The U.S. Open is underway and that means brands are in the game.

This weekend, Holiday Inn and Holiday Express will activate their official hotel sponsorship of Arthur Ashe Kids' Day at the U.S. Open. The activities are part of the largest marketing investment parent IHG Hotels & Resorts has committed to a single, integrated campaign in a decade. Heather Balsley, svp of global marketing, mainstream brands at IHG Hotels & Resorts, takes us through the strategy and execution.

Adding an experiential element to your marketing strategy, like Holiday Inn is doing, requires thinking beyond what you’re presenting to your audience and how they will experience it. Here are three steps to help capture—and hold—your audience’s attention when bringing your brand into the physical realm.

Poland Spring is bringing attention to the stubborn issue of recycling. With the help of nonprofit The Recycling Partnership, the brand has launched a recycling hotline on Instagram to assist consumers wading through the confusion of what can and can’t be recycled.

An account-based marketing strategy is helping TimeTrade connect with B2B decision makers. And the connections are paying off: the appointment scheduling solution is seeing a 20 percent boost in conversions at top tier accounts.

Of course, you can’t make connections if prospects won’t talk with you. We recently chatted with Constant Contact’s vp of Marketing Hannah Budreski, to get her thoughts on the challenges of engaging B2B prospects who don’t want to answer the phone, how to build the perfect marketing team in 2019, and more.

For decades, brands competed on price, product, place and promotion. More recently, marketers have gone toe-to-toe using carefully crafted predictive customer journeys. Now, the new arena is mobile customer experience. Here’s a look at how Chipotle, Foot Locker, Burger King and Subway are improving CX on the go.

Game on marketers.

Patty Odell
Senior Editor
Chief Marketer