MRM Worldwide

This year’s “I am MRM” Cannes-test winner Anna Chechetka (Junior Art Director in our Frankfurt office), begins her journey to attend the Cannes Gold Lions International Festival of Creativity.

Anna’s winning entry in Vine format really wowed the judges and proved how truly MRM she really is. She tells us that she loves to design, illustrate and travel; and that she also enjoys extreme sports, challenges and doing everything at the last minute. She has been drawing since early childhood… and cannot stop to this day. You will see for yourself how fabulous her designs are on her blog.

Anna is blogging about her adventures at IAnnaMRM.tumblr.com; and will be at the Festival from Saturday June 15 – Thursday June 20.

Follow Anna for all the latest from Cannes!

(DMNews) By Ginger Conlon - Like the plate tectonics that reframe the earth’s topography, recent shifts in the marketing sphere are dramatic and permanent. According to Winterberry Group, U.S. ad spend grew 4.3% from 2011 to 2012; the bulk of that growth came in the form of digital ad spend (e.g., mobile, email, search), which increased 14.9% in 2012, while “measured media” spend (e.g., TV, outdoor, print, radio) grew only 1.5%. Winterberry expects 2013 growth to be similar, predicting a 19% increase in digital advertising, but only 0.4% growth for measured media.

This shift reflects in part marketers’ reactions to changes in customer behavior and preferences, as more consumers look to online and mobile as key brand touchpoints, desire a seamless experience regardless of channel, and expect real interaction with their preferred brands. These changes have also spurred an increasing interest among marketers in mastering omnichannel marketing and bolstering customer engagement.

Michael Mclaren, President, MRM
There are profound changes sweeping the marketing landscape. With rapidly evolving IT and data capabilities, companies are using advanced technologies to drive maximum value from existing customers and are scouring the marketplace to attract new customers and find new pockets of growth opportunities.

The convergence of IT technology in the service of marketing execution is a steady and pervasive trend.

Even with all this technological advancement, it’s clear that the key to success lies in customer relevance and engagement. The more we know about our customer—their habits, preferences, consumption of media, sources of information, key influencers, and more—the better we can create customized “offers” that are highly relevant and valuable to them.

In doing so we’re creating an experience that customers (and prospects) will value above all others. Developing this deep understanding of the customer—and having the capability to aggregate and structure this information so it can be effectively mined—is the key to modern, data-enabled marketing. We believe this superior customer experience management provides marketing organizations with a true source of competitive advantage.

Anna Chechetka, Junior Art Director, MRM Frankfurt Wins All-Expense Paid Trip to The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity

Newest Young Lion Will Represent MRM and Blog Her Adventure!

MRM, a top global digital agency, announced the contest winner of their second annual global ‘I am MRM’ “Cannes-test”.  Anna Chechetka, a Junior Art Director at MRM Frankfurt, received the good news in a personal phone call from MRM’s Chairman, Bill Kolb to which she responded, “Dreams come true.”

Contestants submitted a Vine, the mobile service that lets you create and share beautiful, short looping videos, representing why they should be selected as the best candidate to characterize “I am MRM”.  (Contestants without access to Vine could submit any video 6 seconds or less.) Entries for the contest were scored for passion, creativity, idea, presentation and content.

Anna took first prize with a splash, literally. Showing her artistic, enthusiastic and purple passion for MRM, all in 6 seconds!

View her winning Vine video along with the five finalists!

Anna remarks, “I love design, illustration, travelling, extreme sports, challenges and doing everything at the last minute. I was born in Russia, where I graduated from high school, art school and two universities. I have been drawing since my early childhood… and cannot stop to this day. Entering the “I am MRM” global agency contest was exciting for me; I like to participate in design contests and already have had some success: I was a finalist of the Post It Awards 2010 poster design contest in Moscow, won the International Graphic Competition Felicity in Venice, Italy, and as a member of the McCann Erickson Team, was a finalist of Comprix 2012 in Germany.”

The five additional finalists included who all showcased extreme passion and creativity:

• •               Kishan Chopra, Art Director, MRM Meteorite London
• •               Yi Xiu Lim, Junior Visual Designer, MRM Frankfurt
• •               Ren Peir, New Business Associate, MRM New York
• •               Michele Raska, Associate Project Manager, MRM Detroit
• •               Daniel Smith, Copywriter, MRM Meteorite London

The global agency-wide contest was open to MRM employees aged 28 and under (born after June 22, 1984, per Festival criteria) — and someone who has never attended the festival. Anna’s grand prize includes an all-expense paid trip to The Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, June 15-20.

Round One judges included Dan Douglass, Executive Creative Director, MRM Meteorite; Sue Geramian, SVP, Global Brand Communications; Nicholas Handel, Managing Director, MRM Singapore; Michael Mclaren, President, MRM; Marina Specht, EVP, Regional Director MRM EMEA & CEO, MRM Spain and Anthony Yell, EVP, Executive Creative Director, MRM East. The Grand Prize selection was ultimately chosen by MRM’s Chairman, Bill Kolb who stated, “This competition has exceeded my expectations for a second year running. It is extremely inspiring and exciting to see the ideas and creativity come out in these submissions, and utilizing one of the newest apps on the market was a really fun way to encapsulate ‘I am MRM’ for each of these entrants.”

As part of her responsibilities for winning “I am MRM”, Anna will create an “I am MRM” blog and post regularly about her adventure from beginning to end. Upon returning home, she will be writing a reflection on “What MRM Can Learn from Cannes Lions 2013”.

About MRM

MRM is a top global digital agency made up of a diverse collection of craftspeople focused on creativity, performance and technology. MRM offers a suite of capabilities including branding, strategy, relationship marketing, design, measurement & analytics, mobile, search, social, loyalty programs, platform & application development, system integration, engagement planning, asset production, & asset distribution. The agency has 31 offices in 22 countries and counts Bristol-Myers Squibb, General Mills, General Motors, Intel, Johnson & Johnson, Kraft, Nestlé, U.S. ARMY, Verizon and Wells Fargo among its clients. MRM is a part of McCann Worldgroup, an Interpublic company. For more information, please visit www.mrmworldwide.com.

McCann Worldgroup today announced that it has named Bill Kolb to the newly created position of Chairman & CEO on McCann Worldgroup’s worldwide General Motors account. Kolb, currently CEO of MRM, McCann Worldgroup’s global digital marketing and relationship management agency, will continue to support MRM as Chairman of the agency.

In this new role, Kolb will be Worldgroup’s business lead on a global multiplatform communications account that is one of the agency’s largest and oldest clients. This role will encompass leading the team at Commonwealth, the Worldgroup agency handling the global Chevrolet account.  Kolb will also have oversight of McCann’s Detroit operations.

With Kolb’s move to his new Worldgroup role, MRM Worldwide day-to-day operations will be jointly led by Michael Mclaren and Hank Summy, both of whom were promoted in April to new global MRM positions.  Mclaren is currently worldwide President of MRM and Summy is now MRM’s President of Commerce.

“Bill is one of our most experienced multiplatform and global marketing executives, which he has demonstrated on GM as well as the many other clients he has worked with,” said Harris Diamond, Chairman and CEO of McCann Worldgroup.  “He has held Worldgroup leadership positions both at Momentum and at MRM and, under his leadership, MRM has been named multiple times as both the top interactive agency of the year and as the top direct marketing agency of the year.”

At MRM, Kolb personally led the establishment and growth of its GM-dedicated Detroit office in addition to his global MRM CEO role. MRM is now one of Worldgroup’s major GM agencies both working in collaboration with McCann Erickson and Commonwealth and with its own digital, analytics, and production assignments around the world.

Kolb was named CEO of MRM Worldwide in July 2010, after having served as COO since 2006. He first joined McCann Worldgroup in 2001 as CEO of an expanded international Retail Marketing Group, having previously been President of a consultancy where he managed strategic development of integrated global in-store marketing programs. In 2002 he was promoted to COO of Momentum Worldwide and then named its President a year later. In 2004, he took on additional responsibilities as CFO/ COO of MRM Worldwide before moving to a dedicated MRM role to drive its expansion in 2006.

About McCann Worldgroup

McCann Worldgroup, part of Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG), is a leading global marketing company with 23,000 employees in more than 120 countries comprising McCann Erickson (advertising), MRM (digital marketing/relationship management), Momentum (event marketing/promotion), McCann Health (professional/dtc communications), CRAFT (global adaptation and production), UM (media management), Weber Shandwick (public relations), and FutureBrand (consulting/design).

Last night at the Grosvenor House Hotel in London MRM Meteorite won both the CRM/Loyalty and the Data-Driven Marketing Week Engage Awards for the Costa Coffee Loyalty Program.

Also the recent winner of the Grand Prix at the recent Marketing Week Data Strategy Awards in the U.K., the Costa Coffee Club campaign has been a great success for Costa and MRM Meteorite, which created, launched, and has run Costa Coffee Club during its first three years.

In a world where a single street can house five or six coffee shops, where wallets are filled to bursting point with loyalty cards and where spam is seen as a daily nuisance; MRM was given a seemingly impossible task: to drive incremental behaviour and loyalty from Costa Coffee Club emails.

Recent Fast Company Co.Create article by Meg Carter: “How Costa Coffee Used Data to Drive Loyalty and Sales” lays out how Costa “used customer data from multiple sources to create sharply targeted communications that drive a loyalty program that actually works for buyer and brand.”

Carter wrote, “Loyalty programs aren’t exactly a big innovation, but they’re seldom done right. One thing that sets Costa’s loyalty scheme apart from others is the response rates it has achieved from active users.”

BtoBONLINE.com  - When Lewis DVorkin joined Forbes Media as chief product officer three years ago, he started turning the venerated brand on its head. He blew up the scale of content creation on Forbes.com with a network of non-staff contributors that has since grown to about 1,000, including marketers taking advantage of Forbes’ BrandVoice program.

Taking a cue from the Web development community, Dvorkin also led a shift in the print magazine culture to one in which everything is continually tweaked and improved.

The business did not rocket upward at first, but by the end of 2012, Forbes’ revenue and profitability had hit their highest levels in five years. Digital revenue increased 19% from 2011 to 2012. Print ad revenue also rose last year.

Initially skeptical, the marketer, agency and media communities now cite the revived Forbes as a trendsetter, and DVorkin is a much sought-after speaker for industry groups.

Rick Segal, president worldwide and chief practice officer at gyro, was not among the skeptics. In fact, gyro was an early adopter of BrandVoice (in June 2010).

“With this platform, Forbes has provided a mechanism for content to shine and be shared in a way that few other media companies have done,” Segal said. “Over the past 36 months, they’ve been continuously innovating this platform, adapting it to advertiser needs, improving its analytics and strengthening the brand journalism approach they invented.”

Adam Kleinberg, CEO of Traction Corp., called BrandVoice “one of the most elegantly executed examples of native advertising on the Web.”

“Most publishers are touting native advertising opportunities that are really just sponsored content or advertorials,” he said. “Forbes’ execution has been at the forefront as brands look beyond the banner to engage audiences.”

Stephanie Mace, senior VP-director of engagement and experience planning at MRM, said, “We’ve had a really strong partnership with Forbes. We have had a fair amount of work running in their digital environments using custom-content units where clients can put white papers, case studies and video content into an ad unit and the decision-maker can engage with [the advertiser's] content without leaving the site.”

Go to the article.

MRM has developed the promotional campaign “Burn the Miles” for BalticMiles; rewarding frequent travelers for burning their flown miles as calories: https://vimeo.com/64427392

After a long, busy day, it’s easy to do nothing. But research shows that those who jog live up to six years longer than the average couch potato.

That’s why BalticMiles and MRM’s Frankfurt, Germany office have developed an App that motivates BalticMiles’ members to be a part of the exercise buzz and engage in physical activity — especially after a long flight. Recently, a selected group of BalticMiles program frequent travelers had the opportunity to experience the App and were encouraged to burn the same amount of calories as miles flown within 24 hours after landing.

Well-known sports-tracking Apps motivate the members to do sports after a long day and afterwards reward them just with badges. “The App we developed for BalticMiles even uses their technology and synchronizes the burned calories, for instance after a run with Nike+”, says Dom Heinrich, Creative Director for Innovation Advertising at MRM.

“We are always looking for new, innovative ways to motivate our members as part of our program and reward them for being healthy and in good shape. During the test campaign selected frequent travelers were given individual goals based on miles flown. We then rewarded all participating members who reached their goal with Bonus Points”, says Eriks Nelsons, Marketing Communications Manager for BalticMiles in Riga.

After thousands of burned calories within a few weeks, BalticMiles will soon launch a promotional campaign for its non-flying members. At the same time the already integrated gamification factor will be even more prominent, by including a ranking within the App.

In doing so the additional years of living seem to become more probable than before: Danish scientists from the University of Copenhagen and the university’s clinic (http://www.ku.dk/english/) have examined the effects of jogging towards mortality and have published the results in the “American Journal Of Epidemiology” (http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/02/27/aje.kws301). The big winners were the moderate joggers – they run three times a week for a total of 2.4 hours. So what are you waiting for? Get off the couch and Burn the Miles!

Craig Kauffman, SVP, Global Director of Commerce Platforms at MRM will join LivePerson at their Engagement Matters event on Tuesday, May 7th to share his perspective on online engagement from the digital agency point of view.

Do you know the top reasons why a consumer would abandon your website? Join LivePerson to uncover the latest research about what today’s consumers demand from your brand and create an action plan to deliver an end-to-end digital strategy that drives conversions and new levels of customer satisfaction. In this highly interactive workshop, you will:

• Hear from industry thought leaders and innovators on redefining your current approach to digital engagement and marketing
• Actively engage with fellow executives from across the world of eCommerce, marketing and digital connection on the challenge of successfully connecting with customers across all digital properties (eCommerce sites, social media and mobile devices) and share insights to help you improve your practices and business results
• Align your strategy to new insights on current consumer expectations, and walk away with an action plan

McCann Worldgroup was awarded global communications partner to  Zurich Insurance Group, beating incumbent Publicis Groupe and WPP Group. The Worldgroup pitch team represented parent Interpublic and included teams from MRM, McCann Erickson and UM. The global assignment covers advertising, media and digital marketing.

MRM will be the lead digital agency. Marina Specht, EVP, Regional Director EMEA & CEO Spain, led the winning pitch on behalf of IPG and McCann Worldgroup; along with Maurice Racz, Strategic Planning Director MRM Frankfurt.  Marina will be the Managing Director for this new business and Maurice will be the global Digital Lead.

Read more about on the win:

Interpublic Wins Holding Company Review for Zurich Insurance Group 
AdAge, By Rupal Parekh

McCann WG Wins Global Duties for Zurich Insurance
ADWEEK, By Noreen O’Leary