Alterian's financial year ended on the 31st of March so I've been spending the last few days reviewing the trends in the business over the past 12 months. It's been a turbulent ride for some marketing technology vendors with a significant series of bumps in the road especially towards the...
Lots of recent studies have shown that brands intend to invest more money in the digital channels this year with a recent CMO Council study showing that more than 44% intend to deploy new email automation systems in 2009 – this makes email the biggest new investment for CMOs this year, beating Social...
I'm just back from an extended trip that took me to America and Australia to meet with clients and partners involved in the direct marketing business: this yielded a couple of insights. America is definitely fully aware of the depths of the financial crisis and budgets for both above and below the...
The FTC has announced new guidelines to cover Behavioral Targeting. Further to my post on ethical self regulation, it seems the FTC has the same idea when it says that it will "evaluate the development of self-regulatory programs and the extent to which they serve the essential goals set out in...
I'm increasingly concerned about privacy, it seems technology has advanced to the point where it's all too easy to breach fundamental rights of personal confidentiality. Since my last blog post I've been working with a number of clients and partners that want to look further into behavioral...
So yesterday was Superbowl day, obviously big news over here in the States, I was at a friends house for a BBQ and the game was on - this year there was a huge jump in fees to $3m for 30 seconds of air time . Superbowl remains one of the few occasions that draws a vast audience and cannot be legitimately...
I recently heard an interesting story that shows a different side to social computing, one that all marketing departments should heed! Twitter is a strange thing, it reminds me a little of a science fiction story I once read set in a world where everyone knows what everyone else is thinking - like that...
Many of the clients that I'm talking right now to are struggling with the realisation that marketing is now a dialogue. Out on the web the message they put out is under constant scrutiny and discussion. Brands have to start engaging with the online social community because so many people are now...
I've been in the USA this week and the inauguration buzz has been unstoppable! So I thought for my inaugural post I'd take a moment to talk about Obama and marketing technology. A democrat in the White House is always of interest to marketers due to the party's views on privacy: are we in...
