Speaking on the topic of “Look who’s engaged!”, Don will be sharing global trends & best practices from IMI International’s extensive experience in the field.  Specifically, Don will share tips and consumer-based insights on how to engage various consumers across different types of the media mix as well as share case studies and best practices on how to engage consumers at events both large and small.  The core of the presentation will focus on how to effectively engage consumers to drive positive ROI on all types of brand activations.

Don Mayo started with IMI International in 1985 and developed and implemented a ROI optimization system around the world. Don has been involved with the evaluation and optimization of marketing activations in 80 categories in 15 countries and has experience from the largest worldwide marketing campaigns and events to grassroots marketing in towns with fewer than 1,000 people. Don has personally assisted in IMI International compiling a proprietary database of close to 10,000 marketing activations relating to “optimizing the impact and ROI” of marketing programs.

As noted on the Engagement Marketing Conference website:

Build Your Brand Story Through Engagement

Creating an authentic relationship between brands & consumers

These days, simple consumer satisfaction is considered table stakes. Consumers not only want to be satisfied with the products they purchase, they expect more. They want to be heard and have input into the brands they consume. They want to feel good about sharing those products and experiences with their network.

What tools do you need to turn your consumers into advocates and write your brand’s story? Join us for a special day and find out!

Similar to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver, IMI International’s syndicated 2010 FIFA World Cup Sponsorship Study is now available and highlights key consumer responses from eight countries around the world.  Countries include the USA, Canada, Mexico, Argentina, Spain, UK, Ireland and Australia.

Complete perspective and context on the property, sponsoring brands, fan engagement and more is available with the following topics covered in depth:

• Sponsorship Highlights and Executive Summary
• Property Engagement and Viewership
  • Planned (March 2010 – NA Only) vs. Actual
  • Intended viewership for 2014
• How the World Cup was Consumed
  • Behaviour with various mediums
  • Behaviour when consumers couldn’t watch live
• Thoughts on the World Cup
  • Words that come to mind, favourite moments, favourite athletes
• The South Africa Effect
• Sponsorship Attitudes & Feelings
• Sponsoring Brands
  • Effect on Purchase Intent and Favourability
  • Winners and Losers of Sponsorship
    • Awareness, linkage, effect on consumers, themes that resonated
• Sponsor and Promo Tracking Case Studies

For more information on this study and its highlights, please contact Tim Bishop by phone 416-440-0310 ext 341 or 1-800-784-5757 ext 341 or by email at tbishop@consultIMI.com.

Relative to single event visitors, repeat visitors in this actual in-market case study register incremental impact on experiential event activations regarding these key measures.  For brands looking to drive greater ROI, experiential activations should encourage attendees to come back to events.  Give attendees a compelling reason to return, possibly by including special offers, e-reminders, bring-a-friend vouchers, etc to deliver additional value and incentives.

To view the actual case study statistics, broken out by both first-time event attendees and repeat visitors, plus on brand love and purchase intent, please click on the links below for the full article.

For more information on the EMF, visit http://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.

Toronto, July 8, 2010 – With the Canadian economy making strides in recovery, it would stand to reason that there would be renewed optimism and activity in the business world. But results from the first-ever Marketing Confidence Index, measured in conjunction with the Gauge Report, an annual survey of marketing professionals, have revealed otherwise.

Overall, Canadian marketers measured 45 per cent, a level of confidence that is consistent with the general mood of Canadian marketers, as reflected in the Index. Only a modest percentage (40 per cent) increased their marketing budgets this year, even though 62 per cent said they felt that 2010 was a good year for companies to invest in marketing activity. Most marketers agree that the time is right to catch the upswing in the marketplace, but many are not following up those instincts with action.

“Knowledge drives confidence, and confidence, in turn, drives success,” says Brett Marchand, president and COO of Cossette. “Confident marketers capitalize on emerging trends, leverage metrics and aren’t afraid to adopt a decisive mindset that propels bold action.”

In this era of unprecedented technological advancement, instability in the marketplace and erratic consumer spending habits, the Gauge Report provides a forum for marketing decision makers to share ideas and benchmark industry activity to help foster innovation and steer informed decision making.

The profile of a highly confident marketer emerging from the Gauge Report confirms that confidence is a critical factor is results-oriented business decisions. Those marketers who were characterized as either very confident (9 per cent) or confident (23 per cent) are also decisive and prepared to take actionable steps that lead to success. One of those steps is increasing their marketing budgets, which 64 per cent of marketers indicated they were planning on doing this year, and 84 per cent indicated they had plans to do so in 2011.

“Confidence matters; and that’s why an index that measures it on an on-going basis is so important,” says Jules Diamond, president of IMI International. “The Gauge Marketing Confidence Index allows marketers to benchmark the confidence of their own organizations to help foster effective decision making.”

Lack of confidence, on the other hand, results in missed opportunities to engage with target consumers. For example, most companies understand that social and mobile media are effective ways to tap into a robust client base, but many aren’t clicking in. More than 59 per cent of confident marketers are more apt to incorporate digital media in their overall marketing plans, compared to 30 per cent of non-confident marketers.

Many marketers might instinctively know that now is a good time to invest but concerns over the economy, fragmentation in the media landscape, rapidly evolving technological trends and changing consumer spending behaviour can leave them confused and indecisive.

“If knowledge is power, Canadian marketers now have the resource they need to help them make definitive decisions in spite of uncertainties in the marketplace,” adds Marchand. “And we all know that confidence matters. Not just to the marketing industry, but the entire marketplace.

An initiative of Cossette and IMI International, the Gauge Report is an annual summary of research into areas of current interest to Canadian marketing and business executives. It provides insight to promote dialogue in the  marketing industry with the end goal of delivering programs with market appeal.

About Cossette
Cossette Inc. offers a full range of leading-edge communication services to clients of all sizes, including some of the most prestigious brands in the world. A customer-driven organization built around highly specialized business units, Cossette also offers Convergent Communications(TM), a unique working method that brings added value to the client by integrating various services offered by the Group, including strategic planning and research, advertising, media buying and channel planning, sales promotion, direct response, database and direct marketing, customer relationship management, interactive marketing and technology solutions, public relations, organizational communication and change management, sponsorship and alliance marketing, branding and design, ethnic marketing, business-to-business communications (B2B practices) and print and video production. Cossette has approximately 1,485 employees and offices in Quebec City, Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Halifax, New York, Irvine, Los Angeles, London and Shanghai.

About IMI International
IMI International is a full-service marketing consultancy, leveraging consumer marketing research, to optimize all types of brand activations.  For 40 years, IMI International has served as a strategic partner to our Fortune 500 clients, developing best practice principles based on over 10,000 marketing evaluations.  IMI International is globally recognized for its work in the pre- and post-evaluation of consumer marketing efforts and has developed proprietary consumer research methodologies and success thresholds that serve to improve our clients’ return on marketing investment.  Headquartered in Toronto, Canada, IMI International also hosts offices in Phoenix, United States; Melbourne, Australia and London, United Kingdom.

Please contact Tim Bishop with any questions or comments and to receive a complimentary copy of the 2010 Gauge Report.   Phone 416-440-0310 ext 341 or 1-800-784-5757 ext 341 or email at tbishop@consultIMI.com.

In general, people are more likely to act on face-to-face product recommendations, versus those sent via social media.  While this holds for youth, they are more likely to act on all types of recommendations, especially from close contacts, regardless of mode used to receive the recommendation. 

Fundamentally, effective experiential marketing should have a compelling consumer focus which can often lead to increased word-of-mouth for participating brands. Social media can be effective at facilitating WOM among youth, as it is integral in their lives and it does not lose impact like it does for adults.

To view the actual case study statistics, broken out by both age (youth versus adults) and by whom (friends, family and acquaintances), please click on the links below for the full article.

For more information on the EMF, visit http://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.

Recently on the EMF posts, there has been a lot of reference to a change in consumer buying habits as a result of the economic conditions in recent times.  One such article referenced from Comscore suggests consumers are trading down in price and becoming less loyal to National brands.  Just last week, another EMF post referenced an article from the Globe & Mail suggesting consumers consider short-term reward more strongly than the long-term gains. Thus consumers are irrational, and it has been argued that this emotional context needs to be overlaid to more rational economic models.

These two articles provided impetus to share with the EMF membership what we at IMI International have learned about changes to consumer buying habits from a proprietary study we fielded called “Building Your Brand in Turbulent Times”.  We asked some questions that could be benchmarked versus more “normal” times in 2007, fielded during the ‘dark days’ of  January 2009 and followed up again in early 2010 to see which of these changes have a lasting effect.

First, our study agreed with both the articles referenced above:  

i)        Consumers are indeed trading down to the lowest price more often now than in 2007 (for details, please see the June 2010 EMF/IMI research article in the members section on the EMF site or on IMI International’s Downloads page). 

ii)       What is interesting, however, is the consideration of “short-term reward” in this environment.  Consumers have also increased their consideration for the “best quality”—while this seems inconsistent, consider that there has also been a consistent increase in the attitude that it is “worth spending more time to be a smart shopper”.  

iii)     Another finding reflects a return to the importance of Brand Name products versus price considerations, after a dip in 2009.  

Some other category studies we have done at IMI International (from snack food to autos) lead us to conclude that some of the switching to low priced alternatives may not have turned out so well, and the consumer has learned from this experience.  For bigger purchases, you’ll know this as “buyer’s remorse”. 

One of the key pieces that was missing for me from the previous articles was a big “Now What” – as a marketer or a person working at an agency, what can I do about it?  This thinking is precisely why we added other questions around value, brand benefits and price (essentially, inputs into the value equation) into our Turbulent Times study.  The conclusions we make provide some clear actions steps for EMF members, as price and value are intricately linked.

To summarize action steps for this audience, we would suggest the following: 

i)                    Do your homework to determine your brand’s unique value proposition.  That is – which brand in my portfolio represents high value, which benefits can I highlight to illustrate added value versus my competition (i.e. ‘washes more dishes’ versus ‘soft on hands’…) and,

ii)                   How can I best showcase these benefits to overcome potential purchase barriers? 

While price discounting is a tactic that can be used, and is always a consideration, it tends to erode brand equity (and ROI/margins) over the long term.  Our consistent learning for over 15 years has illustrated the power of Experiential Marketing as an excellent method to convey new benefits or activate new learning areas, whether it is to overcome a shared barrier or perception, showcasing new value benefits or illustrating new ‘reasons to believe’.   

So, it’s time to act. Consumers are still buying. Our shared challenge is to break through the spending concerns that this economic environment has brought to consumers and make them feel good again, as “smart shoppers”.

For more information on the EMF, visit http://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.

As the headline notes, “if women hold so much buying power, why aren’t marketers doing a better job of communicating to them?  Kristin Laird outlines the key ways companies can meet the needs of female consumers”.

Of course, different consumer segments exist within the female consumer segment, so be sure you’re understanding your specific target fully prior to acting on any macro insights.

Women consumers: a snapshot

• 71% are more concerned with price than fashion or trends
• 60% enjoy sampling different brands of similar products (e.g. soft drinks) for the sake of comparison
• 47% are loyal to environmentally or socially responsible brands
• 58% actively look for products that offer coupon discounts
• 65% will encourage friends or relatives to purchase a product she likes
• 62% think store brand products are just as good as name brand products
• 39% say name brand products are a status symbol
• 58% usually purchase the lowest-priced product

IMI International provided Marketing Magazine a number of current consumer insights pertaining to female consumers, as a result of conducting three different studies earlier this year.  The studies provided these latest insights by looking at the attitudes and behaviours of Canadian women consumers 13 to 64. 

To read the full article, please visit Marketing Magazine or click on the link for IMI International’s Downloads page and find the article under the Media section.

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

Highlights from a recent IMI International study among senior Agency & Client personnel shows that Agencies may be more in-tune with the dramatic impact that Experiential Marketing can have.  Further, close to half of both Agencies and Clients think it is a tactic that should be “used more” since it is perceived to be “effective”.

As a result of the study, it is recommended that Agencies should continue to provide Clients with fact-based insights on effectiveness in order to establish confidence and investment in experiential marketing.

For more information on the EMF, visit http://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.

IMI International’s ConsumerTrack™ Insights Team recently completed its latest study, Brand and Private Label Purchases In A Recovering Economy in both Canada and USA.

This module provides a look into how shoppers are thinking about and buying Branded products and Private Label products in North America, how marketers have utilized these insights to their advantage and what marketing techniques will work the hardest as the economy recovers.

Topics include:

• Identifying the proliferation of private label brands, overall, category-specific and brand-specific,
• Investigating the impact the recession had on private label purchasing and the outlook once the recession comes to an end,
• Understanding why consumers do and do not purchase private label brands,
• Comparing marketing tactics and their effectiveness for name brands vs. private label products,
• Looking at the necessary features that both private labels and name brands must maintain in order for consumers to continue purchasing,
• Identifying current attitudes toward the economy, name brands and private labels and see how they relate to and/or explain current purchasing behaviour, and
• Providing recommendations how to counteract the emergence of private labels as a frequent purchase.

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

Insights from the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games:
IMI International completed an extensive consumer study that highlights how sponsoring brands performed at the Games.  As is relates to experiential marketing, IMI International learnings showed that highly engaged fans who follow their sports properties closely has a direct impact on brand attitudes and purchase intent.  It’s clear that the bigger the fan, the stronger the increases in these critical ROI measures.

Shopper Marketing Insights:
Shopper marketing grows in importance for brands, agencies and retailers, and measuring its full impact is also growing in importance:  Understand the direct and peripheral impacts that experiential marketing can generate in stores.  In this case study, experientially-activated shopper marketing campaigns show that they can change purchase shopping behavior patterns over time. For marketers, agencies and retailers, it’s important to remember that effective measurement should capture the full ROI impact including featured and peripheral brands.  Be sure to get all the credit you deserve!

For more information on the EMF, visit http://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.