• Crowdtap: Getting More From Brand Ambassadors
    Beyond accumulating "likes," what can brands do to reach and interact with consumers? So-called "brand-to-fan" connector and influencer marketing start-up Crowdtap has got a few ideas. We all know that social media marketing presents vast opportunities beyond a few Facebook tabs and retweeted sweepstakes entries. But since it came out of beta in March 2011, Crowdtap has helped the likes of Old Navy, Adidas and Microsoft connect with, learn from, and reach influencers and their networks. "How do we scale this and make this a platform any brand can use?" Crowdtap founder and CEO Brandon Evans asked when forming the …
  • The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas: All Art, No Ads
    There is a lot to look at in Sin City, but the columns in the lobby of The Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas are truly marvelous. Conceived and designed by architect David Rockwell, there are eight columns in all, each standing 12 feet tall and wrapped with digital screens displaying content 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. "Every time you come back, it's a new experience - whether you were here in April and come back in December, or whether you were here at noon one day and come back at four the same day," says Lisa Marchese, chief …
  • Burberry Lenghtens its Raincoat Tails
    Burberry broke new digital ground in 2009 when it launched the seminal artofthetrench.com. The Web site celebrated the iconic Burberry trench and the people who wear it by allowing users to submit their own trench portraits to feature on the site. The customers who love Burberry suddenly were Burberry. The site looked lovely; it was on-brand, and it marked the first time a fashion leader featured user-generated content, Mullen says. It was also wildly popular, receiving 1.5 million visits in its first two weeks. While traffic has since dropped to just about 5,000 users per month, it's part of a …
  • DKNY's Twitter Tour de Force
    For Donna Karan, connecting with consumers is the work of one person in particular. And when it comes to dusting off a somewhat older brand and making it relevant to a younger consumer, few have done a better job than Aliza Licht, known in the digital world as DKNY PR GIRL. Licht, Donna Karan's senior vice president of global communications, is the woman behind the DKNY PR Girl persona. And her social media savvy is her natural stream of consciousness. In a way, Twitter has become her diary: Her posts cover anything from a behind-the-scenes Fashion Week moment to a …
  • Fashion Forwards: Intro
    When it comes to building a brand, fashion giants have stepped into the spotlight, cloaked in digital media from head to toe. Burberry, Donna Karan and Patagonia are among the most revolutionary. But plenty of others have used a variety of ideas to sell their brands. Through social media events, publishing their own online content and courting guest bloggers, they're also showing marketers and technologists what they can expect next from the runway.
  • Q+A: David Kenny, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, The Weather Channel Companies
    When David Kenny made the leap earlier this year from cloud operator Akamai to a storied role on Yahoo's board to the CEO's desk at The Weather Channel, you could almost hear people in the industry saying, "The Weather Channel?" But for Kenny, a self-described data geek and technology junkie, twc is all that and more. As he explains, there is no data more important to human beings than the weather, and TWC has been one of the earliest innovators in figuring out new and better ways of bringing it to people. Armed with that base, he says he's going …
  • Marketers Go Mad for Science
    If there's one thing that's shaped marketing in the digital age, it's metrics. In less than a decade, those in the business of selling anything have found themselves awash in data, numbers and analysis. And yet, experts say, with digital marketing still in its relative infancy, most companies are wielding those digital tools kind of like cavemen, as clubs and cudgels instead of as lasers and scalpels. "We recently finished research on CMOs at global marketers and found that 77 percent of them aren't sure where best to reach their customers. And that's a critical component of any digital strategy," …
  • Big Brand Breakthroughs: Intro
    For small companies, brands and agencies, nothing has leveled the playing field like digital marketing. On the Internet, nobody knows you're a little guy. And because newer companies tend to be less bogged down by painstakingly slow planning processes or layers of departmental approvals, they often possess an agility that big consumer product companies just don't have. Increasingly, though, mighty marketers are dispelling that flat-footed stereotype and learning how to produce viral, mobile and social initiatives with greater speed - and more effectiveness - than even they might have imagined five years ago.
  • Mattel Finds a Better Boyfriend for Barbie
    By the time Barbara "Barbie" Millicent Roberts dumped her longtime boyfriend Ken Carson in 2004 (after 43 years!), he was pretty much a loser - to her, and to their company, Mattel. After the couple split, in fact, he practically disappeared. But following his unexpected star-turn in 2010's Toy Story 3, the toymaker decided that Ken was ready for a comeback. Mattel began planning a relaunch in time for Ken's 50th anniversary in March 2011. It created a new model, Sweet Talkin' Ken, while agency hl Group developed a digital and social campaign around a possible reunion of America's plastic …
  • Audi's Gritty Branded Entertainment Drives Sales, Traffic
    Look up the FX show Untitled Jersey City Project on imdb.com, and you'll see one of the site's typical pages, listing the names of the director, stars, producers, etc. What you won't see are the names of the agency (MediaCom), marketer (Audi) and network (FX) that teamed up to develop the original short-form series as a vehicle - no pun intended - for the 2012 Audi A6. Billed as a "work-in-progress television drama," the 16-minute show, parceled into two-minute episodes, which ended with a link to an FX-hosted site, aired on Sunday nights last fall during the network's movie slot. …
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