LeapFrog Interactive was fortunate to attend and speak at the AAF-Cincinnati Digital Non-Conference on October 23 and 24. Christy Belden, VP Media + Marketing, spoke on “Mobile Marketing Trends – Think SoLoMo” and Sarah Pritts, PR and Social Media Strategist, spoke on “Social Media: Method Over Madness”.

LeapFrog Interactive has made a concerted effort to support our Cincinnati office by becoming an active member within the advertising community. We hosted an ad2 event in September, we spoke at the above in October, and in November we are hosting a BeHance portfolio review at the Art Academy. LeapFrog Interactive strongly believes the importance of giving back to the community. As we plan for 2013, we will continue the outreach into the Cincinnati market.

Lollapalooza is one of the country’s largest music festivals that brings music lovers from all over the world together. This once traveling music fest has now found a home in Chicago, IL and draws over 160,000 people into Grant Park each summer. The 21^st celebration of this music festival brought big names to the Windy City such as The Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Black Keys, Florence and the Machine, and Kaskade. The music ranged from hip-hop to dubstep, the crowd ranged from young to old, and the weather ranged from hell-like to hurricane? Aside from the music and great food at Chow Town, I couldn’t help but notice something else..the digital presence. Call me a nerd, but as a digital marketing specialist I was taken back by the amount of planning put into the digital strategy and interactive engagement with the fans.

The App

Let’s start here. The Lolla app was perfect for this type of event. It wasn’t overcrowded with features and games but served all the needs of the festivalgoers. Fans were able to get full line-ups, interactive maps, and updates. The developers also added in a group text feature that allowed fans to communicate with each other in the black hole of service.  Users could make their own schedule, listen to playlists, see social media feeds, and get notifications. I could go on and on about this app, but the best part about it was the updates. After the storm that swept through the city Saturday evening forced the festival to evacuate the park (yes is was a mess), the app showed real time updates to the lineups after the park reopened. This feature saved my experience and some tears in fear that I was going to miss one of my favorite acts.

Digital Strategy

#lolla. Enough said. This hashtag was implemented all over the marketing, festival signs, and even the water.  It was simple, easy to remember, and most importantly consistent. The hashtag was followed all over Twitter to see pics, hear reviews, and get updates.  The use of the hashtag was best put to use on Instragram in my opinion. Fans were able to upload photos on Instagram using the hashtag and then those photos were displayed live on the jumbo-trons between musical acts. Not to mention that the official twitter account is how I found out the park was being evacuated right before the storm hit. They tweeted clear evacuation plans for fans all over the festival.  There was a live stream of the acts on YouTube, pins on Pinterest, and of course Facebook contests and teasers.

Digital Displays and Exhibits

Unfortunately, the festival is barely long enough for you to experience all of the music let alone all the extra activities going on in the park. Most of these sponsored tents featured some sort of digital aspects such as live photo streams, music downloads, contests, video game previews, and digital interviews with the artists. All of the sponsors also implemented their own hashtags and digital strategies along with it. My favorites around the fest were the Rayban Interactive Photo Gallery that gave our free prints from their Instagram account and created interactive mosaics inside the tent.  VH1 also brought back the Pop Up Video with QR signs (that were also great fans) that users held in front of a digital display to show animations and of course, pop up captions.

The most ingenious uses of the digital technology were the tickets themselves. As avid Lolla-goers know, Lollapalooza sends their fans wristbands in the mail a few weeks prior to the concert. Inside these wristbands were tiny chips that fans used to check in and out of the festival each day. These chips were collecting email addresses, mailing addresses, names, check in times, check out times, and time spent at the festival. This is the type of information marketers die to get their hands on…and Lollapalooza got all of it, on their wrists.

Last but not least, even some of the artists had some pretty cool technology integrated into their sets. All favoritism aside, Avicii had a great set in the shape of a man’s head and projected patterns and scenes on it to create a very cool effect. With the opening of his set, he surprised his fans by projecting a mouth on the giant head signing the words to his hit “Levels”. It was a very cool moment and so was the festival over all. If you’ve never been, I highly suggest making out to the Windy City to experience this festival first hand. And if it’s too much work, you can just watch it live on YouTube :-)  Enjoy.

(To see the mouth, start around :34)

In a recent guest blog post by Jason Falls, one of the points he made for Google+ success would be for Google to open it’s API to social media management platforms. Low and behold, Google announced last Thursday that it will be expanding it’s API partners. Eduardo Thuler, Google Product Manager, posted on his Google+ page the announcement. Google had been in talks with several of the social media management companies including Buddy Media, Context Optional, Hearsay Social, HootSuite, Involver, and Vitrue over the past several months. In the most recent announcement, Google is opening up conversations with hundreds of additional social media management tools.

What does this mean for brands and companies? I think is may be the answer many companies and brands have been waiting for to become more engaged on Google+. While brands have been engaging on Google+, for many of those it is at a slight slower pace than “full-steam ahead” due to the lack of being able to integrate it into their already existing social media management platform. With the new opportunities for social media tool developers that the release of the Google+ API provides, brands and companies, especially small businesses, will have a better ability to manage all their social media properties from one place. Google+ is already making it’s move into becoming a more popular and strategic social media channel for businesses with 250 million users worldwide, this new development will give brands an easier, more efficient way to communicate with followers. Will you add your Google+ profile to your social media management tool along with Facebook and Twitter?

With the amount of money being pumped into furthering business involvement in social media, the question of measuring ROI comes up daily. While I don’t think that we’ll ever get these numbers to be perfectly accurate, big companies are moving forward in leaps and bounds to help close the gap between social media marketing and sales.  It was recently announced that Hootsuite is teaming up with Hubspot to come up with an app for tying lead nurturing and generation to our social media efforts.

All that we really know about the app at this point is that it will allow you to see lead data from Hubspot within Hootsuite in order to incorporate lead nurturing techniques into your social strategy. Given what I’ve seen from Hubspots’ dashboard in the past, I think it’s reasonable to expect sophisticated reporting on these efforts that should facilitate quick adaptations to strategy and allow businesses, both B2C and B2B alike, to increase the number of sales generating leads coming from social media. It’ll also be nice for a lot of companies to just realize how much their social media efforts are paying off for them, and see where the leaks are in their funnel.

This adds a new element to our social media marketing efforts and will take a hybrid approach combining the best practices for inbound lead generation and social media. The process of social media lead generation will have to be a delicate one. There’s great opportunity out there, and becoming just more marketing noise will make the leads hard to reap. And for all of the naysayers out there, take a look at the slides from Hubspots’ “The Science of Inbound Marketing” webinar. There may be some numbers that surprise you.

The Pebble Gets Rolling 

Startups are literally popping up all over the country and finding the funding to back these projects sounds like a difficult task to take on. Seeking out venture capitalists can require an immense amount of work just to get through the gatekeepers and talk to someone who ‘might’ be able to set up a meeting for you. 

Pebble Technology, based in Palo Alto, CA, found an alternative way to raise their funds, and they did it quickly. Pebble used a site for startups, called Kickstarter, to get the idea for its new product out to anyone that wanted to listen. Within two hours they had met their goal of $100,000 and they continued their epic climb for the next 26 hours when they reached $1,000,000. 

Yes, I know, I have not even mentioned what the product is yet, but I am willing to bet you are interested to know just based on the information above. 

The product is called The Pebble. It is an e-paper wristwatch that connects via Bluetooth to your iPhone or Android device. It runs mobile apps that can be useful with anything from tracking runs, to controlling music, to receiving emails. It also has a multitude of different watch faces that can be used depending on your preference. The Pebble also has an open software development kit for anyone to develop apps that will run on the Pebble. This extends the benefits of this watch tremendously. 

Did I mention that the battery will last 7+ days? Oh yeah and it’s waterproof. 

The tremendous support for the product has me thinking we will see it very soon. If you want to help back the product, which, by the way, gets you one of the first Pebbles, check out its Kickstarter page. 

Just a side note, in the time it has taken me to write this blog, they have raised an additional $300,000. Watch out for these up and comers, they may be the next Instagram sized purchase by someone.  

[Contributed by Sean Slattery, Jump! Account & Marketing Coordinator]

Connect with Sean:

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Lately it seems that the mid 19^th century fantasies of the future may not have been too far off, or maybe their visions shaped our development, but the technologies of our former dreams will likely soon be at our fingertips. Last year offered the first flying car approved for roadways, while this year may very well contain some of the first computing eyewear.

In a recent report from 9to5Google, Google’s fancy new eyewear will follow the same idea from the Terminator movies and present the consumer with a heads up display in one of the lenses. With advanced technology already existing for transparent displays, I’d imagine that the capability of the display would not be limited much more than a Smartphone. On top of the sweet display, the report also suggests the possibility of an internet connection for the glasses via a Wi-Fi to the user’s cell phone along with a forward facing camera.

What could this mean for digital marketing?

Given that we don’t know how the user interface will be displayed, it’s hard to say. I foresee website, ad, and application development specifically for the tiny transparent screen, and it wouldn’t live up to the sci-fi movies if it didn’t utilize facial and location recognition software. It could absolutely change the way that users interact with the different elements of digital marketing and therefore change our approach to testing and development. That’s what I love about this industry. Every time we start to get bored, something new comes out offering new opportunities and requiring fresh thinking.

What happens in Vegas…doesn’t always stay in Vegas. No, I’m not talking about blurry nights that end up on Facebook, I’m talking about the International Consumer Electronics Show, better known as CES. This event sponsored by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), broke records and inspired dreams. With an astounding 3100 exhibitors, 1.86 million square feet of space, and 153,00 attendees this showcase was hard to keep under wraps. One has to wonder, with all of that technology…how in the world do you set yourself apart? Some critics say that the show was over populated with 3D TVs, smart-phones, solar power, and tablets. Be that as it may, that does not discredit any of the technology or talent present. One presence that surprised many of the attendees was the automotive industry. Not a usually a front-runner, this industry caused quite the scene…on your dashboard, that is.

Mercedes-Benz showed off their newest technology that creates an augmented reality using icons and pictures similar to holograms. With the simple and natural gesture of pointing at a business or landmark, drivers will be able to receive more information. This could range from the history of a bridge to the table availability at a restaurant.  Users will be able to make reservations and view venue details without ever leaving their car. Other players such as Ford, are developing technology that will benefits drivers in a more holistic approach by monitoring the health of their users. Kia is also testing a product that uses infrared LED cameras to determine driver alertness.

These types of new technology now make a consumer’s car a new place to get information. This could mean serious competition for smart-phones and in-dash platforms (let’s hope people aren’t using their tablets in the car). This could also mean potential for innovative advertisers to find a way into this space once the general public accepts the technology. Who knows, maybe we’ll never see a real billboard ever again, just augmented heliographic ones in our windshields. Welcome to the new age of auto-mobile marketing.

[Contributed by Kara DeLost, Marketing Specialist]

You don't have to be a garage rocker or a karaoke bar savant to appreciate music. We all love, listen to, talk about and share music.

Of course, in this day and age, people aren't hanging out at the town record store to hear about the next big act. They're logging on to Internet music services the likes of Spotify and Pandora.

If you've listened to Internet radio on iTunes, Pandora, or Spotify you've probably heard advertising, but a new competitor has changed the game. Turntable.fm is a user run DJ democracy that lets individuals interact directly with one another, and play songs based not only on themes and genres, but also on personal interaction. Turntable.fm is focusing on putting the user and love of music first, and leaves the experience completely devoid of advertising (for the time being).

Buzz is great, and the user base for Turntable is growing, but in the end someone's got to pay for all of this. Some big names in the business have started to take notice and the list of contributors thus far is quite impressive. The managers of Madonna and Gaga, Jimmy Fallon, members of The Roots, and others have pooled together a cool $7 million to keep the Turntable project going.

At this point the future is uncertain for Turntable. Some question the legality of social music sharing, and some labels are hesitant to jump on board. Other labels, such as major indie label Glassnote are more open to social promotion and will receive some special treatment from the Turntable crew as a result. Turntable's Seth Goldstein recently spoke at Billboard's FutureSound Conference, sharing that the site will press on through label restrictions to enrich its existing features (Twitter connectivity just launched!) and move out of beta status by 2012's South by Southwest Festival.

[Contributed by Alex Lockwood, Senior Designer]

2012 is quietly sneaking up on us as we approach Thanksgiving and with Christmas just around the corner. While consumers are planning their holiday dinners, shopping and gift ideas, marketers are heavily concentrating on the upcoming trends for the New Year. Many trends look to be emerging for 2012 from SEO updates to social media channels to the advancement of mobile technology & mobile marketing. Beyond those typical digital marketing arenas, more advanced technologies are propelling digital signage and digital-out-of-home displays forward.

SEO

With the release of the Panda updates throughout 2011, improving content has been top of mind for all search marketers. That isn’t predicted to change moving forward into 2012. Relevant, original content will continue to play a major role in all SEO strategies.

In November, Google rolled out two more SEO updates that will have a significant impact on search and search results pages – freshness and social. The goal of the freshness update is to ensure searchers are getting the most up to date information – specifically when it comes to news and sports. For example, if you search “Olympics,” Google will know you mean the upcoming game in London in 2012 rather than results from four years ago. If your website is a news site or concentrates on current information, this new update may impact your SEO. Moving into 2012, updating content regularly with unique, relevant information will help keep your website from slipping in being found in search results.

The second announcement Google made was in regard to search and social working together. Google can now execute AJAX and JavaScript on social pages like Facebook and Twitter. With this update, Google has the ability to serve Facebook comments and Twitter posts as search results. Making it even more essential for businesses to create posts, comments, and tweets relating to their business and containing keywords.

Watch for continued social medial integration in search marketing and more emphasis on website content moving into 2012.

Social Media Marketing

As mentioned about, social media and SEO will continue to become more integrated moving into 2012. Google and Bing have already begun the integration process. In May, Bing pushed a Facebook integration which allows logged-in Facebook users to “like” search results and sites and brings users personalized results based on information from their Facebook profile. Additionally, Bing shows logged-in users what they’re friends are “liking,” reading and sharing. More recently, as mentioned above, Google’s new update has the ability to push Facebook comments and Tweets into search results.

The rollout of Google+ Pages for Business creates an additional communication channel for business to consumers and business-to-business. Google+ lets businesses showcase their portfolio of work and give additional information and products and services offered.

Social media and social media marketing will continue to be a “mover and shaker” with consumers, business and brands and the communications between them in 2012.

Mobile Marketing

Mobile technology and advanced mobile marketing strategies will continue to move forward in 2012. Mobile marketing moving into 2012 will continue to include local mobile search, mobile app development and in-app ads and mobile coupons. Local mobile search will make its mark as Smartphone users continue to increase and use their phones to search for restaurants and shopping near their current location. Mobile couponing will remain steady as consumers remain pressed in their spending on non-essential goods.

The newest technologies moving forward in 2012 and beyond include near field communication (NFC) and voice search. NFC is the technology behind the “mobile wallet.” It allows consumers to have money in their phone and not have to necessarily carry a wallet or purse. The mobile wallet will continue to rise in 2012 and beyond as more Smartphones include the NFC technology.

Voice search has appeared more heavily on marketers’ radar with the release of Siri and the iPhone 4s. Siri allows users not only to set reminders and have messages read out loud, but it also allows users to search by talking to Siri and not typing in a search engine. Search markets and mobile markets now need to consider the differences in how consumers search when they type vs. how they ask questions. While this may not be an immediate need in 2012, it is definitely something to consider moving forward with mobile marketing strategy for the future.

Outside of SEO, social media and mobile marketing there are additional digital trends to watch for in 2012. Digital signage and digital-out-of-home campaigns create a new sense of interaction with consumers.

Digital scavenger hunts are popping up all over the place, from retail stores like Neimen Marcus to high-end brands like Jimmy Choo using mobile marketing and mobile apps like FourSquare and SCVNGR to give away products and Starbucks using QR codes to promote a mobile scavenger hunt. And then there was Dodge, whose scavenger hunt was created as an online search for a "real world" result.

At the beginning of September, Dodge created “The Search Engine for the Real World.” They left three Dodge Journeys across America and then hid clues online directing people to find them. “If you find one, you can have it.” The online clues featured scenery clips to help searchers find the crossover vehicle. Dodge used the power of online search to encourage followers and Dodge enthusiasts to get out and search for an actual experience, not just digital.

Not only did Dodge use a traditional media format — TV spots — to start the journey for a Journey, but the company also employed social media — the Dodge YouTube channel in particular. Video clues were posted on YouTube to encourage social interaction in the online search for clues and the real world search for the Journey. Each video clue was within so many miles of the “hidden” Journey.

Dodge created a digital frenzy to solve the Journey mystery. Using various forms of media, Dodge created a story about its brand and product to engage its consumers.

Consumer engagement with any digital marketing campaign is key. Engagement between brand and consumer encourages interactive sharing and participation. Digital scavenger hunts via search, mobile or social media marketing provide just that.

Have you participated in a mobile or other digital scavenger hunt? Let us in on your experience on Facebook and Twitter.

Earlier this month, IAB released a paper establishing a common API for mobile rich media ads. The paper, Mobile Rich Media Ad Interface Definitions (MRAID), also provided a beginning framework for principles and guidelines for consistency in this new media space.

Currently there are no consistent guidelines for rich media ads in the mobile marketing space, which causes incompatibility issues across developers and vendors. One goal of the new MRAID guidelines is to help in-app and mobile web ads gain traction in the industry.

Standardization is a welcome addition to mobile marketing as mobile app advertising is expected to reach $4.5 billion, which is triple the $1.5 billion expected in online ad spending. As mobile advertising moves forward as a larger piece of the digital marketing space, standards for creative development are a necessary and welcome addition to the industry.

MRAID is currently in a draft stage, and members of the online advertising industry are invited to comment on the proposed definitions until September 30.

Online video content is growing in availability and viewership. The rise of online video content as a source for unique information, comedy, news, television shows and movies increases not only the popularity of online videos but also the viewership of video display ads.

According to comScore, 178 million U.S. Internet users watched online video content for an average of 16.8 hours in June. Not surprising. Google video sites, fueled by YouTube, ranked at the top, followed by VEVO, Yahoo! video sites and Microsoft video sites.

Ah, weddings … a time of happiness, love, and digital marketing campaigns. This may not be true for all of us, but that is definitely the case for the Royal Wedding.

The Royal Wedding opened up new doors of digital event marketing, including consumer product commercials, digital billboards for the wedding and similar shows, and live streaming media (not only online via YouTube but also via digital billboards in Times Square). Reaching beyond typical display advertising, social media messaging and traditional marketing gave digital and traditional media outlets the opportunity to expand the viewer’s reach and develop a new presence within the consumer-space. I felt a bit bombarded by wedding coverage in the final weeks leading up to the Royal Wedding, and I noticed the increased use of hashtags — #rw2011 and #royalwedding specifically — creeping into my Twitter feed and in news casts and television promotions associated with the wedding. With all the buzz, approximately 30,000 tweets per day according to Webtrends, I decided to see what all the digital madness was about.

All major news networks, the people of England, and even the official British Monarchy Facebook and Twitter pages covered the big event before, during and after the couple said, “I do.” The Royal Wedding marked a new era in digital marketing for an event and how other marketing campaigns became focused on this event (i.e., T-Mobile and Kodak).

The official YouTube channel, The Royal Channel, provided visitors with the ability to view the digital wedding invitation and the procession route for Friday’s ceremony; users were also able to upload a personal message to send to the happy couple. Additionally, live streaming video of the arrival, ceremony and first kiss garnered a record number of “concurrent viewers on Livestream” with 300,000 views. With more than 4.6 million page views per minute, The Royal Wedding surpassed the total for Obama’s presidential election; the live stream was a great illustration of where I believe digital media will trend in the future.

With direct, live access online to news and information, I am not surprised by the success of the livestream of this event. As technology and digital media continue to progress, I expect there will be more live streaming event coverage available for computer, tablet and mobile users. The Royal Wedding is a great example of an event promoted across multiple channels at once with an end goal of creating a massive digital presence and a buzz so direct and indirect that you just can’t get away from it.

(Contributed by Brittany Burdoine-Lewis)

Yep, I’m corny. And cheesy. And goofy. But this blog isn’t about me. It’s about the latest Logic + Magic magazine our agency put out this month.

A hot topic in the past few months has been Media Convergence, along with what it means, how to apply it, and is it really here — and this edition is dedicated to covering this topic from many different angles.

One of the main articles, “For the Times They are a-Changin’” by Keith Adams, states “embracing media convergence with open arms is the way to go.” And while the great Bob Dylan probably didn’t think he would ever be quoted in reference to media convergence, it is the perfect fit in Keith’s article.

Christy Belden’s article, “The Convergence Culture and Its Effects on You and Me,” addresses the daunting boundaries of when people have consumed media in the past and how to make your change manageable and successful.

If you aren’t signed up to receive Logic + Magic, you can enroll here. And since we’re nice, it’s free.

[Contributed by Emily Van Winkle]

An article by Christy Belden, VP of Marketing & Media, and Scott Million, VP of Research + Analytics, was published in the Spring 2011 issue of Visibility Magazine. Their article, User Experience and Information Architecture for the Search Marketer, focuses on the reasons why search marketers need to understand how and why a user searches, as well as developing a successful way to measure user experience. Christy and Scott examine how and why information architecture and SEO need to be aligned for success, as well as developing a website optimized for user experience.

“...Search engine marketers are now challenged with driving conversions. This requires the search marketer to not only understand what drives consumers to search but also what consumers are looking for when they reach the website.…”

Eight months ago, LFI set out to build an agency mission, which would transition our agency into the future. After many discussions, we settled on a mission of helping our clients reach the “integrated consumer.”

Then, last week’s Consumer Electronics Show was full awash in consumer devices that are expected to connect the consumer in more ways than ever in 2011. In the pre-2011 era, consumers received disparate pieces of information on different devices at different times. Now, consumers will be able to integrate all their content needs to their technology of choice: TV, smartphone, laptop, tablet, e-book reader, mp3 player and so forth. The consumer is to be connected at all levels at all times.

LFI is always forward thinking. We are reading trade publications, consumer insights and trends to ensure our thinking, strategy and execution is ahead of the curve.

In a blog post yesterday, Google tipped its cards a bit and gave us a peek into the future of desktop computing as they see it. In essence, with their Chrome operating system (with the Chrome browser being the most visible manifestation of this) they are attempting to redefine the entire ecosystem of the desktop operating system. If this catches on, the biggest threat will be to Microsoft and Apple, the current desktop OS incumbents.

The value proposition is very compelling if they can pull this off and get wide adoption. For the consumer there will be much less reliance on the type of PC processor, the installed suite of software (namely word processing and spreadsheets), and the complexities that go along with keeping a computer up to date and healthy. The vision is for software to be purchased from the "cloud" just as one would purchase an app for their mobile phone. An important enabler of the ultimate success of this approach is the maturity of web-based ("cloud") services and the growing comfort consumers have with this model.

Time will tell.

The challenges represented by the well-entrenched players dominating this market are formidable and Google is probably one of the few organizations that have a shot at pulling this off.

For businesses, this move represents a continuing evolution of the "Integrated Lifestyle" and further blurring of the lines between traditional, disparate channels and delivery mechanisms.

(Contributed by Ron Reeves)

Continuing our discussion about integrated campaigns with members of LeapFrog Interactive's Interactive Marketing team, the team talks about the importance of a good website to an integrated campaign and offers an example what can be achieved as a result of a well-run integrated campaign.

Integration seems to be the key. So if you are not committed to it, should rethink your marketing strategy?

Amberly Stitzel: No, I just think those clients who don't integrate don't get the full benefit of an agency approach by doing that.

Stephanie Stokell: You could go out there and do PPC for your site but if you don't have the content on your site with the integrated SEO you will be paying more for each click and won't be realizing the conversion rates that you could. And if they wander on to your site, even if it's great website, if the only way they're getting there is by happening upon it, then a great conversion rate doesn't provide enough return because you're not getting the traffic that you need. Everything works together to not only bring them in but to complete the whole cycle. You really have to have the whole shebang.

Christy Belden: It's also the design of and copy for the site all integrated into the marketing of it. You have to have good design and relevant copy to drive the sale and support the SEO. It all has to match.

Amberly: So having the copy and the design for an effective website should be put first before you would even start your campaign. We can drive people to your site but if the site isn't set up to convert then you've wasted marketing dollars.

Stephanie: It's house metaphor again. You would be sure your house is clean and straight and well-decorated before you invited anyone over.

So if my site is not the best, that's what I need to focus on first?

Christy: Fixing the site is part of the SEO portion, at least how we do it now. We'll take a prospect's site that doesn't have very good navigation and doesn’t have content on the site and recommend addressing those as part of SEO. I consider design and copy really as part of SEO.

Any examples of integrated campaigns you can share that worked really well?

Amberly: We have one client I can think of off the top of my head that we were able to drop the cost per conversion to less than half this year through integration.

Christy: Our integrated efforts also helped increased site traffic for that client up 30% from last year to this year.

Emily Van Winkle: We've also helped increased awareness. In one month alone, we had 48 million impressions for the brand.

Amberly: We've been able to help this client get these results specifically because they are running an integrated agency program. It's not one piece here, one piece there. They've addressed many channels and are getting a better return on all their efforts because of it.

Anyone have a final thought to take us home?

Emily V: Remember that integrated interactive marketing is not just a one-time thing. It's about constant improvement. Going back and researching what happened in prior months and then realigning strategies. The whole process is ongoing. It's never done.

That would be the first thing we recommend: a redesign first and then we come in with all the other initiatives.

Last week I joked with Jeremy that I was going to start charging people an hourly fee for counseling and therapy services. Both in my personal life and my professional life here at LeapFrog, I find that I'm someone people come to with their problems. Sometimes they want some good ideas for resolving their problems, and as a fairly out-of-the-box thinker, I'm generally pretty good at that. Sometimes I think they just want someone to "feel their pain."

Those are the people I'd like to charge for the "couch time."

Psychology, specifically the psychology of personality, has always been interesting to me. The human psyche, what motivates people (and what doesn't) is pretty fascinating stuff. The drivers that motivate human behavior are of critical interest to marketers.

There are several different systems out there to classify people into different personality types or temperaments, and they all have their different relative merits. But at a high level, I think it's important to realize that they are not describing who people are. They are describing their most important strategy for behavior. People rarely surprise me with how unpredictable they are. They more often surprise me with how eerily easy it is to predict what they'll do, sometimes before they themselves know what they're going to do.

A personality type is a (mostly) unconscious strategy that people use to make decisions so that they don't have to think about every action they take, and so they can get a predictable outcome to their actions. Humans love predictable outcomes, even if they're not great outcomes. Most people use the same few basic strategies with the same basic assumptions and values. Given a good enough understanding of the most common strategies, and enough time around a person to learn what strategies they rely on, it becomes increasingly easy to predict what their actions will be. The way a long-time married couple can appear to read each other's minds is an example of this.

In some ways, marketing is a form of this parlor trick, performed on a mass audience. The better you understand the common denominators of the largest part of your audience, the more effectively you can predict what will and won't motivate most of them.

Which can be remarkably useful information to have handy.