Hey all, Piet here again, the new guy from Marketing News. As I'm typing this, I'm eating the last chunk of ceremonial chocolate chip cookie, and sipping some fine Coca-Cola. Mplanet 2009 has just ended.

Conventional wisdom says marketers should spend more in bad economic times to stand out from competitors who may be cutting their spending. But such thinking needs to be re-examined in this downturn, says David Reibstein, professor of marketing at The Wharton School and a speaker at AMA’s Mplanet conference.

Reibstein, in an interview at the Mplanet studio Wednesday, said he expects the current recession to be a long one. Cutting marketing spending in such areas as new customer acquisition and long-term brand building can make sense in a longer downturn, he contended. The challenge comes in trying to anticipate when the recession will end so spending can be racketed up as it is ending, he said.

 

Larry Grisolano, Senior Communication Strategist for Barack Obama's Presidential Campaign, is now speaking at 9:15 a.m. today instead of at 3:30 p.m. Stephen Quinn, Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer for Walmart, was originally supposed to speak at 9:15 a.m., but was unable to leave Arkansas due to an ice storm, AMA CEO Dennis Dunlap said this morning.

Piet Levy, Staff Writer for Marketing News, provided the above post.

It’s been a busy day for me at Mplanet, where I conducted 20 interviews in the Mplanet studio with speakers, attendees and sponsors. The over-riding message I heard from them is that marketing in this economy has to leave hype behind and connect with customers in genuine, real ways.

That starts by listening to your customers to discover what their needs are today and then responding with products or services that answer those needs and do it in a way or ways – whether online or off – consumers want.

“One-to-one marketing has really arrived,” thanks to the technologies available today to target messaging, said  Anne Mulcahy, chairman and CEO of Xerox. But to be effective in one-to-one, marketers need to communicate relevant and meaningful information to their customers, she said.

The initial impulse in this economy may be to pull back on marketing innovation. But the experts I interviewed agree that the opposite course – experimenting to discover new strategies and tactics that work – is the one that will produce the best long-term results.

“This is the time for marketers to really market,” said Ralph Oliva, executive director of the Institute for the Study of Business Markets.

Good advice and words that Mplanet attendees will likely take to heart as they return to their companies and organizations after the conferences ends Wednesday.

John N. Frank, editorial director, Marketing News

 

 

Hey all, Piet here, the new Marketing News staff writer. I can't believe the day one sessions are over and done with. I've only had time to soak up the Orlando sun for 20 seconds, much less hit the blog.

Hey all, Piet Levy blogging here, a new staff writer for Marketing News, and a newbie when it comes to covering the marketing scene. 

Mplanet's Digital Marketing Lab kicked off here today (Monday) in Orlando. Sitting in on some of the sessions, I felt a bit like people interested in flying must have felt in talking to the Wright brothers not long after they got their first fragile aircraft into the sky. It’s all so new, who can tell where it will end up?

It's been a long road from that first flight to today's jets. No one speaking with Orville or Wilbur likely could have imagined a 747. Digital marketing still has a long way to go as well before it gets to the point of being an established marketing discipline.

For now, experimentation is still the rule and anyone looking for a book of best practices is likely out of luck, noted Julie Fleischer, a VP with digital agency Digitas. There is "no single formula for digital. The best thing you can do when it comes to digital marketing is question everything," she told a workshop at the digital lab.

Digital marketing requires a mindset change for marketers, she added. "It’s not 'where are the consumers and how do I reach them,’" but rather what do consumers need and "how can I give it to them" where and how they want it, she said.

Fleischer also advised marketers to stop thinking about trying to make the perfect viral video. Instead, make videos that reflect your company’s culture--and consumers will decide if they're interesting enough to spread them virally.

Mplanet blogger Toby Bloomberg, president of Bloomberg Marketing and author of the Diva Marketing blog, talked about how digital marketing is just a new version of something her grandmother would do if she got a stale cookie form the local bakery.
 
Her grandmother would go to the bakery and complain about it in front of all the other customers, spreading negative word-of-mouth unless the baker made good on the bad cookie.
 
Digital marketing extends that ability to say good and ill about companies across the Web, but the concept is still the same, Bloomberg noted---consumes shape other consumers' perceptions about your brand. Marketers need to keep that top-of-mind as they move into the digital world.

 

Mplanet is almost upon us. I'll be heading to Florida early Monday morning and hope to see everyone there. I'll be hosting the Mplanet studio, a stage in the middle of our Discovery Center exhibit hall where I'll be interviewing Mplanet luminaries.

At last count, I expect to be doing roughly 26 interviews over a two-day period starting Tuesday morning. We'll be filming the interviews and showing portions of them on the Mplanet Web site. Please stop by to watch and say hello.

During the show, I and colleagues from Marketing News will be blogging about sessions both here and on the Marketing News blog. If you're at the show, the blogs will be a great way to keep up on sessions you might not have attended.

We'll also be twittering, so if that's your medium of choice watch for bulletins there as well.

Safe travels and hope to see you there!

If you want to find me at Mplanet, it won’t be difficult. I’ll be doing a series of interviews with session speakers at what we’re calling the Mplanet Studio, right in the center of the Mplanet Discover Center exhibit hall.

Interviews will be shown live on giant video screens surrounding the studio stage, so please stop by to watch and chat. So far, 18 speakers have agreed to discuss marketing topics with me. I’m expecting to add more names to that list as well. Interviews will be conducted mornings before sessions start, during breaks and during the Tuesday lunch period, so there will be lots of Mplanet buzz happening in the studio.

And speaking of buzz, marketing bloggers are continuing to talk about Mplanet. See what Diva Marketing and Customers Rock are saying.

With less than three weeks until it kicks off, AMA’s Mplanet is generating buzz across the blogosphere. Josh Hallet at Huku writes about how he’ll be attending and writing from Mplanet while Scott Titus at Ideas, Ideas, Ideas looks at the question of brand and branding in a digital age, a key theme for the conference which takes place in Orlando Jan. 26-29.

Stephanie Diamond, like Josh a guest blogger on Mplanet’s own blog and author of the Marketing Message blog, outlines details of Mplanet’s  Digital Marketing Lab. Elena del Valle, another guest blogger on the Mplanet blog, talks about relationship building.

Expect to see more marketing bloggers discussing Mplanet as we count down to the Jan 26th start.
Another hot piece of Mplanet news this week was AMA’s announcement that Larry Grisolano, senior communication strategist with the Obama presidential campaign, has been added to the Mplanet speaking roster.

The Obama campaign is being widely recognized as one of the marketing smash hits of 2008 – Marketing News includes it in its hits list, for example. So this talk should be packed with marketers anxious to learn some of the secrets used by the campaign to propel the President-elect into the White House.