To Dub or Not to Dub?

By: Marcelino Miyares, Jr., Director Mercury en español

Something happened in the sports world in mid-May that will go down as a watershed moment in media. It wasn’t about the NBA playoffs or the NFL draft. It was a Sports Center advertisement on ESPN.

For 17 years, the “This is SportsCenter” advertisements have always been in English. But when Yankees second baseman Robinson Cano followed the path of Tony Romo, Albert Pujols, the Manning family, and dozens of others around the ESPN headquarters, giving high-fives to staff members, it was the first time ever that the ad was broadcast in Spanish, and it marked the first time the network showed a Spanish ad on both ESPN Deportes, its Spanish-language sports channel, and its English-language sister channel ESPN2.

What Makes Mercury Media The Performance Agency?

What makes Mercury Media “The Performance Agency?” Deep insights, a staggering performance database, proprietary data analytic systems, and end-to-end campaign service – and that’s just the beginning!  Check out our new video to learn more.

Channel Crossing: Retail’s Road Less Traveled: Sales for Every Season

By: Maria Eden, Senior Vice President, Director of Short Form, Mercury Media Philadelphia 

“Are we there yet?”

If this sounds familiar to you, you’re probably a parent of small children, a marketer for retail clients, or both.

When it comes to marketing, we’ve found that retailers are often single-mindedly focused on their final destination – the Q4 holiday season.  After all, more than $1 billion was spent during 10 shopping days this season, led by Cyber Monday, which ranked No. 1 for the second consecutive year at $1.25 billion.

But even as visions of Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Super Tuesday dance in retailers’ heads, it’s our job as marketers to keep them focused on their journey toward success year-round.

At Mercury, we’ve found that our retail clients perform best when they base their media strategy on a full calendar of sales, marketing and effective media. Only then can they maintain good customer data, consistent sales and mind share.

It’s no secret that marketers use DRTV to generate immediate product sales.  But the medium is also amazingly adept at driving traffic to retail stores, catalogs and the Internet.  Below are three of our most well-tread tips for your road to retail success:

The Rest of the Story

By: Barry Jacobs, Vice President, Short Form Direct Response, Mercury Media Santa Monica

For many years, a well-known radio commentator named Paul Harvey aired daily on the ABC Radio Network. His show, News and Comment went on at 12 noon and had an extremely large and loyal following across the country. A big part of his appeal was his signature segment, “The Rest of the Story,” which closed every show.  He utilized this segment to share little known facts on a variety of topics or provide closure to one of his earlier stories.  Taking inspiration from Harvey, my aim today is to share the next chapter to our recent breakthrough success.

Here’s “The Rest of the Story”-

Mercury Media Delivers a New Way to Drive Retail

By: Barry Jacobs, Vice President, Short Form Direct Response, Mercury Media Santa Monica

I was reminded today of the years when I was selling local radio and TV. I would do my best to get a meeting with the owner of a business, only to be told that he would not give up his advertising in the newspaper, because his customers would actually have a copy of the ad in their hands when they walked into the store.

Well, times have changed and Mercury Media has developed a marketing plan that actually has the modern consumer still walking into the retail store, but instead of carrying a newspaper ad, they are carrying a coupon or offer they have downloaded from the internet.

Big Fish….Little Pond…The Truth

By: Barry Jacobs, Vice President, Short Form Direct Response, Mercury Media Santa Monica

In the last two months, two prospective clients have told me that they would rather be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a large pond.  The “small pond” media company has used the same phrase with both the clients. As part of the “large pond” company, I take a huge exception to the comment.

First of all, at Mercury we grow clients.  Our goal is not simply to buy the media; we take the time and energy to optimize every facet of the clients marketing endeavors. Let me draw an example that really dispels the concept. If you buy a tropical fish and place it in a large tank, something wonderful occurs. The fish grows and flourishes as it has space to grow and the opportunity to live a long life. If you take the same fish and place it in a small bowl, the fish stays the same size and does not live as long.

Driving Retail

By: Beth Vendice, President, Mercury Media Performance Guarantee Group, Boston

We pride ourselves on “now.” At its most basic level, direct response TV is all about “now.” Make the call, visit the website, do it now.  All the creative, messaging, and placement is designed for “now.” To elicit an immediate response.

Which is not to say that “now” TV doesn’t have positive after effects. Branding is one of them. Retail sales are another.  Often, I am asked about the relationship between DRTV and retail sales lift.. It makes sense. Many of our most successful clients sell products or services that simply don’t have a retail component, such as ecommerce services. On the other hand, many clients have a retail product component and invariably the two go hand in hand. DRTV drives retail sales. It isn’t the science of “now”, but it is the science of DTRV’s afterburners.

Video Consumption in a Fragmented Marketplace

By: Michael Goodman, Strategic Analyst, Mercury Media

TV, Internet, smartphones, DVRs, on-demand. Today’s consumers have more viewing options than at any other time in history. While different segments of the population might prefer different devices to view on, or exhibit different viewing habits, the overall trend is clear; consumers are watching more video on TV, the Internet and mobile devices than at any other time.

But despite all the alternative viewing options available, plain old television continues to dominate viewing by a wide margin. According to Nielsen’s Q1 2011 Cross-Platform Report, persons 2+ watched an average of 35 hours and 37 minutes of television a week followed by using the internet on a PC (5:43 per week) and watching time shifted TV (2:25 per week) (see Exhibit 1). Segmenting television into quintiles shows the even the lowest quintile of TV viewers still averages an hour of TV viewing per day, while the highest quintile watches nearly ten hours a day. While some variation is seen among different demographic and ethnic groups the overarching theme remains constant – television dominates viewing.

Cable upfront: Expect the top networks to match broadcast in CPM increases

Media Life’s “Media Economy Newsletter” recently called on our  Sr. VP Media Director Cheryl Green to weigh in on the evolving cable advertising landscape. Cheryl was recently honored as leading cable media buyer by CableFAX,  in their 2011 “Sweet 16 of Cable.”  Read what Cheryl had to say below:

A New “Perspectiva”

By: Marcelino Miyares, Jr., VP Mercury en español

(As printed in the May 2011 issue of Electronic Retailer Magazine)

I have been involved in marketing to Hispanics in some capacity for more than 30 years. That’s three census cycles, if you’re scoring at home. Most of my tenure has been spent in direct marketing, and every now and then I see a watershed moment that I expect will push marketing to Hispanics over the top. The release of the most recent 2010 Census results is one of those moments.  And still, as recently as last week I have spoken to marketers and agencies who still manage to hold on to outdated and unprofitable perceptions about the Hispanic market.

The 2010 Census results, released in mid-April, are mythbusters for Hispanic marketers. The market now tops 50 million and will account for 95 percent of the teen population growth over the next five years. Hispanics now outnumber blacks for the first time in most United States metropolitan cities.  Last year, Hispanics became the largest minority group in 191 metropolitan areas, as a result of the Latino population spreading to new areas of the country.  The Census Bureau also projects that by 2020 the Latino population will increase to over 65MM.

Despite all this, there are a mere $3 billion marketing dollars spent annually against $850 billion in Hispanic spending power. That’s less than one-third of one percent. The new census figures add a lot of fuel to the argument that this market is underspent and underestimated. Unfortunately for the disbelievers and marketing xenophobes who chose not to read this article, this is commercial reality, not myth. So I thought I’d take the opportunity to use the census results (or should I say facts) and some other recent research to counterpoint the stubborn myths that live on in our industry.