The Cardinal(e) Rules of discovering the DNA of brand 'You'

By Lindsay Cardinale

As marketers, we spend hours thinking about what brands mean in consumers’ lives, what impact they have on society, what their equities are, and what their next innovative differentiators will be. We scour content online and offline, reading case study after case study, brainstorming and scribbling ideas until our cocktail napkins are full.

For this, give your marketing professional self a pat on the back, and your personal self a bucket of cold water to the face, because most of us are forgetting about the most important brand of all: ourselves.

I’m not referring to perceptions and personal branding. The last thing I’d like to be responsible for reminding you to do is: “Wear your Chanel sunglasses, your True Religion jeans, sip from a Starbucks cup as you hop into your BMW and hit the Nike store to buy a new golf outfit.” Rather, it’s realizing your brand is about the true authenticity in the human being that you are. What is in your brand (and literal) DNA?

Right now, at Medill, 85+ IMC’ers can be found running around handing out resumes like free samples, Linking-In ourselves with every business professional we can think of. We hope to create an image of the perfect of employee and bolster our chances of landing that epic dream job. But, today I’m asking my classmates to humor me for a second and attempt an out-of-body experience. Take a step outside the mayhem that is “the job hunt” and think about what it means to be you.

One of the first people to emphasize the importance of understanding our own brand DNA was Tom Peters. His 1997 Fast Company article entitled, “The Brand Called You” really drove this concept home. Over a decade later, the article is more true than ever; and Tom is still delivering on his best thoughts with his recent book, “The Little BIG Things: 163 ways to pursue excellence.”

What really matters is that knowing your own ‘brand DNA’ is a big part of success (both professionally and personally). Beyond landing that dream job; it allows us to be transparent, intuitive, insightful, creative, open to change, prone to great ideas and right-brained thinking, connected and understanding.

To those ends, here are the Cardinal(e) rules of understanding and growing the brand that is, YOU.

1. Never. stop. learning – after all, who says, “I’m done learning, I’m smart enough, I know it all?”

2. Think – all the time; about what’s going on with you; about everything.

3. Stay emotional – emotion makes for much better storytelling.

4. Listen, ACTIVELY. Then think about what’s said and how it relates to who you are.

5. Use your similarities with people to understand your differences.

6. Please, please, do not become a faux intellectual.

7. Find out how you relax, and do it – all the time.

8. If you have to say it, then it’s not true. Don’t run around saying you’re great. Just be great.

Some of the most inspiring, creative and original ideas, come at times when we are being the most true to ourselves. In the world of marketing, we can’t expect to understand how consumers relate to products and services, if we do not first understand how we personally relate to the world.

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Lindsay Cardinale is a student in the Masters in Integrated Marketing Communications program at Northwestern University’s Medill School and can be reached at lindsaycardinale2010@u.northwestern.edu.

Steve Jobs: The ultimate IMCer?

(A formal invitation for Steve Jobs to guest lecture at Medill IMC)

By Anne Mahoney

In a recent article featuring an interview with Jobs’ old boss at Apple, John Sculley, details about the mythical man had me reeling with pride. “He’s a total IMCer!” I thought as I read about Jobs’ focus on user experience before market share. It illuminated a vast difference between Apple and Japanese companies – and also IMC students and MBAs.

The article was especially timely as we had the opportunity last week to hear Jose Costa speak on the difference between IMC and MBA students. Costa is a Medill IMC grad and currently finishing up an MBA at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Among the more conspicuous degree comparisons, the one that had us students applauding was his slide featuring IMC as a Mac and MBA as a PC. Steve, did you hear that?

As IMC students, we are constantly urged to consider the question: “What business are you in?” Jobs was the only person, back in the 80s, to view the computer as a product for personal use. Guess he nailed that one.

We also learn that consumer data is extremely important, but the frustrating part about consumers is that they can rarely articulate exactly what it is they want or need. It is up to companies and mostly marketers to anticipate that need, and to create a product or messaging to satiate it. Jobs did exactly this, too, when he visualized the Macintosh, which was far outside the realm of what calculator users thought they needed.

The article highlights how the success of Apple is most definitely a result of Jobs’ emphasis on product design. Although Medill incorporates a rich and varied amount of elements crucial for integrated marketing into the program, Jobs also makes a great case for why design should be a topic more relevant at Medill. If we as marketers are able to influence the core of the user experience, what a person sees and feels, that will make us more successful in all other communication surrounding it.

So Steve, if you’re not too busy, feel free to stop by Evanston and teach us a thing or two about this design thing you’ve changed the world with. Lunch is on us.

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Anne Mahoney is the Social Media Director at Vitamin IMC and a student in the Integrated Marketing Communications graduate program at Northwestern University's Medill School. She can be reached at AnneMahoney2010@u.northwestern.edu.

The IMC link to entrepreneurship around the globe

By Susan Monahan

Every year, many students relocate from China to Evanston to attend the Medill IMC graduate program. They are in a unique position to apply their foundations in this emerging market culture to the IMC approach. One student has already shared this perspective with the world and received much-deserved notoriety.

Xiaojun Ni, IMC class of 2010, was honored at the 40^th Annual St. Gallen Symposium in Switzerland this May. It is publicized as “the world’s leading platform for dialogue on key issues in management, the entrepreneurial environment and the interfaces between business, politics and civil society.” Xiaojun was recognized for a white paper she submitted for the event.

VIMC: Xiaojun, please tell us about the white paper that gained you access to the stage.

It’s titled “Free Entrepreneurship in China.” I cast my attention to small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in China, who epitomize entrepreneurship and are the pillar of the Chinese economy. But their development is hindered by lack of capital, rigid regulation, an ambiguous legal system and cultural and social stereotypes. So I propose to facilitate the growth of SMEs through financial, political and managerial measures.

VIMC: What inspired you to write about entrepreneurship in China?

Entrepreneurship is vital to the Chinese economy. SMEs in China (most of which are in the private sector) compose 99% all the businesses. They contribute 60% of the GDP, absorb 75% of the suburban workforce and 90% of the migrant rural workers, and create 70% of the new jobs each year. It's like Chris Anderson's "Long Tail" theory: the vast sea of small beats the large. However, entrepreneurs face challenges in China, and I want to explore solutions to help them.

VIMC: Can you share with us some solutions you offer?

Yes! In short, I talked about introducing multiple and flexible financial channels, reforming policies and removing legal barriers, managing with innovation, shifting to high value-added industries, enhancing education and technology, and provoking a pro-entrepreneurship culture in society.

VIMC: What knowledge from your classes at IMC did you apply to your analysis?

When I made suggestions on "managing with innovation," I used examples of IMC in practice. One involved a Chinese girl, who posts make-up tutorial videos on Tudou.com (like China's YouTube). She became very popular. Gradually she discovered women had trouble choosing make-up brushes – they were either too expensive or low quality. So she found a manufacturer in Guangdong and launched her own brand of brushes. This is a typical "outside-in“ approach - discovering market opportunities and catering to unmet needs of consumers.

VIMC: You were honored at a reception with students of economics and business from around the globe. How did their marketing philosophies differ from the core principles of IMC?

Although the symposium focused on entrepreneurship, new companies, and brilliant ideas -- they revolve around a unifying theme: they are customer-focused and data-driven!

Christian von Koenigsegg, founder of Swedish car brand Koenigsegg, shared with me that he focuses on a niche market and only makes less than 20 cars a year. Each car is tailored to the customer's specific requirements.

Rakuten, a Japanese e-commerce company (similar to Ebay), flourished with a sellers- to-buyers model, but took its business a step beyond by analyzing the Rakuten “super database:" segmenting users and cross-selling Rakuten e-banking, mobile, etc. It has the largest market share in Japan across all these sectors.

No matter the size or industry, companies are always finding a way to understand consumers first and then act, if it's a one-on-one relationship (that's easier) or mass market (that requires statistical and computing science).

VIMC: what are your plans for the future?

I’m open to going anywhere, and to positions other than (traditional) marketing, to gain broader business exposure. In the future, I might start my own business after being inspired by the forum.

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Susan Monahan is a blogger at Vitamin IMC and a student in the Integrated Marketing Communications graduate program at Northwestern University's Medill School. She can be reached at SusanMonahan2010@u.northwestern.edu.

Content marketing: A win-win for customers and businesses

By Daniel Hindin

If a major tenet of integrated marketing communications is customer-centricity, a great way that marketers today are plying their trade is through content marketing.

Content marketing is all about sharing valuable information with potential and existing customers and clients. The information is usually shared for free, and many people take that knowledge and apply it to their lives or businesses without ever engaging in a transaction with the company offering the information.

What better way to form a bond with the public and put the customer first than giving away free, no-strings-attached information?

I’m spending my summer quarter away from Medill working at a communications agency in Chicago called Arment Dietrich, where I manage the globally respected blog Spin Sucks.

What I love about my work there is the unbelievable volume of positive interactions I have with our readers. A large portion of my job consists of procuring valuable content that I think our audience will enjoy and having fun with our readers in the comment section of our blog, through my personal Twitter account, on the company’s Facebook page and wherever else we might find each other.

As early as my first day on the job, I felt an outpouring of warmth from our community. And when I say “community,” I’m talking about both paying customers as well as readers who have never spent a dollar with our company and quite possibly never will.

It doesn’t bother us that most of our readers won’t become customers. We’re committed to providing what amounts to a free media channel focusing on marketing, social media and entrepreneurism for small- to medium-sized businesses. And that commitment will basically cost us the same amount whether 100 people are reading or 100,000 people are reading.

In July, more than 15,000 people visited Spin Sucks. If 14,900 of them never do business with us, we still end up with far more clients on our hands than an agency of our size could handle.

But beyond that, these 15,000 visitors are coming to our site because they want to be there. We’re not buying ads anywhere. We’re not bombarding them with mismatched messages as they go about their day. Our readers are self-selecting themselves as potential clients by simply being attracted by the information we’re providing.

So it’s a win-win situation. Our readers win because they benefit from our knowledge and experience from the comfort of their own home or office. We win because more people every day are learning about us and the services we provide.

By putting the customer first and not putting on the hard sell, through Spin Sucks and content marketing, Arment Dietrich is enjoying more success every day.

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Daniel Hindin is Managing Director of Vitamin IMC and a student in the Masters in Integrated Marketing Communications program at Northwestern University’s Medill School. He also works as Community Manager of Arment Dietrich’s blog Spin Sucks and can be found tweeting at all hours of the day at www.twitter.com/danielhindin.

The heart and Seoul of mobile marketing

A sneak peek at our upcoming class trip to South Korea

By Megan O'Malley

Classic cartoons like “The Jetsons” had kids dreaming for decades about scooting around in space cars and having robot maids. Technology hasn’t evolved to that extreme yet, but South Korea is getting close—at least when it comes to mobile innovation.

South Korea is literally light years ahead of the United States in mobile technology. In fact, a number of Silicon Valley companies test their products in South Korea before launching them in the U.S. to get a glimpse of how they might work “in the future.”

As mobile marketing has become an essential part of brand strategy, the Medill IMC global trip group selected Seoul, South Korea, as a destination city this year, along with Shanghai and Tokyo.

This will be the first time that the IMC program visits Seoul. Students will get the chance to meet with IMC alumni at mobile tech giants such as Samsung and LG to see firsthand how Korea is guiding mobile’s future.

Students will witness mobile features that even the most app-abundant iPhone can’t do (sorry, Mr. Jobs). Just imagine having your phone function as a wallet, bus pass, student ID and just about anything else you have floating in your bag.

New mobile features include T-money, a prepaid smart card imbedded in Korean mobile SIM cards. Using T-money, a simple swipe of the phone will not only pay for your morning coffee but will also tell you how much human traffic you’ll face on the way to work. How’s that for a “smart” phone?

In less than a month, our IMC group will literally time warp to the mobile future. We’ll no doubt get a taste of mobile advancements, as well as some delicious dim sum. Oh, and we’ll be sure to say hi to Elroy and Astro for all you Jetsons fans back home.

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Megan O'Malley is a student in the Masters in Integrated Marketing Communications program at Northwestern University's Medill School. She can be reached at meganomalley2010@u.northwestern.edu.

Facebook introduces Groupon-esque application– but will consumers hit the ‘like’ button?

By Ashley Graves

When I moved to the Chicago area a little less than a year ago, one of my most useful finds was the website Groupon.com.

In case you’re unfamiliar, Groupon is a group discount website. It provides coupons on activities, restaurants and services—as long as enough people purchase the deal. Groupon enabled me to try new things in an unfamiliar city, with a cool discounted price.

Over the past year, couponing websites like Groupon have exploded. And for good reason — consumers still want to have fun experiences in the cities they live in despite a less-than-booming economy.

Last week, a new application for Facebook called Group Deals was introduced. Group Deals lets companies provide fans with a deal-a-day coupon for their products or services on their Facebook fan pages.

This new application (the first of what I bet will be many) has excellent potential for brands to provide concrete value for their Facebook fans and reinforce consumers’ liking or loyalty to a product or service.

As an added bonus, because friends frequently view a Facebook user’s activity, the ability for these deals to spread would greatly increase.

Word-of-mouth, the much sought after and hard to create integrated marketing tool, has huge potential here. Facebook’s public news feed will display purchase decisions made by a user to their close friends and family, people who care about their opinions and influence their decisions.

The only potential drawback is for items that someone might not want their Facebook friends to see they have purchased. Do you really want your mom to see that you’ve bought five bar coupons in a week? Or for that cute guy you met last weekend to know you’re planning to attend a six-week diet bootcamp?

By connecting the purchase of a deal directly to a Facebook application, brands will be better able to track the value of their Facebook fan page (an issue still hotly up for debate). The potential to calculate a rough return on investment from social media might have some doubters in the marketing world singing a different tune.

Will Group Deals on Facebook be a win-win for consumers and brands alike?

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Ashley Graves is the Editorial Director at Vitamin IMC and a student in the Masters in Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University’s Medill School. She is hoping that her favorite clothing retailers will decide to use Group Deals. She can be reached at AshleyGraves2010@u.northwestern.edu.

How honest is Chicago? Honest Tea uses marketing campaign to find out

By Susan Monahan

More than a decade ago, Honest Tea was a pioneer for organic bottled teas with no artificial sweeteners. It was a small player in a new category. Back then, it was easy to stay true to its self-proclaimed “quirky independent streak.”

Today, Honest Tea has plenty of competition. Its differentiators, organic ingredients, aren't so different anymore. And, it’s under pressure to appeal to a larger consumer base, as Coca-Cola recently acquired a stake in Honest Tea.

Last week, at locations like the Chicago Board of Trade, Honest Tea left unmanned carts of its drinks with signs requesting that people drop $1 into a jar in exchange for a bottle -- “on the honor code.” Chicago-area news media are buzzing about the results. Only 78% of the takers paid up.

NBC Chicago.com

This twist on sampling began in New York City last April, at the height of the political crackdown on financial corporations. Ad agency SS+K led the Honesty Store street campaign with signs reading, “Yes Mr. President, let’s bring Honest Tea to Wall Street.” In that city, 89% of passers-by paid for their bottles. Bloggers and the social media landscape generated countless more impressions from the debates it sparked. An integrated campaign was born from the ground up.

But, how are these one-off tests working as a customer acquisition strategy?

Where many sampling campaigns rely on sponsorship of sporting events or concerts that draw the product’s target consumers, Honest Tea worked alone to capitalize on a mass-culture opportunity. This allowed potential customers to first taste the tea while connecting with its unique brand DNA.

It’s more than word play. Moving beyond the common pure ingredients, Honest Tea’s message seems to be about trust. Drinkers may carry the bottle with a sense of integrity. (Especially if they actually paid for it!) This creates an experience more powerful than a TV ad or a testimonial.

The street effort may be sublime, but have Honest Tea in-store sales gone up?

“We’re still waiting on results,” said Alex Mailman at SS+K. “But safe to say that the Honest Store has stirred a real conversation around the country, about honest behavior and about each city's self image. And despite some disappointment in a couple of cities about not being first, customers appreciate the trust that Honest Tea has shown in them.”

What do you think about the impact of sampling events and the possibility of mass appeal?

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Susan Monahan is a blogger at Vitamin IMC and a student in the Masters in Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University's Medill School. She regrets that the Honesty Store never made it up to Northwestern. Susan can be reached at SusanMonahan2010@u.northwestern.edu

Gorillas and gazelles: GNC lacks muscle behind segmentation strategy

By Kevin Byrne

I’m not a bodybuilder. At 6’3” and 175 pounds, I’m more gazelle than gorilla. My workouts involve runs along Lake Michigan more often than bench presses at the gym. However, while in the midst of marathon training, I do rely on protein shakes and amino acid powders to help with endurance and recovery.

The trouble is that GNC (General Nutrition Centers) doesn’t seem to understand the difference between the muscle heads and me. They know I’m a customer but they don’t try to determine why. They don’t seem to know what to do with me.

The online experience with the brand is the worst. I receive daily emails touting the latest and greatest in the world of vitamins and supplements designed to inflate me to Incredible Hulk proportions. Meanwhile, the Yahoo Mail banner ads, in a feeble attempt to be targeted, show more of the same. Along with the online confusion, the retail stores offer little guidance as to where different types of customers might find their preferred products.

GNC has the information; that’s the frustrating part. They offer a loyalty card and track online and offline purchases. The data is there, they just need to use it. With a little analysis, distinct groups would most likely start to emerge: the organic, yoga-types with their homeopathic remedies, the dieters looking for the newest fads in weight-loss, and maybe even the lean, mean marathoners.

By defining better segments, GNC could target their consumers with more efficiency and grace. They may even choose to use overlay demographics or at least ask a few questions about users’ interests and goals. Current customers would feel more included and be better informed of products designed to help them achieve their objectives. As word of this new approach spreads, GNC’s image may evolve to be more inclusive of individuals who might currently feel out of place at this type of store.

It’s all about segments. You’ve got to separate the gazelles from the gorillas and market accordingly. All customers are not the same, so don’t treat them that way.

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Kevin Byrne is a graduate student in Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University's Medill School. He enjoys his constant carbo-loading while he trains for his fourth marathon. He can reached at KevinByrne2010@u.northwestern.edu.

Mobile marketing developments enhance brand experience

By Johnny Schroepfer

Mobile and emerging technology have historically had more hype than actual adoption or implementation within marketing campaigns, but with the proliferation of mobile devices and digitization, the mobile channel is slowly becoming a necessity rather than a novelty. From an integrated marketing perspective, here’s a look at some developmental areas of mobile and their impact.

Traditional & Mobile Integration in Marketing

Mobile devices can be an extension of the brand experience which connects the end user with the brand messaging. Mobile is often an overlooked or undervalued channel of communication but in reality, it’s one of the most personal forms of communication in this digital world. When campaigns are successfully crafted and executed, the channel that connects the end user with the message has the power to change both brand perception and consumer behavior. With that said, we will continue to see more brands create mobile campaigns or initiatives that complement traditional marketing channels while allocating a significant amount of their advertising budget towards mobile and emerging technologies.

Advertising

The recent launch of the Apple iAd platform will only further prove this point that there will continue to be a major marketing shift. The iAd platform allows developers to create beautiful and rich advertising executions that are less disruptive and reach the consumer at the intersection of emotion and interactivity. In addition to this innovative approach, the developers will retain 60% of revenues, which have already shown signs of success.

Payment

Payment will be another key developing area in mobile. Allowing consumers to easily pay for various products and services on-the-go will benefit both parties. Apples iTunes payment system is a great example of quick, convenient one-click purchasing. Additional examples of up-and-coming payment models include Jack Dorsey's recent startup, Square, which allows consumers to pay and receive payments through their iPhone or iPad. While these payment models will continue to help the mobile space evolve, privacy concerns are still a very hot topic. The recent news of Apple iTunes accounts being hacked will require companies to provide a "reason to believe" and reassure consumers that their information is secure.

Location

I wrote a post on location-based services a few months ago for Vitamin IMC about the opportunity for small businesses to take advantage of understanding consumer insights and needs. Over the past few months there have been several developments and location-based services which have proven that they're more than a fad. Brands that take the time to understand and develop services based around GPS locations can provide personal messages and incentives to highly-segmented groups thus creating relevant content and messaging for consumers who are looking for it.

All of the above, when used strategically in an integrative marketing campaign, will help provide a flawless user experience for consumers. We will continue to see significant developments in mobile and more brands pursing its highly-targeted and relevant services as a complement to their traditional marketing efforts.

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Johnny Schroepfer is the strategy and content director at Vitamin IMC and is a student in the Masters in Integrated Marketing Communications program at Northwestern University's Medill School. He can be reached at johnnyschroepfer@u.northwestern.edu.

Dear Netflix: A love story

A humorous take on customer lifetime value from the perspective of an IMC student

Dear Netflix,

You need to move on. Seriously. Don’t you get it? We didn’t end in a bang or a whimper because there was nothing to end. We were never even together! And now you’re sending me letters again. Come on. Pull yourself together.

Our fling in the summer of 2008 was just that: A fling. It didn’t mean anything to me. I don’t want to be callous but you offered me a free trial, my friends said you were great, so I took you up on the offer. No obligations, no strings attached. I threw a few movies in my queue, you sent me the first DVD, and I devoured as many as possible over the course of the next 30 days. I have to admit, it was great. I can see why you’re ranked number one in customer satisfaction. But I wasn’t looking for anything long-term. I got my free trial and, to be honest, that’s all I wanted.

Now, you come groveling back with your “Try Netflix again for FREE today” letters every few months. Do you forget what happened last time? I watched unlimited DVDs for a month, used $16.99 worth of your services, and then I dumped you. Now you’re back for more? Are you hoping that I’m a changed man? Maybe I suddenly have more money that I can spend on a membership? Sorry Netflix, you’re out of luck; I’m even poorer than before. It’s called grad school.

I don’t understand why you want me so bad. Am I really worth the investment? If you got to know me, I don’t think you’d be willing to spend so much. Let’s look at this logically. You mailed the letter to me so you obviously know where I live. Did you take a look at my zip code? Did you even bother to ask PRIZM or Personix about me? I can’t imagine they spoke too highly of Uptown; we’re not exactly big spenders. And what about my queue? I left it empty. I didn’t send any mixed signals; it was a clean break. And did you happen to notice my partner already has a subscription? We’re covered with all the movies we need. But now you’re back after a couple of years apart. Netflix, the odds are stacked against us. The Markov chain is written on the wall. My probability of purchase? Zero. It’s not going to happen.

I know I’ve been harsh, but don’t give up; your loss leader approach is bound to work on someone. Even though you couldn’t retain me, there’s some other guy out there whose present value of future cash flows is worth your initial investment. Sure, I defected, but stick to your retention model, listen to behavioral cues and you’ll be fine.

It hurts me to say it, but my lifetime value is zero. You’ll be better off once you realize that. But, if you don’t mind, I’ll take you up on that second free trial. No hard feelings, right?

A poor investment as always,

Kevin

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Kevin Byrne is a graduate student in Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University's Medill School. He loves free stuff but just can't commit. He can be reached at KevinByrne2010@u.northwestern.edu.

Medill IMC students get real with summer projects

Wondering where we've been the past month? Busy, to say the least, and here's why.

By Anne Mahoney

This summer, students from Medill IMC’s 2010 class are working on group projects and individual residencies for a number of well-regarded client sponsor projects. The entire quarter is spent on real world application of the classroom knowledge gained in quarters one through three. We are tasked with harnessing those qualitative and quantitative skills to demonstrate what IMC whizzes we have become through tackling a real marketing challenge.

Each project is different, depending on client needs, so students doing group projects bid for the team that would best compliment their strengths and career ambitions. Individual residencies go through a typical interviewing process and spend the summer on-site with their clients. At the end of the summer, each team presents its findings, solution, recommendations, model or other specified outcome to the sounds of raucous applause and implementation by the sponsor company.

This summer, we’re grateful to have a fantastic roster of clients to work with: Best Buy, Cricket Communications (Leap Wireless), Discover Card, Draftfcb and Kraft (in Paris and Shanghai), Fannie May Chocolates, FedEx, OnStar, Procter & Gamble, T. Rowe Price, Shiseido, Iris and ReachMD. Each team works directly with the company and is also assigned a faculty member as advisor.

A number of students are also working full-time in individual residencies. Two great examples working in the Chicago area are Josh Friedman and Sara Smith. Josh is in product management at Motorola, where he is creating a rich SWOT analysis for Motorola's social strategy for mobile phones in the development pipeline through 2012. Sara is in account planning at advertising agency Euro RSCG, unearthing consumer insights used to guide integrated ad campaigns.

It’s now “go time” in full swing, and we’re excited to finally be putting our hard work from the classroom into practice.

Best of luck to everyone!

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Anne Mahoney is Social Media Director of Vitamin IMC and a student in the Master’s in Integrated Marketing Communications program at Northwestern University’s Medill School. She’s doing her group project on consumer insights with Iris. You can find her tweeting at http://twitter.com/agmahoney.

McSegments

By Alejandra Leon

When Ray Kroc took over a restaurant business from the McDonald brothers, he realized that kids were his target market.

No sooner had Kroc acquired the company than Ronald McDonald the clown was brought in to attract children to his restaurants. His insight would result in the creation of a billion dollar empire.

Kroc’s genius is that he understood his audience and identified the two main segments that would drive his business: working- and middle-class children and their parents.

The company has come a long way since the days of Ray Kroc. The global fast food giant has grown immensely over the decades thanks in part to its unique targeting ability and innovative implementation tactics.

An example of this was the launch in 1979 of Happy Meal in the United States. The meal-plus-toy packaging was an instant hit that became an American icon and still accounts for a large percentage of all McDonald’s meals sold today.

Following an IMC approach, McDonald's has gotten to know its customers and has built its advertising strategy around it. The company knows that by targeting families, it’s tapping into one of the most attractive consumer groups. As marketing and brand strategist Martin Lindstrom states: “It gets into the parents' wallets via the kids' minds.”

Though very effective, McSegmentation has become the focus of controversy regarding the company’s targeting efforts. The fact that children play such an important role in the purchasing decision has raised many questions concerning the ethical repercussions and regulations of targeting and advertising to children.

There are several reasons why McDonald’s is the number one fast food restaurant in the world, and as stated above, a very important one has been its ability to understand its customers, segment them and reach the heart of its targets. Whether the company should or shouldn’t be allowed to continue pursuing children is still up for debate.

Should children be the main consumer target for companies?

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Alejandra Leon is a blogger at Vitamin IMC and a student in the Masters in Integrated Marketing Communications program at Northwestern University's Medill School. She isn't ashamed to admit that she finds comfort in a McNuggets meal to brighten a hard day. Alejandra can be reached at alejandraleon2010@u.northwestern.edu.

IMC and social media: A match made in marketing heaven

By Daniel Hindin

If there wasn’t already enough motivation for marketers to hop on the IMC bandwagon, the explosion of social media over the last several years has brought IMC to the forefront of the marketing conversation once again.

I was recently interviewed for an article about Vitamin IMC that has since been published on the Medill website. One of the questions was: “How do you see social media fitting in with IMC?” My answer didn’t make it into the article, but I think it’s an important point, so I’ve decided to expand upon it here.

At its most basic level, IMC is about customer-centricity. A common description of IMC is data-driven marketing. While this is true, the term can sometimes come across as impersonal when you start thinking about all the numbers, formulas, data schemes and information that lead us to our marketing strategies.

But all of these techniques are aimed at one thing: a deeper understanding of the consumer. The further an IMCer can escape the generalities of a mass audience and focus on the individual human being making specific choices for themselves and their family, the better he or she can do their job.

Social media has given tremendous power to the individual consumer. The concept of brand has never been whatever the marketer tells the consumer it is. The brand has always been the idea of that brand that the consumer holds in their mind. And that can be different things to different people. Consumers have always had these ideas, but until recently, we as marketers rarely heard from them.

With the advent of social media, consumers can (and do) tell us (and anyone else who will listen) what they think of our brands whenever they feel like it. Some of these thoughts may be positive, and some may be negative.

Whatever the case may be, it’s real live communication. This not only gives us a greater understanding of our brand, but it also gives us an opportunity to respond individually to our consumers’ concerns. If they’re enjoying the brand experience, we can provide them with ways to interact with it on a deeper level. If they’re not enjoying it, we can attempt to understand the disconnect and perhaps bridge the gap.

Either way, a two-way conversation has been established. The pinnacle of a brand experience in the mind of an IMCer is for the consumer to establish a relationship with the brand. Relationships are difficult to form without two-way communication. This is the gift that social media has given to IMC.

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Daniel Hindin is Managing Director of Vitamin IMC and a student in the Master’s in Integrated Marketing Communications program at Northwestern University’s Medill School. He’s also a social media addict. You can find him tweeting at http://twitter.com/danielhindin.

A 30-second spot, in 30 seconds or less

By Megan O'Malley

A new ad creation interface from Visible World is breathing new life into the good ol’ 30-second spot.

Not only can clients use the resource to create ads from a selection of scenes and content in a matter of seconds, they can also instantly adjust the advertisement to fit each select individual, demographic or geographic target of television viewers.

TV advertising traditionally meant targeting audiences by assuming groups of similar consumers watched certain types of programming. With new ad customization tools, companies can adjust ads based even on live programming events.

Marketing implications? Television can now be used to target segments just like direct mail.

Take Wendy’s, which surprised viewers of an NFL football game by featuring animated raccoons whose dialogue mirrored events in the game right before commercial break.

Subaru is also taking advantage of the condition-based advertising by setting ads for vehicles in weather conditions that mirror the weather of the day in certain regions.

Customized TV advertising generation could reinvent media placement. TV as an advertising channel has drawn recent skepticism from marketers caught on a digital buzz. However, TV remains the highest used media in America by minutes used per day and television advertising still makes up a vast majority of most marketing budgets.

Jerry Dow, Medill IMC alum and Chief Marketing and Sales Officer of Suddenlink, offered insight on the importance of understanding the new with the old.

“Students with an understanding of targeting, segmentation and integration of new and old tools are going to be infinitely more valuable to take advantage of today’s customization trend. IMC students are especially needed to help those stuck in the traditional ways to understand this shift in television advertising,” he said.

The automation of television advertising presents challenges to the traditional creative process in that it requires storylines that are adaptable to varied target audiences. Although quick customization tools are no substitute for the creation of exceptional ideas and creative content, they do serve as powerful tools for creating targeted ads on the fly. Such tools allow creative marketers to quickly speak in a more engaging way to each and every consumer.

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Megan O’Malley is a graduate student in Integrated Marketing Communications at Northwestern University's Medill School. She misses the good ol' days of Saved By the Bell and Daria on television. She can reached at MeganOMalley2010@u.northwestern.edu.

Building a personal brand: Vitamin IMC social media panel offers job search tips

By Ashley Graves and Anne Mahoney

Tweet. Blog. Build an online personal brand. Most professionals seeking work in the digital media landscape have often heard that advice.

As many things are, it’s often easier said than done.

What should I tweet or blog about? How should I shine myself up online for potential employers? What’s the one mistake I shouldn’t make (and have I already made it?!?). All are questions that many marketing students and professionals face in searching for a job.

On Monday, Vitamin IMC hosted its first ever social media panel to discuss the essentials and benefits of using social media to connect to a career in communications. Lucky for our audience, we were bestowed with expert advice from some seasoned pros.

We were fortunate to have Blagica Bottigliero, Emmy-winning blogger and member of the Edelman Digital team, Johnny Schroepfer, Medill IMC student, and Gini Dietrich, founder and CEO of Arment Dietrich, share insights and tips on how to use social media tools to build a personal brand and find a killer job.

“What social media has done is completely flatten out the globe,” said Dietrich, referring to the ability to talk to anyone on Twitter, including CEOs and popular industry figures.

A key point in using social media for the job search is that you get out of it what you put into it. Bottigliero advised that job seekers should put twice as much time into their search as they do studying or with other media such as TV or texting.

Job seekers should also be wary of over-spamming new online contacts or being completely self-promotional.

“The last thing they want to know is all about you,” said Schropefer. “Its about communication and interaction. It’s two ways.”

Key Takeaways…

On building a personal brand:

• Own your own domain name and use your actual name to come up more often in searches.
• Clean up any online information about you that doesn’t look professional (ahem, Facebook party photos from college). And yes, recruiters actually look for unprofessional antics and flag those applicants.
• Go to namechk.com. This site allows you to see where your name is registered on any social media site, and where it isn’t. Make sure you own your name on all relevant sites.

On Twitter:

• Keep interactions relevant. Don’t clog someone’s stream with a surplus of @replies.
• Drive people to your LinkedIn page or website. Twitter isn’t the ultimate answer to connect with people in your job search.

On Blogging:

• Write about what you’re passionate about – people find you valuable if you have a niche and offer information generalists can’t.
• Try not to be negative on your blog; nobody wants to hire someone who complains.

If there’s one thing our audience learned, it was to start the digital conversation now and to make ourselves known to potential employers in an authentic way. Relationships rule. Take the time to research, relate and impress.

As Gini Dietrich told us, “If I receive a resume from someone who has not taken time to connect with my company on social media, I won’t even look at it.”

How’s that for inspiration?