I hit the launch party for the latest TorStar Digital venture, “Olive Canada Network”:http://www.olivecanadanetwork.com/ last week. Here’s the dish, first on the party and then on the company.
The party was held at swanky A-list club, “This is London”:http://toronto.com/bars_clubs/listing/000-124-544. There is nothing more uniquely urban than entering a hot club through a garbage bin-lined unmarked door down a dimly lit downtown back alley. The party was packed with maybe 700 people, mostly an attractive, under-35 crowd. There was an over-the-top 70’s cover band in full regalia, “Maxim girls”, hotdog cart, private limo’s, open bars and lots of branding for Olive and their featured properties.
Insiders say it was as much of a recruitment effort for new talent as a launch party for their target customers. Olive GM, Simon Jennings (formerly of “Yahoo! Canada”:http://www.yahoo.ca), cracked my favorite joke of the night when he exclaimed from the microphone to a loud and inattentive room, “For the four of you from media buying agencies, thanks for coming, for the all of your cousins and friends who tagged along, enjoy the drinks.” All in all a well-executed launch event with all the details covered.
Month: June 2006
“Marketing Magazine”:http://www.marketingmag.com/ reported today that “High Road Communications”:http://www.highroad.com/ is “opening a digital communications division.”:http://www.highroad.com/HighRoad/default.aspx?tid=1&xml=4.1.xml&aid=222
Here’s how High Road explained the new division in their press release:
bq.. High Road Communications has synthesized agency talent, experience and passion in VOX, a new social media and digital marketing division. The firm’s VOX team consists of seasoned communicators who specialize in the online and social media spaces. They provide a potent mix of traditional media relations skills and forward-looking technological knowledge to deliver effective, relevant and results-driven campaigns to the audiences that matter.
p. Kudos to High Road for doing this, it is indeed a much needed service and I’m sure they’ll do fine with it.
bq.. The High Road VOX team creates and delivers services including:
* Blog/ chat/ forum relations – targeting online journalists, enthusiast and special interest sites
* Online community relations – engaging online enthusiasts, brand Ambassadors, and promoting positive community partnerships
* Experiential marketing – creating innovative programs that deliver direct-to-consumer, grassroots and hands-on experiences
p. There’s *one big problem with this* that puts their “seasoned communicators who specialize in social media” in question.
The problem? “vox.com”:http://www.vox.com/
Recently I received a thought-provoking e-mail from Jeff Ginsberg at “The E-mail Company”:http://www.theemailcompany.com asking why we didn’t talk more about analytics here at One Degree.
bq.. Long time reader, big time fan.
How come there is not much at One Degree about analytics? Am I not looking in the right place or has it been overlooked?
After getting my free “Google Analytics”:http://www.google.com/analytics/ trial and setting it up in a matter of minutes I have to tell you the reports rival the big boys.
It would be nice to hear from readers who have used “Omniture”:http://www.omniture.com/, “Coremetrics”:http://www.coremetrics.com/, or “Web Side Story”:http://www.websidestory.com to see what they think of Google Analytics.
I’d also like to hear from people using the top tier products on e-commerce sites. Have they gone to the effort to do advanced tagging for the complex sales calculations the above mentioned products can give?
By the way, “Hotwire”:http://www.hotwire.com and some of the other travel sites use their analytics to send triggered email message to customers based on what they searched for on their site.
For example if you sign up for Hotwire’s deals and search for Los Angeles you will start to get e-mail about deals to LA like this:
Dear Jeff,
Looking for great deals in Los Angeles, California? Hotwire finds great deals on unsold hotel rooms. You save big.
Travelers like you found these great deals on Hotwire:
…
Very cool.
Regards,
Jeff Ginsberg, Chief Email Officer
p. Cool indeed.