True Blood's "Dig Deeper" campaign (courtesy BBDO) to promote DVD and Blu-ray sales for season 3 centered on a 30-second interactive spot where both "Trubies" and "newbies" were challenged to find 60 clues about season 3 by clicking on various parts of the video. Once players found (and correctly identified) all 60, they would be entered to win season 3 on DVD. Participation was also encouraged via virtual badges awarded to top players, and hundreds of thousands of fans worldwide wound up getting involved. People even created cheat sheets to collect clues. The end result was 550,000 DVDs sold for …

Despite the abysmal trends in the homevideo marketplace (sales have fallen about $1 billion a year to $10 billion this year), the marketing team at HBO has breathed new life into its retail sales with the living dead. Yup, you guessed it, the vampires of "True Blood." Sofia Chang, senior vice president-retail marketing at HBO, rattled off some impressive media metrics to prove that, but it was the one she cited about actual "True Blood" sales - the drink, not the show - that really impressed me. Honestly, I didn't realize HBO was marketing the stuff, which I figured …

The live music experience is proving to be an extremely sharable one, says Russell Wallach, President of Live Nation Network. By the numbers (the source of which Wallach didn’t make clear), 65% of consumers share live music experiences via social networks; 56% upload related photos; and 31% write reviews of their overall experience. The next step, according to Wallach, is figuring out how to bring brands into the picture in a way that feels organic and right. That’s how Tariq Hassan -- VP of Marketing of the Imaging & Printing Group at HP -- came into the picture. HP was …

Despite the hundreds of thousands of mobile apps available, people tend to rely on just a handful on a regular basis. In an OMMA panel taking up the Great Apps V. Web Debate, Ashmeed Ali, director of mobile insights at Yahoo, said reasearch the company has done shows users have 34 apps on average on their moible device. But only four are used on daily basis.  Yahoo also found 55% of apps aren't meeting user expecations, and 43% felt their apps werent properly organized on their phone so they couldn't easily find a particular one. Between apps and the …

Aitan Weinberg, senior product manager at Google holds forth at the Google workshop on the human factor, "Common Sense Ways to Foster Brand Management" at OMMA Global. Five ways to maximize marketing on Google: First, remarketing complements search. "Don't let them leave your store to do comparison shopping"; use demographics to tailor every creative. "Every creative can be tailored based on demographics. One did this and saw 280% life in click through."; Leverage audience insight reports. you can compare demographics of people who visit different sites. thus you can tailor creative, bid higher or lower based on performance or …

20-somethings appreciate retro, notes Kim Kadlec. Look at Pan Am, Ad Men, older music, Glee. They appreciate the good old days. it's a comforting trend.

Laura Krajecki says real time response means much quicker sharing of intelligence. at the end of the day people's lives are moving on and we are creating drag on the system by creating silos. Scott Neslund: social marketing has allowed agencies to get closer to clients. Kim Kadlec: along the lines of direct marketing model. you are never really done, it's 24/7 and we are starting to get used to that, but being flexible and nimble are critical as art trust and transparency. people on your team must be SWAT team, not monthly meeting relationship.

Representing a fundamental shift for Madison Avenue, relationships between media strategists and technology strategists are increasingly shaping agencies -- and driving consumer engagement -- according to Scott Neslund, President of digital shop Moxie. Technology is now a key agency component that didn’t exist (at least to such an extent) just a few years ago, Neslund says. “Social listening,” for instance, is transforming agencies, according to Neslund. What used to take the shape of focus groups -- which lacked immediacy, and a certain earnestness -- has evolved into something real-time, and endlessly evolving. As a result, “You are always planning,” …

It’s Day 2 of OMMA Global and we’re talking social marketing “netiquette” with Kim Kadlec, Worldwide Vice President of Global Marketing Group at Johnson & Johnson. These days, we are communicating at such a rapid pace, we’ve lost our manners -- which goes for people as well as brands -- according to Kadlec. Moreover, we’ve “Lost the idea of courtship,” Kadlec says. “We used to just mind out Ps and Qs.” Now, Kadlec goes on, we have to mind our tweets, our Facebook “likes,” etc. Marketers, Kadlec suggests, would therefore be wise to “shift from reach and frequency to reach …

One of the themes emerging at OMMA Global is growing support for HTML5 as a standard for mobile development, signaling a potential end to the dominance of native apps on devices. Denise Warren, SVP & chief advertising officer, The New York Times Media Group, said the company is placing a big bet on HTML5, using the programming language to build its core mobile products. Both the NY Times and Time provide HTML5 support for video in their iPad apps, via Brightcove. In a separate talk, Evan Neufeld of mobile research firm Ground Truth looked ahead to the blurring of lines between the …