Marketing & Digital Advertising Blog

CIMA hosted an Entrepreneurial Luncheon Panel last week. To say the luncheon was inspiring would be an understatement. Kevin Willer, President and CEO of the Chicagoland Entrepreneurial Center, moderated a panel of three dynamic Chicagoland entrepreneurs: Shawn Riegsecker, Founder of Centro; Matt Spiegel, CEO of Tap.me; and Genevieve Thiers, Founder of SitterCity.com, who all shared advice, and stories of their successes, challenges and experiences along their road to success.

Winning hallmark accounts has long been a documented challenge for regional agencies, but a seismic shift is occurring. These agencies are becoming increasingly more valuable alongside their larger counterparts.

When you think about the importance of YouTube to the music industry, the one thing you can’t say is that nobody saw it coming… well, at least they anticipated the majority of it.

That being said, a couple of interesting reports and articles have been circulating over the past couple of weeks related to the impact YouTube and Social media are having on an industry that historically has been controlled by the major record labels.

Online video had another record-breaking month. According to comScore, 188 million U.S. Internet users watched 37.7 billion online content videos in August, while video ad views totaled 9.5 billion. Overall, video ads reached 54% of the total U.S. population an average of 58 times during the month.

A newly released report by global consumer researcher Ericsson ConsumerLab, “Getting Social: TV not just for watching” finds new evidence supporting the rapid evolution of media consumption through simultaneous and paired usage of media channels.

Let’s say you’ve been out of town for, oh, the last decade.
The last time you picked up Crain’s, Chicago’s economy was stung by high-tech flops from the dot-com bust. Now, though, you’re quickly sensing that there has been a shift: You learned that 13 Chicago tech companies have gone public or been acquired so far in 2012, and 17 did so last year, according to tech-community group Built in Chicago.

Customer insight and retention drives every publishing company throughout the world, for without the customer we would not exist. Publishers must work to ensure the right audience views the right content – both editorial and advertising – so consumers will engage with the message. This leads to growth and the continued success of the publishing business.

In case you missed it, here’s a great article by Tom Chavez, CEO of Krux and a strategic partner of Centro’s. In this recent AdExchanger.com column, “Charting the Path to Direct Sold RTB Advertising,” Tom delves into the perils of a type of data leakage he calls “cookie licking” and talks about how savvy marketers and publishers seek to build programmatic revenue without sacrificing control of their precious data.

Is paid advertising beneficial? Absolutely. However, it is incredibly important to understand how best to integrate it with owned and earned media. Nielsen shares valuable insights on how to strengthen consumer trust and deliver better results via paid, owned, and earned media working together (e.g., paid ads work harder with social, paid ads drive owned usage).