London Calling

ANA (Association of National Advertisers) Conference: Worth a missed good-night kiss or two

When I first saw the invite, I sighed.  Another conference?  Another weekend away from home?  It was going to take a lot to get me on a plane.  I’ve been traveling every week & I am so over it. 

But, the ANA roped me in with speakers like Steve Ballmer, Al Gore – yeah, the Nobel prize winner – Roger Adams (Home Depot CMO).  They even had Jim Belushi’s band perform on Thursday night.  The ANA closed the deal when they invited spouses to attend evening events.  I couldn’t make any excuses to skip this event.

Three days of networking and learning about my peers – peers with slightly bigger budgets – inspired a few new ideas.  It was also good to see that my customers share a similar vision.  I was pleased to experience an event sponsored by Meredith that focused on their charity partner, CARE, rather than touting their already well-known publications. Very smart and very refreshing.

But now, after the conference is over and I’m sitting in the Red Carpet Club impatiently waiting for my flight home so that I can kiss my wonderful little boy a thousand times.  It was the first time that Barry and I left him for more than one night.  We called home several times a day.  Barry’s mom was kind enough to understand that we trusted her but just missed our son.  I arrived at the airport four hours early in hopes of getting home earlier.  Unfortunately, I wasn't lucky enough to get a seat on that flight.

Wouldn’t it be great to have the cash to travel like the Jolie-Pitt clan and bring the kids and nanny along whenever you travel?  You’d never have to miss a good-night kiss.

TV Advertising: A big decision for smaller companies

While large advertisers are moving money away from TV, smaller companies struggle with making that leap.  Big brands are, well, big brands and everybody already knows who they are which gives them the freedom to move 30% of their big TV budget to online and Word of Mouth.  But for the rest of us, TV advertising makes us look like a big player to buyers.  Without buyers there is no distribution and without distribution there is no sale.  And so the story goes.

According to Monday’s Ad Age article entitled, “Skip this TiVo story at your peril, Top Marketers,” 15% of all households currently have a DVR and that number is expected to grow somewhere between 26% and 38% by the end of the year. 

So what’s a marketer to do?  The simple answer is to create an integrated campaign that takes advantage of new media while continuing to put dollars towards TV and pray that the 60%+ of people who still watch commercials are influenced by your ad. 

As a mom, tech geek, runner, traveler, etc. – so basically I’m just about everybody’s target market – I pay close attention to what influences me.  What stops me during my busy day?  My friends, family, other bloggers, and a really good magazine ad – like the great sports bra made by a Wacoal corporation and that I can’t seem to find any information about online.