Night of The Media Heavyweights Delivers Knockout PunchWritten by Louis Victor
So Rocky themed played and bell rang to start second annual CrossMedia Forum that was hosted by Dynamic Logic and led by talented David Verklin , CEO of Carat Americas. It featured an all star cast of media powerhouses such as Mike Shaw, president of sales and marketing for ABC, one of more entertaining and informative panelist that was featured, Sean Cunningham, president of Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau, also entertaining and informative, John Greco, president of DMA, Michael Zimbalist, president of OPA, Nina Link, President/CEO of NAA, Stephen Freitas, CMO of OAAA, Mary Bennett, Executive VP of RAB, Barbara Singer , Director of Kraft Foods, Mike Donahue, Executive VP of AAAA, Mike Burgi, Editor of Mediaweek, who posed some interesting questions, and Bill Cook, Senior VP of ARF, “Optimist”.The event was sponsored by Dynamic Logic, ESPN.com, ADWeek, MediaWeek, MS Interactive, and Dow Jones Integrated Solutions. The topic was Multi-Platform advertising solutions and even though there were good points brought up from magazine, newspaper and internet mediums, night in my opinion was dominated by “Mighty” Mike Shaw from ABC, Sean Cunningham from “CAB”and “Voice of Reason” Mike Burgi Editor of MediaWeek. Mike Shaw has to be one of most passionate broadcast representatives around today, he is chock full of facts and figures, presenting them as a closer would present his product. Message for ABC, don’t let this guy go. Then lets move to Sean Cunningham, pointman when it comes to Cable Television industry, he defended his medium with hard facts and a little humor that slid in from time to time, also a great representative for his industry. Now lets move to MediaWeeks Editor Mike Burgi, he had opportunity to touch on a few points that were very interesting, one being premiums that are paid for national ad placement in newspapers, John Sturm, President and CEO of Newspaper Association of America made reference to a little newspaper history regarding Circus that came around once a year and was charged more for advertising than local advertisers, this was touching on frequency, but he did say that he sees that gap narrowing in future.
| | AIN'T WE WONDERFUL!Written by Pat Quinn
AIN’T WE WONDERFUL!It may come as a surprise to you to discover that customers don’t buy your products or services because they feel that you have a right to make a profit. In other words, their motive for doing business with you is not to help you buy latest Jaguar or put your children through college. You think this is a joke? Recent research shows that something like 60% of businesspeople place more importance on what they will get from a transaction than on what their customers will benefit. In essence, their profitability is more crucial to them than is customer satisfaction. And it shows. If you are in any doubt about this, cast your eyes over myriad of ads, brochures, websites and so on that major on successfulness of their organisation, as opposed to benefit their products or services might be to customer. Certainly, they pay lip-service to customer satisfaction, but beneath this thin veneer of eye-shine is belief, probably implanted at birth, that their bottom line takes precedence over everything. Oddly, advertising agencies are among worst offenders in this respect. Their promotional material illustrates what great work they have done, and states how many millions they billed in last financial year, but none (and I mean none) tell you how much product their efforts have helped shift. To put it another way, none bother to demonstrate what benefit their services have been to clients. While I am on subject, there’s something else just as puzzling which may have escaped your notice. I refer to ubiquitous advertising awards handed out to agencies by various advertising organisations around world. These awards are given, without fail, to campaigns that are outstandingly funny, or technically slick, or wonderfully realistic. Rarely, and I mean never, are these awards made on strength of how much product a given campaign has sold. They don’t even take into account response rates or conversion rates generated by a campaign.
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