COMPANY NEWS
FDA Taps Draft to Reduce Drags
What is it? Drags on cigarettes by teens, that is. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, which gained purview over tobacco marketing in 2009, hires Draftfcb to work on a multiyear anti-smoking campaign along with Fleishman Hillard on PR and Danya International on social media.
WIIFM? Each day an estimated 3,500 kids in America sample their first butt. If a marketing campaign can end this age-old rite of passage, one could be assured it could accomplish just about anything.
Who’s talking? “Research has proven that public education campaigns reduce the number of illnesses and death caused by tobacco,” says Draftfcb EVP Jeff Tarakajian. “We plan to creatively capture the attention of teens between 12-17 to illustrate why they should stay away.”
Itching to Gro
What is it? Just weeks after received $54 million in financing from Goldman Sachs, Infusionsoft acquires GroSocial, whose software allows small businesses to build social media campaigns and track them. Terms were not announced.
WIIFM? If you’re a small operator on a tight budget, the win is a cheap but trackable integrated marketing suite. Infusionsoft’s current email-cum-CRM offering costs between $199 and $499 a month. How much more can GroSocial go you?
Who’s talking? “Social media marketing isn’t just for big brands. Our tools make it easy for small businesses to have a big-business presence on social media and generate leads and convert sales,” says GroSocial cofounder Zach Mangum.
PRODUCT NEWS
Getting a Purchase on Emails
What is it? Updated software from Bronto that allows retailers to import past purchase data to inform their marketing campaigns.
WIIFM? Opportunities for higher repeat purchase rates through automated messaging to recent buyers, segmented by product categories, dollar value, or purchased items.
Who’s talking? “We can target our customers by recency, frequency, or value of purchases. Email campaigns based on our past-purchase data greatly outperform our non-segmented mailings,” says book publisher Leonard Jacobs of Shambhala Publications.
Channeling Retailers
What is it? Retalix’s Customer & Marketing suite, introduced at the NRF Show, which adds loyalty program and campaign management functions to the Retalix 10 platform to help retailers make their offers more customer-centric.
WIIFM? Expanded customer touchpoints, claims the company, including social networks, dedicated portals, paper and digital coupons, emails, text messages, mobile marketing, and location-based campaigns.
Who’s talking? “Retailers will be able to create a total experience by integrating all channels in their campaigns,” said Retalix’s Ruthie Weitz-Leopold from the show floor.
An Epiphany on a Cloud
What is it? Infor makes its Epiphany Interaction Advisor for multichannel marketing communications available on the Salesforce platform.
WIIFM? Predicting customers’ future preferences and behaviors using a combination of historical, personal, and contextual data to create real-time customer profiles.
Who’s talking? “The ability to quickly relay a personalized message and connect to a customer across multiple channels including mobile and social is critical,” says MJ Crabbe-Barberis, global CRM product marketing director at Infor.
EXECUTIVE MOVES
Who it is: Jeremy Sterns, appointed chief technology officer at StrongMail
What’s his role: He’ll be applying new technologies to expand cross-channel campaign tools for marketers.
Where was he prior: Sterns previously served as CTO of Genesis Media and SWN Communications. He also cofounded ContextWeb, a real-time contextualization platform for internet advertisers.
Why was he appointed: “Bringing Jeremy on as our full-time CTO will allow us to bring our new analytics platform to market much sooner than originally anticipated,” says CEO Bill Wagner.
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Who it is: Michael Monroe, named executive director of integrated marketing at Forbes Media
What’s his role: He will execute marketing strategy designed to connect advertisers with Forbes’ audiences across digital, mobile, social, live, and print platforms.
Where was he prior: Monroe returns to Forbes following two-plus years at Condé Nast, where he was integrated marketing director.
Why was he appointed: “Michael’s deep integrated marketing experience and ability to listen will have a positive effect on sales and client satisfaction,” says Tom Davis, VP of sales and marketing.
