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Moms are statistically more likely than general consumers to talk about children's products 39% of the time, Health and Health Care 29%, Financial Services 28%, The Home 24%, Food and Dinning 19%, Household Products 19%, Media and Entertainment 14%, Personal Care and Beauty 10%, Travel Services 9%, Beverages 9%, Technology 8%, Automotive 3% and Telecommunications 3%.

Many of these categories weren't in attendance at the Chicago Mommy Blogger Show. No matter what a Mommy Blogger says to her audience, if the message isn't relevant and interesting, it doesn't grow virally. However, if it is relevant, the message quickly spreads exponentially.
That's because Moms spend an average of 18% more time talking about products than other women. This statistic increases to 23% among pregnant women and new moms, who have an average of 109 conversations per week about products and services.

Word-of-mouth (WOM) among women is incredibly desirable for brands, since 67% of these conversations are positive and 60% include direct suggestion to purchase.
We have a white paper on the subject titled "7 Keys To Mom's Heart" that is based on our experience and research with moms.

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As marketers move into 2010 planning, they need to more seriously focus on building a sound mobile strategy that supports their overarching marketing strategy, here's why; 

1) Smart phones in the US will easily outnumber computers by 2010, and the phone will become the #1 way US consumers access the web.

Smart phone penetration in the US is at 18 % and growing. Best Buy released a recent survey that found 40% of all non-smart phone users intend to purchase one in the next year. Cell phones in general already outnumber computers 3 to 1.

2) Google Ad Word buys now include mobile search. 
While the numbers for mobile search are low at the moment, they are going to grow exponentially with greater smart phone use. Yet, the majority of mobile searches are linked to sites that are not even mobile friendly.

3) Having a mobile strategy will put you ahead of the pack. 
Right now, mobile is the Wild West. Marketers are being flexible and spending a little to try new and different things. Some are very successful. Many others fail miserably, not because they are a bad tactic, but because there is no strategy behind how they are used. 

The key to successfully addressing any mobile tactic is to back up and establish a mobile marketing strategy. Defining how your brand will communicate in the space and answering why specific initiatives and tactics will deliver the appropriate consumer experience is imperative.

Given the time and distribution constraints of the App store in general, game apps are typically not a good tool to attract an audience on their own and they usually fall way down at the bottom of a defined list of mobile priorities that comes from an overarching mobile strategy.

Mobile web sites, apps, tagging, coupons, promotions and on-going relationship marketing via Twitter, Facebook, text, and e-mail can all be effective when designed to address the specific behaviors, needs, wants, and desires from identified customer segments that are justifiable in both audience size and behavior characteristics.

It might sound a little like overkill, but given where the market is headed, those that take the time to plan now will be well ahead of the game come this time next year.

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DO SOMETHING NOW!

The following links will help you gain a voice in Washington.

How to find and contact your Congress Reps.
http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/

How They Vote on issues
http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/

"Members of the interactive advertising and marketing ecosystem can
contact Congressman Rick Boucher, D-Va., to argue against new
restrictions inhibiting the growth of online advertising"

http://www.boucher.house.gov/

It is imperative the all of us in the communication community take
action by reaching out to the general public with information on
proposed legislation and provide a link back to congress to hear the
opinions of its constituents, or we will suffer a misguided wrath
against our industry and the core foundation of the economic recovery
that is finally underway.

I'm hopeful all future Ad Age articles that asks readers to take action will include links to do just that.

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Throw Klickable in the mix, a player that provides viewers the
opportunity to click on objects in a video while the video continues
playing for more information and links to purchase and provides
marketers very specific information about viewing patterns and where
users click on most for true one-to-one video marketing.

See Klickable in action in the latest Jay Z video and across the web on major video sites.
http://www.roc4life.com/profiles/blogs/doa-death-of-autotune

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Bravo! for the upcoming shift to more relevant media that Starbucks can dominate in – social media. It's a medium custom made for Starbucks core customers and not so much for Dunkin Donuts or McDonald's.Don't believe it? There are a handful of McDonald's Personas on Twitter, none have more than 700 followers and Dunkin Donuts has just over 29,000, while Starbucks has over 250,000 followers.McDonald's US has just over 1,882,000 fans on their Facebook Fan Page, Dunkin a little more than 829,000. Starbucks has over 3,665,000 and Starbucks Frappuccino more than 1,307,000.Perhaps today you found out through a friend that Starbucks had an exclusive one day offer for a free pastry with the purchase of a drink via a viral e-coupon. If you didn't know about it, you might not be in their target audience.Going to the core traits that make the Starbucks brand distinct and special will perpetuate greater awareness in the social networking sphere.We do a lot of work in the space and have a white paper on the subject – the 9 Step Guide To Social Networking. Starbucks does a better than average job on all 9 steps.We also generate a forecast for food and beverage trends and Starbuck's move to instant-coffee with Via, may seem counter to the brand to some, but from the trends we've seen, it too is dead on

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Any communication opposing health care reform should focus on an informed opinion built on three key pillars;

1) The federal government's practice of shortchanging its medical bills.
2) The financial blow current legislation will have on businesses, consumers and the anemic economic recovery.
3) The Congressional Budget Office's declaration this proposal will fail to contain costs.

The Congressional Budget Office declared Thursday this reform will fail to meet the primary goal of containing costs and would actually expand the federal government's responsibility for health-care costs, of which they are not appropriately Financing or paying their appropriate obligation.

Douglas Elmendorf, director of the Congressional Budget Office, told the Senate Budget Committee. "On the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health-care costs,"

Health care is in a crisis right now because the federal government demands access and services for the needy/uninsured, but does not cover the entire financial obligation for those demands. 

Every time a federally subsidized patient walks in the door for medical assistance, insured patients are taxed with ever rising insurance premiums, deductibles and reduced medical services that go to pay what the federal government refuses to pay. Don't believe it? Ask someone you know in the medical community.

The proposed "reform" legislation will move further responsibility to the hands of the federal government, who would in turn "negotiate for better rates," which translates to not meeting their financial obligations, while directly raising taxes on small and large businesses and taxing the insured directly out of their paychecks and indirectly through further premium and deductible hikes.

The proposed health care reform legislation will hit small and large businesses alike directly in the pocket book through taxes. It will also hit everyone who has insurance, which will impact consumer confidence and spending. 

There are several key components to our economy that need stability before it can recover. Small business and consumer confidence and spending are by far the biggest engines to that are needed to realize stable growth and recovery. Taxing them will slow any chances of that are currently under way.

As marketers we are in the business of helping people find the right solutions for their daily challenges. I urge everyone reading this to look further into the proposed health care reform legislation, form a constructive opinion and make sure your representatives in Washington and the general public are aware of the impact and implications associated with the current proposals as you see them. Our industry and our country both urgently need good informed opinions and leadership on this matter.

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It amazes me how marketing always gets the Evil Empire bad rap when it's creating "FREE" to the consumer content for very expensive platforms.
Imagine a world where everybody can get free books if they so choose to receive marketing messages. Sort of like television.
Imagine book extensions that bring the stories to life in 3-D, or video animation, or Klickable video that let's you click on objects for links and further information.
All of these technologies already exist and they will soon be coming to an e-book near you.

K-Mart closed over 300 stores a few years back, now operates 1368 to Walmart's 4,269 and Target's 1,684 US stores.

K-Mart is typically located in urban areas where rent and real estateare cheaper than Walmart or Target, which are both more heavilyconcentrated in the suburbs.

The Blue Light Special has been revived and featured in ads and specials for some time.
Making it a central differentiating theme says, "there are savings andan element of surprise in store" to consumers. The Blue Light Specialis gaining acceptance and interest from the recession as customers needand appreciate a little surprise.

Couple that with celebrity and established proprietary brands that arefinding an audience much like Kohl's has had success with and you havea unique differentiated combination unlike any other retailer.

K-Mart has the opportunity to expand now that there is a glut ofcommercial real estate on the market. But, that isn't likely given it'strack record of succeeding where Walmart and Target aren't located.

Phone and digital coupons and messaging are beginning to furtherenhance the values in store. But more could be done, to help buy downthe growing costs of the Kmart circular.

I look to see Kmart work with they have and expand their offerings fromSears' Craftsman and other brands. They could also place more emphasison shopper marketing and adjust their store layouts to enhance theshopper experience and generate higher average basket rings.

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"Paranoia will destroy ya?"

Some people have been burned by cloud services that have lost importantlibraries of files. But those have occurred during the cloud computinginfancy and have thus far been few and far between.

It's also true in nature that when there is a single source of anythingfor the majority that use it, there is a risk of a fatal collapse inthe supply, leading to an adverse domino effect when the unexpecteddoes occur.

But Google understands that and is working to become not a singlesource, but a multiple point resource that is always on and always hasmultiple copies of everything the user has entrusted it with. It's inGoogle's best interest to do so.

If you look on the positive side of Google's cloud Chrome OS, beyondthe, "Google is putting the world at risk," perspective and look atwhat is driving the need and desire for cloud computing, you see apowerful promise. But, certainly not powerful enough to overnight getthe majority of people to drop Microsoft's Windows found on 90% of theworld's personal computers or Microsoft Office software used by morethan 450 million paying customers.

Google could go down for a few hours for a portion of its customerbase, as it did earlier this year. But even a situation 2-3 timesgreater in time and customers reach, than the 2 hours and 14% ofcustomers affected from a failure earlier this year, is notapocalyptic. If it were, than every time an internet service provider,server or hard drive went down, all would have already been lost.

As smart phone penetration takes off, currently 19% and expected tomore than double by the end of 2010 to outnumber PCs in the US, you canunderstand why cloud computing is so alluring.

Imagine the functions of all the software that currently reside on yourcomputer done through the Web with the information stored on yourcomputer or phone in a cloud of connected computers. Any web browser onany device could give users instant access to all of your files withyour permission.

No more downloads and upgrades. E-mailing large files will be replaced by simply allowing others to access files online.

Now imagine the ability to opt-in for a free cloud operating system inexchange for greater granularity from contextual search returns andsuggestions that take into account the actual content of your files.

A Web 3.0 world filled with proactive communication, based on consumerbehaviors and the content in each person's cloud file will make 1-to-1communication possible on a very large scale and will realize marketingROIs like none ever experienced.

Given just a few of these thoughts, perhaps there is a positive article on the upside of Google's Chrome OS on the horizon?

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The best way to build Trust with Gen Y is through personal in-person connections first and social networking second.

This plan reads like a well written book on how to influence important Gen Y influencers.

We have several white papers on this subject based on our research andexperience including, "The 7 Trust Builders For Gen Y" and, "The 9 StepGuide To Social Networking."

Additionally, smart shopper marketing strategy should equate to a fewhigh impact live events delivering significant coverage in the Best Buycircular going to 60M homes and incremental merchandising in storewhich equates to substantiation of marketing spend and ROI.

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