[ Harvard Business Review ] Is Twitter for Serious Marketers?

September 21st, 2009

Tom Davenport writes that twitter is a fad. He got some nice responses on his comments.
Good blog post to read.

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A few months ago I was speaking at a marketing conference, and after I spoke on marketing analytics, there was a panel on social media. Larry Weber, who started and then sold a very successful PR firm (and who is on Babson’s Board of Trustees), was asked whether there was a role for analytics in social media.

“Frankly, I’m tired of analytics,” he said. “I got into social media in part to get away from analytics.” Well, honesty is good, but I didn’t see then — and don’t now — how you can do serious marketing through any medium without metrics and analysis. Twitter and other social media may be fun, but are they really serious marketing tools?

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[ Chief Marketer ] Twitter Patter: Does Marketing with Twitter Matter?

September 21st, 2009

Good Article from Chief Marketer on why Twitter matters and the good and bad of Twitter.

What is Twitter? Is it an effective marketing tool? How do you measure its ROI? All of these are questions worth addressing.
Basically, Twitter is a next generation instant messaging tool. But how does it add value from a marketing perspective, instead of just a personal communications standpoint? The answer lies in attracting enough of the right followers and creating dialogue among the group you develop.

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[ iMedia Connection ] 10 Essential Twitter Apps For Marketers

September 18th, 2009

Great post from our friends at iMedia Connection.

To the casual user, Twitter looks like a simple bulletin board of often useless status reports. Yet, smart marketers are starting to find Twitter feedback quite essential to their overall social marketing plans. Filtering and organizing Twitter feedback is one area where the right application is crucial to success.

“Twitter is all about listening, understanding, and participating as a marketer,” says Art Sindlinger, vice president/activation director at Starcom USA. “We try to help our clients use Twitter with a real intent in mind. This is much more than just purchasing media.”

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[ Adweek] Coupon Enthusiasts Drive Up Redemption Rates

September 8th, 2009

NEW YORK Coupon enthusiasts are the driving force behind exploding redemption rates, according to new findings from Homescan, a service of the Nielsen Co.

Eighty-one percent of the units purchased using manufacturer coupons came from just 19 percent of U.S. households during the twenty-six week period ended June 27, 2009.

The most avid users, called “coupon enthusiasts,” are households that purchased 104 or more items using manufacturers’ coupons. The 10 percent of shoppers that fall into this category accounted for 62 percent of manufacturers’ coupon units. They also accounted for 16 percent of total unit sales making them a very attractive and important consumer target.

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Still Need a Few Good People for User Testing This Monday. $50 iTunes Gift Card in it.

August 27th, 2009

We are reaching out to our network of friends and collaborators
because we still need a few more good people to participate in
Usability Testing for an exciting client.

To make it even “pimpier” we are upping the reward for your participation
(aside from getting to hang out with me, which is worth a lot already)
to a $50 iTunes Gift Card!

You can buy some rad tunes with 50 bucks.

If you are interested and have an hour to spend next week fill out this
survey by tomorrow at noon:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=L3e7kJjbr8Y5icrkir_2fS_2fQ_3d_3d

I know you are busy so thanks in advance for taking the time to check
out the survey and helping us out to make our websites even stonier.

What is Usability Testing you might ask?

We have been developing a website that helps people save money online.
We recently relaunched with a new design and enhanced functionality.
The goal of this testing is to understand how real people are interacting
with the website in order to discover what works well and what needs improvement.
The information that we gain from this testing will help us to further develop
the website’s design and usability.

We are looking for Participants with the following characteristics:

People who are interested in saving money online
People who shop online
Between the ages of 18-45
Available to come to our office (downtown LA) for 90 minutes on
August 31st or September 1st

Testing with take place at the GROOP office space in Downtown Los Angeles.

If you think you are the type of participant we are looking for
please fill out the survey by Noon on Friday August 28th. (tomorrow)

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=L3e7kJjbr8Y5icrkir_2fS_2fQ_3d_3d

Please pass this email onto anyone you think might be interested as well.

We will contact you if you are selected to be a participant for
our Usability Testing. Your participation and feedback will be
rewarded with a $50 Itunes gift card. There will also be snacks!
And most important it will be fun.

Testing time is approximately 30-40 minutes (tho we ask that you
plan to spend 90 minutes at our office), and will take place on
either August 31st or 1 September 1st. We will contact you with
your exact day and time.

We appreciate your time and consideration!

Thanks,

Seth Epstein

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iPhone Video QA with New Groop Chief Catalyst, CEO

August 10th, 2009

iPhone Video QA with New Groop Chief Catalyst, CEO from Jose Caballer on Vimeo.

Transcript:

I am Seth Epstein, the Chief Catalyst and CEO of The Groop.

What attracted me to merge Broadtent into The Groop is the fact that The Groop is in a leadership position. It is one of the top interactive, digital agencies in Los Angeles, and it does unbelievable work, has an incredible track record and is a great strategy firm, a great design firm and great at execution.

I think it is important to shoot this interview on a iphone instead of our $10,000 camera sitting over there is because it really represents the future in that content will be created. In the short time that I have already been here, in about a month and a half, we have already tackled a project that is cross plat-formed, kind of a new form of advertising on the web using video so it was an exciting project that we did for Rite Aid with Adperk and it really represents the future of how the web, advertising and television are colliding.

When we merged the companies people would say well what does The Groop do and who are the clients, and basically our clients are Ad Agencies, Television Networks, Fortune 500 companies all the way down to startups who want to grow their business on the web– so everything from platform, all the way to content and really that’s what we do.

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[ Ad Age ] Round-up of Cannes 2009 Coverage

July 7th, 2009

Good round-up of Cannes coverage.
My favorite article is one from Jeff Goodby on the “Cab Test”, how all the award winning creative that agencies are doing is not really that relevant to the “People”. “Ask a cab driver if they have seen your award winning work…”

To me it is somewhat similar to the Art World, at an art opening everyone congrats you on your “wonderful work” but only a few people see it and/or are impacted by it.

http://adage.com/cannes09/

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Groop Clients ThisNext and CauseCast Featured on Forbes Video Network

June 9th, 2009

ThisNext CEO Scott Morrow on the Forbes Video Network. Showcasing ThisNext and does a mention of CauseCast.

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Opportunity Green V.I.P. Party @ Environment

June 5th, 2009

The Opportunity Green VIP Party was crazy fun. Sorry if you missed it. Check out the sexy pictures.

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Warmer, Fuzzier: The Refreshed Logo

June 5th, 2009

With the economy in a down slide and people keeping an eye on their budgets, sales at major companies have been steadily decreasing.  In an attempt to solve that problem, many of the corporations have redesigned their logos to emit a more friendly, neighborly vibe.  With  softer tones, and not so bold fonts, these business hope to attract more customers.

To read more on this article follow this link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/weekinreview/31marsh.html

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