By Patricia Wilson, founder of BrandCottage

The Super Bowl has long been thought of as the incubator for advertising and marketing innovation. For Super Bowl XLVI, this is more true than ever.


For the past couple of years, marketers and advertisers have filled Twitter and social media channels with Super Bowl conversations — about the ads as much as about the game. On February 5, when the game airs, Super Bowl advertisers will be working overtime to see that the general public tweets about their favorite commercials as well.

Shazam! Super Bowl Marketing Gets Social

“Super Bowl XLVI marks a tipping point for the anticipated explosive growth of interactive TV and will be a glimpse of what’s to come with emerging technology in this space,” said my friend, Susan Borst, a social media consultant. “Notable this year is the first live streaming of the big game by the NFL and Verizon (NFL Mobile), with an estimated one-third of ads being Shazam-able on smart phones. With more than 60 percent of fans watching the game tied to a second screen, this truly will be the most social Super Bowl ever.”


This year, advertisers are going all out to connect their brands to social media channels. The potential, based on last year’s social media results, is tremendous:

• Super Bowl XLV was the topic of more than 4.5 million tweets (Semiocast).
• During the final moments of the 2011 game, fans sent 4,064 tweets per second (The Huffington Post).

“Having spent record-breaking sums to secure the most valuable television slots in advertising, global brands from Coca-Cola to Volkswagen are looking to leverage social media to extend the buzz and reach of their ads,” writes Yinka Adegoke for Rueters.

Super Bowl 2012: Social Media Highlights

More than 150 million people will watch the game between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots. This year, it is estimated that the average 30-second spot will cost about $3.5 million, up from last year’s average of $3 million. (All this in a down economy, I might add.)


Some of his year’s reported social media highlights:


Century 21: Behind-the-scenes advertising footage via its app.


Coca-Cola: Along with the TV commercial featuring the Arctic polar bears, the bears will also be active on social media channels, including their own #GameDayPolarBears hashtag on Twitter. “The computer-animated bears will appear in a video stream running throughout the game at CokePolarBowl.com, a site hosted within Facebook,” reports USA TODAY.


Mars M&M’s: Touting a new candy, Ms. Brown, with an @mmsbrown Twitter handle.


Pepsi: Featuring X Factor USA winner Melanie Amaro performing the song, Respect. Fans can download a free video on their smart phones using a Shazam app.


Volkswagen’s Audi: Highlighting young vampires who are stunned by the Audi S7′s LED headlights (a spoof on the Twilight series), with continued conversation on Twitter: #SoLongVampires.

Super Bowl Ads: Not Just for TV

“Super Bowl ads aren’t just for TV anymore,” writes Carolyn Said at SFGate.


Said notes that many companies already have and others will share clips on YouTube. Companies are also extending their messages offline. Kia Motors, for example, is running teaser ads in movie theaters.


The trend in social media with the Super Bowl has been building over the past two or three years,” says Tim Calkins, a Northwestern University marketing professor, in a msnbc.com story. “This year, we’re really seeing it go to a totally new level where marketers are making social networking a core part of their Super Bowl efforts.”


Patricia Wilson is the founder of BrandCottage, a media marketing company with offices in New York, Atlanta and Washington, D.C.

By Patricia Wilson, founder of BrandCottage

This blog originally appeared as part of a series of contributions to Ann Tran’s blog, “An Expectation To Be Young In Social Media?” Ten of Ann’s social media friends were asked to respond to the statement: To work online or in new media, there’s an expectation for you to be young.” The following is my response:


My clients want two things: brand insights and knowledge based on my years of marketing experience and proof that I can harness technology within the media landscape to deliver customers.


What’s unique today is that innovation happens at such a rapid pace, we no longer experience the generational adoption gaps. My son blogs. So do I. My young staffers tweet, pin and Facebook. So do I.


What about working in the high-tech world? Are younger people better? Can older people still contribute?


Age doesn’t matter. But you have to stay innovative, passionate and adaptive to change. You can’t be stuck in the past.


Hiring young people does help keep everyone current and moving forward. Experienced workers contribute with business insights that come only from years of experience.


Please feel free to share your thoughts on this topic.


Patricia Wilson is the founder of BrandCottage, a media marketing company with offices in New York, Atlanta and Washington, D.C.

By Patricia Wilson, founder of BrandCottage

Advertising is dead. Long live advertising!


Or so the chant continues as advertising spending continues its march from economic doldrums and adjusts to changes due to technological innovations and shifting consumer media habits.

Interpublic Group’s Magna Global recently lowered its 2012 worldwide ad revenue projections, but still predicts total ad revenues to be up 3.7 percent — nearly $153 billion — in the United States. Similarly, ZenithOptimedia forecasts a 3.6 percent growth expenditure for the United States in 2012, pointing to continued newspaper declines and flat magazine advertising,  but increased market share for Internet advertising.


Biggest gainers: digital and mobile ads aimed at driving new revenue from a growing appetite for tablet computers that come in all shapes and sizes, from the innovation-leading Apple iPad to the low-cost Amazon Kindle Fire (see PCMag’s tablet review). However, even within the television and digital ad spaces, changing priorities in ad spending look like the norm for 2012.


(See related BrandCottage blogs: Advertising’s Recovery: Not all Media Created Equal and Advertising Spending Looks Up in 2010.)

TV Advertising Maintains Market Share

Holding its own in the battle for advertising dollars: television.


Cable “cord cutting” is expected to continue in the U.S. at an annual rate of 500,000 subscribers for the next few years,” said Vincent Letang,the executive vice president and director of global forecasting at Interpublic Group’s Magna Global (reported by MediaDailyNews). But dollars won’t be lost as much as they are redirected to other video channels and platforms.

Print Down But Not Out

A poor performance in the second half of last year resulted in an 3.1 percent decline in magazine ad pages for 2011 compared with 2010, according to a report recently issued by the Publishers Information Bureau (PIB). Category declines included food and food products, home furnishings and supplies, public transportation, hotels and resorts and direct response companies.


There are, however, some “pockets of strength” in the apparel, cosmetics and financial sectors. In fact, according to Mediafinder.com, 239 new magazines launched in 2011, up 24 percent from 193 new launches in 2010 (see MediaDailyNews). Business-to-business magazines almost doubled, from 34 new titles in 2010 to 62 last year.

Innovation Drives Advertising Disruption

Three emerging trends are the direct result of disruptive technologies, according to a 2012 market survey conducted by AdMedia Partners:

• The distribution of content across trans-media channels.
• The demand for real-time, more personalized content across multiple devices.
• Exponential growth in the ability to collect, manage, analyze and execute on marketing data.

“As a consequence, digital media and marketing services are experiencing more rapid growth than both the overall economy and marketing spending as a whole,” according to the AdMedia report.


The Internet is and will continue to be the fastest-growing medium, according to ZenithOptimedia. Major Internet advertising trends, worldwide:

• Display is growing the fastest, at 18.9 percent a year, and is driven mainly by online video and social media.
• Paid search is growing more than 15 percent a year, but growth is “slightly restrained by the shift in search behavior from desktop to mobile devices, where costs are currently lower.”
• Google increased its global share of the Internet market from 34.9 percent in 2006 to 44.1 percent in 2010.
• Facebook has overtaken AOL with a market share of 3.1 percent in 2010.

Digital advertising has quickly advanced from a fringe buy to an imperative part of companies’ media mix,” notes Jenna Levy in the Marketing Conversation blog.


Even more amazing, Forrester Research predicts that U.S. advertisers will spend $77 billion on interactive marketing in 2016 (thanks DailyDOOH).


That’s the amount spent on television today!

Patricia Wilson is the founder of BrandCottage, a media marketing company with offices in New York, Atlanta and Washington, D.C.

By Patricia Wilson, founder of BrandCottage

Arguably, in 2008, social media emerged as a marketing staple. So, what have we learned about the benefits of social networking? Does everyone benefit: business-to-consumer and business-to-business companies? Or, is social media just a tool for Lady Gaga and other megastars?


SmartPulse, a quickie poll from SmartBrief on Social Media, asked marketing leaders to identify who has most benefited from social media engagement. Top on the list of beneficiaries:

• Business-to-consumer companies (32 percent).
• Celebrities (31 percent).

In the early stages of social media experimentation, I’d say that’s about right. Does it mean that social media isn’t working for others, such as media companies and business-to-business organizations? Of course not. There are hundreds of case studies demonstrating the power of social engagement for all kinds of businesses.

The Right Social Media Mindset

What is true, frankly, is that business-to-consumer companies are often the leaders in innovative marketing. They’ve demonstrated their prowess in traditional marketing and they continue to lead the way with new media strategies. Why? Because business-to-consumer companies make brand image part of the corporate fabric (think Apple and Ford, for example).


Social media cannot be thought of as just another marketing gimmick. In her SmartBrief blog, social media consultant Mirna Bard is right on target: “It takes a mindset shift, time, willingness to learn and commit, as well as consistency. These elements combined with the right strategy and tools can be powerful for any business or person, whether they are using it for training, internal communication, prospecting or even to become a celebrity.”


In other words, it takes a 360-degree cultural shift and commitment for social media to work. It is no small task for some organizations to move from defensive, controlling, top-down driven organizations to ones that are open to 24/7 engagement and, yes, even criticism.

Looking Ahead on Social Engagement

In The State of Corporate Social Media in 2011, from the Useful Social Media Community, 50 percent of U.S. companies said they still do not have a staff member devoted to social media. However, all U.S. companies surveyed said that social media is becoming a more important part of the marketing strategy and 29 percent project social media budgets to increase by 100 percent or more in 2011.


“Whilst marketing and communications retain their dominance as the main reason companies use social, customer service, employee engagement and product development all see significant growth [in the United States and Europe],” according to the report.

What is Social Media Worth?

Is social engagement worthwhile? The real answer to this question, for many companies, is unknown. Most do not measure social media ROI. But when you look at leading companies — Dell, Starbucks, Ford, Coca Cola and Apple, for example — it is easy to see the power of social media as a marketing tool.

Companies are still learning about social media’s power. For some, the transition has been easy (they had open cultures to begin with). For others, it’s going to require more than establishing a Facebook page or Twitter feed. It will mean substantial cultural shifts.


Or, as Lady Gaga sings: Baby I was born this way.

Patricia Wilson is the founder of BrandCottage, a media marketing company with offices in New York, Atlanta and Washington, D.C.

By Patricia Wilson, founder of BrandCottage


Tom Moradpour, one of my favorite Twitter pals, has issued a rallying cry: same-day tweeting by the marketing community on a common topic.


Today’s Twitter marketing topic is leadership. Tom is busy gathering bloggers on this topic — proof he is already a leader of the 21st Century.


Every business school offers study on business leadership, providing students with leadership and case studies. Post graduation, there is a plethora of leadership magazines, Web sites, newsletters, conferences and seminars. I admit, I’ve done my share of studying on the subject. And still do.


But I want to propose the hypothesis that many great leaders are born, not made. Early in life, leaders demonstrate leadership-favorable personality and intellectual traits. These traits are recognized, enabling GREAT leaders to continue to hone their leadership skills over the course of a lifetime.


Here’s my list of born-leader characteristics:

1. Self-Motivated. We all knew the kid in High School who did it all. Star athlete, exemplary student, class president, well-liked. This is almost always someone who will become a leader. An inner voice drives them. Their God-given talents do not go undeveloped. Then there is the kid who was quiet, but always doing something amazing — volunteering in Africa, writing a blog, helping those in need. These too are self-motivated leaders.
2. Builders. Leaders are born with a desire to build. Whether it’s a business, a sports team, a charity, a school fund-raiser or some other passion. Early on, leaders build communities.
3. Intuitive. One of the most important skills in leading a team is the ability to develop instincts and empathy. It is critical to understand how a person feels or thinks when in his/her shoes. Leaders have a high level of this social functioning. Most leaders have the gift of “reading a room” and knowing how to drive a conversation to successful results.
4. Inspiring. Leaders inspire others to join in the development of missions and visions. It’s a very delicate balance. Most leaders hire incredibly smart people. Great leaders know how to inspire smart teams to solve problems.
5. Hardworking. The best educated people in the world rarely experience success without a lot of hard work. Work ethic is interrelated with motivation, drive and ambition. The best leaders are more often than not the hardest workers in the organization. Anyone can be taught a given work skill, but a solid work ethic comes from within.
6. Adaptable. This may be the most important leadership trait of all needed in the 21st century, when technology and the business climate change rapidly. Modern leaders are always learning, always watching the competition, always identifying the obstacles and opportunities, and never resting on what once worked. In the 21st century, forseeing where the trends are headed, where technology is going, and how companies must be flexible is critical to success.
7. Confident. A final, but essential ingredient, great leaders are confident. But just as important, great leaders also inspire confidence in others. They know the light that shines on others reflects back on themselves.

Kudos to Tom for initiating this important topic and providing us all the opportunity to learn — from each other — on how to become better leaders.

Patricia Wilson is the founder of BrandCottage, a media marketing company with offices in New York, Atlanta and Washington, D.C.