation from Rebecca Lieb, former Editor-in-Chief for ClickZ, who promised to tell us a story about consumer adoption of digital media and the subsequent decline of traditional media consumption.

“Once upon a time, advertising was an exchange of content for time spent and exposure to advertiser messages.”  This is no longer the case.  Today, consumers create content and advertisers can too.  Advertising agencies are now switching to a more marketing-focused model that depends upon viral content.

Lieb provided an excellent example of an advertiser creating content.  The Great Schlep is an advetisement for Barack Obama presented as an extremely entertaining and viral video.  The creator of this content knows how to reach her target audience; she presents her content in her audience’s voice.  This example fits all three of the content criteria that Lieb focused on during her presentation:

• Educates and informs audience
• Amuses, engages, entertains
• Creates a story that consumers can spread (viral marketing)

Another example of content being used for advertising purposes is Pet Charts, a consumer-focused website that aggregates pet-focused content from other sources and invites consumers to vote for their favorite content (stories, photos, videos, etc).  The beauty about content driven sites, such as this one, is that they also support organic search engine ranking.  Search engines look favorably upon websites that constantly add fresh relevant content and raise rankings accordingly.  

Lieb dubs this approach (advertising with little-to-no significant media buying) as the “Jerry Seinfeld” school of advertising.  The recent Seinfeld and Gates commercials are successful in humanizing products to create viral momentum.  Consumers are so engaged by these commercials that they voluntarily go online to subscribe to subsequent commercials.  Note that the mention of the product in these ads is minimal.  Instead, the ads focus on entertaining and engaging the audience rather than hitting them over the head with product mentions.

Brands are now dedicating their budget not to media buying, but to creative and spokespeople.  Advertising is no longer about buying media placements that overtly promote products, but about finding a way to engage consumers via compelling content that gets consumers talking and only subtedly promotes a product.  As Lieb concludes, advertisers are becoming “storytellers”.  If you want to sell a product, you need a story.  What’s your story?

Not like this is new news, but every day I’m reminded more and more that traditional television (and with it, traditional advertising) is dying.

For me, it started around 2002 with Netflix, which killed any need I had for cable TV. Why pay for HBO or Showtime when I could rent The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and Sex and the City and gorge myself for hours in one sitting? The years since then have produced an avalanche of other factors. This past year, an EyeTV and an HD antenna on our roof meant that my husband and I could snag HD-quality shows off the airwaves, record them to a MacMini (hooked up to a projector) and watch them whenever we felt like it. Add ABC and NBC’s websites (and my discovery that the Firefox extension AdBlock Plus zapped ads inside the ABC episode player) and there was no reason at all to give a rip about stupid ol’ networks and their stupid ol’ commercials.

Hulu sealed the deal, allowing me instant access to shows like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia (not to mention discovering oldies-but-goodies like The Bob Newhart Show and full-length films like Ice Age for my kid). While they have ads that are immune to the powers of AdBlock Plus, they are relatively unobtrusive and don’t require any “click to continue” nonsense. The frosting on the cake is the growing number of self-produced and online-distributed shows like 3Way and We Need Girlfriends, the latter of which has been picked up by CBS. (We can only hope it enjoys a better fate than the pile of suck called Quarterlife, which NBC picked up and then promptly dropped when it suffered worse ratings than the XFL.)

And how about the glorious day when I discovered Best Week Ever was a free podcast that I could sync to my iPhone along with TV shows I had purchased from iTunes? I haven’t experienced a boring airline flight since.

And yet, with all of that, the networks seem to be in utter denial about what’s happening. The CW made a huge gaffe this year when, in an attempt to “force” more viewers to watch Gossip Girl on the network, they decided not to make post-strike episodes available on their website. Presumably, this decision was made to get better ratings: the show was crazy popular on the CW site and iTunes, but not on the dusty old television. Surprise, surprise, pulling the full episodes from the site had almost no effect on ratings. After tasting the freedom of watching a show online whenever you felt like it, who the hell was going to sit down on the date and time the network decided and watch it on TV?!

Their decision was understandable in the sense that nobody seems to have figured out how to monetize online entertainment in the same way that they have on broadcast, and the CW presumably makes less when I buy the episode from iTunes than if I watch it on TV where they can sell ads. But how long can that last? Viewers aren’t flocking back to television; they are (like me) tossing their TVs ad snuggling up to their computers.

So, my big question — and maybe some media buyer out there can answer this for me — is why? How can this not translate into better revenues for online advertising, or some new model for monetizing the distribution of online entertainment? Especially considering how damn trackable and relatively cheap it is compared to a TV commercial? At some point, won’t the old model crumble under its own weight? And can’t we come up with something better than just aping the existing broadcast model of interrupting the show with X-second spots?

While I love to pick on the ad industry (and bite the hand that fed me: I was raised by a copywriter and a print project manager), I don’t argue that there has to be a way to pay for this entertainment. I’m willing to watch ads if I’m getting a show for free (except during Lost. Sorry, ABC.), and I’m willing to pay iTunes to have Mad Men at my fingertips. I’m not the kind of girl that has illicit late-night encounters with BitTorrent. But — all that being said — advertisers need to find a way to reach us without assaulting us (I’m looking at YOU, movie theaters! I paid for my damn seat, don’t make me watch a car commercial before the show. Or how about TBS and their ridiculous “pausing the show for an ad” trick? See, that’s what drives us into the arms of AdBlock Plus whenever we have the option!) and consumers need to be realistic about their expectations around what is free.

But, I know that it’s unlikely any of this will change. The genie is out of the bottle: I have to read ads in bathroom stalls and my neighbors are all trading pirated files on Limewire. But, it sure would be nice if we could call a truce and allow more on-demand access to entertainment while also fairly compensating the businesses and people that create it. In the meantime, I’ll just enjoy insane Nissan product placements while watching Heroes on NBC.com and wait for this all to shake out.

As the Ogilvy & Mather Digital guru, Jan Leth is a man of few words.   But he makes them count.  On Monday night (Feb. 4th) at the Fine Line Music Cafe, he got pithy with the state of interactive.

His summary: “Dada. Data. Alpha. Beta.”

DADA: Interactive is a revolutionary mash-up just like the art movement.

DATA: User-generated content is re-shaping applications and authority.

ALPHA: Word of mouth now spreads so easily. Marketers need the alpha (males and females) on their side.
BETA: Everything is in flux. Accept imperfection. Stay in the flow.

He answered audience questions similarly. Minimum verbosity, maximum  insight.

Google’s Jim Lecinski closed the MIMA Summit with an excellent session on the 10 Trends Shaping the Digital Landscape.

#1 Be always on
Since your consumer can be online 24/7, so should you.

#2 Be ready online for what’s happening offline
Offline is driving online searches so you need to anticipate the type of information that your prospect is going to be looking for. Today, when consumers want information, they go online.

#3 Don’t build it and hope they come
Think about how people will get to your web site and the types of promotions you can leverage.

#4 Don’t discount niche sites for advertising
People’s favorite sites tend to be niche sites. For example, a site like seatguru.com tells you about any seat on a given airplane. Due to the nature of niche sites, the deeper you go in the site, the more engaged the user.

#5 Make video the centerpiece of your online strategy
YouTube is the 8th largest site on the Internet. Enough said.

#6 Give the consumer the opportunity to choose you
In addition to effective search engine marketing, make sure your content is available via RSS so that your consumers can keep coming back to your site when they want to.

#7 Tap into the “Wisdom of the Crowds”
User-generated content is becoming more and more prevalent. Invite users to submit content in a creative way. For example, Mastercard’s “Priceless” campaign asked users to submit their “priceless” moments online.

#8 Be where consumers are at the moment of relevance
Leverage computer and contextual targeting tools to automatically place your ad at the moment of most relevance for your consumer.

#9 Keep an eye on how computer architecture is changing
Once upon a time, data was stored on computer hard drives and floppy disks. Nowadays, there is a tendency to email files to yourself to store them in that “cloud” that lives somewhere on the Web. Photo sites such as Picasa are taking advantage of this trend.

#10 Digital is no longer a sideshow
There were over 600 attendees at this year’s MIMA Summit. Digital is definitely not a sideshow.

Jim Lecinski is a Director for Google, leading the advertising business for Google’s Midwest clients and media agency partners.

This past summer, three MIMA board members (Jason Kleckner, Julie Vollenweider and I) joined 25 other interactive marketing association board members from across the U.S. to discuss best practices, membership benefits, programming, organizational structure and operations. We’re not talking about starting a national interactive marketing association, but we wanted to compare notes and see how we can offer members more and strengthen the interactive community in each region. In addition to sharing some innovative ideas, the associations agreed to keep the conversation going via a message board and teleconferencing, and we’re also establishing a speakers bureau to share resources.

So…are you curious about what’s happening with interactive marketing in other parts of the country? Check out these IMA websites. Sign up for their email newsletters or just see what they’re up to. And if you’re traveling to these cities, why not attend one of their events? We’re reaching out to these organizations to make MIMA even better, but we encourage you to network with them, too. Other IMAs can be great resources for job searches, recruiting, making connections and building your business.

Atlanta
Boston
Chicago
Dallas-Fort Worth
Houston
NY
Philadelphia
Portland
North Carolina
San Francisco

These IMAs weren’t able to join us in Atlanta, but they are going strong in their regions:
Milwaukee
South Florida

If you’re aware of others, let us know. Email Jason Kleckner, our National Partnerships Chair.

As a side note, did you know that MIMA is the only interactive marketing association in the country to hold a full-day interactive marketing conference? If you haven’t registered for the MIMA Summit yet, don’t miss it. It’s your chance to hear amazing speakers, find out what’s hot in interactive marketing and network with over 400 MIMA friends! Sign up today.