Mobile App Targets by Social Media Data, Location

Summer is when advertisers must catch folks on the move, so it's no surprise to see a surge in mobile app debuts. UberMedia , for one, unveiled its UberAds product that targets app users based on their social media data and location. “So if you follow Tom Cruise on Twitter and are near a theater, you could see an ad for movie tickets,” explained Bill Gross, UberMedia CEO, in an Adweek article. NBCUniversal tested the UberAds' mobile apps network to promote Tom Cruise's sci-fi movie Oblivion and earned a 4% click-through rate that was significantly higher than the industry average of 1%. Doug Neil, senior vice president of digital marketing at NBCUniversal, told Adweek that the Oblivion ads created 2 million mobile impressions while homing in on Cruise’s 3.9 million Twitter followers and other mobile app users. For more on summer mobile initiatives, see the story at http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/summer-could-be-breakthrough-mobile-advertising-149632

Data-Driven Mailings Create Arts Marketing Success

If you need an example of direct mail power in arts and entertainment marketing, look at the Everyman Theater Company, a nonprofit Baltimore-based theater group. Last year, it incorporated data-driven strategies to optimize its direct mail marketing with impressive results. The total ROI for one campaign was an astounding 552%, with an 80% increase in ticket sales and revenue, for example. Prior to its data-driven mailings, Everyman's traditional marketing had relied mostly broadcast messages: postcards, radio spots, and e-blasts. Everyman's prior direct mail efforts usually equated to mailing to its entire list. Enter Marketing Director Jonathan Waller. He hired a database services firm to clean up the database (mainly removing duplicate names), to identify segments most likely to purchase tickets, and to build predictive models. After direct-mail testing of segments and messaging, both response rates and cost efficiency improved. For more detail, see the Direct Marketing News story at http://www.dmnews.com/data-driven-marketing-gets-dramatics-results/article/290791/

Film Marketing Gets Low Ratings in Study

Movie studios got poor ratings for their target marketing efficiency in a recent study by marketing professors at the University of Utah, University of Chicago and University of North Carolina. Looking at the performance of films from 2004 in 208 U.S. markets, the study looked at pre- and post-release blog impacts and advertising spends by studios. Despite spending for nationwide blanket marketing, the movie studios only released movies in 53% of the markets most responsive to advertising and 44% of the markets most responsive to blogs and social media. And the type of marketing was also inefficiently matched to likely market response. The larger markets as well as younger consumers, Asians and Hispanics responded more to blogs and social media than advertising efforts, for example. Paid advertising worked better with older Caucasians. The study did not look at more recent films to see if movie marketing or response had shifted, however. For more details on the study, go to http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/200002/film-marketing-fairly-inefficient.html#axzz2TsDrRchr