Sketchers conference buncha Sketchers and Zappos people, one too many bars hopped. Sketchers person wanted a pepperoni pizza. No hot food after midnight. She was craving it.

Having a vision that's meaningful, says Tony Hsieh of Zappos. We wanted to be more than about shoes; we wanted to be about customer service. If you chase the vision, the money will follow. He cites Craigslist as an example. Users can sense the passion as do employees. Growth comes naturally this way. 2. Focus on repeat customers, purchase more often the longer they're customers and spend more each time. 3. Be transparent. "Be real, and you have nothing to fear." Share tweats from Twitter with the world. You'll see that people enjoy working at Zappos. …

Anne Finucane, CMO of Bank of America was supposed to be on hand to give a presentation to ANA over the past weekend.  It is a telling circumstance that she had to deliver her address by video.  The company is in the midst of acquiring hobbled mortgage firm Countrywide,  and hobbled investment bank Merrill Lynch. Brand and advertising officer Anne Saunders and Claire Wong were there in her stead to talk some turkey about how the company is dealing with the crisis both in financial markets, and in consumer perception of banking overall. "We  are talking more about …

CEO Tony Hsieh pointed out several ways the company goes above and beyond for its customers. One uses a communciations device that he says connects his customers to Zappos like nothing else. It's called a telephone and Zappos has determined that every customer uses it at least once in its history with the company. Here's another: the call center people at the other end of the line don't use a script! Their sole mandate is to make sure the customer is happy. How quaint. (Hello, Sears?) Then there's the 365-day return police for, as Hsieh says, "people …

Looking toward 2009, how much will you spend on marketing over this year? 1.More than 10% 26% 2. Less than 10% 3. Hold stable 28% 4. Decrease less than 10% 5. Decrease more than 10% Bob Liodice was surprised to see that 28% said they'll be stable while 26% said they will spend more than 10% more. "That's a little more bullish" than an earlier ANA survey, he said. little more bullish than an ana survey

Brand champion!  Mark Addicks of General Mills showed how consumer insights about brand champioins lead to advertising direction.  Such as Saatchi's campaign for General Mills Fruit by the Foot, "How do you rip it?" Or Yoplait's campaign that suggests you can have your cake and eat it too.  Or Lucky Charms "So each charm can have its story, with websites.  so it felt big." "This idea of knowing your brand champion is powerful." Also, Addicks showed the first new execution from Pillsbury that acknowleges the current uncertainty with a Wizard of Oz theme, where in a spot called "Home …

"Welcome from Minneapolis where butter is a spice and gravy's a beverage," said Mark Addicks, CMO from General Mills. "We doubled size with Pillsbury ten years ago," he said explaining that General Mills is a "house of brands", "even today our mission is to nourish lives: brands can make lives richer, and we do believe fundanmetnally in power of brands; we have never marketed General Mills." First, we believe in the brand manager system. the small team, like what is celebrated at Google, small, cross functional team.

How does your CEO view marketing efforts as regards brand growth? 1. as a brand building investment 2. as an unaccountable but necessary expense 3. as an unnecessary expense 4. not sure 56% no. 1. No. 1 got the most votes with 56%, which is a very good sign. Which is your preferred social media site for driving brand growth? 1. Facebook 2. Twitter 3. MySpace 4. YouTube 5. LinkedIn 6. All of the above 7. None of the above Amazingly, the answer with the most, at …

Up next: Andrew Robertson, President and Chief Executive Officer, BBDO Worldwide, invites us to email him at andrewrobertson@bbdo.com if we'd like to view 50 minutes of the agency's commercials, drawing a few laughs. He has decided to forgo making us all sit through it. A bigger laugh: He's addressing each of us, "Joe the Plumber" and even more when he says, "My friends." I guess we can assume much of the audience is more blue than red ... He's talking about Rituals and asked for a show of hands of those who check their email between getting out …

CMO Mike Mendenhall, SVP and CMo, hewlett-Packard says that digital social media is both a risk and an opportunity.  Nothing new there, but he showed how HP has done this. Mendenhall, who left Disney a year ago to join HP as chief marketing officer says the change "Has given me great insight into where technology and content converge." He says the, according to Forrester Research, GenY is spending 30% more time online than watching TV.  "This digital conversation never stops and we need to update organizations and operations accordingly. The questions are, when do you think you are …