PenVine

Can You Hear Me Now?

Jennifer Schenberg — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:57:00 +0000

Happy 40th Birthday, Cellphone.

One of the first times I saw a cellphone was on popular early ’90s show, Saved by the Bell. Ah the Zack Morris “Brick Phone.”

I must have gotten my first cellphone in 1995. A gigantic Ericsson. Followed by an equally large Nokia and then eventually, a sleek (at the time) StarTac. Through the years, there were more surprising innovations – things I never thought possible. Even as an early adopter of mobile technology, I never expected the disruptive innovation we have today.

Thankfully, we learned a lot through our clients. Text messaging (SMS & pSMS) from mBlox; mobile/social email from Return Path; mobile advertising from Third Screen Media, Millennial Media and GoldSpot Media; mobile machine technology with Google; TV everywhere with SeaWell; movie ticketing from Fandango; mobile commerce and payments from Mobilians; mobile touch and user experience technology from Movial; mobile idle screen technology from mPortal and Mobile Posse; the Mobile App Nation, building ecosystems with Handango, enabling armies with EachScape, unveiling innovations with Boom and Numbeez; mobilizing music and radio with TargetSpot and Guvera; optimizing and controlling the mobile video, gaming and multimedia experience with BroadHop (Cisco), Camiant (Tekelec) and Movik.

What once seemed impossible or improbable is now not only a reality — but mainstreaming, and making money. Remember the Jetson’s video phone calls on TV? I marveled at that possibility and yet here we are with video calls on smartphones, tablets and computers.

Happy 40th Birthday, Cellphone. You’ve made a difference in our lives. Even my 7-year-old daughter is pointing out all the reasons I’m behind the curve – since most of her friends are already texting on their smartphones and iPod Touch devices. Not yet, my sweet S!

— Jennifer Schenberg, PenVine

2013: Celebrating a Decade of Success

Jennifer Schenberg — Mon, 31 Dec 2012 03:10:00 +0000

This year, we’re proud to announce that we’re ringing in 2013 with a major milestone of our own: 10 years of business success - celebrating some of the most exciting moments for tech start-ups and female entrepreneurs, consumer products and entertainment, clean/green innovation and enterprise-scale and mass-market services. Check out some of our most exciting moments.

Reflecting on the Holidays

We hope everyone’s had a moment to review this Holiday’s amazing “firsts.” Because this Holiday season’s going down in the books. 1.) Fandango broke the record for the highest single-day movie ticket sales on Christmas Day, 2.) there were more iOS and Android activations than any other day in history – $17.4 million to be exact – and, 3.) my daughters and I shattered our movie-watching record, enjoying four fantastic films in less than 2 weeks – Parental Guidance, Les Miserables, Monsters Inc 3D, and The Hobbit.

We hope you had a chance to relax during the Holidays because like us, you’ll probably be hitting the ground running this week – in our case – prepping for CES and NRF’s Big Show and Shop.org’s First Look, Mobile Marketer’s Mobile First Look and Mobile World Congress.

As usual, Q1 is a chock-full-of activity, announcing new wins and innovations across marketing, technology, energy and mobile. And since it’s still a big quarter for retail, you’ll probably also see us at the Internet Retailer Web Design and Usability Summit in February.

To all of our valued relationships and close friends – here’s to a fabulous 2013. May it be our best year yet!

Sincerely,

Jennifer Schenberg & the PenVine Team

12-12-12: The Last Repeating Date of the Century

Jennifer Schenberg — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 18:10:47 +0000

So how to celebrate? If you just missed getting married at 12:12:12 on 12/12/12, then you can always try to scalp a ticket to tonight’s concert benefiting Hurricane Sandy victims at Madison Square Garden, give birth or schedule a C-section or induced delivery (in China, the number 12 and combination 12-12 is very good luck), or for certain lucky ones among us, celebrate your birthday.

While Mashable says today is not necessarily as popular as “Nerd New Year,” the nickname for last year’s 11/11/11 given it’s binary status, we think it’s pretty darn close. After all, great things come in threes – today’s date is 12/12/12, we have another perfect three at exactly 12:12:12 pm today, and again, today there are 12 days until Christmas. It’s a pretty powerful 1, 2, 3 punch!

How to Make Your Audience Feel Special

admin — Fri, 07 Dec 2012 19:32:36 +0000

How do you communicate? Now, how do you want to communicate? We all want personal attention – its what makes us feel special. And years ago, the first time we heard AOL’s beloved “You’ve Got Mail,” we smiled. We wanted to get personal emails.

Today we have so many emails, it’s overwhelming, yet we boast about them: “I got 50 emails this morning.” “Yeah? Well I still have 500 to get through!”

But 500 emails isn’t enough. We love our texts, Skype and Facebook messages. We’ve all pushed the envelope, demanding always-on networks to convey a story about our moods, what we had for lunch or where we’ll be this evening.

I recently saw this on Facebook and had to share, because it’s so true.

Snail Mail is Special.

Everything in life comes full-circle, again and again. And in this case, while email brings a smile, the rare but beloved snail mail might get a “YIPPIE!” So next time you think about making your audience feel special – think about what would brighten their day vs. add to their pile of daily chores. It’ll help build your relationship, leave a lasting impression and hopefully – be a conversation starter.

Spreading the Word in a Social World

admin — Wed, 05 Dec 2012 15:45:53 +0000

In today’s ever-evolving social world — where people have the power to persuade, unite and blacklist brands and products — PR has a more important role than ever. As we’ve learned from our clients (and clients’ clients), one negative post can spread like wildfire, causing a crisis that requires immediate attention. Whether it’s responding to a natural disaster or a service outage, companies not only need to be always on, but always prepared to respond and engage in conversations with their consumers. Tech support, customer service, and sales inquiries – we’ve fielded them all — directly and via online tools and social networks. And how about competitive pressures? Fully leveraging real-time social channels, engaging in conversations across time zones and cultures, when or before peers do is very important to our global clients.

Public relations is not just about media relations, it’s about spreading the word to the audiences that matter most to you — through valuable relationships with bloggers, journalists, conferences and events, analysts and directly with businesses and consumers. It’s about understanding your business and freeing up your marketing and executive teams, so they can do their jobs, while we help define strategies to drive marketing support, customer service, brand awareness and crisis communications.

The Tablet Affect & Streaming TV to Mobile

admin — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 22:33:08 +0000

According to this story from @GAbramovich at @Digiday, when there’s a tablet laying around, people are unlikely to pay attention to your TV ad. However when watching TV programming on a tablet, they’re glued to it. Why? I actually like the psychological analysis here — people have to hold their tablet, so they’re engaged physically; they focus on their show and don’t engage in apps or games in the background, like they do when they watch using the TV set; and they know exactly what they’re going to watch — there’s intention and engagement here, vs channel surfing on the TV set.

Outstanding, true observation… we are glued to our tablets watching TV shows and ads.

This is obviously why the networks, cable companies and advertisers are flocking to mobile. What’s interesting to us is that there’s a lot of movement on the back end to address the ability to deliver the same quality TV experiences we expect on the first screen (Television) to other connected devices — set top boxes, tablets, phones, cars, you name it — over the Internet.

Dynamic Internet TV delivery across any connected device is a hot topic in the media and a hot commodity for advertisers. Cable companies, network operators and advertisers are all interested in monetizing IPTV and video for mobile. A company called SeaWell Networks is a linchpin in this movement, providing a software platform to help cable companies and other network operators deliver Connected TV and video experiences across mobile devices for our viewing pleasure, while providing dynamic ad insertion capabilities to help personalize engagement with viewers.

All in all — the IPTV and Connected TV markets are heating up – for service providers and advertisers alike. All because of consumer behavior, demands and expectations.

Disclosure: SeaWell Networks is a client.

— Jennifer Schenberg, PenVine

Will Google Get Its Grooveshark Back On?

admin — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 22:31:25 +0000

According to the Wall Street Journal’s blog Digits, Google quietly reinstated Grooveshark, the controversial music streaming app. It’s $6.00-$9.00 a month or free ad-supported, and lets you listen to copies of songs uploaded by other users.

The problem: is Grooveshark legal? At the end of the day, who’s ultimately responsible for infringing on music label copyrights? Grooveshark, the aggregator — or the people uploading the songs?

What do you think? Will you use Grooveshark?

— Jennifer Schenberg, PenVine

The Social Disconnect Between Brand and Consumer

admin — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 22:29:06 +0000

We wrote about the importance and impact of social media on sales. Today we’re writing about how brands do (or do not effectively) use social media to learn about their customers. When businesses listen to and respond to customers — they learn about their likes, wants and needs. But according to data from Pivot, only 34% of businesses have even asked their customers. Highlights from Pivot include:

76% of marketers feel they know what their customers want yet only 34% have asked customers.
83% of consumers seek deals, but only 53% of businesses think that’s what customers really want.
45% of marketers feel that rewards programs are important to customers and 70% of social consumers thought otherwise.
59% and 58% of social customers wish to engage businesses to share feedback and to also receive customers service respectively; on the contrary only 37% of marketers believe that these services are in demand by their customers.

Helping Businesses Listen and Learn about Customer Needs

Companies are clamoring to be the one to provide businesses with the right tool or platform to manage customer relationships via social media. In fact, the social advertising and social media management markets are exploding with several recent high-profile acquisitions: Gannett Co. bought BLiNQ, Google bought Wildfire, Microsoft bought Yammer and Salesforce bought Buddy Media and Radian6. According to a recent report by @jowyang at Altimeter Group, Sprinklr has the most capable social media management system to serve the needs of large organizations.

While some providers offer scalable solutions for only large global enterprises, there are many other providers that focus on delivering social media management solutions for specific platforms like Facebook or Twitter, or on the needs of smaller businesses. That said, there are solutions out there for every business, whether they want to better understand, market to, support or problem solve with their customers.

— Jennifer Schenberg, PenVine

Social Media vs Email: What Makes Us Buy?

admin — Thu, 29 Nov 2012 15:53:19 +0000

Social media may not be a channel for the “hard sell” but it impacts sales just as much as email. There’s a huge difference between influencing and motivating vs activating via discounts. Today’s consumer is on the look out for coupons and deals — but what makes them pull the trigger? Word-of-mouth, social recommendation or a ping from GroupOn? What motivates you to buy?

PR Daily writes that email surpasses social media for sales impact (http://www.prdaily.com/marketing/Articles/12468.aspx). It’s an interesting read, but I don’t necessarily agree — it’s more complicated than that.

After all, 3 out of 4 CMOs say social media impacts sales (via Business Insider:http://www.businessinsider.com/three-of-four-cmos-say-social-media-impacts-sales-2012-8).

— Jennifer Schenberg, PenVine