By Patricia Wilson


We are very pleased to announce (see press release) that BrandCottage has teamed with The Farm, a creative advertising and production services agency, to launch a new USA TODAY campaign, What America Wants.

The campaign starts today and targets advertisers and media buyers — essentially people just like us. The campaign emphasizes USA TODAY’s continued leadership role and connection with its readers via print, USATODAY.com and on the iPhone.


By the way, if you haven’t seen USA TODAY’s mobile application, you really should. It’s impressive. It “share article” feature fluidly links with Twitter, Facebook, text and e-mail applications to enable the easy sharing of information with your communities.


The campaign is running print and online advertising in trades such as Mashable, Adage, Adweek, Brandweek, Mediaweek, TechCrunch and CNNMoney.com. Ads will also appear on television, on Facebook and LinkedIn, and on elevator screens.


Campaign components also include guerrilla marketing and social media tactics.


The multimedia world is rapidly changing and this is producing many opportunities for small, experienced agencies. What wins today are strong ideas, speed and flexibility. We are humbled to be part of the USA TODAY brand initiative.


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

by Patricia Wilson


There was a lot of talk today at OMMA Global Conference & Expo in New York about the implications of mobile marketing, mobile search and smart phones. The general consensus is that mobile is not only more local, but often more relevant and engaging than traditional search on the Web.


There was a lot of chat about alternate search on mobile, including  Twitter, Cha Cha, Ardvaark, crowdsourcing and voice. Not everyone agrees whether or not voice is relevant long term. But, like everything else, it seems to depend on where the technology goes from here.


A lot of today’s attendees were blogging and tweeting from the conference and most of the attendees were glued to their iPhone or Blackberry devices. There were many stories about how cool it is to Tweet for a local restaurant location or hotel recommendation and get them without going through the traditional search channels.


Papa John’s Jim McDonnell  told the attendees that he sees most of his success through the banners, not the mobile applications (hmmm: wonder if that’s because mobile applications are still new for most of the United States?).


Maria Mandel of OgilvyInteractive showed an impressive group of case studies, many global. The headline here is that mobile often works best when partnered with other media. Her experience points to print and outdoor being the two most effective partnering mediums with mobile.


That was contradicted a bit by big media brand representatives from CBS and ESPN. They said they have undoubtedly been successful at deploying the brand across all the screens: TV, Web and mobile. The cross-platforms of the big media brands is here to stay and seem to be leading in the investment of mobile research, as well.


The take-aways from OMMA are not unlike what we have heard for traditional media advertising:

1. Define your audience well and understand how they use mobile (or any media, for that matter).
2. Define what you want the campaign to achieve.
3. Understand and apply the intrinsic characteristics of mobile (its ability to target and be relevant) and combine it with other parts of the marketing plan.

Mobile marketing, like other marketing tools, is not a one-size fits-all solution.


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