There’s a new education option this fall for those looking to gain expertise in multichannel marketing.

This fall, the DePaul University in Chicago will introduce a certificate program and graduate degree course for marketers that well-known direct marketer Ron Jacobs helped develop. The Jacobs and Stone Multichannel Marketing Communications Graduate Certificate program, dubbed MC2, was named in honor of Jacobs and Bob Stone, co-authors of the direct marketing book “Successful Direct Marketing Methods.”

The MC2 program is designed for professionals across communications disciplines, including advertising, branding, direct marketing, interactive, promotion and public relations. It teaches marketing communications from the outside-in perspective of customers and prospects, where today every customer is a multichannel customer. 

While the university has had a direct marketing program for the past 19 years, the timing was right to add new content.   

  “Today’s rapidly changing communications landscape requires that marketing communications professionals reinvent themselves in order to stay on the cutting edge,” said Jacobs in a statement.

Last week, I overheard a group of teen boys lamenting the shorter 99-cent menu at McDonald’s and a recent increase in some of the value meal prices. I was witnessing the economic downturn first hand - even the iconic cost-cutter has had to raise rates.

However, some marketers are looking at the gloom and doom as a new way to reinvent their signature products or brand positioning. A fantastic example comes from Fortune magazine’s coverage of J Crew’s CEO Mickey Drexler pointing out to designers that in tough times, people buy sensible, lasting style.

Other marketers are using the penny-pinching to offer small, affordable perks to their buyer base. While a shopper may not invest in a deluxe cable package, spending $10 a month to rent videos could still fill a TV watcher’s entertainment void. What is your company doing to reposition itself during the time that consumers are watching their wallets?

When I was younger, the end of August signified back-to-school shopping. I got my kicks buying school supplies. I loved it. I’d go to the store with my parents, list-in-hand, and excitedly rush around putting sparkly notebooks and colored pencils into the cart.

However, with the slumping economy, kids and parents may feel a pinch come the first day of school. I recently read this article on MediaPost, noting that a study from the NPD Group found that consumers say they’re planning on spending less during back-to-school shopping. The stores being affected most are clothing and shoe stores.

The percentage of people shopping at discount stores dropped from 84% to 81% and those going to apparel store dropped from 20% to 16%. Additionally, only 22% will visit shoe stores, going down from 27% last year. In total, 35% of those surveyed said they would spend less this year than last. Only 25% made the same statement a year ago.

All that being said, some retailers, like Kohl’s, are finding new ways to reach teens and tweens. The company launched a campaign this month using Stardolls.com. The site allows kids to create their own avatars and dress them in virtual Kohl’s clothing. They can buy the clothing using Stardollars, which they acquire by signing up for a monthly membership (around $5-$6). According to this article in the Wall Street Journal, Kohl’s hopes online interaction will lead to in-store sales. The avatar trend has also been utilized by K-Swiss, Eberjey and Sears.

As a quasi-hip and slightly tech-savvy Gen-Y-er, truthfully, while writing this post I said to myself, “What is with kids today spending real money on a virtual pair of shoes?” But then again, I’m sure my mother questioned my reasoning for wanting a pair of L.A. Gear sneakers that lit up with each step.

I’ve sometimes wondered whether digital displays can be considered direct marketing. Sure, they can be placed in specially-selected areas in stores that attract a certain type of customer, but once they’re in place, they’re pretty much stuck. Any old Frank McUnTargeted lost in a gigantic big box store could easily run into them, just as the perfect customer could turn one aisle too soon and miss out.
TruMedia may be on its way to solving the problem: the company has developed technology that allows digital signs to recognize individual people. Older versions could tell the difference between an adult and a child, and also had the power to determine gender and ethnicity. Now, the eerily insightful machines can decide if you’re a senior citizen, too.
Once the TruMedia sign has your target demographic filed into its little machine brain, it can serve up ads designed specifically for people like you.
Of course, I imagine the technology isn’t perfect. After all, not every pre-teen girl will thrill at seeing an ad for Hannah Montana shampoo — and imagine the backlash if it targets a 35-year-old mom with ads designed for a 72 year old.
When you compare it to that static signage of yore, though, this technology is a great step towards “direct-ifying” in-store ads.

Ever since last year when social networking giant Facebook let marketers come in and make pages, a host of companies have been using the site to promote their products. Some have created pages, others have created tools that consumers can interact with including widgets. And now those widgets can be measured, another step in the dm direction that the social networks are taking.

http://www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/digital/e3i55fbb1a3b41a2bcd62c2a6872493fadd

Not content with reaching your children through movies, television, CDs and a billion pieces of hot pink merchandise, Miley Cyrus and her Disney handlers have found a way to take over your home phone.
As part of a back-to-school merchandise tie-in with Wal-Mart, Disney is offering “phone calls” from Miley (stage name: Hannah Montana) that will encourage kids to get out of bed, go to band practice and practice their vocab words.
Parents just log on to the microsite — which conveniently links to the Wal-Mart/Hannah Montana back to school store — type in some basic information and choose to receive a wake-up call or a reminder for a certain activity. Then, through the magic of the Internet, a lucky kid gets a call from Hannah. The parent, meanwhile, gets a confirmation e-mail, complete with reminders to buy more Hannah Montana gear at Wal-Mart.
Yeah, it’s a little creepy, but you have to be impressed with the creativity. In a market saturated in Cyrus, finding a new, exciting channel to push her name is quite the feat. Getting permission, on top of that, to send thousands of targeted marketing e-mails as part of the “service” is pretty brilliant.

M&Ms are the latest brand name to join in the race for the increasingly popular Hispanic consumer. The candy has tapped Hispanic stars Wilmer Valderrama and Christina Saralegui to appear in print ads for its “Inner M” campaign. The ads appear in this month’s People en Espanol and will run again in October.
M&Ms will further extend its brand presence in the Hispanic community by sponsoring this year’s ALMA awards, which celebrate Latinos in cinema, television and music.
M&M is just one of the many national brands that’s starting to advertise specifically to Hispanics. For more information on the rise of Hispanic marketing, check out DMNews’ special feature on the topic, coming out in print on July 28.

Earlier this week, the FCC announced that it would be reviewing rules on how TV shows inform viewers of in-show advertising practices. IE: that Gossip Girl episode that was pretty much an hour-long (and delightfully drama-filled!) Victoria’s Secret commercial may be the sort of thing that comes with a disclaimer in the future.
The Washington Post quoted FCC Chairman Kevin J. Martin explaining, “We want to make sure consumers understand and are aware that they are being advertised to. We ask how we should update our rules to reflect current trends in the industry.”
In a way, he’s right: it’s probably better to be safe than sorry when it comes to transparency.
On the other hand, I’m a little bit offended that they feel the need to warn us of these things. How many people really don’t think that Victoria’s Secret paid to be mentioned 9 bajillion times during a much-talked-about primetime show? And if they don’t realize it, is it really hurting them?
If a marketer is clever enough to organically integrate their product into a show, kudos to them: I think it makes the show more believable because, yes, real people do shop at chain stores and drink Coca-Cola and eat at McDonald’s…though maybe not the people on Gossip Girl. If you’re getting your brand name out there without annoying consumers and maybe even adding to their favorite shows, I would call that great marketing, and not a threat.

If you are still recovering from Cannes and looking to see more legendary marketing campaigns, I recommend a visit to The Museum of the City of New York to see its latest exhibit “Campaigning for President: New York and the American Election.”

Opened last evening, the exhibit runs until November 4 and chronicles each US election - beginning with a commemorative button from George Washington’s inauguration in 1789 - and is a fantastic and rigorous collection of the posters, pins and other campaign materials: license plates, masks, pantyhose, fans, dolls, hats and paper dresses. More impressive perhaps is that most of it comes from one man’s personal collection; the late Jordan Wright began the collection at 10 years of age!

Unlike the pushes we feature in The Work, there was no ROI gained from this campaign paraphernalia. However, the results for 43 out of the 44 races that the exhibit catalogs are in - and from a marketing standpoint there are some interesting conclusions to draw from the evolution of creative to the use of a competitor’s slogans and imagery to directly challenge claims.

As New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who was at last night’s opening, pointed out one of the more remarkable insights is how little has changed in American politicking. “You can see the best and the worst of campaigning in this exhibit,” he said. Bloomberg’s company sponsored the exhibit.

Despite the fact that they’ve been around for what seems like forever in the world of Internet marketing, online classifieds are having a moment, as DMNews reports in this week’s news analysis.

However, the quick syndication of content enabled by Web 2.0 that’s driving many of the new deals in this space has the potential to also produce some conflicts of interest. This could become more apparent as the number of deals proliferate, lessening the control some publishers have over where their ads wind up.

For example, last week the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported that Wal-Mart Stores has removed links between the paper and the retailer’s classified advertising listings on its Web site. The newspaper’s management decided the unique content of the paper’s classified advertisements would be compromised by allowing Wal-Mart to use it.

Wal-Mart’s classifieds listings is powered by Oodle.com, which the article says uses a standard programming protocol to seek permission rights for searches and indexing of classified advertisements.

-Chantal Todé