Five Secrets to Successful Game-Day Sampling—Part 3 By Laurie Carlson McGrath I remember once reading, “A brand name is more than a word. It is the beginning of a conversation.” This certainly is true when it comes to hand-to-hand game-day sampling. ...

Five Secrets to Successful Game-Day Sampling—Part 2 By Laurie Carlson McGrath A March survey conducted by “Event Marketer” revealed that one-fourth of consumers who attend a marketing event immediately buy the product being showcased. ...

Five Secrets to Successful Game-Day Sampling--Part 1 By Laurie Carlson McGrath Our company recently received from a sports venue one of the highest compliments possible in our industry. ...

First Person: Hot Times for Event Marketers By Matthew Glass Summer settings provide many opportunities for brand marketers to spend quality time with consumers. My company, Grand Central Marketing, has activated many summer promotions to reach consumers where they spend their leisure time...

The Electric Fan: Get Plugged In with Sampling at Sporting Events By Laurie Carlson McGrath Sports fans are some of the most passionate and intensely loyal people on the planet—more so, I think, than the ordinary consumer—and definitely a demographic worth targeting. ...

First Person: Branded Entertainment to Meow About By Matthew Glass Product placement in a television program or movie was once the province of prop managers trading out the possibility of big-screen time for supplemental money or even free product. ...

Planning an Overseas Event? Read This First By Matthew Glass No matter how many promotions you’ve done domestically, there’s still a learning curve you need to go through to get a handle on the rules, regulations, and customs of doing business internationally. ...

First Person: How Napster Struck Gold Before the Olympics By Matthew Glass In days a flame will be lit in Turin, Italy, and the XX Olympic Winter Games will officially be under way. For marketers, this quadrennial occurrence is a golden opportunity to associate their brands with these new Olympians. While not everyone can afford the multimillion-dollar price tag that comes with an official Olympic sponsorship, companies could capitalize on the Olympic juggernaut by aligning with individual athletes and creating promotional events in the weeks leading up to the Games....

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Morphs Into Marketing Tool By Tim Parry The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, with its huge TV viewership (50 million folks) and live attendance (3 million people regularly brave the weather to line Broadway) has become more than a mere parade. As John Friend, senior vice president, Cartoon Network Enterprises, puts it, “The parade is part of a fully aligned and integrated campaign.”...

How Hasbro Created New Buyers for Old Products By Tim Parry Old brands can be resuscitated. It all comes down to creating a new audience and, whenever possible, leveraging technology, says Hasbro's Mark Blecher....

The Brand-Building Race: How ING Grew Awareness with NYC Marathon By Tim Parry Though global financial services group ING started purchasing properties in the United States in 1994, it spent its first nine years here as a relatively unknown company. But since becoming the first-ever title sponsor of the New York City Marathon in 2003, ING says, its brand awareness has grown from a virtual zero to about 80%...

Presence Marketing Helps HBSC Build Foot Traffic By Tim Parry When HSBC Bank USA wanted New Yorkers to know of its presence in their neighborhoods, it set up faux game shows, complete with real prizes, in front of local branches. The result was increased brand awareness and foot traffic, and even new accounts....

Following Up with the Meow Mix Café: The Six Keys to Pop-up Store Success By Tim Parry The pop-up store was originally slated to be open only for three days. But media coverage topped 150 million media impressions on six continents, creating a buzz that led Meow Mix to keep the store open for an additional seven days. It even drew a request from a South African businessman who wanted to open a franchise there. ...

Sports as Marketing Tool: The Shoe Must Fit By Andrew Grossman If you want your brand to gain a sports-related gloss, you might be better off participating in community sports activities than by writing a check to have a pro athlete act as a spokesperson. ...

U.S. Open Stadium Signage Pays Off for MassMutual By Tim Parry, Chief Marketer According to research conducted by ROI evaluation service company Joyce Julius & Associates, tennis sponsors got a big bang for their bucks with stadium signage during this year's U.S. Open, as their logos appeared clear and in-focus for a combined 147 hours, 57 minutes during the 14 consecutive days of coverage afforded the tournament by CBS and USA Network....