EDITOR’S NOTE
CONTENTS
Direct Report ................................................3
On the Beat .................................................. 11
Spotlight........................................................ 16
RYAN JOE & GINGER CONLON
Engagement that entertains
Xerox’s CMO, Christa
Carone, discusses the
company’s evolution
from office technology
to B2B services p16
Opinion........................................................... 19
Gloves Off.................................................... 20
Main Feature............................................... 22
Hoover, Capital One,
Home Shopping Network and other brands
share their multichannel
DRTV strategies p22
Battle of the Brands ............................... 29
Vertical: Millennials ................................... 31
The Work...................................................... 33
Goodby, Silverstein
& Partners’ ECD,
Margaret Johnson,
renders her verdict
on The Work p33
Plug-ins: Lead Generation ................... 38
Source Directory ..................................... 40
Data Mine..................................................... 43
Recruitment............................................... 44
People Moves............................................. 45
Expert Advice ........................................... 45
The End (User).......................................... 46
+DATAENTRY
$159B Total amount of U.S.
ad spend in 2011 page 4
$312M Revenue from magazines
sold in 2011 page 11
87% Number of marketers who still
use email page 15
64% Millennials who use social
media while watching TV page 31
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On days when I’m feeling a little crazy, I log on to
YouTube specifically to
watch ads. Current favorites: Nike’s “Leave Nothing” spots, as well as its
three minute video for the
FIFA 2010 World Cup. I
also find myself riveted by
video game teasers. I still remember the TV
spot for Gears of War 3—a game that I eventually purchased—that featured a haunting
cover of the song “Mad World.” This comes
as no surprise: Successful marketing requires
customer engagement. And the fastest path
to that engagement—assuming the ad copy
doesn’t include the words free or complimentary—is entertainment.
Obviously, no brand wants to produce a
boring ad, but the importance of entertainment seems especially acute in today’s media
landscape, where consumers are buffeted
by countless distractions and dazzlements.
Consider direct response television (DRTV):
these spots need a hook to push customers
from one channel (television) to another
(voice or online). In the cover feature (page
22), writer Alex Palmer describes how analytics firm Turn Inc. designed DRTV spots
to push customers to a webpage for Turn’s
cross-channel analytics platform. Motivating customers to take action is no easy feat—
especially for a B2B company; cross-channel
analytics is useful and important, but it’s
certainly not “entertaining,” however loosely
we define the word. But by wrapping a cliffhanger narrative around its DRTV spot,
Turn successfully drove prospects to its site,
where they were prompted to enter an email
address to receive further information about
the platform product.
In fact, staff reporter Erin Dostal writes
about the millennial audience (page 31)—a
group with vastly increasing spending power—who absolutely demand entertainment
Ryan Joe,
Senior Editor
for their attention. Toyota, for instance,
topped off its multichannel, millennial-tar-geted campaign for the Prius with a concert
in Williamsburg, Brooklyn: ground zero for
New York hipsters.
But of course, entertainment need not be
that bombastic. As writer Dianna Dilworth
reports, the Hutton Hotel (page 15) in Nashville, Tenn., wanted to promote its event
spaces in a creative way. So, instead of communicating the availability of the spaces
through images or text, the boutique hotel
engaged customers with video embedded
into its email marketing.
Speaking of embedding, our new editor-in–
chief, Ginger Conlon, is now firmly situated
in her role. She’ll be taking over the engaging and entertaining duties from here on out.
With that in mind, she’ll have the last word
on this note—but her first for the magazine:
What’s next
Those who know me well think I’m a bit
obsessed with all things “customer.” I am.
And that’s a good thing.
I actually love it when I get that remarketing email, or cross-sell pitch when I contact
customer service, or get served a (
behaviorally) targeted ad online. When these things
are done well, there’s nothing quite like it.
If we haven’t met yet:
Hello, I’m Ginger Conlon,
editor-in-chief of Direct Marketing News and obsessor of,
well, you. You are my customer, after all.
My goal is to work with
the stellar team here at
Direct Marketing News to
continue to bring you the
content you value most in all its forms, plus
more of everything you need to gain a competitive advantage, wow your customers, and
be a marketing super-hero—profitably. n
Ginger Conlon,
Editor-in-Chief
