Customer Futures is an international members-only network of learning groups consisting of executives from non-competing businesses that meet quarterly to share knowledge in the areas of customer management and customer experience management. There are currently forums based in the UK, Ireland, Hong Kong, Australia, Canada, South Africa and the Netherlands. The company is owned by OgilvyOne.

Naras Eechambadi, Ph.D and CEO of multichannel marketing solutions provider Quaero will be the facilitator of the first US forum, scheduled for September 9. Charter memberships are currently available.

Creativity doesn’t happen in a vacuum, but I bet sometimes creative directors and copy writers wished it would, like when a project forces them together with someone who’s not exactly like-minded.

This week’s DMNews features a Q&A on the creative process with Gary Scheiner, who is executive creative director at TBWA/Worldhealth and director of the John Caples International Awards. One comment that didn’t make it into the article was about how Scheiner is careful not hire “assholes.”

“I spend way too much time away from my wife and kids. I don’t want to spend it with people who piss me off,” he said.

His sentiment is probably shared by many. CNN reports that a recent MSN Zogby data poll shows 20% of workers say their co-workers have at least one habit that drives them crazy. According to the poll, 15% of workers find their co-workers’ constant complaining annoying and 13% are frustrated by colleagues passing off work. Other irritants included gossip, talking too much and eating smelly food.

-Chantal Todé

Times are hard, budgets are tight, yet the storied Cannes thoroughfare La Croisette is throbbing with DM creatives (among those of other channel persuasions) hotly debating the work up for contention.

The results are out for the Direct and Promo Lions; JWT Mumbai snapped up the former for the Times of India Newspaper entry “Lead India,” and New York’s BBDO triumphed in the latter for the HBO entry titled Voyeur Integrated Campaign. The Cyber Lions winners will be announced on Thursday.

Meanwhile, for local flavor, I highly recommend Matt Shirtcliffe’s blog. A judge at Cannes this year, Matt is the executive creative director of Proximity Canada – and a truly splendid fellow. Yes, the entries are funny, but there’s also some great insight about the state of creativity in various markets.

Paul Gunning has been promoted to CEO of the global digital network for Tribal DDB Worldwide. He  will be taking over for Matt Freeman, who has moved on to CEO of GoFish.

Elizabeth Ross who is the current president of Tribal DDB West will take on two roles: president of Tribal DDB US, and global chief marketing officer.

http://publications.mediapost.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.san&s=84218&Nid=43613&p=913321

After a long day of talking about consumer trust and security, the AOTA cocktail had people loosening up. Though it is not a big show on attendees, maybe 200 people, the room filled up with tech people eating sushi and oysters and washing it all down with wine. The band played,  the AOTA team got up on stage and  we all clapped. I think I missed why. I was talking to David Daniels of Jupiter, who sits on the AOTA board and was wondering if he was supposed to go up front or not. Not too worried, he just told me how great everyone up on the stage is.

-Dianna Dilworth

I just finished up a special feature on promotional marketing — I got such a great response when I asked folks for examples. So many interesting promotions out there! It’ll run in next week’s issue of DMNews so check it out online or in print. I contacted Nowell Upham, EVP of promotional marketing at The Marketing Arm, for some insight into trends. I asked: Are marketers doing more of certain types of promotions? His response: “There’s more experimentation and the use of smaller initiatives threaded together or layered on top of each other. Marketers are giving consumers the option to navigate the brand experience in a horizontal or vertical manner.” You’ll see more of his comments in next week’s issue…

At this morning’s Rock the Digital World summit, hosted by Avenue A | Razorfish and its clients, I got a chance to see what Coors Brewing Company is up to in its marketing efforts. CMO Andy England gave a presentation spelling out how the brand has evolved over the past few years and made some observations as to how TV and digital advertising is changing.

One interesting point England made was that with one exception, there is no “appointment TV” anymore, meaning with the onslaught of DVRs, there are very few occasions to reschedule personal plans to be sure to catch a program live. The one exception, namely with Coors’s young male target demographic, is live sports. Therefore, the value of those time slots goes up for advertisers.

Coors has numerous campaigns running simultaneously including cable, banner, TV, social networking and viral video. They even have a female-targeted online campaign boasting that Coors Light has only 102 calories. Coors is also the official beer of the NFL and NASCAR.

The viral video on YouTube, which featured a 20-something man pouring the perfect glass of beer from unlikely heights can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSQD8Lk3ies. England noted that it had nearly 200,000 hits. A “response” video posted by a Coors Light fan has garnered over 63,000 hits: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jfwnFRQfjE&feature=related.

He also went on to say that you shouldn’t assume that your offline work doesn’t lead to online activity. Coors created numerous television ads integrating old footage of pro football coaches during press conferences spliced to look as if they’re answering questions about the beer. The most popular was with Jim Mora, former coach of the Indianapolis Colts which has received 495,000 hits on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdUr5hF0yGc. Amazingly, a college student’s response video using Mike Gundy, coach of the Oklahoma State Cowboys, has gotten 528,000 hits, far surpassing Coors’s own advertisement: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uyTQUWEKx0o&feature=related.

England ended by saying that Draftfcb currently does Coors’s offline marketing, but wonders if an evolution toward “one-stop shop” agencies is coming soon.

About 1,000 people crammed into a function room at the Sheraton New York and Towers today for Avenue A | Razorfish’s 8th annual client summit. The summit’s theme was “rock the digital world” and that morning’s hot topic was the power of social media.

Charlene Li, VP and principal analyst for Forrester Research, touched upon a number of recent social media success stories including Tampax and Always’ girl power site, Beinggirl.com. The content-rich Web site has since launched in dozens of countries and assisted the brand in approaching a somewhat awkward subject for many young teens.

A post on the USA site by “cutieofnc” reads, “I am happy the marketing agent helped create this website it helps girls with there [sic] problems and periods and girl problems girls need the advice!”

Enough said.

Megan O’Connor, senior manager of internet marketing for Levi’s, later took the stage to talk about the company’s recent success with its Project 501 Design Challenge. The contest launched during an episode of “Project Runway.” The winner–a designer named “jehan”–will have his/her design (a jean jacket) produced and sold on levi.com. According to O’Connor, the contest helped the San Francisco-based jeans company tap into its target market: women ages 18-25.

The line up for day two of the summit includes presentations from the Coors Brewing Company, CNN and Microsoft.

I just finished working on an exciting feature that will run in next week’s edition of DMNews, called “The game changers: Five agency leaders who embrace direct marketing’s evolution — and are ready to play at the next level.” In addition, we added five online exclusive profiles of other direct marketing agency leaders that will run on the DMNews.com site. I was surprised to read how many of these top executives said that their greatest challenge was finding and keeping enough talent. Laura Lang, CEO of Digitas, for example, says: “If you were to ask me what keeps me up at night, it is definitely finding the right talent.” And Dianne Wilkins, CEO of Critical Mass, says it demands “real perseverance to grow and maintain the quality of staff we’ve been able to develop.” Finally, Lynn Fantom, Chairman and CEO if ID Media, says: “Every great direct and digital media agency today has the same challenge — to get and keep the best talent in an environment where there’s more demand than supply.”