Tim Bishop, Business Development, North America, will be speaking about social media measurement plus providing the latest insights and experience on how to measure ROI (and as a hint, it’s not about friends, fans or retweets…).

In recent years, social media has grown from a provocative set of online community chat rooms to a legitimate marketing communication vehicle that attracts millions of diverse users from around the world.  

What is a marketer to do:  Avoid social media until it becomes more proven since this all seems too “new” and “risky”?  Or jump into it without a good understanding of how it compares to other marketing tools? 

The safe bet is to understand its measurable impact.  IMI International has been studying social media from its inception using ROI measurement models to evaluate it compared to all other marketing tactics.

Tim will highlight how to measure impact and ROI, plus share consumer insights, best practices and global case studies so that social media can be considered as an effective tool within your sponsorship activation toolkit.

For more information on social media ROI and measurement, please contact Tim Bishop at 416-440-0310 ext. 341 or email at tbishop@consultIMI.com.

Don Mayo, Managing Partner of IMI International, is again one of the leading conference speakers for the Canadian Sponsorship Forum.  Held annually, this year’s event is hosted in beautiful Whistler, BC, site of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Be the first to see research focused on actual in-market effectiveness, impact of recent brand activations, consumer-validated insights and recent Vancouver 2010 Winter Games observations. Whether you’re an official sponsor or simply delivering best-in-class activations without any sponsorship affiliation, you will learn best practices both on how to win in the current economic climate and during major events.

Derived from a study completed during February & March 2010 by IMI International and in association with TrojanOne, the key focus of this session will be on the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games as well as other major properties. Don will isolate case studies on ‘who impacted consumers,’ ‘who avoided consumers’ and ‘means to optimize your activation plan going forward.’ Further, this session will detail not only recent sponsorship activations, but will include trending based on consumer research completed throughout prior years.  

The key focus will be on the 2010 Vancouver Olympics plus other major properties, such as the Super Bowl, Grammy Awards, Daytona 500, NBA All Star Game, Mardi Gras and others.

Based on the study’s consumer-validated insights plus recent at-the-Games observation, IMI International will isolate some case studies on ‘who impacted consumers’, ‘who avoided consumers’ and means to optimize your activation plan going forward. Further, this session will detail not only recent sponsorship activations, but will include trending based on consumer research completed throughout prior years.

Highlights will include some of the ‘winner’ activations, featuring not only how marketing impacted behaviour, talk value and brand equity, but how winning campaigns engaged consumers. Additionally, the presentation will detail best practices both on how to win in the current economic climate and during major events, whether you are an official sponsor or simply delivering best-in-class activations without any sponsorship affiliation.

The panel topic, “What Will Appeal to Tomorrow’s Shopper: Learn from Representatives Across All Sectors of the Shopper Marketing Industry” is sure to create an active discussion regarding the future of shopper marketing.  

It will be interesting to hear what the panelists have to say, given their varied experience and backgrounds in the experiential, consulting, snack food and research spaces. 

IMI International has extensive experience with shopper marketing and views shopper marketing as the management of the full path-to-purchase cycle.  When done correctly, shopper marketing is a compelling, integrated approach to meeting consumer wants and needs and instilling a sense of confidence from the moment a brand first starts interacting with consumers. 

To learn more about Shopper Marketing and how IMI International can help your brand or agency meet its goals, please contact Dan Hunter at 416-440-0310 ext. 233 or email at dhunter@consultIMI.com.

This month’s topic is “How to Measure & Optimize Experiential Marketing” which is a three-step process:

1. Isolate the experiential impact versus other marketing campaign drivers
2. Use consistent measures, with the key categories being efficiency (reach), effectiveness (residual impact) and cost effectiveness ($ cost for the gains)
3. Compare results to an objective database in order to show relative program strength

With this consistent approach, experiential programs can be evaluated against each other and against various marketing programs. 

For experiential programs, as with all marketing campaigns, it is imperative to focus on targeted reach and conversion to actual program impact.  Further, leveraging IMI International’s best practices by dollarizing experiential impact via a ‘Cost Per Impacted Consumer’ model equalizes all campaigns so the best, fact-based marketing investment decisions can be made.

For more information on the EMF, visit www.experientialforum.com where you can join to receive regular updates on the latest experiential news, research and insights.  The EMF / IMI International research articles are also available for viewing on IMI International’s Downloads page.

Category:          Financial Services

Date:                February 2010 

Tactic:              Advertising, New Technology 

Visa Activates Around 3-D Subway Station Video

Description:

Visa is launching a month-long initiative in New York City’s Grand Central Terminal, covering the subway corridor with 3-D video with audio plus static images from the company’s global Olympic-themed “Go World” advertising campaign. 

An estimated 3 million people will pass through Grand Central Terminal’s subway corridor during the 28-day campaign period.

Street teams will hand out 3-D glasses that will allow commuters to view the 3-D commercials during selected times.

Visa is also launching social media campaigns to promote its “Olympic Winter Games Trip for Life” sweepstakes.  On YouTube, Visa will introduce a complete redesign and content refresh of the “Go World” channel and feature six new commercials prior to air on television.

Source:  

http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=121671

The topic, “Optimizing Your Marketing Effectiveness and ROI”, will showcase the latest in IMI International’s consumer insights completed across Canada in Q4 2009.  Specifically, Julius will highlight the influence of promotions and brand activation on retail activity, brand purchasing and brand image. 

This session will provide attendees with the facts on the impact of promotions, events, sponsorships, advertising, pricing, social media and digital now versus two years ago.  Further, this session will provide delegates with fact-based case studies for agencies, retailers, marketers, governments, services and brands on means to optimize their marketing effectiveness and ROI.  

IMI International consults and provides strategic resources across the globe and will share these insights and case studies specific to the Quebec marketplace versus the rest of Canada and rest of North America.

About Julius Diamond: 

For close to 40 years, IMI International has focused on helping its clients maximize their return on investment from marketing and communication programs. Julius has been involved in the founding of two other companies: A retail shoe repair chain that operated throughout North America and a real estate development company with assets and operations in Canada and the United States. Mr. Diamond has been involved with several charity organizations and sits on the board of advisors of several small companies. Julius has direct experience in marketing, sales, finance and operations and graduated from the Ivy School of Business at the University of Western Ontario in 1966 and has an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley.

This Canadian consumer insights module conducted in autumn 2009 looks at a number of topics, including:

• How consumers viewed the recession during 2009
• The effect of the recession on various marketing tactics
• The changing attitudes of consumers and how these can explain the change in marketing tactic effectiveness
• Brand health with 85 brands ranked based on consumer responses
• Brand-specific examples of good and bad tactics used over the last 2 years
• Keys to your marketing success in 2010

This module provides a look into how consumers are thinking, what tactics will work the hardest for you and how brands have utilized these to their advantage.

For more information on ConsumerTrack™ Insights, please contact Tim Bishop at 416-440-0310 ext. 341 or by email at tbishop@consultIMI.com.

IMI International’s latest consumer research, on behalf of Experiential Marketing Forum (EMF) members globally, reveals that experiential programs that include a push to web can drive stronger conversion to purchase by extending the live experience and brand conversations to online.  

In fact, the EMF / IMI International study shows that brands can actually drive a 30% lift in purchases according to recent marketing program evaluations.  This is key for long-term brand gains, especially beyond the cluttered retail environment. 

For more information on the EMF, visit www.experientialforum.com where you can join to receive regular updates on the latest experiential news, research and insights.  The EMF / IMI International research articles are also available for viewing on IMI International’s Downloads page.

We’re fully committed to helping you succeed in 2010 and look forward to a mutually beneficial relationship.

Enjoy the holidays and we wish you the very best for the New Year!

Erik Hauser, founder of the EMF, noted a large gap in case studies, best practice learnings and research-validated insight in the field of experiential marketing.  Thus, the partnership between the EMF and IMI International was born to deliver just that. 

The newest articles focus on experiential optimization and evaluation, including “Optimizing Experiential Interaction Time to Impact Purchases” and “Mass or Experiential – the Cost Per Impact is Equal”.  These articles are now available on the EMF website to members.

For more information on the EMF, visit www.experientialforum.com where you can join to receive regular updates on the latest experiential news, research and insights.  The EMF / IMI International research articles are also available for viewing on IMI International’s Downloads page.