Some Experience Required

There’s a lot of experience to be found in this issue.

You’ll find it most obviously in a pair of features stories that are slugged just that. We promised in February’s Upfront that PROMO editors would hit the road this year to learn first-hand how brands are using events to reach consumers in more tangible ways. This month, we present two such case studies:

Senior editor Betsy Spethmann took a day-long excursion to the Vans Warped Tour, a music festival that puts sponsors in touch with teens for some extreme marketing. What she found (with the help of three teen-age “translators”) was an environment that somehow made corporate messages cool amidst the music, the madness — and the regurgitated Yoo-Hoo.

We also sent features editor Matthew Kinsman to Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game in Seattle, where he discovered sponsorship activations that all but overshadowed the on-field activities — although none of the fans on hand seemed to mind.

Our cover story also offers a wealth of experience, in the form of 25 brands whose stewards have used their marketing wisdom to develop strategies making impressive headway in this year’s sluggish economy. (While we’re on the topic, exactly how “sluggish” can the economy be if sales for such brands as BMW and Bally Total Fitness — far from what you’d call recession-proof necessities — are on the rise?)

We used our staff’s collective experience to select the brands on the list; we’d be more than happy if readers parted with some of theirs to offer feedback on the choices. (Send your comments to [email protected].)

Finally, PROMO owes a debt of gratitude to nine people who were willing to devote some of their experience to judging the PRO Awards 2001, finalists for which are announced in this month’s Agencies. Receiving input from outside industry professionals is an integral part of our annual awards program; their insights provide the perspective we need to make sure that only the best in promotion marketing will be recognized. So we’d like to extend our (first) thanks to Nancy Berkow of Roche, Larry Deutsch of Upshot, Jay Farrell of 141 Communicator, Jim Holbrook of Zipatoni, David Kennealey of Dunkin’ Donuts, Michael Murphy of Unilever, Frank Polley of Guinness, Dan Stevenson of Momentum, and Chuck Threshie of Creative Alliance for their assistance.

And, as always, we hope reading this issue proves to be a rewarding experience.

Send your opinions, reactions, and ideas to [email protected].