Q&As

Many brands are helping schools improve wellness programs while capitalizing on schools as allies and venues for communicating their product messages.

Hilton is running a contest with National Geographic Magazine encouraging its loyalty members to shoot photographs of places where they travel and spend time for a chance to go to one of the most spectacular settings in the world: The Galapagos Islands.

American Express is always testing, but tried and true voucher packages still pull best in their acquisition efforts.

Chief Marketer recently talked with Tom Mastrocola, director of subscription acquisition for American Express Publishing Corp., about trends in mail package design, postal concerns and list/database use.

Numbers were flying, some conflicting, some not, an indicator of the lightning fast pace of mobile marketing. Geoff Ramsey, chief executive office of eMarketer, sorted it all out. One of the things his company does is analyze the massive amount of research around mobile phone use and marketing pumped out from dozens of companies to come up with a singular determination of the findings.

Coca-Cola carries the vision of its marketing future on one piece of paper. It includes developing and executive creative marketing programs across the globe using a handle it calls, “liquid and linked.” The strategy centers on storytelling; taking great, fun, creative stories and spreading them to the furthest reaches of the world using, in part, the muscularity of mobile and social media, or, as Coca-Cola puts it, modern day word of mouth.

For years there has been a strong demand for pre-movers—people planning to move. This was prompted by moving companies, who wanted to pitch the pre-mover on their upcoming moves. When online surveys became popular, companies started asking “are you planning to relocate within the next three months?” Those names became the first pre-mover lists.

Where should marketers allot their budget dollars in 2012? Chief Marketer recently talked to several marketing professionals to get their opinions in several key areas of spending:

Welcome to Broker Roundtable, where each week we ask list brokers to give their opinions on issues that matter to the marketing community. This week’s question: Looking ahead to next year, how important will political mailing lists be—especially in light of Obama’s success with electronic media in 2008?

There is no question that the U.S. Postal Service is facing financial trouble. In early September, Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe characterized its “restrictive business model” as being in a state of “crisis.” Remedies for this crisis could include anything from rate increases to curtailed delivery days to reductions in labor forces.

As marketing times change fast check out these new rules for conducting sampling programs.