Recently I have found that talks about “professional brand” have been coming up a lot. Here at BIA/Kelsey we define professional brand as “a promise of the value you’ll deliver” aka your professional reputation. It can also describe your potential to clients and those you work with.

This topic can be fairly controversial, especially among female professionals. Women constantly struggle with how they want to be identified in the workplace and for everyone of them their professional brand is different. This controversy makes it it a perfect topic to be discussed at next week’s Women Leading in Local session at our LEADING IN LOCAL: The National Impact conference in Atlanta.

The session will consist of a panel of five different speakers from the media industry with very different professional brands and with them very different opinions. Kimberli Lewis, CEO and Founder of Global Business Therapy will be coming to Atlanta from Europe and discussing her experience as a woman in the industry there and her thoughts on whether or not she even agrees with the term “professional brand.”

We will also hear from Beth Bowers and Jaleigh Long from Cox Media Group about their brand as a team. They will highlight the idea of working alongside other women in the office as opposed to competing against them.

Wendy Hurwitz from Clipper Magazine will be sharing her professional brand and what it means to her in the professional environment. Finally, Kelly Thomas Nojaim from Bing will talk about her years of experience in the search industry and how her own brand has been built.

To hear the discussion come to the Women Leading In Local session at the LEADING IN LOCAL: The National Impact conference next week in Atlanta on May 7 from 4:30-5:30. If you are not already registered to attend please click here to do so.

The post Professional Brand: Topic for Discussion at Next Week's Women Leading in Local Session appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Recently I have found that talks about “professional brand” have been coming up a lot. Here at BIA/Kelsey we define professional brand as “a promise of the value you’ll deliver” aka your professional reputation. It can also describe your potential to clients and those you work with.

This topic can be fairly controversial, especially among female professionals. Women constantly struggle with how they want to be identified in the workplace and for everyone of them their professional brand is different. This controversy makes it it a perfect topic to be discussed at next week’s Women Leading in Local session at our LEADING IN LOCAL: The National Impact conference in Atlanta.

The session will consist of a panel of five different speakers from the media industry with very different professional brands and with them very different opinions. Kimberli Lewis, CEO and Founder of Global Business Therapy will be coming to Atlanta from Europe and discussing her experience as a woman in the industry there and her thoughts on whether or not she even agrees with the term “professional brand.”

We will also hear from Beth Bowers and Jaleigh Long from Cox Media Group about their brand as a team. They will highlight the idea of working alongside other women in the office as opposed to competing against them.

Wendy Hurwitz from Clipper Magazine will be sharing her professional brand and what it means to her in the professional environment. Finally, Kelly Thomas Nojaim from Bing will talk about her years of experience in the search industry and how her own brand has been built.

To hear the discussion come to the Women Leading In Local session at the LEADING IN LOCAL: The National Impact conference next week in Atlanta on May 7 from 4:30-5:30. If you are not already registered to attend please click here to do so.

The post Professional Brand: Topic for Discussion at Next Week’s Women Leading in Local Session appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Card Linked Offers (CLOs) represent a potentially rich opportunity for online and mobile promotions and loyalty. But a lot of work needs to be done before the segment gets seriously underway.

Speaking at the inaugural conference of the CardlinX Association April 7 in Las Vegas, Microsoft GM of Local Advertising Erik Jorgensen noted there are significant opportunities to connect the online world with the offline world, closing the loop for online advertising and loyalty.

There is “broad experimentation with integrated consumer and merchant experiences,” said Jorgensen. “The CPA based ad model highly reasonates with merchants.”

During the past 12 months, Microsoft has launched CLO betas of its Bing Offers in Seattle, Boston and Phoenix. The trials take off on Microsoft’s initial deals efforts, but don’t require pre-payment.

Most of Microsoft’s efforts in the space are focused on the Bing portals — both on the Web and on mobile. Card linked efforts are also included in Bing Local, Bing’s Listings Page and the Bing Search Engine Results Page.

There is also a strong “mobile first” component to the effort. Windows Phone, Skype and Windows 8 are all included in the efforts, which are seen as a marketplace differentiator. “There are five or six places on the phone where we surface offers,” said Jorgensen.

The company is also sending out targeted emails. “We are building up our muscles to understand how we target offers,” noted Jorgensen. “The next phase is not just a pull but a push” via intelligent notification.

This post is an excerpt from a full Briefing on The Cardlinx meeting, which is available to BIA/Kelsey clients.

The post Microsoft’s Jorgensen: “We Are Building Our Muscles’ in Card Linked Space appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

Card Linked Offers (CLOs) represent a potentially rich opportunity for online and mobile promotions and loyalty. But a lot of work needs to be done before the segment gets seriously underway.

Speaking at the inaugural conference of the CardlinX Association April 7 in Las Vegas, Microsoft GM of Local Advertising Erik Jorgensen noted there are significant opportunities to connect the online world with the offline world, closing the loop for online advertising and loyalty.

There is “broad experimentation with integrated consumer and merchant experiences,” said Jorgensen. “The CPA based ad model highly reasonates with merchants.”

During the past 12 months, Microsoft has launched CLO betas of its Bing Offers in Seattle, Boston and Phoenix. The trials take off on Microsoft’s initial deals efforts, but don’t require pre-payment.

Most of Microsoft’s efforts in the space are focused on the Bing portals — both on the Web and on mobile. Card linked efforts are also included in Bing Local, Bing’s Listings Page and the Bing Search Engine Results Page.

There is also a strong “mobile first” component to the effort. Windows Phone, Skype and Windows 8 are all included in the efforts, which are seen as a marketplace differentiator. “There are five or six places on the phone where we surface offers,” said Jorgensen.

The company is also sending out targeted emails. “We are building up our muscles to understand how we target offers,” noted Jorgensen. “The next phase is not just a pull but a push” via intelligent notification.

This post is an excerpt from a full Briefing on The Cardlinx meeting, which is available to BIA/Kelsey clients.

The post Microsoft's Jorgensen: "We Are Building Our Muscles' in Card Linked Space appeared first on BIA/Kelsey - Local Media Watch.

AT&T has unveiled a new version of its Yellowpages.com online directory, complete with a new name (YP.com); a new algorithmic approach to search; updated maps; and a set of vertical integrations with leading partners in cars, hotels, events and movies.

AT&T Interactive GM Greg Isaacs told us in a briefing today that the site was redone to focus on “what really makes consumers tick at a local level.” The four verticals featured on the site today are just a beginning, Isaacs said. More vertical experiences will be added in the coming months.

Aside from the obvious improvements in the site’s content and performance, there is a significant branding story here. AT&T’s predecessor companies (SBC and BellSouth) spent a pretty penny (about US$100 million) to acquire the Yellowpages.com URL back in 2004.

Today, AT&T made it clear that the term “Yellow Pages” doesn’t really fit with what the company wants to be now and in the future, particularly with its online and mobile portfolio.

This decision is consistent with the broader industry trend away from explicit references to Yellow Pages in favor of brands that can absorb other meanings. Think Dex One, Sensis, Truvo, ZipLocal, Eniro and so on. Not much “Yellow” or “Pages” in any of these brands. Granted, some of these are corporate rather than consumer facing brands, but all were unveiled at least in part to distance their owners from the Yellow Pages heritage.

Isaacs said AT&T research showed that YP.com evokes the Yellow Pages heritage without weighing the brand down with the limitations the term conveys — namely, that it’s a traditional print medium that is used more for getting your carpets cleaned than planning a romantic getaway.

We asked Isaacs if AT&T was prepared to invest sufficiently to build the YP.com brand and differentiate it from other local search and Yellow Pages sites. He told us a comprehensive marketing plan was in the works but said he couldn’t offer more detail.

A big emphasis of today’s briefing was on the shift to algorithmic search and the vertical integrations. On the search side, results are now driven by proximity and popularity (clicks and reviews) compared with the more traditional Yellow Pages model that pushed paid advertisers over relevance. The new site also offers neighborhood search, which Isaacs said will be refined and improved over time.

In addition, the site features new Bing maps that include traffic info and roll-over driving directions. YP.com also now offers both businesses and consumers the opportunity to amend listings (subject to validation). For example, if a consumer sees a listing for a restaurant she knows has closed down, she can note this on the listing, and subject to confirmation, it will be removed. A business can add content to its listing in the same manner.

The vertical integrations add a serious transactional capability, all while remaining inside the YP.com domain. For example, restaurants that are OpenTable.com clients have the “reserve a table” capability built into the listing so a consumer can book a table within YP.com using OpenTable. AT&T has done similar integrations with Vast.com (to search for new and used cars), Hotels.com for travel and Zvents for events. The whole idea, according to Isaacs, is to create a seamless user experience.

Is the new site revolutionary? Maybe not. But it is a well-executed leap forward. SuperMedia similarly has upgraded its site with the consumer experience placed front and center. The big challenge for AT&T will be to make the new brand resonate with consumers as a place to go for movies, cars, hotels, places to eat and so on. That will take both resources and creativity, so we’re anxious to learn more about the company’s marketing plan for YP.com.

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