• by Masha Geller , June 18, 2003

Google may have set the tone for the second day of the Ad:Tech conference in San Francisco with its breakfast forum that focused on supercharging online marketing campaigns with search, but the star of the day was bob DeSena, Director of Relationship Marketing at Masterfoods USA.

DeSena delivered the keynote address, the official kickoff of the show, which tackled the question of "Where is marketing innovation heading and how do we leverage technology to strengthen consumer loyalty?"

In front of a standing-room-only audience, DeSena presented a case study of the M&M color vote a few months back, saying that people are no longer multitasking only in their offices, but also in their homes. That's why the M&M Color Vote campaign utilized all media, including television, print and online.

The idea was to complement traditional marketing with relationship marketing, he said.

DeSena explained that Masterfoods' goal for many of its efforts, including the M&M campaign, is to follow the mantra "Consumer is our Boss... and the ideal is a consumer who is both satisfied and committed."

Through its efforts, Masterfoods was able to drive nearly 10 million people to vote for the new M&M color (purple) and thus increase its Research and Development panel by hundreds of thousands of people.

"When we set out to involved consumers, we wanted to involve ALL consumers," DeSena said, adding that with the help of all the media components of the media plan, Masterfoods was able to put forth a truly global effort. As one of the results, DeSena was happy to announce that in the Fall of 2003, consumers will get their wish of being able to purchase M&Ms in the colors of their favorite NFL teams.

What's next? "The market has changed and we need to be high tech and we need to have a personal touch" at the same time, DeSena concluded. "We're involved in so much change.... And we're optimistic about the future."