“Out of sight, out of mind” need not apply to brands that are seasonal, annual or under renovation. Multiple marketing options, beyond having a social media or mobile presence, allow for destinations, museums, hotels, TV series, film festivals and sporting events to remain relevant throughout the year.

We’ve gathered twelve methods across categories to show how selected brands remain in public view. While these are similar to initiatives that year-round brands use, they often require more resourcefulness and additional resources.

     Make your presence known

1. Events: Offering a rich history, scenic countryside and famous golf courses, Scotland is a popular destination. During off-season April, Scotland hosts Tartan Week in New York. Festivities include a parade with Scots (and Scottish terriers) in kilts, and a trendy plaid fashion show.

2. Pop-up/temporary exhibits: Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum closed temporarily for an upgrade and will re-open this spring. Meanwhile, museum-goers can view the Dutch painter’s works at Amsterdam’s Hermitage museum.

     Get the word out

3. Generate buzz: Last year when New York’s legendary Waldorf Astoria was under construction, the hotel created an amnesty program  where prior guests were encouraged to return items they’d “borrowed” during their stays to showcase in the lobby. The program was intended to feed the hotel’s social media platforms and appeal to younger guests.

4. Sharing expertise: New York’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum is currently closed during renovations. To draw designers’ notice, their acting director and curators started a blog. Called Object of the Day, it features graphic design items from the museum’s collection.

     Brand extensions

5. New location spin-offs: In 2002 Tribeca Film Festival launched to revive downtown New York after 9/11’s terrorist attack. The brand expanded its universe in 2010 by adding a Doha, Qatar location. In 2012 Sundance Film Festival introduced a London edition.

6. Counter-seasonal additions: Marketers learned about these brand extensions from the ski industry. Years ago Aspen was known just for snow sports. Ever since Aspen’s Food & Wine Classic was introduced, the town is also recognized for summertime culinary fare. Countless brands have copied this concept.

Read more

Savvy presenters at business events know the audience is there to hear candid comments, fresh insights, and surprising anecdotes–not humblebragging, self-promotion or overused buzzwords. If presenters don’t deliver, attendees will tune out and spend more time networking outside the conference hall. Not every speaker got that memo, however: it’s still a challenge to sift through all the jargon and make each event worthwhile.

We’ve highlighted seven memorable quotes from various New York-based events we covered in 2012. They deal with a range of topics: creativity, media relations, CEO visibility, producing original content, the risks of using celebrity spokespeople, teamwork, publicity and controversy.

1. “Grit is especially important when it comes to creativity. If it was easy, someone else would have done it.”

-Jonah Lehrer, author of Imagine: How Creativity Works and former contributor to The New Yorker and Wired magazines, delivered a keynote at ARF’s Re:think conference in March. In the ensuing months, Lehrer saw his own career falter after being accused of plagiarism and quote fabrication–so he didn’t follow his own advice.

2. “Now it’s a better age between journalists and PR. There’s an absence of friction, and PR is part of the data stream.”

-David Carr, New York Times media reporter, spoke during Internet Week in May. Carr’s welcome though limited remarks on the dynamics of the relationship came in response to an audience question.

3. “A few companies with secure, confident CEOs take the lead on issues and speak out, but it’s hardly a universal practice.”

-Richard Edelman, president and CEO of Edelman PR, addressed Ethisphere’s Best Practices in Ethics Communication event in June. His comments have since been echoed by others in the industry.

Read more

Awards shows aren’t the only venues where one can make a fashion statement. While conferences don’t feature red carpet entrances, the corporate event stage still represents a prime occasion for speakers to display their sense of style.

With more attention being paid to female executives’ wardrobes, our focus today is on their male counterparts. A recent New York Times article pointed to the rise in men’s fitted suits, but colorful accessories or footwear can also attract notice. Nowadays, almost anything to draw the audience’s gaze towards the stage instead of their mobile devices amounts to a good strategy.

We’ve compiled six examples based on New York-based events we’ve covered this year at which some element of the presenters’ attire was as buzzworthy as their performances.

Well Suited: Oakland Athletics general manager Billy Beane (left) sported a gray suit during an Internet Week talk in June. We couldn’t help but think that since Brad Pitt portrayed him in the movie Moneyball, he’s always got to look his best in public (though the actor himself seems to have stopped trying).

Pumpkin Power: Nothing conveys leadership like a bright crewneck sweater, since hoodies now are cliché. That must have been Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt’s view when he wore an orange pullover to an October appearance at the 92Y. As his interviewer, Kara Swisher, remarked, “By the way, I’ve got to tell you that you rock in that pumpkin [colored] sweater!”

In Mufti: Former (and perhaps future) TV show host/sportscaster Keith Olbermann wore blue sneakers to an April evening event at the Paley Center for Media. Sneakers were a smart choice that day, since he filed a lawsuit against Current TV, his former employer, then attended a New York Mets game and appeared later at the Paley Center. When you’re so busy, you need comfortable footwear.

Read more

“TV series tell a story and web series create a world,” noted Sam Reich, president of original content at CollegeHumor Media. The world of web series like Dinosaur Office, (left) has taken off in recent years, attracting the attention of celebrities, TV networks and large viewing audiences. Reich appeared on an Advertising Week panel on Monday, along with other TV web content producers, marketers from TV networks and companies to offer a behind-the-scenes look at this popular format. Below are key takeaways.

As TV web content proliferates, the audience needs a roadmap. ”There’s an excess of YouTube videos, with approximately 72 hours of videos being downloaded every 60 seconds,” said Rob Barnett, founder and CEO of My Damn Channel. One example of an audience roadmap is USA Today‘s “TV on the web,” designed to help viewers sort through their many online programming choices.

Web TV comes in various forms. Barnett explains that “The different paths include mass aggregation of other content, re-purposing TV content on the web, and creating something original, which is a challenge”. Reich characterized his channel’s approach as “internet-forward and not TV-backward.”

TV networks use existing resources for their web offerings. “CBS uses adjacencies with our talent and programming”, said Marc DeBevoise, SVP and general manager at CBS Interactive Entertainment. For example, Jeff and Jordan Do America uses two characters who initially met on a CBS reality series. Live on Letterman shoots in the Ed Sullivan Theater with the same crew and musical artists who appear on “Late Night”. In DeBevoise’s words, “It’s an inexpensive way to launch live programming franchises.”

Read more

Social media and PR were foremost on the minds of top marketers yesterday at Advertising Week in New York. As Stephanie George, Time Inc’s CMO said, “PR now has greater value than ever before. Through our own PR efforts we get the best response from our customers, and to do so you need to have high quality brands and content.”

George, along with CMOs from GE, CVS, and FedEx, focused on the impact of social media on their brands and company reputations. After the jump, other takeaways from the panel.

Read more

Advertising Week kicked off today with a crazy long line outside of the Times Center on 41st Street as attendees waited (and waited) to check in and get started. Press was able to zip through quickly and our first stop of the week (PRNewser and our AgencySpy colleagues will be checking in on events throughout the week) was “Moms & the New Zeitgeist: The Complex World of the World’s Most Important Audiences.” That’s a name huh?

The panel was all about reaching moms successfully and just about everyone on stage, except for Walmart‘s marketing SVP Tony Rogers, was a mom. Moderated by The Wall Street Journal‘s Suzanne Vranica, the discussion covered a variety of topics outside of advertising.

According to the description in the Ad Week booklet, “Moms control more than $2.3 trillion in spending power, yet three out of four moms say marketers don’t understand them.” Perfect segue to the first question of the panel, “What’s the hardest thing about reaching moms?” Rogers said it’s getting moms involved in the process of creating the creative. Once you have that, reaching them is relatively easy. But moms are necessary for “shepherding you through the process,” he said.

“Getting the message is the hardest part,” he continued.

Read more

Today, we spoke with Coltrane Curtis, founder and creative director of Team Epiphany.

The conversation focused on his decision to participate in Advertising Week (an issue for the PR industry that PRNewser discussed), prospects for the his six-year-old firm and other newer firms as the economy continues to make attempts at recovery, and the issue of diversity. One piece of advice from Curtis – don’t judge a book by its cover.

Click here to listen.

Left to right: Joe Penna, "MysteryGuitarMan" on YouTube; iJustine, Web celeb; Jason Harris, Mekanism ; Ivy Ross, GAP; Jill Fletcher, Virgin America

Companies’ use of digital influencers to generate buzz has become increasingly popular and has created more media options. On day four of Advertising Week, Jason Harris, president of Mekanism production studio, moderated a panel that included video celebrities Joe Penna, known as MysteryGuitarMan on YouTube, iJustine and corporate panelists Ivy Ross, CMO at clothing retailer  GAP and Jill Fletcher, social media manager at Virgin America.

The corporate panelists agreed on the importance of selecting Web influencers who are culturally relevant to the brand or category and have a large fan base. Both iJustine and Joe Penna have one million followers or more. They take their fan base quite seriously, and are careful to ensure that their corporate involvement does not compromise their status among their audience.

iJustine, who does an average of one branded video per month, said her filter for a project is, “Would I use the product and recommend it to my followers?” In working with her clients, such as Mattel’s video Barbie doll, she finds out first if their objectives are to increase awareness or sell products, and she is cautious not to oversell. Read more

Left to right: Drew Patterson, Jetsetter.com; John Boris, Lonely Planet; and Valerie Edmonds, Weber Shandwick

The discussion at Advertising Week’s day two travel seminar centered on how leading travel publishers, websites, and destinations are creatively embracing a range of digital platforms.

Tanzina Vega, digital advertising reporter for The New York Times, moderated the panel, and participants included John Boris, EVP, Lonely Planet, the worldwide travel publisher; Drew Patterson, CEO and co-founder  of Jetsetter.com, a members-only commerce site for luxury travel; Valerie Edmonds, account director in the travel and lifestyle practice at Weber Shandwick, and Ed Hasbrouck, analyst at the Consumer Travel Alliance who also writes The Practical Nomad blog. Read more

With the first day of Advertising Week drawing to a close, lots of people gathered for one of the final panel discussions of Monday afternoon: “The New Customer Engagement Model.”

On the panel: Stephanie Agresta, EVP of strategy and social media at Porter Novelli; Bonin Bough, director of digital and social media at PepsiCo; founder of Marc Ecko Clothing, Marc Ecko; and Garth Holsinger, business and global sales director of Klout.com, a site that measures and ranks online influencers. The discussion was moderated by Coltrane Curtis, CEO of Team Epiphany.

The long and short of the discussion was that the new customer engagement model is social media. There was mention at the beginning of specifically targeting millennials, but that quickly went away and the discussion turned into a broader Q&A about how to successfully use the Web to engage with audiences. Read more