Last Tuesday, Northwestern University’s Medill IMC students and alumni, along with members from the Chicago marketing community, gathered for the IMC Talent Q symposium. Like the name suggests, the Talent Q had a keen focus on uncovering and understanding the talent that stands behind today’s winning marketing and communications programs. To understand the driving forces [...]
Frankly, I’m tired of talking and reading about social media marketing and its ROI, or lack thereof. After spending a year and a half in the IMC graduate program at Medill and working with various clients on sponsored projects, I think the key to becoming a successful marketer lies in understanding digital marketing and shopper [...]
If your financial advisor looked at you and said, “If you give me $50, I can give you a return of 5 or 15 percent with the same risk– your choice,” you would undoubtedly choose the investment with the highest return. Website optimization is very similar; it’s using the same resources to squeeze the most [...]
Online daily deal sites like Groupon can be a mecca for the wrong customers—price-sensitive, avid bargain hunters. More often than not, businesses will never see “Bargain Betty” again or sell her anything in addition to what she initially purchased through their discount online offering. Customers like her will jump from one good deal to the [...]
As marketers, we’ve seen many examples of companies and people that have been built extraordinarily successful and active Facebook pages—for example, Zappos and Justin Bieber. However, the success of these pages are not exactly surprising. After all, fashionistas can have endless discussions on the Zappos page, and if you’re a teenage girl who is not [...]
Social Media Week Chicago was a hot topic this week. And yesterday, Medill added to the buzz when full-time IMC students presented on how to measure the value of social media. In a session entitled Social IMC: Finding ROI in Social Media, Prof. Randy Hlavac, joined by students who participated in his Direct [...]
Guest blogger Tom Collinger is chair of Medill’s Integrated Marketing Communications program. I recently had the pleasure of moderating a panel discussion with Medill alumni Terry Davenport, senior vice president of marketing at Starbucks, and Jonathan Blum, chief public affairs officer at Yum! Brands. The format was interview-style in nature, and the questions revolved around [...]
From AT&T’s deals site to Google Chrome’s inspiring and emotional new advertising campaign, here is a look at what happened this week in the integrated marketing communications industry. The Battle for the daily deal The daily deals market just got a little more crowded this week with the launch of two new deals sites by [...]
For years now, traditional television viewing has seen a slow death—a phenomenon that’s been blamed on timeshifting technologies like Hulu, Tivo, and the DVR. But, with the rise of social media tools, TV and social media can coexist to promote viewership and engagement with TV programs, advertisers, and social media sites. We are living in [...]
From the debut of A Google a Day trivia puzzle to Charlie Sheen’s not-so-winning fall from fame, here is a look at what happened this week in the integrated marketing communications industry. A Google a Day Question: If you were a ferry passenger traveling from Continental Europe to the country with twice as many sheep as people, [...]
