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Facebook "has become the default tool for lazy marketers who really don't know what to do," he said, recalling the days when businesses bought IBM computers because they were a safe bet. "No one got fired for buying IBM. Today's equivalent is no one gets fired for marketing on Facebook," he said. As a result, some brands are pursuing "me-too marketing" on Facebook instead of developing marketing strategies. He pointed to a Business Insider article headlined, "P&G To Lay Off 1,600 After Discovering It's Free To Advertise On Facebook," as an example of a brand potentially using Facebook as a "default" marketing strategy.

A pair of startling statistics was presented at the opening of the session: 16% of the U.S. population is currently Latino, while only 1% of U.S. marketing dollars are targeted toward reaching that population. Agencies share some of the blame for marketers' dropping the ball in the Hispanic marketing arena, said Lance Rios, founder of Hispanic social media platform Being Latino. He said that agencies frequently ignore requests for meetings to simply introduce his platform and explain how marketers might benefit from its use.

1. It's not just mobile! Consumers are device indifferent. 2. Social media marketing grows up and moves out of marketing. 3. Content marketing makes brands media. 4. Real time matters more than ever. 5. Email isn't dead (yet!). Communication counts. 6. Commerce happens everywhere.. 7. Actionable metrics count, not just collecting big data

The most interesting thing about this is that it is written for CMI (content marketing institute). It provides marketing considerations we are currently entertaining.

"The native advertising side consists of Federated's conversational marketing products, conversation targeting and native conversational ad units. While some of what Federated calls conversational marketing is similar to content marketing (that is, helping brands produce content much like media companies), Federated is clearly looking to embrace native advertising units, such as Facebook's Sponsored Stories or Foursquare's Promoted Updates. Federated founder John Battelle has been blogging extensively about the move toward ads-that-don't-look-like-ads of late."

"The brand identified company-created and fan-created accounts. The results of that first audit: 232 Facebook pages, along with roughly 100 YouTube channels and 30 Twitter accounts. A case was made for why individual markets would gain fans and views if they eliminated local accounts in favor of global Reebok accounts. Some markets were hesitant. To get them onboard, Mr. Bahl allowed test posts on the global Facebook page and illustrated how related-video recommendations can juice views on YouTube. Markets such as Hong Kong quickly realized their customers were already gravitating toward global accounts. Some local accounts, like India's Facebook page, with nearly 1.8 million fans, remain in place. Reebok whittled its overall social presence by roughly half in that first audit as it rolled up the majority of company-created accounts to focus on three Facebook pages, two Twitter accounts and one YouTube channel. It left fan-created content untouched. The brand also established a broader communications strategy, defining who could use trademarks to create accounts and for what purpose. A second audit is now taking place, with the goal of further streamlining Reebok's social-media presence by the end of the year -- just in time for 2013 product launches."

"Retailers as disparate as Williams-Sonoma Inc. and Home Depot Inc. have become much better at tailoring e-mails to specific customers rather than the one-size-fits-all blasts that once dominated this type of marketing. Measured by sales per dollar spent, e-mail outperforms social-media advertising three to one, according to the Direct Marketing Association, a trade group founded to provide accurate marketing data. That explains why retailers will send 19 percent more e-mails this year."

"Big Is Beautiful As smartphone screens get larger, companies have found some success with ads such as "takeovers" that briefly fill all or most of a device's screen. San Francisco app company Fotopedia sells such ads on its iPhone and iPad apps, which let people flip through high-quality photographs of Paris, national parks or wild animals. Marketers including National Geographic and travel websites Jetsetter and Expedia Inc. EXPE -0.23% pay roughly $1 to $1.50 for each user who clicks an ad, which fill a full screen. Like fashion ads in a luxury magazine, the Fotopedia ads appear every 10 "pages" or so of the app. As many as 18% of people who see an ad click on it, said Christophe Daligault, Fotopedia's senior vice president of global operations. On the Web, it isn't unusual for just 1% of people shown an ad to interact with it, marketers said. Still, big ads should be used sparingly, some marketers said. Craig Bierley, director of General Motors Co.'s GM -0.84% Buick advertising, said the auto maker tends to limit takeover ads to major product introductions because otherwise "people might find it annoying.""

Instead of distilling multiple times and marketing it as high-end and odorless, this vodka is distilled once to still taste like local potatoes and the marketing is all about local agriculture. Even the bottle is potato shaped. 

Aislelabs launced a marketing automation platform for brick-and-mortar retailers that will help retailers build real-time digital marketing campaigns for in-store deployment and connect with them with their existing online marketing campaigns.

A recent IBM study found that only 26 percent of CMOs are tracking blogs, 42 percent are tracking third party reviews and 48 percent are tracking consumer reviews to help shape their marketing strategies. The study was conducted across 1,700 chief marketing officers in 64 countries and 19 industries as a means to determine the focus on market circumstances versus individual consumer feedback.

Mobil Marketing Infographic

Among the US marketers surveyed: Viral online video (e.g., use of YouTube) has registered the sharpest increase of all media platforms: 80% are using the channel in 2012, compared with 64% one year earlier. Social media use has remained nearly flat, up slightly to 90% in 2012, from 89% in 2011. Mobile marketing use is also holding steady, now at 74%, compared with 75% in 2011.

Mobile is the only place that consumer time is growing and 86% of that is apps. So maybe we should be betting our company on marketing apps too.

Wrestling with how to define and distinguish the tablet market from the mobile phone market when assigning value to content.

"1. Marketers suck. Including me. Look at my big tech company list over on Facebook. Do you actually learn much? A little, but marketers push themselves too much, and say too little. 2. No one is focused on what you want. Including me. I have a list of tech industry investors. Rich people. I want to hear from them about when they talk about investing, the economy, starting companies, trends, that kind of stuff. But do they stay focused? No. They talk about movies. Their vacations. Their kids. And more. 3.  Everyone is emotional. Including me. I have a list of tech industry VIPs. People who have changed the world. Invented Twitter. Or the Web. Or built Microsoft. Etc etc. But when they post about emotional topics like politics, religion, babies, pets, death, birth everyone goes crazy and reshares their posts. 4. Everyone has gone Gagnam Style. Including me. We love resharing. Retweeting. Talking. Liking. Pushing. Watch my tech news list and you'll see the same story rehashed, repeated, reshaped, remashed."

"How can brands do a better job of fostering these relationships so that they're at the forefront of consumer's minds? 1. Develop a great product. Not to resuscitate the Mac vs. PC argument, but there's a reason many people aren't hesitant to recommend their MacBook or iPhone to a friend. 2. Facilitate social sharing. Brands need to be engaged with consumers via social media, and brands need product sites and marketing programs that facilitate seamless social sharing. 3. Create sampling programs to reach digital consumers. Many influential digital consumers are eager to discuss their love of specific products and brands. Marketers need to reach and engage them in innovative ways, such as via sampling programs, contests, coupons. 4. Get game. Brand can introduce game element through badges, achievements, and prizes to turn their consumers to brand ambassadors and engage them in a fun way."

This seems to be the buzz lately--how social media is no longer a "thing" and what the next "thing" is.

"Google's "Smartphone Launch Predictor" study found that 52 percent of purchase-related searches occur before a smartphone is launched. According to Google, the key to a successful smartphone launch is getting ahead of the release and marketing early. "One of the biggest factors is getting early buzz. Getting early buzz is key [for a successful smartphone launch]," Google Industry Director for Tech Kyle Keogh told ClickZ. The study found that the earlier a firm markets a smartphone the more likely they are to succeed in sales. According to Google, an extra 1,000 news stories put in place weeks before a launch can lead to a 9 percent spike in smartphone sales. Google's research discovered that users tend to do general product searches in the week during launch. After launch, it was discovered that consumers dig deep and search for key specifications on a device. Video is also becoming a key research tool for consumers shopping for a smartphone. According to the study, video views for smartphones increased 60 percent this year. Google says that if a smartphone gets over 1 million video views during launch week it will likely sell over 1.3 million units."

""DMPs were initially built to inform display, but more and more marketers understand they have to utilize that data across channels. They're all interested in finding ways to leverage those insights in all the different ways they speak to a consumer," said Cory Treffiletti, senior vice president of marketing for BlueKai. Nevertheless, 64 percent said improved ROI was a main driver for use of a DMP, and 60 percent said the technology would help the company to more effectively centralize, organize and leverage first-party, online and offline audience data for targeting, whether that first-party data was internal or a client's."