iMedia Connection - ad:tech blog

As the parent of two teen/pre-teen boys, gaming is a daily part of our lives. As a marketer, I love the medium. For the past 10 years it has been a terrific petri dish for the latest and more innovative methods of reaching many a target audience. As a parent though, I worry about the amount of time my kids spend with the medium, the kind of games the play, the influence that "other" world will have on their personalities and expectations in life, the interactions that they are exposed to from the "live" versions of the games and the fundamental difference this generation will pose for the future workforce.
Most of my non-marketing friends and family harbor larger fears because they believe that the biggest gaming crowd are teenage boys and that they primarily play the violent war games. As a marketer who has been entrenched in this medium for a very long time, I know that the gaming population is vast and wide and that casual online games like Sudoku and Bejeweled are nearly as popular as the heavily advertised Halo type of games and are played by middle aged women.  But while I can craft and site statistics... Read more

People define themselves in many ways, especially in America. We love to embellish and hold the notion that no one stereotype can quite capture all that makes us unique. How many of us have taken the Myers-Briggs tests, or other personality quizzes? Scoffed at the notion that we are a single combination of a few descriptors? After all, we are individuals. Yet, every now and again an interesting piece of research comes along that helps to bind us to a cohort. We are American, or we are women, or we are Gen X'ers. There is some solace in being a part of something.
So, in that spirit I share with you some findings from a study published by AdAge that compared the relative spending habits of Boomers, X'ers, and Millenials during the same 10 year span of each of their lives. The findings are interesting yet not all that surprising, especially from my POV, someone who is smack dab in the middle of the Gen X generation. But beyond the self reflection that always happens when one's cohort is described, there are some interesting predictions or forecasts that result from seeing spending data laid out this way.
So first, the Ad Age... Read more

Did you see the latest episode? I of course did. Mad Men is an obsession much like Starbucks and my "i" devices. I have even been to Banana Republic where I was swayed to purchase a great pencil skirt that was part of their, you guessed it, "Mad Men Collection". So, when I happened upon this infographic I could not help but post this on the off chance that there are others like me out there. It is fun to think about tele-porting the Mad Men gang to the modern day and imagine how that cast of characters might interact with our platforms and devices. But imagine no further, the visual is here (click to enlarge):
I love this but think that Roger would shun the entire social movement...he is still pining for the WWII days and while he is a closet Lady Gaga fan, I also think he would be a host for Project Runway - kicking Heidi to the curb. Peggy would be the true brains behind the scenes and be using Crowd Sourcing to augment her creative prowess. Pete? Well, they had him pretty well pegged I think. Joan would run TMZ behind the scenes as she knows... Read more

It is not often that I am inspired and motivated to write after viewing a 23 minute video but that is what happened to me today. I am a part of several thought leadership groups who share ideas and best practices. It was in one such forum that the Bryan Stevenson TED talk was brought to my attention. I have been privileged enough to attend TED only once but I can tell you that I find the storytelling to be top notch by the speakers at this conference. And, in my new position as "Chief Storyteller" at SAP I now pay extra special attention to the best stories and storytellers. So in that vain, I share the link to Bryan Stevenson's story.
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/bryan_stevenson_we_need_to_talk_about_an_injustice.html
Bryan begins his session with a heart warming story of his interaction with his grandmother and how her special (though he later found out that all the grandkids were the recipients of this chat) message to him really did frame his life. This is evidenced by his life's pursuit with the Equal Justice Initiative which fights poverty and challenging racial discrimination in the criminal justice system. He tells us about his legal representation (he is a lawyer) of 13... Read more

If you are not, then chances are your favorite retailer will be. Business News Daily predicts that by the end of this year, over 50% of retailers will use tablets in their stores. "While only 6 percent of the surveyed businesses report that tablets are fully deployed in their stores today – being used as mobile cash registers and other ways to increase efficiency -- another 28 percent are currently testing tablets in stores, with an additional 31 percent planning to start tests sometime in 2012...Major factors driving increased tablet use among retailers include sales floor support, updating the store experience, increasing comp-store sales and connecting to enterprise apps, the research showed." I get that. To compete, retailers have to put on a hip face. That means showing how they live in the modern techy world but in a more experiential way. That is afterall, the benefit of the physical retail experience. Trying on clothes, glasses, jewelry is usually pretty rewarding versus waiting for this stuff to show up on your door step. And we know that the expectation of customer service is actually lower in the physical store than it is online. Online, people expect a lot more in... Read more