DMA: Email Brought in $...

According to the Direct Marketing Association’s recent “Power of Direct” study , email brought in an average of $40.56 for every dollar spent in 2011, with that number projected to decrease to roughly $39.40 in 2012 as many marketers are “missing out on opportunities to fully capitalize on email’s power.” “Too many programs fail to incorporate customer data effectively, to deliver more targeted and relevant emails,” says Matthew Kirsch, senior manager of online marketing at DirecTV. “The challenge with social and other new technologies is that an emailer can expend time and money chasing the newest thing and fall further behind on the nuts and bolts that will make meaningful and measurable improvements in his or her program,” he explains. Email’s decrease in ROI isn’t due to the medium losing its effectiveness, however, in fact email is big business and continually growing.  According to Forrester Research’s “US Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2011 to 2016,” email is expected to bring in $1.7 billion in revenue in 2012 and grow 10% annually through 2016, hitting $2.5 billion by 2016. At mobileStorm, we’ve long believed that email marketers need strong guidance in terms of making the most out of their email marketing strategy, which is why we give each and every client a dedicated account rep to provide such guidance and know-how every step of the way. More on the DMA’s recent study can be found here .

TinTin iPad Art Book Bl...

If you are a big TinTin fan, you probably know that Steven Spielberg’s The Adventures of TinTin opens today in theaters. But if you are a really big fan, there is also a companion coffee table book called “The Art of The Adventures of TinTin.” But don’t get the $39.99 print edition . Get the $5.99 iPad app instead. It has all the same art work, plus a whole lot more—3D models of the characters ond vehicles from the movie that you can spin around, HD video clips, and immersive 360-degree experiences. (Watch the video below for a run-through of the app’s features, with an intro by Spielberg). The app was published by HarperCollins in partnership with Holopad , one of Edo Segal ‘s startups (part of his bMuse operating company), which is the developer that provides the technology platform. All of the artwork comes from WETA Workshop , Peter Jackson’s motion-capture art and special-effects studio, which is effectively the author of the book. (This would be amazing for The Hobbit ). It has all sorts of immersive features. “You blur the line of what is a book and movie because all of these images become movie clips,” says Segal. “The whole book becomes a treasure trove you are exploring.” For instance, you can “scrub” some of the illustrations to fade between the original comic book and the artwork for the animated movie. Every image is a separate element on the page which can be tapped and seen in full-screen. My favorite part is there are a few places, like TinTin’s room, that are complete 3D spaces. You can tap into those images and move the iPad around like a window into this other world. Depending where you point the iPad, using the gyroscope, it shows different parts of TinTin’s room, or the captain’s cabin. Although the app was produced by taking the same Adobe file that was used to create the print book, that was just a starting point. It took Holopad about another month and half to add all the extra immersive elements. “It was very clear to us that what we had to do was not an enhanced e-book,” says Shane Norman, director of interactive marketing at HarperCollins. The TinTin iPad app will be the first of many such projects. “I definitely see it as a model for how we treat an interactive book,” he says. I’ve said this before, but digital books and magazines are best thought of as apps. Segal has similar views on the future of media . Tablets are a new software-defined medium. As such, an iPd book they requires more than just text and images, and maybe some video.

Q&A: Michael Strom...

Michael Stromer, director of e-commerce and interactive marketing at JetBlue Airways, says his company takes a conservative in-flight approach.

Q&A: Michael Strom...

Michael Stromer, director of e-commerce and interactive marketing at JetBlue Airways, says his company takes a conservative in-flight approach.

Anti-Acne Brand Combine...

Effort takes interactive marketing to the bathroom mirror.

Millennial Media SMART ...

Millennial Media has just released their August SMART report which this month, focuses on the Consumer Packaged Goods Industry. Alcohol brands took 42% of the ad mix for the month with Cosmetics and Hygiene next at 26%. Says Millennial: During the summer months, we saw an increase in Alcoholic Beverage advertisers taking advantage of the unique ability of mobile to reinforce their brands by delivering fun and interactive marketing campaigns to their target customers. Is it just me, or does it bother anyone else to see the words alcoholic beverage and mobile in the same sentence? The vast majority of CPG campaigns pushed consumers to go from mobile to social (78%), while 56% sent consumers off to watch a video. When you look at the campaign action mix for all industries (the orange boxes), Mocial is barely a blip, while Application Downloads and Watching a Video are the top goals. The report also notes a rise in custom landing pages, (24% increase month-over-month) which they attribute to special sale pages for back-to-school, seasonal products and product launches. The entertainment biz was going strong, using mobile and video to promote the last of the summer movies and the new TV shows for fall. What will September bring? Except to see a rise in video and even more special landing pages as online marketers gear up for the holidays.