2010 Resolutions for Advertising Peeps

Since we've been talking about 2010 Resolutions, one wonders what kind of resolutions would fit best for advertising peeps. From the Ads of the World site, member Ivan gives us:

21 suggestions for a successful advertising career

ivan | Mon, 2009-12-21 22:28

1. Find the right place to gain as much experience as possible in the shortest amount of time. This may mean a hot-shop independent agency, a large multinational or hopping jobs every 2 years depending on the available options you may have.
2. Work somewhere that's worthy of your time and talent. Don't settle for any job.
3. Put more effort into your job than expected and do it cheerfully.
4. Become the most positive and enthusiastic adman in the agency.
5. Be forgiving of yourself and others. We're humans and we make mistakes even when we only have good intentions. Don't allow such mistakes make you lose sight of long term goals.
6. Be generous with your contributions to the team's work. Do not try to take credit for every idea you came up with.
7. Persistence, persistence, persistence. Great work never just falls into your lap. You need to work for it, refine it, perfect it.
8. If you clearly see you're going into the wrong direction with your strategy do not be afraid to stop and rethink everything even if it means you have to start everything from scratch.
9. Discipline yourself to save money on even a modest salary. This will give you the freedom to change jobs when things go bad and will allow you to take meaningful holidays that refresh your mind and body.
10. Commit yourself to constant improvement. Technology and the industry is developing really fast. You have to keep up.
11. Commit yourself to quality. Do not ever settle for something less than your outmost best. Perfect your work till time allows.
12. Your professional happiness isn't based on the number of awards or how much you make, but on the relationships you have with your colleagues and clients. Treat them with respect.
13. Be loyal to your clients and your agency. It will be appreciated even by the competition.
14. Be honest with your work. Never lie or mislead the consumer. If you do you will feel miserable about your profession.
15. Be a self-starter. If you identify an idea take charge and go for it.
16. Do not blame others. If you're unhappy about something take the initiative to change instead of whining about it.
17. Be decisive even if it means you'll sometimes be wrong. Timing is everything in advertising.
18. Be bold and courageous with your work. When you look back on your professional life, you will regret the the things you didn't do more than the one you did.
19. Do not overestimate the value of formal education. Most successful adman never had formal advertising eduction. Real work experience is more valuable than any education.
20. Eat healthy, do sports. Your mind and body are your only tools available to you. Do not abuse substances. Save them for those critical special times when you really need a boost.
21. Don't take all advice for granted. Pick what's useful for you. Make up your own rules and change them at your will.

From Mashable: 2010 Predictions for the Music Industry

5 Predictions for the Music Industry in 2010

December 25th, 2009 | by Nick Crocker

Nick Crocker is MD of Native Digital and co-founder of We Are Hunted.

It seems as though the first era of digital music may have come to an end. Napster died, P2P lived in some black market twilight zone, streaming services on ad-supported revenue were suffocated by unsustainably high licensing fees, and subscription services sputtered along, never quite capturing the imaginations of music fans. 2009 ended in a flurry of acquisitions (LaLa, iLike), launches (Vevo) and shutdowns (iMeem), which dramatically rearranged the digital music landscape. When the dust finally settles, expect digital music to begin anew.

With that in mind, here are my five predictions for music in 2010.

1. Labels Will Get Smart

It’s been coming for more than a decade, but major labels are starting to grasp the digital opportunity. They’re licensing music on more sustainable terms, diversifying their business model, investing in new technology and, most critically, understanding more than ever what it means to be truly consumer-led.

As market leaders, major labels have the resources and the networks to profit most from the changes currently taking place. The move from physical to digital hasn’t been as fast as many people might have wished, but that’s because digital still doesn’t pay like physical does.

CDs, when they sell well, still mean big money. Digital isn’t like that. But that’s changing, and as major labels have shrunk, their capacity for change has increased. Expect 2010 to be the year that the bad press on the major labels starts becoming more favorable.

The promises of the digital age — deeper understanding of the music consumer, integrated ticketing and merchandise, direct-to-consumer sales, and fans as marketing teams — are all about to become a reality, and major labels will lead the charge.

2. Physical CD Sales Will Continue to Decline

To ensure at least one of my predictions comes true, I’m going to forecast that globally, sales of physical CDs will decline in 2010. That’s one thing you can definitely count on.

3. Release Strategies Will Evolve

The traditional model of building buzz through radio singles followed by a carefully timed album launch will still be the norm for commercial pop music. But at the edges, we’re going to start seeing a new model for releasing music that’s more attuned to the diverse community of music consumers.

The new model, pioneered by Topspin Media, will be the multi-tiered, staggered release. Artists will offer free, full streams and selected downloads early to the curious and the devoted, building their fanbase as they grow. Traditional release schedules will follow, in tandem with more innovative products, at more diverse prices, to more accurately segmented groups of fans.

Rather than just a plastic CD, we’ll start seeing multiple tiers of music product: free streams and low quality mp3s, simple digital and physical packages, enhanced audio and packaging on digital and physical releases, and then levels of premium products including vinyl, merchandise, and increased access to the artist.

We still think of music in its physical form as a CD on the shelf. Increasingly, we’re going to understand it as a suite of music products — T-Shirts, mugs, books, framed art, signed lyric sheets, USBs, and once-in-a-lifetime music experiences.

4. Music Will Live Legitimately in the Cloud

It’s been talked about for a number of years, but 2010 could be the year we start thinking of music less as a finite product and more as an infinite, on-demand reservoir to be accessed at any time for a fee.

This process will roll out in tandem with the evolution of music “products.” Even if music is universally accessible, it’s still key to people’s idenity. We still need something to put on a coffee table, something to pass to friends, something to put under the Christmas tree and something to signal to the world that “this music is part of me and I want you to know it.”

iTunes, as ever, is in the driver’s seat to make the most of this change. Its acquisition of LaLa could see them own the streaming market as it currently owns digital music.

Spotify’s buzz seems to have cooled, but it’s still the best-placed streaming service to take advantage of the cloud’s potential.

Grooveshark’s growth, if it continues, is going to make it a serious player in the streaming game.

MySpace, with iMeem and iLike in its back pocket may also consolidate its place in the land of the streaming.

And finally, Google –- who owns the bridge over the moat, digitally speaking –- could pull the rug from everyone and facilitate properly integrated music streaming into its search platform.

Whoever emerges at the front of this pack will be in new territory, providing access to the world’s music, anytime, anywhere on any device.

5. Who Knows?

There’s some as-yet untested consumer models building momentum.

Guvera is promising the world, not just to the music industry, but to advertisers as well. Whether consumers buy into its advertisement for content exchange remains to be seen.

Rdio, with serious pedigree and some big money backing it, hasn’t poked its head up completely yet, but you can be assured that whatever it offers isn’t going to be lightweight.

Lost in all the buzz is the fact that some legacy digital music companies — Last.FM, Pandora and MySpace to name a few — still have the established brands, the existing customer base, and the revenue streams that preserve their lives beyond the froth of the tech/music blogosphere.

And of course, there’s Facebook. The biggest country in the world (or soon to be), Facebook and music have always been awkward bedfellows. If Zuckerberg and Co. can figure a way to integrate music with the Facebook platform, the existing user base would guarantee a big chunk of the market overnight.

It all adds up to create a big void of uncertainty, one that will be filled in the way the web knows best — by its end-users. What those end-users decide they love will ultimately determine the winners and losers in the digital music economy. As a passionate music fan, I can’t wait for the competition to heat up. For those on the digital frontier, music really is better than it’s ever been.

Email Marketing: 4 Essentials for Awesome Emails (From iMedia)

4 essentials for awesome emails

By Christopher Golec

December 18, 2009

• PRINT
• SHARE
• COMMENT

ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS:

• Stop thinking of "a list" -- think in terms of building a highly targeted audience
• To create the offer, you need to determine where recipients are in the purchase cycle
• Be cognizant of the time the email will be sent

If done right, email can be one of the most cost-effective tools for a B2B marketer, given the ease of the delivery method and timeliness of both delivery and response. With email campaigns, marketers know that their messages are delivered instantly, recipient response time is generally less than 48 hours (and most often in the first few hours), email works for both inbound and outbound marketing campaigns, and nearly all business professionals have an email address.

But, given the increase of spam, phishing, and email viruses, the world of email marketing is changing dramatically. The CAN-SPAM Act went into effect in 2003, and was updated by the FTC in 2008, setting new rules and requirements for commercial email. Techniques that may have been effective just two years ago are likely to generate only half the open and response rates today. Keeping up with the newest ideas in creative, as well as the latest regulations, can become a job in itself but, by honing in on the following four key areas, you can drive a highly successful email marketing campaign.

List
How can marketers make the most of their target list? To start, stop thinking of "a list." Instead, think in terms of building a highly targeted audience. Avoid adding names for the sake of trying achieve a certain number of responses or to satisfy a minimum purchase from a list vendor. By sending a non-relevant message to a mass audience, you're likely to miss your goal and tarnish your brand.

Rather than building a mass list, leverage insights available from your website traffic to identify which companies have visited and are already interested in a product or service you have to offer. It's much easier to convert companies with a need than to generate interest from scratch. Having a process in place to regularly identify and add key contacts from your website visitors to your marketing list will yield better response rates. Also be sure to include website registrations, as well as attendees of trade shows and webinars, but segment them by industry, company size, and role within the company.

Place opt-in forms on multiple high-traffic pages in order to collect contacts; you don't need the full, detailed form -- just basic information. This generates leads on an opt-in process, which can provide much higher response rates. Include existing customers in your outreach campaigns. Regular correspondence will help to reinforce your brand, and gives you the opportunity to cross-sell products and services. Generally, these house-built lists generate the highest response rates in email campaigns.

If you need to supplement your list with additional contacts, relevant trade publications offer a good channel to reach the right people in the right industry. As with any partner, find out about their CAN-SPAM compliance, learn how the contacts are validated, and find out about their co-op marketing programs.

Offer
Email marketing has the most success if the message provides immediate value and personally connects to the recipient. The message should help them do one of the following:

1. Learn through educational content, news or tips
   
2. Address a pain point of the recipient or support an immediate initiative
   
3. Demonstrate a clear savings of either time or money.

To create the offer, you need to determine where recipients are in the purchase cycle. Are they gathering information, evaluating alternatives, budgeting, in negotiations, or already a customer? This information can often be uncovered from your website traffic by evaluating the level of engagement and types of web content being viewed. Map this information to each contact in your database so you can get these people to know and understand your company. Segment your existing database accordingly, in order to provide specific and personalized messages every step of the way.

Creative
Look at how your email is designed; it's important that you capture your audience upfront -- is your offer located within the preview pane of the message? Think about your subject line; refrain from capitalization and excessive punctuation, and include the company name. Include links to specific landing pages or pages on social networking sites rather than sending people to a general homepage that is not highly relevant to the offer.

Note that if you are renting a contact list for any part of your email marketing campaign, the CAN-SPAM Act requires that the offer and email come from the marketing partner. The act further requires that the sender have a valid postal address for each person and that there is an easy unsubscribe process.

Timing
As we all know, timing is everything. A study by Smith-Harmon in January 2009 found that Monday and Tuesday are the most popular days of the week to send email. Be cognizant of the time the email will be sent. Is it going out too early for the West Coast or too late for the East Coast? Also, make sure you're not sending multiple emails to a prospect too close together; instead, space them apart over weeks.

The most effective marketing campaigns -- whether they are delivered via email or billboard -- are all about providing the right message, to the right audience, at the right time. With these four elements in mind, you'll be on your way to email marketing success.

Chris Golec is the founder and CEO of Demandbase.

From iMedia: 10 digital tactics for 2010

Drew Neisser lists for iMedia 10 tactics that will dominate digital in 2010. He uses the Olympics as inspiration to describe 10 ideas to go for gold.

---------------------------------------------

10 tactics that will dominate digital in 2010

By Drew Neisser

December 18, 2009

1. Social media: A marathon, not a sprint
Hoping to become fast friends with their targets, a lot of brands rushed into Facebook and Twitter in the last 24 months without investing sufficient time or resources. In 2010, savvy marketers will increase their commitment to social media by first listening and then offering up a steady stream of engaging content that their fans actually want. This will be particularly true for B2B brands, only 38 percent of which included social media in their 2008 marketing plans (compared to 71 percent of B2C brands).

One comScore study indicated that branded social media activities can have a multiplier effect on search results, providing a quantifiable rationale for brands to up the social media ante in 2010.

2. Mashups: Taking inspiration from biathlons
A few innovative marketers took a shot at mashups in 2009. E.P. Carrillo, a new cigar manufacturer, created a mesmerizing Twitter and Google Maps mashup for its "coming soon" site that tracks cigar tweets from around the world. In 2010, these kinds of mashups will become smoking hot as marketers look to extend the value of their social media activities. Recognizing that tech-savvy consumers glide seamlessly between personal and business, online and offline, mobile and desktop, farsighted marketers will bring together formerly disparate elements into a cohesive and self-perpetuating social media experience.

3. App happy: On your mark, get set, go crazy
Given the success a handful of marketers enjoyed with their "apps" in 2009, expect a blaze of new entries in 2010. iPhone apps that provide demonstrable utility like Kraft's iFood Assistant recipe finder, Benjamin Moore's color matcher, and Zipcar's GPS-based car finder will continue to gain traction. Expect more apps that integrate with other social media like the GapStyleMixer that allows you to mix and match clothes and share them with friends on Facebook.

And don't forget the non-iPhone universe. The steakhouse Maloney & Porcelli cooked up a humorous and somewhat deviant web-based app Expense-A-Steak that extrudes faux expense reports that look stunningly authentic.

4. Measure up: Track every second
With more dollars earmarked for social media, marketers will undoubtedly use new tools to monitor the conversations that are happening with or without them. Radian6 and Scout Labs emerged in 2009 as two of the leading social media monitoring tools. Molson Coors uses Radian6 to stay on top of all the banter about its major brands, allowing it to respond with remarkable speed to one of my blog posts about a Coors Light Twitter account that turned out to be unofficial.

And while these tools are great, each requires a sizeable commitment by the marketer in time of staff, a commitment that can and does pay off. Just ask JetBlue, which manages to enhance customer loyalty daily by responding to any and every customer tweet within minutes. JetBlue follows 117,000 people on Twitter, generating more than 1.3 million followers for itself.

5. POV power: Don't just talk the talk
While lots of brands raced into social media in 2009, few established true connections with their targets. The reality is that consumers engage with brands they like on a visceral level and that provide a distinct perspective on the world. Aflac's Duck quacks up a gaggle of quirky content, including charitable requests that appeal to more than 161,000 fans on Facebook and more than 3,000 followers on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Geico's Gecko has been left in the social media dust due to its surprisingly dry and unresponsive online voice. Ironically, a brand by definition is a point-of-view that, once clearly defined, should guide all communications, social or otherwise.

6. Expose yourself: Win the crowd with honesty
The emergence of several "tell all" consumer-created sites signals the arrival of a new era of honesty and transparency, especially for brands targeting those under 35. Sites like fmylife.com, textsfromlastnight.com, and MyParentsJoinedFacebook.com reflect a generation willing to bare and share all without the least trepidation.

Even the emergence of "Untag Mondays" speaks to the socially acceptable norm of posting embarrassing content that one might not want a parent or employer to see. Marketers that share this sense of honesty, that admit mistakes and address shortcomings in real-time, will find a youthful army of comrades willing to do their bidding. As Comcast discovered, this kind of honesty can even transform a PR nightmare like ComcastMustDie.com into an industry-leading customer service, like its Comcast Cares Twitter pages.

7. Hold the presses: Major comebacks are possible
Though a 50-percent decline in ad pages certifies 2009 as the worst year in print's history, don't write it off as a viable media channel just yet. More than 80 percent of U.S. consumers still subscribe to at least one magazine and 83 percent believe newspapers are still relevant, according to MediaPost.

Experimenting with video in print publications like Entertainment Weekly is but one of the ways certain magazine segments will hold onto their targets and satisfy advertisers. Fashion magazines and enthusiast publications continue to offer a visual showcase that is far superior to what most online magazines can serve up. Models, both human and auto, simply look prettier in print.

And while Procter & Gamble shut down its 72-year-old TV soap opera Guiding Light in 2009, it is cranking up the presses with a custom-published glossy, Rouge, that it expects to reach a whopping 11 million North American households in 2010.

8. Go to the video: Separate from the pack
The emergence of viral video rankings in 2009 reflected the mainstreaming of this approach to audience engagement.

While everyone and their branded brother aspired to cut through with a viral hit, surprisingly few found an audience. In 2010, marketers will undoubtedly crank out more of the same, while a savvy few will worry less about mass reach and focus more on grassroots appeal, providing content that their core targets really want. B2B marketers in particular will find that using informative videos that transform the complicated into the comprehensible, like Commoncraft's Plain English videos, will generate quality leads from grateful prospects.

9. Mobile media: Catching up at last
Despite all the hype by this author and others, less than a third of marketers had a budget for mobile in 2009. In 2010, smartphone penetration should rise to at least 25 percent (from 17 percent in Q2 '09), making it a lot easier to deliver a rich mobile experience worthy of consumer attention. The blending of mobile and social apps like Facebook, Loop'd, and Twitter has also created a new openness toward this medium.

Given the desirable demographics (18- to 34-year-olds with household incomes of more than $75,000) of smartphone owners, marketers should, at the very least, give strong consideration to creating a mobile friendly website, thus allowing prospects to engage whenever and wherever they happen to be.

10. Be positive: Attitude is everything
While honesty is a worthy friend to marketers, don't forget that almost no one wants to date a Debbie Downer. A recent Adweek/Harris poll found "relatively little enthusiasm and lots of indifference for ads that refer to the downturn." Even if the economy is slow to recover in 2010, find the silver lining for your customers and prospects with both words and actions. Like the athletes whose positive outlooks and superior skills propel them to victory, so too can marketers find success with an upbeat message and an unimpeachable value proposition.

Go for the gold in 2010
While 2009 hasn't been much fun for most marketers, there are many reasons to be optimistic about the approaching year. There are more ways than ever to engage with consumers and a new willingness from consumers to engage with brands. Marketers are showing a renewed desire to listen to their customers and offer "marketing as service" that favors the dissemination of meaningful value over disruptive messaging.

To borrow the words of the President after Chicago's disappointing Olympic bid this year, "Although I wish that we had come back with better news, I could not be prouder."

Drew Neisser is CEO and founder of Renegade.