What does this mean? Well, probably not too much if you are above the age of 100 and don’t know what a computer does, or if you just hate giving gifts. But, if you are like the rest of us and usually find yourself in a shopping time crunch during the holidays, let it be known that sales in movies, jewelry/luxury goods, flowers, greetings and gifts grew substantially within one month and we are reminded of the simple joys our home can offer during the hectic holiday season.

This also could mean something for companies without a strong online presence. Of the top 50 web properties with a focus on advertising, The Google Ad Network came in first place, engaging 93% of Americans. Also, more than 6.6 million people visited a tax site to make sure their books were in tact for the upcoming year.

If you haven’t jumped on the online shopping, advertising or researching train, I would go ahead and take that leap; you won’t be disappointed.

Reed Award Recognizes Top Political and Public Affairs Talent in The World

On Friday, IWS continued its winning tradition by securing the Reed Award on behalf of the United States Chamber of Commerce and Governor Jan Brewer.

IWS congratulates our clients for their success and would like to say ‘thank you’ for the opportunity to work with them during this past year. We work with great teams at both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Governor Jan Brewer’s campaign, and are proud that everyone’s hard work paid off.

The United States Chamber of Commerce won a Reed Award for “Special Categories – Best GOTV Plan and Execution.”

Governor Jan Brewer’s campaign won a Reed Award for “Technology – Website: Statewide Races.”

“Winning a Reed Award is considered to be one of the most prestigious honors in the business of politics and Campaigns & Elections congratulates the finalists and winners,” said Publisher of Campaigns & Elections, Paul Plawin.

IWS has spent the past 11 years moving with ease between politics and commercial marketing. In either venue, IWS’ strength remains the same: The ability to use the full spectrum of digital marketing strategies and applications to change users’ behavior.

The auto manufacturer Subaru has long represented itself as a brand for the “individual”. For the person who lives their life against the grain, the nonconformist if you will. Even the build of the cars themselves is unique, utilizing all-wheel drive, boxer engines and stylish body designs. Of course their highly successful television ads have always seemed to reflect this image by embracing the road less traveled… until now.

According to Subaru’s latest viral ad campaign, they’ve decided to target those who drive down “the middle of the road”. That’s right, I give you the Subaru Mediocrity. This hilarious campaign includes TV ads but it’s mostly based around a website that pretends to introduce the new 2011 Mediocrity, a car so boring that it’s only available in beige. Side note – the website may, in fact, set a record for using every color of beige possible. Not only can you find dealers, you can check out a wide array photos, and connect with a “real life” community of owners.

There’s a new car review over at AutoTrader.com, interviews with the designers as well as a quiz to see if the car is the right car for you. (Which do you think is more awesome? Metal-detecting or Electric Guitars?) There’s even a tricky game of commute you can play, if you are bored enough. All in all this is a brilliant campaign that spared no efforts in fulfilling every aspect possible. Oh and just wait till you catch a glimpse of the 2012 model. Not that it’s too difficult to imagine…

At IWS, we generally recommend the use of banner ads, blog ads, Google ads, and Facebook (JPEG) ads to help promote a Fan Page, brand, or website itself.

Because of the specifics allowed, brands can pinpoint an audience already interested. Such opportunities will too, encourage engagement and help bring you organic growth.

JPEGs accounted for 42.4 percent of ad impressions.

 

 
But wait… Currently, there are far less advertisers on Facebook, than there are struggling in the crowded Adwords space. So less competition, lower cost-per-click, more targeted… It’s a win-win. Where would YOUR eyes wander? What have you used for proven success?

Measures of success obviously can vary from project to project, but they can also vary within a project. In most cases there exist three levels of measures, for our purposes we’ll call them primary, secondary and tertiary.

Usually primary measures of success relate to an offline activity. Although some people may spend more time in front of a computer than away from it, there is still a real world out there – a world that revolves around exchanging money, voting, construction and other human activities. Thus some examples would include making a donation on a mobile phone, getting people to vote for a particular candidate, or winning approval for a new hospital. One or more of these are usually the “problems” a client will have when looking to partner with another firm. These are easily the most important measures of success.

Secondary measures have to do with the activities that lead to one of the primary objectives mentioned above. Since primary measures involve a serious commitment on the part of the end-user, a gradual process of building up to the ultimate goal is required. These nodes of engagement could include participating in an online poll or survey, posting a message on a Facebook Wall, or forwarding an email.

The way to judge the likelihood that the secondary actions will be taken by supporters remains the hard data of the tertiary measures. These indexes – like pageviews, open rates or Twitter followers – are the things successful managers follow on a daily basis; and their analysis will uncover trends among your audiences.  This will in turn allow you to optimize campaigns to drive up the response rates measured in the primary and secondary goals.

Taking a step back we have seen that measures of success directly correlate to a campaign goal.  Measuring those goals can be done on a variety of levels in this case primary, secondary, or tertiary.  These levels could also be called Offline, Engagement, and Indicators, respectively.

The goal of this post was to pass on some knowledge for the offline world, I hope it is measured as a success.

Word of mouth is still the most popular way to receive information about a product or campaign. With the rise of social networking, this has become even easier, yet only 6% of the marketing emails sampled  asked their audience to share with your social network. 41% had some type of ‘Forward to a Friend’ message or feature.

This alarming statistic is courtesy of eMarketer.com.  This great service has statistics for everything. Want to know what type of information U.S. Female Internet Users With and Without Children are Most Interested in Receiving via Email? They have it.  Want to know which free email platforms have the highest open rates? Now IWS can provide its clients this service thanks to our partnership with eMarketer.

They can be found in Denver pubs, the cafes of Rome and in the sports bar at the Gen. Patton Barracks in Heidelberg, Germany.

And Brian Michael will tell you their numbers are growing.

“You can go to pretty much anywhere and you will find Phillies fans,” said Michael, the 28-year-old founder of PhilliesNation.com

Thanks to Michael and his 10,000-plus subscribers, those fans have had a place to share insights, frustrations and love of all things Phillies since the site went live a few months after Citizens Bank Park opened in 2004.

“I grew up in Philly and had moved away to Washington, D.C.,” Michael said. “I was finding it hard to get all my Phillies information, so I decided to put it all in one place.”

Read the entire “Phillies Nation growing through Web site” article…