Mediabrands Worldwide

Mediaweek: MAGNA Sees the World

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

-By Anthony Crupi

Perhaps it’s best if you think of it in terms of the training montage from the movie Rocky, the telescoped series of cuts that show Sylvester Stallone’s humble club fighter gearing up for a shot at the heavyweight champ.

As Bill Conti’s “Gonna Fly Now” soars on the soundtrack, Rocky jogs past garbage can fires, chugs a glass of raw eggs, pumps out a bunch of one-armed pushups and works the speed bag. Compressing the boxer’s entire training regimen in about three minutes, the segment ends with the now iconic shot of Rocky raising his fists in triumph atop the stone steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

While Elizabeth Herbst-Brady isn’t exactly climbing into the ring to fight Apollo Creed, the president and CEO of MagnaGlobal over the past several months has faced an uphill climb of her own, taking on the arduous task of redefining the company’s mission.

Under her guidance, the Interpublic Group property has transitioned from an upfront-focused national television unit to a research-driven investment group that works with the Mediabrands agencies (Initiative, UM, Hill Holiday, Deutsch, Mullen, etc.) on behalf of their global client base.

Because Herbst-Brady has effected such sweeping change in her brief tenure as the head of Magna––after having overseen some $2 billion in business as Starcom’s svp, director of national broadcast, she joined the firm in October 2008––a little montage is in order here. After a three-month in-house listening tour, Herbst-Brady began the process of opening up communications among IPG’s competitive agencies while crafting a blueprint to position new research models at the center of all of its global media negotiations.

As it was transforming its worldwide transactional processes, Magna was also busy stateside, expanding into local TV, national radio, print and digital. At the same time, it chucked the old Bob Coen forecast methodology in exchange for a new model based on revenues derived by media suppliers, rather than the hidebound method of making projections based on client and agency ad spend estimates.

“The basic idea behind this evolution was to take some core tenets about how you buy and what you buy, and then you apply those as they make sense,” said Herbst-Brady. “The core is always to do what’s in the best interest of your client. It’s not about aggrandizing the center; it’s about using the center to help work with the agencies on behalf of their clients.”

From an activation perspective, breaking down some of the higher walls that divided agencies like UM and Initiative has been a boon to many network partners. In the past, sellers had been stymied by some of the more competitive aspects that defined the agencies’ interrelationships.

“It’s definitely a lot less territorial,” said one senior media executive, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “It’s no longer the old Magna quagmire where the refusal to cooperate when competitive categories were on the table often meant that you couldn’t get anything done [with either agency]. It’s still a jump ball, but under the new structure, they somehow make it work.”

According to Jeff Lucas, evp, ad sales, MTV Networks Entertainment Group, the Herbst-Brady era has engendered markedly improved efficiencies. “In the last couple years it’s really kind of gelled in terms of working as a cohesive unit when it needs to,” Lucas said. “The different agencies have their own responsibilities to their clients (as they should), but they’ve really been able to come together, especially around upfront time.”

Lucas is also quick to laud Magna’s intelligence efforts. “A lot of credit has to go to Elizabeth, who was one of the first to introduce research into the equation back when she was at Starcom,” he said. “It’s the smart way to do business, and it helps reinforce what’s already a solid group of smart negotiators on the agency side.”

For her part, Herbst-Brady acknowledges the efforts of chief financial analyst Brian Wieser, who assumed the mantle of lead global forecaster from Coen in March 2009 (see sidebar on this page). The former Deutsche Bank researcher last summer introduced his new methodology, a far more trackable approach that set aside standard rate-card jockeying in favor of a system that examines verifiable supplier revenues.

“It seems like it offers a purer understanding of the marketplace. Because I’m buying from media suppliers, I shouldn’t really care how much so-and-so is spending,” Herbst-Brady said. “That’s not to say that we don’t consider what our competitors are doing, but the focus is really there on the networks.”

Magna’s efforts to produce global best practices is supplemented by intel supplied by agents in some 70 countries. “We apply what we know to inform the market and help set the agenda for the industry in a given country,” Wieser said. “It’s all part of an effort to explain why pricing behaves the way it does in different markets...and to work toward getting past the flawed notion that simplistic supply-and-demand changes drive prices.”

Wieser’s homegrown audience analysis efforts have also received positive reviews from Wall Street, so much so that a number of firms use Magna’s data as source material in their investor communications.

As the new-look MagnaGlobal steps into the ring, the company will mark its evolution by relaunching its client Web site, offering subscribers a vast analytics database as well as an extensive portal for news and information about media sellers.

Going live on July 26, the Magna site not only offers invaluable information about the marketplace, but it also provides a one-stop source for clients to discover what the marketplace is saying about itself.

“Our research is our foundation, and it gives us a distinct advantage,” Herbst-Brady said. “And our new structure allows us to be nimble and proactive across the board, which ensures we can really take advantage of the bigger pile without getting locked into one process…at the end of the day, that allows us to deliver best-in-class rates.”

Brian Wieser: Magna's New Oracle

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

-By Anthony Crupi

Bob Coen had been Madison Avenue’s unblinking oracle for 60 years, and when he stepped down as chief forecaster at Magna last March, it was the end of an era.

And while the biz respectfully marked the occasion of Coen’s retirement, those who crunch numbers for their daily bread say Magna tapped a more-than-worthy replacement in Brian Wieser.

Three months after taking the reins as senior vp and global forecasting director, Wieser announced that he had torn up the traditional methodology that informed how the industry gauged its own health, eschewing calculations based on ad revenue in favor of an assessment of media supplier revenues. The new approach neatly side-stepped unreliable rate-card data and estimates based on anecdotal evidence for a more verifiable set of data points culled from Security Exchange Commission filings and a wealth of ancillary sources such as census data, employment data, etc.

In keeping with Magna’s global ambitions, the Wieser forecast also was expanded to assess 70 overseas markets. “The prevailing forecasting model was very Old World, and while Wall Street used the information, it still wasn’t very comprehensive,” said MagnaGlobal president/CEO Elizabeth Herbst-Brady.

Now analysts from a roster of firms that includes Barclays Capital, Deutsche Bank and UBS support that assertion. “We use Magna’s actuals as the basis of our model,” said Barclays Capital analyst Anthony DiClemente. “There just isn’t another source out there that provides such good data.”

A former Wall Street hand himself––Wieser joined Magna from Deutsche Bank in ’03––explained that some of his methodology reflected his experience on the firm’s cable and satellite sector equity research team.

“Most analysts who care about this industry aren’t so much concerned with what the marketers are doing,” he said. “They’re trying to understand what the owners are doing and how that’s affecting business. Ultimately, we’re trying to understand media owners too.”

Broadcasting & Cable: Magna Sees Slightly Stronger Ad Revenues

Thu, 15 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Prediction based on continued economic improvement

- By Jon Lafayette

MagnaGlobal, part of ad buyer Mediabrands, raised its forecast for U.S. ad revenues in 2010 to 2.1% from 1.6%.

The forecast excludes the impact of the Olympics and elections on spending. With those factored in, ad revenue should be up 3.4% in 2010.

Magna sees national television, led by national cable, growing at 4.9% to $35.4 billion, slightly more than its earlier estimate. Local television will grow 9.6% to $18.5 billion, bouncing back from a 13.6% decline in 2009.

Magna's prediction for 2010 is based on continued improvement in the economy and the absence of a double-dip of recessionary conditions.

Over the longer term, Magna Global is forecasting 3.6% annualized growth between 2010 and 2015. Its earlier forecast called for 3.5% growth.

MagnaGlobal expects national television to grow 6.5% annually from 2010 to 2015 and local TV to be up 4.2% annually over the same time span.

Adweek: UM, MRM Win Wells Fargo Digital

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The bank spends about $35 million annually on digital efforts

-By Steve McClellan

Interpublic Group's Universal McCann and MRM have been selected by Wells Fargo to handle digital media and creative duties respectively after a review, according to sources. The agencies teamed up for the winning pitch, sources said.

The client spends approximately $35 million a year on digital media, according to sources. The pitch was handled out of San Francisco, where the client is based.

Previously, digital chores were handled by a number of unidentified agencies. Sources said much of the client's previous work was done on a project-by-project basis.

Omnicom's OMD, which works on traditional media chores for the client, participated in the pitch, per sources. OMD continues to handle offline media planning and buying duties for the client, which were not part of the review. The client's expenditures on traditional media totaled $140 million last year, down from $180 million in 2008, according to Nielsen.

The agencies either didn't return calls or referred questions to the client. A Wells Fargo rep indicated that the parties had not yet signed a service contract: "While I can confirm we are in contract negotiations, we decline to provide further information about this contract," the rep said.

Wells Fargo has $1.2 trillion in assets, providing banking, insurance, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance services. It operates community banks in 39 states.

For UM, it's the second piece of new business disclosed this week. Earlier, it won media chores furniture company Ethan Allen.

AdAge: Matt Freeman: Marketers Need More Specialization, Fewer Agency Relationships

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Q&A With CEO of Interpublic's Mediabrands Ventures

-By Michael Bush

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- When Matt Freeman jumped from startup shop Betwave to Interpublic Group of Cos.' Mediabrands back in January to head up its newly launched division called Ventures, which was responsible for overseeing 16 separate agencies, he landed right in the middle of the action.

Matt Freeman The day after he joined the company it was announced that Nick Brien, former CEO of Mediabrands at the time, and the man who hired Mr. Freeman, was stepping down to run Interpublic's McCann Worldgroup. Mr. Freeman, along with Matt Seiler, global CEO of Universal McCann; Richard Beaven, global CEO of Initiative; and Tara Comonte, chief operating officer and chief financial officer of Mediabrands, were then named to the office of the chairman, the new management structure that would run Mediabrands. But such situations aren't really anything new for Mr. Freeman or all that daunting.

In fact, it's probably nothing compared to the time his family moved to Italy and his mother informed him that he and his brother would be starting classes at an Italian public school that year. "We don't speak Italian," he remembers telling his mother. "Good luck," she told him.

"As jarring as it can be it teaches you how to get along with lots of people and quickly figure out situations that are new," Mr. Freeman said. "It comes in handy in the business world, especially if you're building a global company. Sometimes you're forced to go into foreign situations, and you need to figure things out quickly."

In his first six months at Mediabrands, Mr. Freeman said he has seen the strategic importance of media grow significantly. He said by serving clients as an investment adviser while being at the "nexus of consumer data" makes media the most creative and innovative sector to be in right now.

The former head of Omnicom's Tribal DDB said he still gets a hankering for the creative side of the business sometimes, but that it's appeased by the fact that the worlds of media and creative are coming closer together.

Mr. Freeman recently spoke with Ad Age about what exactly his role and the role of Ventures is within Interpublic; whether not having a media background has hindered him; what sectors are poised for growth; and whether Interpublic will name a CEO of Mediabrands, and if he'd want the job if it did.

Ad Age: Ventures was launched with your arrival when Nick Brien brought you in. What is your role and the role of Ventures within Interpublic?

Mr. Freeman: My role is twofold. As part of office of the chairman, I help run Mediabrands overall. With Ventures, I oversee the 16 companies within the diversified business units. There's UM and Initiative and 16 other specialized companies I call "the island of misfit toys," in a variety of areas. Cadreon on the demand-side, platform side; Reprise, a search and social specialist agency; Cubo, an agency in Brazil that we are starting to take global; and bartering agency Orion are a few of them. I oversee all of those companies with their CEOs reporting in to me.

Ad Age: How have the first six months been?

Mr. Freeman: It's been terrific. I love the agency world and the scale of working with major clients, and I also love the world of startups and venture capital. Ventures is a great combination of the two and was totally ideal for me. We have had tremendous growth this year, and a lot of it is taking businesses like Cadreon and Reprise that have seen growth in the U.S. and expanding them globally.

Ad Age: How has it been running Mediabrands with Matt Seiler, global CEO of Universal McCann; Richard Beaven, global CEO of Initiative and Tara Comonte, COO and CFO of Mediabrands?

Mr. Freeman: It's been great just because of the diverse backgrounds the four of us have. We all bring very different skills to the table, and it's been more like meeting with friends than anything else.

Ad Age: How often do you meet to discuss Mediabrands business? With four different schedules it must get tough to find time to connect.

Mr. Freeman: We're together or on the phone on a weekly basis, if not more often. We spent the last month together doing financial planning around the world, so I don't think you could get much closer. And we have a bat-signal deal with each other, where our meetings take priority over other things.

Ad Age: Will there be a point where Interpublic names one person to run it?

Mr. Freeman: I don't know; that's a question for Michael Roth. But everybody is happy and busy for the time being.

Ad Age: Should that point come, would you have any interest in being that person? Would you make a play for it?

Mr. Freeman: I have a pretty rich day job right now, so ...

Ad Age: You have your hands in all these different sectors, so what changes are you seeing in the marketplace?

Mr. Freeman: Generally speaking, all clients need two things right now: increased specialization and increased unification. Part of what we're working on is increasing the number of specialized services we have, diversifying from the trading business to real-time data stores and much more complex data businesses. But we're also unifying all of the services we have on a singular platform so we can be more specialized for clients while becoming more unified in the way we deliver to them.

Clients need more specialization and less agencies. Five years ago, if you could run an SEM campaign you were a god. Today it's not enough to just do SEM you have to SEO as well. And it's not enough to just do both of those; you have to do real-time bidding on display, and you need an expertise in commerce and creative production. The specialization continues, and if you extrapolate out suddenly clients need 10,000 different specialist services from their agencies. But they can't manage 10,000 different agency relationships. So the real challenge for a holding company like Mediabrands is figuring out how to diversify and get best-in-breed companies and then unify them on a singular delivery platform for a client because J&J or Microsoft don't want to manage 10,000 relationships.

Ad Age: What sectors are poised for significant growth?

Mr. Freeman: From our perspective, the growth areas are on the Cadreon-like audience-network side, search and social and hyper-local is emerging as a tremendous area of growth for us. And we anticipate tremendous growth in the shopper-sciences sector as well.

Ad Age: Aside from overseeing these businesses, you're also pushing collaboration between them. Is there more collaboration at Mediabrands than there has been in the past?

Mr. Freeman: Yes. When you think about a business like Geomentum, which is doing hyper-local media, it has a natural intersection with Cadreon, an audience-based marketplace, which has a natural intersection with Reprise, our search agency. It's not that we're merging the companies or brands -- but we are merging the tools, platforms and data behind-the-scenes, because they are much more powerful when shared between the companies.

Ad Age: You don't come from a media background, so what challenges has that posed?

Mr. Freeman: None, really, because the definition of media is broadening pretty quickly. The old spots-and-dots model is not the basis of media today.

Ad Age: What experiences and skills from the creative side have you been able to apply at Ventures?

Mr. Freeman: I started out as a copywriter in this business, and the practice of thinking through how a brand connects with a consumer has been a constant in my career. It's no different sitting in this chair then back when I was a junior copywriter.

Ad Age: Mediabrands has maintained a good amount of momentum for over a year now, especially with Universal McCann's winning streak, how do you plan on helping maintain it?

Mr. Freeman: We have really centered our growth plan on using the diversified and venture companies to better arm Universal McCann and Initiative with specialized services. As their major client relationships grow, we help diversify those client relationships, and a lot of the growth is coming because they are becoming more of a full-service provider to the clients they are working with.

WSJ: Social Media Draws a Crowd

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Start-Ups and Established Agencies Look to Carve a Niche in Online Action

-By Suzanne Vranica

As more and more advertising dollars flow into social media, some Madison Avenue firms are seeking to grab a piece of the action. But it will be a tough fight as the space is overrun with companies seeking to own the segment, from start-ups to public-relations firms.

Universal McCann, the media-buying firm owned by Interpublic Group of Cos., is bolstering its social-media offering by launching a practice this week called Rally. The division will help marketers develop campaigns, track online chatter about their brands and measure how those campaigns perform. Headed by Heidi Browning, a former MySpace executive, Rally will house several new social-media hires. MySpace, like The Wall Street Journal, is owned by News Corp.

Publicis Groupe's digital umbrella organization, Vivaki, says it also will open a social-media consulting practice by the end of the year. The new group will pool Publicis' social-media tools and experts and use them to beef up the social-media practices that many of Publicis' agencies have already established. Rishad Tobaccowala, chief strategy officer at Vivaki, says he is willing to use his mergers-and-acquisitions budget to bolster the practice if needed.

The push to form a more formidable presence in social-media advertising is being fueled by the increasing number of marketers who are eager to figure out how they can use sites such as Facebook Inc., which has almost 500 million users, and Twitter, with more than 120 million registered users, as a marketing weapon.

"Social media is now part of all our clients' plans; we can't not be in this space," says Matt Seiler, chief executive of Universal McCann.

Ad spending on social networks world-wide is expected to rise 14% this year to $2.5 billion, according to research firm eMarketer. Although social media represents only a fraction of the $55 billion online-ad market, it is one of the fastest-growing segments.

Some corporations have taken a hands-on role in crafting their efforts: PepsiCo Inc.'s Gatorade, for example, recently created its "Mission Control Center," which is set up like a broadcast-television control room and is charged with monitoring the sports drink around the clock across social-media networks.

But as marketers look to make bigger commitments, they are increasingly seeking experts to navigate the burgeoning space.

Earlier this year, Chrysler Group LLC tapped New Media Strategies, a unit of publisher Meredith Corp., to handle its social-media tasks. In March Kraft Foods Inc. hired 360i, a digital ad agency owned by Japan's largest ad company, Dentsu Inc. The agency has been tasked with monitoring the social-media sites for some of its brands such as Oreo and Jell-O. It also develops campaigns. The agency recently created the "World's Fan of the Week" promotion that appears on Oreo's Facebook page.

Microsoft Corp. is currently searching for a social-media firm to handle duties for its Xbox videogame system, work that is now handled by several of Xbox's agencies, according to people familiar with the matter. Asset-management firm State Street Corp. also has begun looking at firms. A spokeswoman for Microsoft declined to comment.

"We have talked to some PR firms that appear to have established valid expertise over the years, and we are also interested in the new social-media firms that are bubbling up," says Hannah Grove, State Street's head of global marketing.

Creative ad agencies, digital ad firms, social-media boutiques, public-relations outfits and publishing companies are all clambering to offer advice, all claiming to be best suited to handle the task.

"You can't walk out your house without bumping into a social-media expert today, says Sean Corcoran, an analyst at Forrester Research. "The reality is the space is still very much a Wild West."

Analysts say many marketers are more interested in hiring smaller firms that have expertise in the field. Last year Domino's Pizza Inc. hired New Media Strategies, a word-of-mouth marketing firm, as its agency of record for social media.

"A lot of companies right now that specialize in PR or advertising are trying to do this on the side and the thing we liked in NMS is they specialize in social media," said Chris Brandon, a spokesman for the pizza chain.

Analysts and ad executives say the space won't be dominated by small competitors for long because advertising holding companies and bigger public-relations firms will likely ramp up acquiring the smaller boutique firms, much like they have done with other digital areas such as search advertising.

"I do think this is the year for consolidation in social media," says Ms. Browning, president of Universal McCann's Rally unit.

Brandweek: Magna Revises Ad Forecast Upwards

Fri, 16 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

-By Anthony Crupi

IPG's Magna Global has revised its 2010 U.S. media forecast, noting that it now expects suppliers to generate almost $170 billion in advertising revenue this year.

The new outlook pegs growth at 2.1 percent vs. Magna's earlier forecast of 1.6 percent year-over-year improvement. Both figures exclude political and Olympic ad spending. With the Vancouver Games and election spending thrown into the mix, ad revenue should rise 3.4 percent in 2010.

Led by national cable spending, television will remain the strongest media sector, accounting for 40 percent of the overall pie and growing 10.4 percent to $56.4 billion. Cable ad dollars are expected to increase by 4.9 percent vs. 2009 to $35.4 billion overall. Magna sees local TV growing 9.6 percent to $18.5 billion, rebounding from a 13.6 percent decline a year ago.

Online advertising continues to grow at a rapid clip, with Magna projecting 11 percent growth in the sector to $25.3 billion.

Meanwhile, magazine growth will be muted -- 0.5 percent to $15.7 billion -- while radio is expected to climb 5 percent to $15.1 billion.

Over the long haul, Magna anticipates 3.6 percent annual growth between 2010 and '15, up slightly from its earlier forecast of 3.5 percent.

Exchange4Media: Brand Mediabrands officially in India now through Reprise

Tue, 29 Jun 2010 00:00:00 GMT

A 51:49 JV between Mediabrands and Interactive Avenues

-By Noor Fathima Warsia

After over a year of conversations, Mediabrands has finally announced its digital plans in India. Making the announcement, Michael Roth, Chairman and CEO, Interpublic Group said, “This is exciting for us since India is one of our key markets from an IPG perspective. This adds to our presence in the market, and more importantly marks our digital plans in India. This reinforces our commitment in India.”

Anjali Hegde, one of Interactive Avenue’s founding partners, would be heading the JV, which will assume the name of Reprise Media in India, as its CEO and will report to the new Reprise Media, India Board as well as Mediabrands Asia Pacific Regional Leadership. Mediabrands will hold a 51per cent stake in the joint venture, while Interactive Avenues will hold the remaining 49 per cent.

Interactive Avenues has already been working with Lodestar Universal in India as Interactive Universal for the last 18 months. While this entity has not been formalised as yet, this development marks the official structure. The partnership formalises the long-time successful working relationship between Interactive Avenues and Mediabrands.

exchange4media readers would recall that the development was first reported in March 2009.

The new business unit will specialise in search and social marketing and also offer a full scope of digital services, which include digital media strategy and investment, digital creative development, campaign implementation and post activity analysis.

Anjali Hegde, CEO Reprise Media, India, said, “Interactive Avenues welcomes this opportunity to partner with IPG’s Mediabrands on the Reprise Media venture in India. Through Interactive Avenue’s leadership in digital marketing and Mediabrands’ leading global agency network, the possibilities for Reprise Media India have no bounds.”

“The Aditya Birla Group is convinced about the power of the Digital medium and will aggressively use this medium in our marketing efforts,” said Ajay Kakar, Chief Marketing Officer, Financial Services, Aditya Birla Group. He added, “Reprise Media demonstrated a deep level of understanding of our business as well as expertise across all facets of digital marketing and we look forward to working closely with them.”

Shashi Sinha, CEO, Lodestar UM (Universal McCann), added here, “With an online community of approximately 81 million, India represents one of the world’s largest Internet markets. But behind this impressive number, India still remains a multi-faceted and highly complex digital landscape. With Reprise Media India, we have the digital marketing experts that can navigate the digital space effectively and offer our clients unrivalled value for their campaigns, especially as this space reaches critical mass in the coming years.”

Adweek: UM Rallies Around Social Media

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The global initiative will be extended to more markets in short order

- By Steve McClellan

IPG's Universal McCann has launched a social media practice called Rally@UM. It's led by Heidi Browning, UM's San Francisco-based evp and global digital officer.

An agency rep said the practice has already kicked off in India. Plans for expansion into Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Asia Pacific and Latin America are in the works.

To start in the U.S., Rally@UM will have three full-time staffers divided between San Francisco and New York. Services include monitoring social media conversations, insights and measurement, strategy and activation, customer relationship management and social organization consulting.

UM said it was creating Rally to help clients optimize the budding array of marketing opportunities presented by social media channels.

"We couldn't properly call ourselves a 'full-service media agency' without delving more deeply into social media," said Matt Seiler, UM's global CEO. "Social media is changing the marketing world and UM is adapting accordingly."

The move is partly an attempt to better integrate social media services with more traditional offerings from UM to clients, added Browning.

"Social media tends to be siloed in companies and/or fragmented across many agencies, leaving marketers wondering how it impacts their marketing mix and business outcomes," she said. "We view social media as the central nervous system, coordinating and connecting important functions of an organization."

MediaPost: Analyze This: Cadreon TV Teams With Visible World

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

- By David Goetzl

IPG's Cadreon unit is expanding into advanced advertising on television, adding services to its digital expertise. A new Cadreon TV operation has a partnership with technology provider Visible World and together, they have launched a campaign for dealer associations affiliated with an unnamed automotive client.

Cadreon, which seeks to match brands with relevant audiences online, uses algorithms to identify the ideal targeting platform. It also offers campaign management and analytics and is aiming to bring the easier online targeting to TV.

Formed in 2009, Cadreon is a division within IPG's Mediabrands. With Cadreon TV, it will work with its media-buying agencies, such as Universal McCann in the group.

Visible World, among other initiatives, works with cable operators to serve as a conduit for addressable and interactive advertising. In the addressable space, it can help a brand run different spots in different ZIP codes at the same time.

While Cadreon offered no details about its efforts for the auto client, it is possible that a Chrysler dealer, for example, may want to simultaneously run a spot in one area for a Sebring Convertible and for a PT Cruiser in another.

"We are heavily focused on delivering television advertising against high-quality targeted audiences rather than focusing solely on CPMs," stated Cadreon CEO Brendan Moorcroft, noting that while digital is growing, television remains "the most significant medium for most national advertisers."

MediaPost: Geomentum Taps Forrester's Bradner As President, Will Accelerate Momentum

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

- By Joe Mandese

Geomentum, the hyper-local media and marketing unit within Interpublic's Mediabrands division, has hired long-time industry analyst and former marketer Lisa Bradner as president. Bradner, who most recently was vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, will report to Geomentum CEO Dave Walker.

As president, Bradner will be responsible for building the agency's account management and consulting teams to service clients in categories ranging from consumer packaged goods to retail and banking.

Formed nearly a year ago, Geomentum was conceived to consolidate Interpublic's massive local media-buying and marketing services units - newspaper buying giant NSA Media, Yellow Pages and local search specialist Wahlstrom, and out-of-home unit Outdoor Services - and to integrate them with new, state-of-the-art digital and database marketing.

The unit, which controls more than $2 billion in traditional local media, has an expansionary view of digital growth, and has big plans for an array of rapidly growing sub-segments of the industry, including digital out-of-home, so-called "shopper media," mobile, and local Internet. The agency's motto is that clients should "own the neighborhood" by harnessing the power of location-based marketing.

Bradner brings more than 20 years of consumer marketing, new product, and business development experience to the Geomentum team. At Forrester, she helped advise some of the nation's top CMOs on their digital integration, media mix and brand metric strategies. One of her chief clients was Procter & Gamble, where she helped create, and continues to sit on its Digital Advisory Board.

Prior to Forrester, Bradner spent more than 15 years in consumer marketing, including posts at American Express, Fortune Brands, Sears and Time Inc.

MediaPost: Hyping Hyper-Local: Q&A With Geomentum's Lisa Bradner

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

-By Joe Mandese

Media Daily News: You made a big move from analyst to marketing practitioner. When you were at Forrester, what was the No.1 untapped opportunity for your marketing clients, that you hope to impact as a practitioner now that you're on the agency side?

Lisa Bradner: Marketers are challenged by so many shifting priorities and most of them continue to take a "top down" approach to marketing. They put the big idea out there via national media and then nibble at the fringes of engagement with social, mobile and other digital initiatives. I'd like to help them use data and analytics to think differently about marketing: start with your best markets and most engaged customers and create relevant product experiences for them and then use technology to replicate that model nationally.

MDN: There seems to be a lot of buzz surrounding hyper-local, including some promising new platforms such as Canoe Venture's, Navic and FourSquare. What's the real deal? How far along are we here?

Bradner: We're at the beginning of understanding how technology can match the right message to the right customer at the right time, and location is a core component of that. Geo opt-in is getting all the attention right now (you checked in so I know where you are) but we shouldn't discount the importance of broad place-based market intelligence as a complement.

MDN: What role will Geomentum play in helping to accelerate the hyper-local marketplace?

Bradner: For many years hyper-local remained in the "too hard" pile. We're bringing scale and technology that will bring together the intimacy of a local experience with the scale to drive marketers' business.

MDN: Hyper-local is creating a new white space between local (DMA-level) and CRM (household-level). Why would a marketer want to get into this arena?

Bradner:: At Geomentum we focus on "one-to-some." By targeting to the neighborhood you can get enormous relevance and customization without the expense and risk of juggling a lot of personal data. We help national marketers create a local feel so they can emphasize the products and services that are best for the neighborhood they're trying to reach.

MDN: Hyper-local seems to be getting tested across a variety of platforms. When and how will this really scale?

Bradner: Three misperceptions are holding back hyper-local today: That it's expensive, it's hard to scale and it's hard to measure. In fact, hyper-local can scale cost effectively if you allow technology to support decision-making. We're hand-in-glove with the vendor-side hyper-local providers to make this smoother and easier for marketers to dive in. Also, hyper-local is not just a shiny-thing. It can be measured, --not just in impressions. Our decision support system lets clients see all media and how it drives store-level success for every single store. We're talking about dollars and cents by store, by neighborhood. That's ROI if I've ever seen it.

MDN: What categories or businesses will benefit most from a hyper-local approach?

Bradner: Any advertiser in more than two neighborhoods will see returns from a hyper-local approach. We're in a time where the nation has tremendous variance within a single DMA, or local market. We have the ability to leverage insights about these micro economies to inform the way we market, message and measure success in those neighborhoods. This rolls up to an incredibly strategic way to activate precision marketing that improves relevancy, while cutting waste - efficiently.

At Forrester, I worked with CMOs who were desperately seeking a way to understand how their media is impacting transactions. They knew certain markets were failing, but didn't know why, or how to change it. Hyper local is really a paradigm shift for so many marketers - yet it's really the safest and most accountable thing they can be doing with their marketing data and dollars. The term "hyper-local" may be flashy, but the concept is very solid and accountable.

AdAge: Brands on Sidelines as Disney, Google and MTV Charge Into Social Games

Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Sale of Virtual Goods More Powerful than Ad Dollars, for Now

-By Kunur Patel

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- There's a land grab in social gaming, but at this point, it doesn't look like there's much room for advertisers.

In FarmVille, more that 1 million people have purchased Cascadian Farm organic blueberries, the game's first branded crop. On Tuesday, Disney acquired top-three developer Playdom for $563 million plus $200 million in incentives. Google, meanwhile, is reportedly in talks with Playdom, Electronic Arts and Zynga in a social-gaming push. And MTV Networks this month acquired social-game developer Social Express and plans to launch games based on its TV shows later this year.

With the draw of their established storylines and characters in social games -- not to mention well-oiled marketing machines -- established media companies hope they can use casual gaming to grow and interact with their already massive audiences.

"When media companies integrate their brands, it's going to be easier for people to get into the games because they are familiar and that will expand the market," said Justin Smith, founder of social-game research firm Inside Network.

Despite isolated deals, the revenue engine for casual gaming isn't brand advertising but virtual goods, which is part of the category's broad appeal to media companies that would like to rely less on marketing dollars. "From a raw revenue perspective, the successful social games don't need brands, in the sense that their monetization model is directly from the player," said Kevin Slavin, co-founder and managing director of Area/Code, a game developer and agency.

That could change as the number of games proliferate and the bigger players start trying to diversify their revenue streams. "The reality is that most social games are not successful," he added. "They then need to find diversified means of revenue."

However, the leading players in the space have been circumspect about bringing in brand advertising for fear it will destroy the game experience for consumers who are forking over real-world dollars for seeds, farm animals and body armor.

"There are certain social games where it's hard to make brands work and certain brands that will work and others that won't," said Ravi Mehta, VP-product for social-game distributor Viximo. "Though, in the social-gaming industry as a whole, we are starting to get new games that are more brand friendly."

But the main hurdle to brand advertisers in getting into the gaming space is that the biggest publishers are scaling just fine without ad revenue. After just three years, Zynga is projected to bring in as much as $500 million this year almost entirely from the sale of virtual goods, according to Inside Network, and reports 240 million users playing its games, which include FarmVille, Mafia Wars and, most recently, FrontierVille. The entire social-gaming market is expected to bring in $835 million this year, up from $90 million in 2009 -- though with new buyers and growing interest, Mr. Smith is expects he'll have to revise that number upward.

Despite early interest from advertisers, Zynga has been cautious with brand programs. In May, Manny Anekal, director of brand advertising for Zynga, told Ad Age that his company has had to be selective about advertising partners, as brand integrations could potentially take away from the game.

Nevertheless, FarmVille recently launch its first branded crop, Cascadian Farm organic blueberries. In less than four days, more than 310 million blueberry crops were planted in the game and more than 1 million people have purchased it. Zynga declined to comment for this story.

Despite its established relationships with advertisers, MTV plans to tackle the business first through sales of virtual goods rather than advertising, especially since brand integrations gone wrong could potentially scare users and their micropayments away. "Like anything, if we build out a mass audience, we'll certainly work to find ways to continue to monetize and go down the advertising road," said Steve Youngwood, exec VP-digital at Nickelodeon and MTV Networks' kids and family group.

At this stage, the easiest way for brands to get into gaming is to create their own games, rather than try to shoe-horn a campaign into an existing game. But that raises the problem of scale: Without banners and buttons, each brand integration needs to be built from the ground up.

"Right now brand programs need to be handcrafted," said Area/Code's Mr. Slavin. "That's part of their value and part of their liability. ...It's not like buying a 30-second spot or banner ad. What you're doing is figuring out how best to embed yourself in a system."

To bring brands in, women's blog network Sugar has built its own social game, Retail Therapy, from scratch with a number of marquee fashion brands from the start. In the game, users design their own boutiques and stock them with clothes from brands partners Banana Republic, Barneys New York, Diane von Furstenberg, Gap, Juicy Couture, Topshop and Tory Burch.

Like the category in general, Retail Therapy is an appointment-based game: Users have to come back at certain intervals to achieve tasks and can pay real money to speed up the process. Players also pay up for virtual clothes, which cost anywhere from $1 to dress an avatar to $100 for stocking an entire store.

Brian Sugar, founder-CEO of Sugar, wouldn't share the economics of such deals, but the point is to sell virtual stuff. "The game is certainly built around players using real dollars to buy virtual Louboutins [designer shoes]," said Mr. Sugar. "But we are also actively in talks with the brands to discuss all the things they can do in the game."

WSJ: Agencies' New Frontier: China Web Ads

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Publicis, Interpublic to Launch Digital-Ad Buying Units in the Country, Hoping to Capitalize on a Fast-Growing Market

Publicis Groupe SA and Interpublic Group of Cos., hoping to capitalize on projections for fast-paced growth in the country, are now planning to launch digital-ad buying units in China, company executives say.

Most large advertising companies, like Publicis, have been investing in China for several years through acquisitions and partnerships—a move that provided a crucial buffer during the economic downturn in the U.S. and Europe. WPP PLC, in particular, has established a strong foothold in China by snapping up companies and aggressively pursuing partners for specialty areas.

The next frontier is the business of buying online ads—a lucrative sector that has become a sophisticated business in the U.S. Advertising companies are looking to take their expertise and apply it to China's fast-growing digital market, where the Internet population now ranks as the largest in the world. The efforts are likely to face some hurdles though, ranging from technology issues to relations with the Chinese government.

The total Chinese ad market is expected to grow 14.4% this year to $21.1 billion. Of that, Internet ad revenues are expected to reach $2.5 billion, up 25% from 2009, according to Interpublic's media agency Magna Global. In comparison, U.S. ad revenue will increase 3.4% this year to $138.9 billion, with Internet advertising growing 13% to $25.7 billion.

WPP Chief Executive Martin Sorrell says one-third of the growth of the world's media market this year will be driven by business from China. From a scale and size perspective, China is the most important media market, he says.

"China represents the bull's eye and digital is incredibly important," says Sir Martin.

WPP and Omnicom Group Inc. both say they are on the prowl to acquire more digital-ad firms in the region. On Monday, WPP said it had acquired a minority stake in a Chinese digital-advertising measurement company.

John Wren, chief executive of Omnicom, said on an earnings conference call Tuesday, referring to acquisitions: "We expect to see more activity going forward, especially in markets like Asia."

Publicis's digital advertising group, VivaKi, is deploying advertising models it has developed in the U.S. for online search, display and video advertising in China, says Curt Hecht, chief executive of the digital-ad unit VivaKi Nerve Center.

The company has formed a partnership with Shanghai-based technology company Menlo Technologies to develop a system that will allow marketers to buy advertisements from online exchanges that operate auctions to match ad buyers and sellers to ad spaces on websites. Advertisers will be able to specify whether to buy a particular ad and how much to pay for it based on data about the consumer visiting a particular Web page.

Interpublic's media buying arm Mediabrands is in talks to acquire or establish a partnership with local online advertising companies to launch a similar initiative as Publicis, says Quentin George, chief digital officer at Mediabrands. Interpublic has trailed its rivals in investing in the China ad market.

The companies face a number of hurdles. For one, online advertising technologies are still nascent and building a new architecture will take time.

Online ad exchanges have yet to take hold in China, for instance. Most websites sell their ad space for a set time period. Other online advertising technologies are still developing, such as the existence of third-party companies to deliver online ads to websites. Ad executives say this limits marketers' ability to check whether their ads appeared online, analyze the results and capture data about their consumers.

"There is nothing that competes with China in terms of the opportunity for scale. On the demand side, it is very high. On the actual doing stuff side—it is a lot more complicated than most people would like it to be," Interpublic's Mr. George says.

Another hurdle could be relations with the Chinese government, as Google Inc.'s recent tensions with government officials over censorship requirements highlight. Google said earlier this year that it would phase out censored search deals with its Chinese partners. Though, Google recently said China would renew a license it needed to continue using its Chinese Web address, questions continue to linger over its future in the country.

Google dominates the search advertising marketing in the U.S. But doing business in China means brokering relationships with a new set of Chinese-based digital players, such as search engine Baidu.com Inc. and Internet portal Tencent Inc.

Despite projections for digital advertising in China, television also still drives the advertising market in the country as it remains the easiest way to reach audiences, executives say. "A lot of the emerging markets are still big TV markets," says James Dix, an analyst with Wedbush Securities. "But some of the emerging technology on the digital side could leapfrog traditional media."

Adweek: Cadreon, Visible World in Ad Targeting Pact

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 00:00:00 GMT

The system has the potential to change how TV ads are bought and sold

- By Steve McClellan

In a deal that has the potential to sharply alter the model for the way TV ads are bought and sold, Interpublic Group's Cadreon is bringing its demand-side Internet ad platform approach to cable via an agreement with tech company Visible World. That firm's targeted television platform now reaches 100 million households across the U.S.

The two companies have been working since late last year to sync up the two systems in a way that will enable Cadreon to offer clients the same kind of dynamic ad-serving capability on cable TV that it has been providing to its Internet advertisers.

Targeted TV advertising technology has been in development for years, but the industry has been slow on adoption, with most of the action occurring at the local cable level. (Visible World said that 200 advertisers have used its system, usually in deals that cover just a handful of markets.) Experts say that part of the problem is that national networks haven't figured out how to fully exploit a targeted TV business model.

"I always thought the first massive one of these agreements would come from one of the traditional TV networks," seeking to offer a more efficient ad platform, said Seth Haberman, CEO of Visible World. Now it appears that the buy side may spur the industry to action. "These guys [at Cadreon] sprung like Athena out of Zeus fully formed and said we need a new set of wheels to work in TV."

Haberman believes that trading desks at other big ad shops may serve as additional catalysts for growth in the addressable world. Cadreon TV is making the single biggest effort in the space to date, he said. "For the first time you'll see real scale [in the targeted space] with hundreds of ads seen by millions of people, all determined by algorithms and data as opposed to human instinct," Haberman said.

The new Cadreon TV offering will be fully rolled out through the Visible World footprint within three months, according to Cadreon CEO Brendan Moorcroft.

Visible World "brings an infrastructure for ad serving to TV not unlike what Atlas or Doubleclick do" for the Internet, said Moorcroft. "It allows us to apply intelligence for TV buying like you do for the Internet."

Cadreon TV has been working with one of IPG's major auto clients to test the new service's capabilities over the past several months. One technique is to track Web users who appear to be researching new car purchases and then using the Visible World platform to place TV ads in front of those same users. Other advertisers will be coming on board shortly, per Moorcroft.

Moorcroft declined to identify the advertisers. But in a statement being issued shortly on the Visible World deal, IPG reports that Cadreon sibling Universal McCann "has assumed additional creative production responsibilities for the automotive client to take full advantage of Cadreon TV to increase strategic influence on the media planning process with the goal of increasing dealer traffic and driving sales."

IPG added, "This integrated approach represents a major shift in the holding company's strategy to bring these advanced solutions to market for clients, which will dramatically impact market adoption."

Late last year when UM won the Chrysler account, the agency and the client confirmed that the scope of work included creative retail chores for the carmaker's major brands including Jeep, Chrysler, Dodge and Ram. Discussing the assignment in January, UM CEO Matt Seiler said that the "communication requirements and the integration needs and so on suggested . . . housing [those creative retail duties] in one place to support all four brands was just smarter."

While the traditional ad buying model for TV focuses on audiences to channels and programs, targeted approaches focus on aggregating audiences who engage in certain types of purchase behavior or Web usage or who have similarities like owning a pet. "It's about selecting the right messages to put in front of those audiences," said Moorcroft.

The Visible World system offers a "substantial opportunity to shift money from national to local" media, said Moorcroft. "The efficiency of running national is now going to be questioned because you can now be more effective by localizing a message and buying locally without the penalty of a premium."

Ad Age: MPG Global CEO Maria Luisa Francoli: Competitors Be Warned

Tue, 03 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Media Shop Implementing Changes, Will Be a Threat in 12 Months

-By Michael Bush

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- In the past couple of years, MPG's North American operations have had a lackluster track record. It was in late April that the head of the region, Shaun Holliday, exited and the agency -- in what it said was a demonstration of the importance of improving its U.S. business -- formally appointed Maria Luisa Francoli, its global leader, to also head its North American division.

It's been only three months, but she claims cultural and strategic changes are in motion that are having a positive impact on the attitude of people within the Havas agency. For her part, Ms. Francoli is intent on making her presence felt.

"Since 2007, I have been getting more and more involved in the U.S. operation, but I was doing it in a more behind-the-scenes role," she told Ad Age. "Now I am more out front and taking charge in a very direct way. I'm spending more time with the U.S. team and U.S. clients and figuring out ways to make our work more effective and efficient in North America."

While vacationing in her native Spain, Ms. Francoli took some time to speak with Ad Age about changing the culture at MPG in the U.S., becoming more competitive and changing competitors' perception of MPG as a non-threat when it comes to new business pitches. She also addressed what a potential Aegis deal would mean for the media shop.

Ad Age: What are some of your areas of focus since taking on the leadership role for MPG's North America operations?

Ms. Francoli: One of the main things I'm focusing on is the culture of the company around service to the client. That is something we have been working on more and more over the last few years. Secondly, I am working to change the culture of the company in hopes of making it a more collaborative culture. We spend a lot of time at work, and we need to make it a place for communication, collaboration and fun. We want it to be a place where people are excited to come to work everyday. I'm meeting with all of our teams and giving them the platform and forums to discuss their main concerns and ideas that they want to see put into action.

Ad Age: Do you think that type of culture was slipping away at MPG's North American offices over the past few years?

Ms. Francoli: Compared to other offices in our network, we could elevate the level of that type of culture in the U.S. office, yes. I wouldn't say it is slipping away, but we could enhance and increase it. After all, it's a people business, so if you listen and empower your people and make it possible for them to contribute, you get much better results. We have over 400 brains working for us in the U.S., and it's good to provide a way for them to contribute their best. We will be a better organization if we do that.

Ad Age: What types of things did clients and employees feel was lacking when Shaun Holliday was running the North American group?

Ms. Francoli: It's not so much lacking as it is a difference in the way I like to do things. Client contact is the key to our business. Knowing what our clients are thinking, feeling and what their challenges are is the key to being successful and delivering effective strategies to them. We can help clients in two ways. One is being closer to the client themselves, and the other is my being closer to the teams that are working with the clients on a day-to-day basis. That intimacy and closeness is what allows you to bring the right solutions to the clients. This is something that I'm changing and something that I didn't do all that much when I was in my global role. I was meeting with clients that were doing more global work and not so much the North American-centric clients.

Ad Age: Was meeting with clients something Mr. Holliday wasn't doing?

Ms. Francoli: That wasn't his main area of concentration, but it is mine.

Ad Age: The belief among a number of your U.S. competitors is that MPG isn't seen as much of a threat when it comes to new business. Do you think that's a fair assessment?

Ms. Francoli: No, I don't think so. However, if they are saying that, they may have felt that in the last few months we were not as competitive as we have been, but we will take note of that, and we are concentrating on new business now.

Ad Age: What can you do to change that perception?

Ms. Francoli: The best thing to do to change that is to win new business, and we are making a very concentrated effort towards doing that. We have some wins in the past year or so that may have not been as well-publicized like LVMH and Panasonic and some other smaller wins. But perception is reality, and the best thing we can do is to go out and win more new business and make sure people know that we won it.

Ad Age: What are the biggest challenges for MPG in North America?

Ms. Francoli: There's a combination of challenges, and some impact all of us as an industry, like the changes in technology, changes in how consumers use that technology and how that dramatically alters the way consumers interact with brands. Coming out of the recession has been a huge challenge to the way we work with our clients as well as the way we deal with our own internal affairs. In our case, since we are a smaller company compared to some of our competitors in the U.S., I like to believe we have an advantage in terms of it being easier to bring everybody in on major decisions that need to be made. Sometimes that smaller size isn't perceived as an advantage, but I think it is an advantage when it comes to rallying your employees behind one cause.

Ad Age: You currently handle media duties for Reckitt Benckiser in India, which recently caused a stir for charging media agencies a fee to take part in an agency review. Why did you decide not to take part, and what are your thoughts of this idea of charging agencies a fee to pitch?

Ms. Francoli: We declined to participate because we didn't feel the fee the client was asking us to pay justified our taking part in the review. Advertisers are free to set the conditions they want whenever they call a pitch, but I personally don't agree with this approach. But, as agencies, we are free to accept or not accept these conditions that advertisers put forward.

Ad Age: Rumors of Havas Chairman Vincent Bollore eventually acquiring Aegis continue to make the rounds. If that were to happen, in your opinion, what could that mean for MPG?

Ms. Francoli: If both Aegis and MPG are smart and manage it well, there could be opportunities for both companies. We are fine the way we are, but if that eventually happens and brings opportunity, I'm sure we will be smart enough to make sure we don't miss the opportunities that could benefit both companies.

Ad Age: What's in store for MPG over the next 12 months?

Ms. Francoli: I hope we have a couple of very interesting new business wins to discuss. And afterward, if you ask our competitors about us, the story will have hopefully changed, and they will realize how much of a threat we are.

MediaPost: Interpublic Takes Media Lab From Theory To Application:

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Initial Foray Focuses On, Well, Applications

-By Joe Mandese

After years of studying the theory of how emerging media are impacting the consumer advertising marketplace, Interpublic's renowned media lab is restructuring and shifting its focus to practical , real-world application. Not surprisingly, one of its first applications is, well, an application. Specifically, it will test and deploy new forms of online advertising that dynamically connect with other software or databases. The new format, which Interpublic executives believe could be the next big breakthrough in advertising, exploits so-called APIs, which in tech industry parlance means "applications based interface," but which from a marketer's or agency's point-of-view means advertising will simply become a pathway to any kind of programming a creative thinker, media strategist or programmer can think of to connect with a consumer.

"We believe the next generation of storytelling will be fueled by dynamic data elements," asserts Brian Monahan, the head of social media at Interpublic's Universal McCann unit, who recently took over as day-to-day director of Interpublic's Emerging Media Lab, when former chief John Ross stepped down to launch Shopper Sciences, a promising new shopper marketing agency that will draw from many of the innovations developed by the lab.

By dynamic data elements, Monahan means this new generation of ads will effectively be their own computer programs linking to databases that feed relevant, and sometimes personalized information to consumers.

"An app is one way of thinking about it," says Monahan, who cut his teeth in Silicon Valley before joining Interpublic's Mediabrands division several years ago as one of the key members of its technology team. "But what they really are, are display ads that scale by calling dynamic data."

To illustrate how an API-based ad might work, Monahan gives an example of a banner ad for an allergy medication brand that has an API connecting it to a real-time weather database updating pollen counts so that could be relevant to a consumer's decision to use the brand.

Other obvious applications could tie into any real-time databases connecting ads to dynamic, relevant databases about weather alerts, traffic patterns, or even social media feeds from Facebook, Twitter, or just about anywhere else a strategist, creative or programmer could think of. The barrier, says Monahan, is no longer technology, but the way Madison Avenue thinks and is organized.

Toward that end, Interpublic's lab plans to shake conventional processes up to get its clients, agencies, and media partners to begin reimagining what API-based ads could do to change the way they communicate with, and interact with consumers.

"If our hypothesis is correct, we will see a lift in brand results," Monahan predicts, noting that the lab's initial research indicates that API-based ads, connected to rich pipelines of data, does increase many of the most important metrics Madison Avenue uses to measure brand effects, especially so-called "engagement marketing," which is what Monahan says is exactly what the lab is refocusing on.

To take the concept from theory to application, Monahan says the lab has been reorganized to do more real-world testing, development and deployment in hopes of "scaling" concepts like the API-based ads so that marketers and media can develop a marketplace around them.

In an exclusive interview with Online Media Daily, Monahan explains the four elements around the lab's new structure.

The first element will continue to leverage its facilities in Los Angeles to provide a physical showcase where clients, agencies and the media can come to observe and kick the tires of new technologies and gizmos. Interpublic recently expanded the lab's facilities to 4,000 square feet, adding 1,000 square feet devoted to the kind of next generation shopper marketing technologies that will inform and fuel Ross' Shopper Sciences practice.

The second element focuses on utilizing that technology to conduct real-world consumer testing, including focus groups on premise, as well ones conducted via remote technologies that can observe how consumers interact with new media devices, and new forms of advertising and marketing communications.

The third element focuses on the real-world application of new technologies or advertising formats, such as the API-based ads, in scalable market trials on behalf of one or several clients. For the API-based ads, Monahan says Interpublic has organized several, as-yet-unnamed agency clients, to participate in market trials currently in the field.

"We've been doing this for years on a client-by-client basis," he notes, adding that the difference going forward is that the process will be more collaborative, involving a cross-section of clients who can share risks and learning.

The fourth element of the lab's new organizational structure is based on creating partnerships involving emerging media technologies directly with media companies developing them. Monahan says those initiatives could include deals with some of the biggest media companies, as well as early stage companies, and says the concept is an outgrowth of Greenhaus, a division he launched within Mediabrands a year ago to work specifically with start-up companies pitching promising new approaches to media.

In effect, Monahan says the lab will become the hub where the world of emerging and theoretical promise intersects with the practical business needs of real-world application, and that the lab will focus on ways of integrating those results into the sustainable processes that clients, agencies and the media can use to adapt to an ever-changing digital media marketplace.

Monahan even alluded that the lab might expand in other ways, including geographically. While its plant still is headquarters in Los Angeles, Interpublic Chairman-CEO Michael Roth has alluded several times in the past that versions of the lab would be launched in other key markets such as New York and possibly London.

Mediabrands Appoints Digital Media Expert as Managing Partner of IPG Media Lab

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

New York, August, 6, 2010 – Today Mediabrands has appointed Brian Monahan as EVP, Managing Partner of IPG’s Media Lab. Under this new leadership, the Media Lab will continue its mission to drive research and development further in order to maximize client satisfaction. Through data-driven research, market trials and partnerships with innovative media vendors, the Media Lab is dedicated to informing clients of top new media technologies and trends while providing customizable solutions. Brian was a crucial member in the launch of IPG Media Lab in 2006. Leveraging his combined expertise in social media, user-generated content and media planning, Brian will continue to drive the Media Lab’s growing operations. Prior to his new position, Brian served as SVP, Global Lead of Social Media for Universal McCann (UM). In his new role, Brian will report to Matt Freeman, CEO, Mediabrands Ventures.

Under Brian’s leadership, the Media Lab will continue to offer clients a la carte consulting services, prioritizing product development, training, and marketing. In addition, the Media Lab will provide clients with emerging media and shopper influence research, giving them exclusive access to valuable consumer insights. Furthering his strategic vision, Brian and his team will also be conducting annual Media Trials geared towards providing clients and vendors with real world comparisons of new products against known products. In its first Media Trial, the Lab will be working with next generation rich media providers ClickTurn, SocialMedia.com and Spongecell to challenge the hypothesis “API driven display ads have higher engagement and brand lift than disconnected display ads.” Such hypothesis-driven tests will not only help drive marketing solutions, but will also be open to other marketers through organized lab tours.

In continued effort to optimize development in the marketplace, the Media Lab will be joining forces with Greenhaus, Mediabrands’ exclusive program designed to accelerate the development of emerging companies. Greenhaus will grant media vendors access to an array of marketing expertise, media resources and services. This exclusive partnership will not only offer clients a distinct opportunity to gain a competitive advantage, but it will also assist them in turning their business visions into reality.

“Our insight is that the art of engagement marketing has outpaced the science,” said Brian Monahan, EVP, Managing Partner, IPG Media Lab. “The result is an innovation quagmire where brave ideas are ignored, rushed, watered down, or underfunded. We are working to focus all the Lab’s tools – facilities, consulting, research, benchmarks, and partnerships to help agency partners sell in custom solutions.”

About Brian Monahan
An entrepreneur trapped in a media planner’s body, Brian has driven digital change for the full 8 years he’s worked at Universal McCann. While he’s led communications strategy for numerous clients in over 20 countries and has managed over $100 million campaigns, his passion lies in emerging media, platforms, and changing consumer behavior driven by new technology. He launched the interactive capability at Universal McCann, and later led integration of that 30-person team with the traditional UM planning group. In addition, Brian sits on IPG Mediabrands’ Digital Operating Committee where he has launched programs like the Greenhaus start up partner program, the global Digital Fellowship, the Media Optimization & Management Suite (MOMS) enterprise software initiative, and Cadreon -- IPG’s demand-side audience marketplace.

Prior to joining UM, Brian founded Inrhythm Marketing – a pioneering analytics and optimization firm. He was a founding employee of Left Field, one of the first San Francisco-based digital ad agencies, and a co-founder the Bay Area Interactive Group. Earning accolades such as “Internet Media Buyer of the Year” and “Media All Star” by trade magazines, he drafted the original Terms and Conditions of the industry standard Internet media insertion order, and has served on the agency advisory boards of Google, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL.

About Mediabrands
Created by IPG to manage all of its global media-related assets, Mediabrands employs 6,500 communications specialists operating in 90 countries and manages $32B in global media billings. A proven entity in helping clients maximize the impact of their marketing investment to deliver explosive business results, Mediabrands enhances the communications offering and performance across its network of media agencies including Initiative, UM, MAGNA and a roster of Specialty Service Groups. Mediabrands is part of Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG), one of the world's leading organizations of advertising agencies and marketing services companies. For more information, please visit www.mediabrandsww.com.

Tara Comonte Women to Watch

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Tara talks about Women taking risks in business

IPG Lab on LA 18

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Scott Susskind talks about the lab on LA 18 TV

Ad Age: Comonte: Female Execs Should Be Risk Takers

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Plus 10 More Insights From Ad Age's Women to Watch Event

-By Michael Bush and Natalie Zmuda

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) -- This year's Advertising Age "Women to Watch" honorees are facing challenges on various fronts, but that doesn't mean they're playing it safe. Again and again, these executives, from the ranks of the media, agency and marketing professions, voiced the importance of risk-taking and of breaking away from the status quo.

Tara Comonte, chief operating officer and chief financial officer at Mediabrands, wondered aloud why men seem more inclined to take risks, even though it's women who tend to be more intuitive. "Women need to step up when it comes to taking risks," Ms. Comonte said today during a luncheon toasting Advertising Age's 25 honorees. "Female intuition is so valuable. We should be better risk-takers."

At AOL, which has been in the midst of a major reinvention, risk-taking is a simple as NBD: "When you're trying to reinvent a brand, it comes down to the 'Never Been Done' ideas," said Maureen Sullivan, senior-VP brand and marketing partnerships.

These are the 25 marketers, media and agency executives to keep your eye on today
Of course, taking risks requires diligence, preparation and the encouragement of other leaders within the organization. Joan Gillman, exec VP-media sales at Time Warner Cable, said that she's always had support in taking risks. "You can't fail if you take risks and if you have leaders behind you that encourage you to do so," she said. "You learn that if you're prepared, you just have to course correct if the risk that you've taken is not actually breaking through."

More than 900 people attended the event, which was held at the Marriott Marquis in New York.

Here, 10 tips and insights from this year's Women to Watch event.

1. Hey, account managers, speak up

Beth Waxman-Arteta, group business director at JWT, New York, joked that she's been surprised to read the reports about the demise of account management, given that she's been awfully busy lately. But, she admitted, account managers need to market themselves better. "We need to step up and take credit for what we do -- lead a group of diverse people to success," she said.

2. Take a step back

When Gatorade set out to overhaul its brand, there were plenty of skeptics. "Sometimes when you're the dominant player in a category ... it's really hard to step back and say you've got to reinvent yourself," said Sarah Robb O'Hagan, chief marketing officer. "A lot of companies have learned in the last decade that sometimes you keep riding a wave of consumer growth, and you're not realizing that you've actually got to stay ahead of the consumer."

3. Don't point fingers

In 2006, BBDO lost the $38 million U.S. Snickers creative business after 11 years. It was a blow to the agency, but, at the time, Kirsten Flanik, exec VP-senior account director, said the agency decided not to spend an "enormous amount of time beating ourselves up or pointing fingers." Instead, she said, the agency focused on delivering on the Mars brands it still had, as well as creating solid work for Snickers outside of the U.S. Last fall, BBDO's diligence paid off when it snagged back the Snickers business.

4. Define your big event

For some, it might be Comic-Con, for others the World Cup. For Papa John's, the Super Bowl, one of the biggest pizza delivery days of the year, certainly qualifies, but not because of the number of eyeballs it attracts. Melissa Richards-Person, senior director-advertising and promotions, said that, more important than the eyeballs, the game itself is an important event for Papa John's consumers. "We've got to adapt the definition [of a big event] to be about whether or not it's important to our consumer," she said.

5. Abandon the masses

Christine Mau, brand design director at Kimberly-Clark, said she is seeing a shift from consumer-led to consumer-informed design. Product development and design, she added, is now about appealing to a smaller, more specific group of people, not to the masses. "When you design something for the early adopters, the rest follow," she said.

6. Integrate across all media platforms

Janet Balis, exec VP-media sales and marketing, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, said marketers and media providers need to be fluent across all channels, platforms and devices that deliver content. "But we also have to be able to execute," she said. "Because the most innovative forms of advertising are exciting and high-impact, but they are not always scalable. So being able to integrate seamlessly and deliver execution is critically important for media companies."

7. Make sure everyone is singing the same song

Amy Curtis-McIntyre, senior VP-marketing, Old Navy, said that "brand management has always been making sure the product and the marketing are on the same song sheet because if they're not, neither is going to be as impactful as you want them to be."

8. Raising an agency is like raising a child

Karen Sauder, managing director, DraftFCB, Chicago, said changes in technology and consumer behavior can easily overwhelm an agency. "As you build an organization for today and the future, you have to be fluid, make sure you are giving your people the right tools, but there is no rule book, so you have to teach them how to make the choices, identify the opportunities and feel good about them," she said.

9. IPad is not the only answer for publishers

Sara Ohrvall, director of research and development at Bonnier Corp., said there will be other devices on the market soon but what they all provide is an immediate and direct experience. "Combine that with that natural intuitive user interface, and these tablets represent great opportunities to package and curate both editorial and promotional messages," she said.

10. Manufacturers and retailers need to get more collaborative

Laura McCorvie, senior VP-consumer growth and shopper marketing at Kraft, said that "manufacturers are focused on how to work with retailers to both provide the best of what they offer as a company and to help retailers drive store traffic. There are three areas of focus: the manufacturer making sure the core brand's identity is fresh and updated; working with retailers to find the intersections of what they are trying to accomplish and what you're trying to accomplish as a manufacturer; and new product and packaging innovation."

WSJ: Luring Shoppers to Stores

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Marketers Try Interactive Mirrors, Discounts via Scanners

-By Emily Steel

It's Steven Spielberg's futuristic "Minority Report" come to life.

Marketing companies are experimenting with a new wave of digital technologies to pitch to consumers while they shop: interactive dressing-room mirrors, kiosks with virtual customer-service representatives, and shopping carts and digital scanners that offer personalized discounts.

These futuristic technologies are among the interactive tools on display at Interpublic Group of Cos.' new retail center at the advertising company's Media Lab in Los Angeles.

There, Interpublic is testing innovative ways for marketers to connect with customers as part of an effort to better understand what makes consumers buy and to encourage companies to rethink their approaches to the role of the retail store.

Retailers are grappling with lackluster sales and consumers who are dissatisfied with the store experience as online shopping with its related interactivity becomes mainstream. Shopper satisfaction at retail stores is declining up to 15% a year, according to an ongoing IPG Media Lab study of more than 10,000 North American shoppers.

Online shopping gives buyers lots of information to guide their purchases. And consumers want detailed product data, reviews from previous buyers, related recipes for food products, health and nutrition information, and more, says John Ross, president of Shopper Sciences, which is part of IPG's Mediabrands unit.

"The role the store is playing is changing," says Mr. Ross, who was previously chief marketing officer at Home Depot. "Shoppers are walking up with a different set of expectations."

Some retailers have started testing basic versions of the new technologies. J. C. Penney has a "FindMore" fixture at select stores. The size of a door frame, it comes with a 52-inch touch screen that lets consumers see the retailer's full range of merchandise. Consumers can email data about an item to themselves or a friend or scan a bar code to learn more about a product and get recommendations, such as tops and accessories that match a pair of pants.

Stop & Shop Supermarket is testing handheld scanners in 289 stores that show customers personalized discounts as they shop. The offers are based on such factors as shopping history and just-purchased items. The scanner also lets consumers place deli orders and check out faster.

But IPG's retail lab offers a window into what the future could hold. Among the new technologies on display is a device that transforms the front window of a store into a giant touch screen. Instead of looking at a static mannequin, consumers can interact with the screen to select outfits for an avatar. Meanwhile, kiosks allow a customer to chat with a virtual sales associate who can provide advice on such topics as how to install a new flat-screen television.

Another device is a mirror that enables a shopper to scan a dress and then project that clothing onto her body before going to the dressing room. She can also tap the mirror to view different colors, find matching shoes and send the image to her Facebook profile.

Specialty retailer The Limited is considering installing interactive mirrors in some of its stores in the next six months, says Chief Executive Linda Heasley. The technology will help consumers match styles or even warn that two pieces of clothing don't match.

"It's like 'Mirror, Mirror, on the wall, what is the best outfit of all?'" she says.

The new interactive retail technologies come as retailers are putting more emphasis on their in-store marketing efforts. Faced with increasing fragmentation in traditional media, marketers hope to connect with consumers when they are in a place where they can make a purchase immediately.

At the same time, the price point of new technologies is dropping fast, allowing tools that were once considered space age and too expensive to be deployed at much lower costs, ad executives say.

Companies spent about $19.4 billion on in-store marketing in the U.S. last year, down about 10% from 2008, according to Veronis Suhler Stevenson Partners, a private-equity investment firm that produces forecasts for the communications industry. By 2011, when the economy is likely to have picked up again, the firm expects spending on in-store growth to accelerate.

Some of the most sophisticated in-store technology is tied to consumers' mobile devices, ad executives say. Marketers are experimenting with ways to use mobile phones to provide customers with services and promotions as they shop. These range from truck reviews at car dealerships to allergy information tied to certain foods at supermarkets, Mr. Ross says.

Dunkin' Donuts plans to test new mobile technologies in select markets in the next two weeks that will allow shops to send customized offers to customers.

Earlier this month, electronics retailer Best Buy announced plans to start an experiment at 257 of its stores involving a mobile application called Shopkick. Consumers who download it onto their mobile phones get rewards when they visit the store.

Is That Mall Ad Catching Your Eye?

Tue, 31 Aug 2010 00:00:00 GMT

From KTLA in Los Angeles, the IPG Media Lab

Adweek: Q&A: Mediabrands' John Ross

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 00:00:00 GMT

Ross talks about the challenges facing retailers and how they need to change in order to thrive in the digital age

-By Steve McClellan

John Ross knows a thing or two about retail. Before he joined Interpublic Group's Mediabrands in July 2009, he spent 12 years at home improvement giant The Home Depot, including a stint as CMO. He joined Mediabrands as president of its Emerging Media Lab in Los Angeles. During his tenure there, the lab was retooled to focus on retail activities. In June 2010, Ross was given a new assignment -- build a new agency at the holding company (under Mediabrands) called Shopper Sciences, where he is CEO and which is designed to help retailers up their game.

In conversation with Adweek's Steve McClellan, Ross talked about the challenges facing retailers and how they need to change in order to thrive in the digital age.

Adweek: You've been charged with developing a retail specialist agency for IPG. The company has had retail-focused clients for years, including your former stomping grounds The Home Depot, as well as Kmart, Sears and Walmart. Why now?

John Ross: Just having retail clients doesn't necessarily mean that we've kept pace with the understanding of what's going on with retail shoppers. In many cases the industry has not kept pace. As an ex-retailer I knew that word of mouth was influential in every decision that took place in our stores. But pre-Internet and pre-social media you had no way to reveal it or monetize it. And you had very few tools to actually influence it. Now in a world where Facebook is bigger than many countries and where shoppers are empowered with tools that allow them to communicate with and influence each other at scale in a global way, the dynamics of retail shopping have changed.

So agencies are playing catch up?

Yes, and as a marketing services company if we don't keep pace with all that and understand how shoppers make decisions, we could easily find ourselves irrelevant to the clients we advise.

You've talked about how marketers lack knowledge of the end-to-end shopping decision process. Where are the biggest gaps?

Look at most of the research. It's focused on the sales data. It's not reflecting the shopper's voice. If you go across all the analytics, the multivariable regression analysis, the brand health tracking studies . . . you go through all of this stuff and you have to ask who is looking at the shopping experience through the lens of the shopper? We're still using amazingly lame, crude tools to understand what's important to shoppers and how to serve them better.

That seems hard to believe in an age when consumers are armed with more information than ever as they make purchasing decisions.

Retailing marketing behavior is incredibly manipulative. If I run a sale, I tell you as a consumer when to start and stop. I tell you that you need a coupon and that you have to have four items in your basket that match. Heaven forbid I do a rebate where you have to fill out forms. It's a controlling relationship with the shopper that says you must shop on my terms.

But consumers are putting up with it less so, aren't they?

Yes. Instead of setting rigid terms under which shoppers will buy from you, the future is inviting those shoppers into the decision making to help you design what your promotions are and what your product looks like and the level of service you provide.

How big a factor is social media in changing shopping dynamics?

It's huge. In a pre-social media world that controlling approach was probably appropriate behavior because retailers didn't have the tools to scale shopper feedback. But now shoppers are in control and if you don't believe it sit down with a manufacturer in the CD and DVD business or the travel industry. Consumers are creating entire industries on their own like virtual goods markets where $150 million worth of baseball caps and T-shirts that didn't exist have been sold through Facebook. The consumer is powerful.

Who's doing it right?

Apple is a spectacular example. You walk through that Apple Store and everything, from the way the sales associate captures the transaction near the display to the nature of their training bar in the back of the store. Even the way the point of purchase is organized reflects what's important to the shopper and not what's important to the brand. And look at their display labels: they're not filled with technical specs. Instead they tell you what the product does for you. That's great shopper marketing.

You spent 12 years at The Home Depot. What's the single most important insight about consumer purchasing habits you took away from that experience?

I'd tell you this: shopping is ultimately lonely. It's fundamentally decision making. And the price point of the product is rarely a reflection of how important the decision actually is. That decision may be a $2.50 purchase at the grocery store, but it's an investment in something that will go into your family's bodies. That 99-cent lightbulb may be a way to lower the energy consumption of your home, or you may be worried about what to do with the lightbulb when it burns out. Every decision brings a lot of incremental decisions along with them. And if you want to earn loyalty, you have to make the shopper feel like they've made a smart decision. If you do that, it moves the needle in sales in ways that make traditional advertising of the retail space -- discounts and sales -- pale by comparison.

You spent a year overseeing the IPG Emerging Media Lab in Los Angeles. Talk about its new focus.

The lab has always done primary research, trying to understand how emerging technology impacts consumer behavior. What we did was invest in a tool suite that allows us to understand not just consumer behavior but specifically shopping behavior.

How consumers decide to buy a specific product?

Yes, and lay bare the process from undecided to decided on any purchase path. And to understand the effect of traditional advertising, the physical shopping environment, online, social media and, increasingly, mobile. If you can understand the effect of all those different elements, it makes you very powerful.

As a marketer, what else do you need to know?

You need to know where influence comes from. Was it me talking to other parents at the soccer field? Was it the big stack-out that the modeler did at the grocery store? Or health blogs where I read about the right sports drink for adolescents? If I can reveal those influences and map them back to advertising, that's powerful. But I also need to know the nature of the content.

How so?

Because it's complicated and constantly shifting. They may be looking for health and nutritional information early on in the process and value later on. And they may be looking for endorsement and validation from other buyers within 24 hours of making a final decision. It's our job as marketers to figure out what they're looking for and when and where.

The IPG Emerging Media Lab has done research showing that the in-store retail experience is increasingly unsatisfactory for consumers. What's going on?

The Internet is teaching consumers to expect more robust information, access to deeper information, whether its care and use, nutritional information, recipes, warrantee or repair. And they have every right to expect the retailer to provide that as well.

What about product reviews?

Why not? Why can't I review it in the store and see that [a given product] was reviewed by Consumer Reports and got a best buy rating in the last week. And why can't I know that 100 customers who bought it gave it a five-star rating?

The media lab has new technologies on display such as interactive mirrors that can help a clothing shopper select an outfit and kiosks that offer virtual sales assistance. How quickly will such techniques gain critical mass at brick-and-mortar stores?

I believe we will look back at 2010-11 as being seminal years where a fundamental change took place at retail with the beginnings of rapid technology advancement to the shelf. The shopping experience itself still feels like 1975. The tags might be printed out by a laser printer, but they're still stuck on the shelf manually with adhesive. Some retailers still use hand-written signs. In many cases the only advanced technology in the store is a self-checkout or a computer monitor behind a display blasting some rock music into the teens' department.

But now retailers are ready to embrace the future?

Yes, for a number of reasons. The price of technology is dropping. And it's more adaptable to the retail environment -- super low-voltage screen designs that don't require me to run electricity to every physical display, and WiFi connections that don't require an expensive hardwire backbone. But the most exciting thing happening right now is 3G-4G mobile network deployment. The ability to use them to connect any screen anywhere whether that screen is big or the size of an iPhone and to move data and images both upstream and downstream at high speeds and in high definition means that I can communicate with consumers without a big elaborate proprietary network -- all I need is a chip that would be sold in any phone. So wherever I put a display, I can talk to the consumer. Wherever I put a display and a camera, I can learn from that consumer.

What about privacy?

I'm not going to videotape them, just observe their behavior -- the number of people who walk by a display; the percentage of them that turn and face it; the percentage of them that turn and face it and are engaged versus being frustrated and angry. The ability to make software to make judgments about their emotional reaction to the pricing. All in real time. That generates media-like diagnostics and that data flowing back to the retailer will be of infinitely more value than any [other data] that is currently available.

What about key mobile applications?

The vast majority of people experimenting with mobile phones at retail are trying to do old-fashion retail tactics on it like running coupons. It makes me want to cry sometimes. Yes, we can do that. But is that all we want to do with it? Our ability to engage with the shopper, give them more information and have them give us more information back using this device is so much more powerful than that. For example, if you're in the considered restaurant business (over $15 per plate) and you're not actively looking at previous diners talking about their last experience in your restaurant, you are missing out on feedback about last night's special, not to mention feedback about your competitors.

And that can be applied to all retail?

Sure. Any phone with a camera is also a scanner. Every time [the shopper] scans [for better prices or reviews] in a store, that tells me that the way I'm communicating value isn't good enough. It tells me that the credibility of my signage or the information on the package isn't enough for the consumer to feel like they are making a smart choice. And that tells me I need to go back into old tech -- let's improve the box or make the shelf label more powerful or more useful.

Your planning a new lab in Atlanta that will be an extension of the retail agency you're creating. How will it differ from the media lab in Los Angeles?

The L.A. lab looks at technology from a lot of different angles including retail. The Atlanta lab will focus much more specifically on retail and retail shopping. It will have some the same consumer facing technology like interactive mirrors, but we'll also go a little deeper on the logistics side, like connectivity between show-room technology and Web sites or replenishment and resupply impact based on live diagnostics.

When will it be completed?

Sometime early next year.

What else do retailers need to do to effectively address the needs of the empowered shopper?

When you sit down with clients as varied as Walmart and Target or Golfsmith or Boston Market, our ability to understand what's important to the shopper can inform everything from the most high-tech digital network we deploy to a better way to organize the data on your shelf label. Sometimes the answer isn't the latest touch-screen digital gadget. It may be something simple like getting the bullets on the sign right.