Ad Club Blog

For those of you who were at The Ad Club’s kickoff to the Under The Dome series with Pandemic Labs Founder Matt Peters, STOP reading now, you’ve got work to do replacing the strategy you just threw away! Begin reading again once you’ve give up sorting through the surprising results of the 300+ B2B and B2C page, 200,000+ post, 255 million+ interaction study that Matt presented a SMALL part of today. For the rest of you, I’m recapping the highlights and offering a few pieces of advice.

There are some practices that we know are effective, and Matt largely affirmed these. Videos>Pictures>Words>Lots of words. Pretty straight forward. The best time to post, not such a straight forward fact. I know many of you will tell me 9am-11am, or Friday afternoon, or 6pm, or whatever you may find is effective. But we’re ALL missing out here, because the most effective time is…care to guess…12:00am Sunday. Followed by 12:00am Monday. Followed by 10pm Friday. Seeing a trend right? Thinking this will be a little easier to redesign than you expected? WRONG! The next most effective time? Tuesday 11:00pm. Huh?

So here’s the takeaway when it comes to time. You post M-F, 9-5 (or some variation of that). Your audience reads nights and weekends. Something’s gotta give. And its gonna be you, because as Matt said, your audience isn’t going to modify its habits to fit your schedule, you’re going to modify your schedule to fit their habits.

Matt gave a lot of tips, but here is the one topic that stuck with me the most. EdgeRank. Facebook likes pages to be shared, content people enjoy, and conversations to begin. Post entertaining content, optimized for your audience, and you’ll get interaction (duh!). Get interaction and Facebook EdgeRank will show your content to more people. Bigger audience, same percentage of engagement, equals more interaction. Long story short; don’t post “crap” just to post something.

Here is how I do it. I post 1-2 times a day. I post videos (when I’ve got them). I post pictures, when I post links, I post pictures with them. And I don’t post just to post! If you’re posting quick content, information about an event, questions, etc, there's is a place for that…Twitter.

For those of you who didn’t attend, there is a video coming soon. Also, check out the Pandemic Labs Blog for more information. There was so much knowledge shared by Matt today, I can’t even being to write about it all. So if you were there, what did you like the most? What one piece of advice is going to change the way you do business in social?

Follow me on Twitter and follow The Ad Club to learn more about future Under The Dome and other events!

Editors Note: Our guest blogger today is Edward Boches. Edward is the Chief Innovation Officer at Mullen and the Chief Marketing Officer at Springpad, makers of popular social notebooks. Follow Edward on Twitter @EdwardBoches

I made a notebook of 10 women who've inspired meSome I've known in person. Others from afar. In one way or another they've set examples with their strength, their talent, their determination, their creativity. Here they are. With the most important one first. Gloria Abramson.

Editors Note: This year, The Ad Club is putting together a Periodic Table of Leadership for our Women's Leadership Forum, themed "The Element of Leadership." We want to know, in your opinion, the key "Element of Leadership" is ___? Comment with your word (and your initials or Twitter handle so we can credit you) or tweet it with #AdClubWLF!

This year's Women's Leadership Forum, themed "The Element of Leadership", will take place on May 3rd. As we were planning out the event and going over the agenda, we all got to thinking; what is the key element of leadership? If you could put it in one word, what does it mean to be a leader.

After some spirited discussion and debate, we came up with a lot of different answers. So we decided the best way to decide was not to pick just one word, but to represent our community of members, marketers, advertisers, and professionals in the New England area. And what better way to do that than ask you! And what better way to show all the different answers than in a Periodic Table of Leadership, kinda like the image below!


This year for Women's Chat's (#AdClubWLF Wednesday 6-7pmEST) were asking our list of outstanding guest bloggers to discuss Women's leadership topics, with their blog culminating in their one word "Element of Leadership". We'll be collecting all the input from our friends and followers, and publishing our table at the May 3rd event! Blogs should be posting every Wednesday morning, so be on the lookout!

We'd love to hear from you! The one word key "Element of Leadership" is ___? Tweet us your answers using #AdClubWLF or comment here with your twitter handle and/or initials; we want to be sure to recognize you!

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Guest Blogger: Joy Errico Seusing, Vice President, External Relations, Jumpstart; @Jumpstartkids

Last fall, I left the retail industry after more than ten years to pursue a leadership opportunity at Jumpstart, a national non-profit organization focused on early childhood education. Having two preschool-aged children of my own and a passion for mission-driven work, I was humbled by the opportunity to join an organization that makes a profound difference in the lives of young children by helping them to develop the skills they need to enter kindergarten ready to succeed.  

With the growing economic challenges in our country, there is increased disparity between the early education opportunities that children from underprivileged communities receive, as compared to those from more prosperous neighborhoods. In fact, in low-income communities, 50% of children start kindergarten up to two years behind their more affluent peers. Investing in early education has proven benefits for not only these children, but to our society as a whole, resulting in greater lifetime productivity in the workforce, lower crime rates, and higher graduation rates. Jumpstart tackles this divide by training caring adults to deliver a research-based program to preschool children who need it most. Headquartered in Boston, Jumpstart reaches 10,000 children in communities throughout the United States, including New York City, Washington DC, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. 

One of the most fulfilling parts of my job is the opportunity to connect organizations with Jumpstart’s mission to drive positive change for young people. A few weeks ago, I received a call from Starbucks to participate in a national cause marketing program that encourages Starbucks cardholders to vote for their favorite non-profit. Jumpstart was one of the beneficiary organizations selected from a pool of 300 non-profits to join the Starbucks Community Card: Vote. Give. Grow. program. Special thanks to all of the Starbucks employees who rooted for Jumpstart!

With your support, Jumpstartcan secure $400,000 to help children enter kindergarten prepared to succeed.  Here’s how you can help:

1. Register your Starbucks Rewards card at www.starbucks.com/votegivegrow, selecting your preferred community.
2. Vote for Jumpstart using your Starbucks Rewards card at www.starbucks.com/votegivegrow.
3. Vote for Jumpstart once per week through April 30, 2012 and tell everyone you know!

Thanks so much for supporting our cause and please stay in touch with us @Jumpstartkids!

The AMA Boston Chapter held a Pinterest Roundtable last night in Westford, MA. If you haven't heard of Pinterest yet, wake up! The virtual pin board, which has been around since 2010, has exploded in the last few months, with off the chart results. Statistics indicate that over 20% of users have made a purchase from a pin!

Awesome numbers, but does that mean you need a pin board? That is a fair question to ask. With limited resources and increased time being devoted to social media outlets, marketers and advertisers have to ask themselves this question seemingly every day as new networks rise and fall.

So I set out on the drive to Westford, about an hour from my office in Boston, to meet the AMA group at the British Beer Company, which coincidentally is a nice place to have a meeting. I sat down at a table with people from NowSpeed, World Learning, Ross Simons, and more.

The topics of discussion ranged from "What is Pinterest?" to "Where is the ROI", and everything in between. The wide range of experience, job functions, and organizations really made for an interesting conversation. Ideas discussed included the use of Pinterest to drive students and parents to a study abroad program via images, to using Pinterest to spread links to your content; all of which seemed to be pretty solid ideas.

This all got me thinking; what are you using Pinterest for? And if you aren't, why not?

Lets us know your thoughts @TheAdClub

The Ad Club in Boston, MA, in conjunction with sponsor Newsweek & The Daily Beast, gathered for the Mad Men Season 5 premiere. The Boston Sales Manager of Newsweek & The Daily Beast, Paul Gillespie, picked up the first drink for the first 100 people at the party. Guests came dressed in Mad Men attire and toasted the new season.

Gregg Oberg, Social Media Manager for The Ad Club, also offered a special treat to the guests – get your photo taken in Don Draper’s chair from Seasons 1 to 3.  The chair was provided by A Chair 4 Charity, and all photo proceeds were sent to the Big Sister Association of Greater Boston. You can see pictures of Don’s chair at the premier party on The Ad Club’s Facebook Page.

Founder of A Chair 4 Charity, Fred Caserta (Principal/Creative Director of Stratford, CT-based Caserta Design Company, LLC), offered Don Draper’s chair to The Ad Club for the event through a social media posting.

A while back, Caserta received an e-newsletter (yes, a loyal fan, he joined the show’s mailing list) and learned that Mad Men was going to auction the set from Seasons 1 to 3. Still disappointed Jon Hamm’s appearance fell through, Caserta felt he owed the club some piece of the show, and if he couldn’t produce Don Draper in person, at least he could provide the chair.

Caserta said, “Owning the chair is like having a piece of television history.” Several of Mad Men’s promotional posters and ads showed Don Draper in the chair. The chair was, after all, where Don Draper smoked, had a drink or two, took meetings and even voted on merging his agency with another. It was the one item that anchored Don Draper over the first three seasons.

Auction Cause managed the auction for Lionsgate and AMC TV; eBay^® facilitated the online bidding; and uShip’s Help on Wheels was the charity delivery vehicle. Bidding for the chair started slowly, but rose to a frenzy right before the auction closed, and Caserta had the winning bid. 

Since ten percent of the proceeds from the auction went to City of Hope cancer center, Caserta thought he could continue to use the chair to do some good. (Hmm, wonder if Don Draper would vote “yea” on that!)

So, Caserta created A Chair 4 Charity. It’s Caserta’s way to share the chair with not only the fans of Mad Men, but also the advertising industry and aficionados of mid-century modern furnishings and fashion. Caserta makes Don Draper’s chair available for events -- proceeds from getting your picture taken in the chair benefits the charity the event sponsor chooses. So far, the Advertising Club of Connecticut held a benefit for the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center and The Ad Club in Boston sent donations to the Big Sisters Association of Greater Boston.

Mad Men’s set decorator Amy Wells has said that the show’s creator, Matthew Weiner, wanted such vérité on the sets that he requested “gum under the desks.”  Sure enough, next to the prop department sticker number, there’s a wad of gum under Don Draper’s chair!

If you would like to use Don Draper’s chair to raise money for charity at your event, contact: AChair4Charity@gmail.com, Twitter: @AChair4Charity, www.facebook.com/AChair4Charity or call 203-378-5358.

I've been seeing a lot of material around the Presidential campaigns over the last few months, and increasingly more now that President Obama has begun campaigning in earnest for reelection. The purpose of this blog is just to point out a few observations, which, regardless of your political affiliation, you'll find interesting.

Like most American men, I'm a sports junkie. That being said, I absolutely had to fill out a bracket this year for March Madness. Which, of course, requires hours of watching Sportscenter to prepare for, days of viewing celebrity and expert brackets online, and a whole lot of pretending to know what you're talking about.

So when I saw the opportunity to pit my bracket against Obama's, I had to do it, if only to fill out just one more bracket. Although the page looked different when you could still submit a bracket, check it out here to get an idea of what I'm talking about.

The first thing I noticed on the site was how much thought, work, and probably opinion polling went into it. You'll notice the picture of Obama in the background (still there in the current version of the page) is the President shooting hoops, looking rather normal. The larger background picture, featuring Obama along the right side is conspicuously missing a coat, a common theme to his 2008 campaign, which hasn't reappeared much during his Presidency.

Now here is where you note the brilliance of this "campaign". Sure, the pictures are subtle and subconsciously convey a calming feeling with the blue coloring; the images convey a normal man who likes basketball, and the verbiage is colloquial; meticulously designed I'm sure. But the brilliance here is in the actual submission of your bracket. You put your Name, Email address, and zip code into the form to submit your bracket. And trust me, they're not asking for your email to notify you if you win. I've been emailed by both Obama and Biden already (addressed to "friends" by the way). Once you submit, you're also redirected to a page to donate to the campaign. Well played!

What an extraordinary example of social media being used in cross platform promotion. All the relevant network buttons are located prominently on the bracket page. Obama's campaign has taken something as trivial as picking winners in March Madness, and used it to drive a following of 25 million "likes" to a page that essentially asks you for your email address and what state you live in. Then, he goes on Sportscenter and promotes it; all the while humanizing himself as an every man.

Love him or hate him, you've gotta admire this example of engaging with fans. It sure impressed me. Seen any other examples of innovative outside the box marketing around the campaigns this year? Tweet me your favorites @GreggOberg or to @TheAdclub.

Thanks for the read, I'll be posting my observations of marketing and advertising periodically, so look out for my "Daily Ramblings"!

Ok, so I’ll admit it, I found out it was International Women's Day via trending topics on Twitter today. Half of my readers have now stopped reading! For those of you that are still here, I wanted to discuss the actual meaning of the day. What is it? What does it mean? 

The first thought that comes to mind is all the way back in middle school; women's history month. I’ve got fond memories of sitting in class in Southern California, my classmates'/friends' mothers coming in dressed as Abigail Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Marie Curie, and countless others. But it occurs to me that International Women’s day must be much more than women in history, or we wouldn’t need a whole day for it.

So maybe it's like Mother’s Day. A day set aside to honor the women who raised each and every one of us, through the tough times and the good times, and loved us no matter what. But we’ve got a day for that too, so it obviously can't be like mother’s day. 

Running out of ideas. Maybe it's about women in business today. Strong, powerful, successful women such as Charlotte Beers, who broke the glass ceiling in advertising and forever altered the creative scene in the United States. Or Hillary Clinton, a former First Lady, Senator, legitimate Presidential candidate, and current Secretary of State; in short one of the most influential PEOPLE (not just women) in the world today. 

Maybe that’s too “big picture”. What about the women we work with every day, without whom, the day to day operations of the company would be impossible? The star saleswomen, the executives making the tough calls, the creative women designing today’s top marketing campaigns; is International Women’s Day about these wonderfully talented women? 

Could it be a political movement? A call to action to eliminate the pay gap between hard working women and their equally hard working, better paid male counterparts? Is it about empowering women in countries less fortunate than the United States, such as the nations of the Middle East?

Are any of these definitions, or the infinite ones that could follow, the correct definition? In reality, I think thats a trick question. International Women’s Day is just that. A day across the world dedicated to women. To all of these things; not just one. Because in the end, women are a combination of all these things. They’re loving, smart, creative, driven, innovative, talented, and more! So for International Women’s Day, I’d like to thank all the women who make a difference in the world. 

That’s what International Women’s Day means to me. What does today mean to you? Tell us what you think on Twitter: @theadclub #InternationalWomensDay. 

I can't begin to say how excited I am to hear Adam speaking at The Ad Club's CMO Breakfast on March 27th. This will be just my second CMO Breakfast, after joining The Ad Club at the end of Feb. Adam Grossman is the Red Sox SVP of Marketing and Brand Development. I for one am very interested to see how he manages such a strong global brand.

Although the details are being finalized as to what he will discuss, I'm hoping he will talk about (or somebody will ask) how they've handled the fallout from last season's beer and chicken collapse. Either way, with all the unique challenges a sports team faces, this should be a must see.

Don't wait too long to get your tickets, I'm sure they'll go fast! Visit our events page to sign up today!