AMC’s critically acclaimed original series, Mad Men, is a classy period-piece set in the 1960s at the fictional Sterling Cooper advertising agency on Madison Avenue in New York City.  The show’s plot revolves around Don Draper, the creative director of the firm and the vices, trysts and drama that unfold in his life and in the lives of those around him.  The Emmy winning show has become a huge hit for AMC and it has also garnered a cult following amongst many of today’s marketers.

We never miss an episode of Mad Men at TopRight – not only because the show is extremely well written and engaging, but also because there are terrific marketing lessons to be learned from the golden age of advertising – both what to do and in many cases what NOT to do.  The truth is that marketing has come a long way from the 1960’s when the art of persuasion was the expertise that one had to develop to be successful in advertising.  In one episode, Don Draper delivers the classic line that “People want to be told what to do, so badly, that they’ll listen to anybody”.  Today’s marketer lives in a competitive world that is governed by the science of engagement.  It’s become incumbent upon marketers to step up the truthfulness and entertainment value of their messages as consumers have become increasingly sophisticated and connected to information.  But, there is still some truth in what Don Draper says.  People may still want to be told what to do, however, now they may be listening more to their peers, friends and colleagues via the various social media channels rather than listening to traditional advertisers.  And, that’s the intrinsic beauty of the show:  Mad Men depicts a place and time “where the truth lies”, to borrow from one of the show’s taglines.

To this point, I recently detailed five important ways that marketing has evolved since the Mad Men days at an American Marketing Association luncheon in Atlanta.  Take a look at the presentation: “Mad Men: Where the Truth Lies”, and learn how changes in culture & values, process, measurement, technology and organizational development have transformed marketing into a science as well as an art since the early 1960’s.  You’ll also learn about some great marketers from the past and from the present day who successfully drive purchase intent with their target audience using the art of persuasion AND the science of engagement.

p.s. Don’t miss the Mad Men Season 4 to kickoff on July 25^th on AMC!

There’s a leveling of the playing field going on in the Marketing Management Software world. In past years, marketing platforms such as Aprimo were big dollar, big effort propositions for large organizations. Not anymore. Vendors are ramping up capabilities in an on-demand or SaaS-based model (Software as a Service). And service providers (like ourselves) are increasingly serving clients in a “MaaS” model (Marketing as a Service).

Speaking from our recent client work, we’re finding that marketing management platforms are no longer only for larger players. The dollar, time and resource commitment has been reduced to levels finally within reach of smaller marketing teams. In fact, clients are increasingly demanding it.

What do you think?

Come Visit the TopRight Team at the Aprimo Summit and learn Mucho MaaS! Located adjacent to registration.

MaaS

Y’all need help rustling up better marketing results?
Need to lasso more leads?

Time to dust off your old strategy and wrangle new ideas at Aprimo’s global user conference.

Educate, stimulate, motivate and celebrate with us in San Antonio:

• Get hands-on training from Aprimo subject experts
• Hear the best ideas from the best B2B and B2C marketers
• Learn how to deliver increased visibility on marketing spend, results and value
• Discover how your peers are helping their sales teams succeed
• Take action with the social media and integrated marketing trends shared by industry experts

300 MARKETERS. 50 EXPERTS. 3 DAYS.

Don’t Miss It!

San Antonio, Texas  - February 15-17 2010

TopRight Extends its EMM Solution Capability

TopRight announced today that Aprimo® Inc., a global provider of on-demand marketing software solutions, has selected TopRight, LLC as the first Aprimo Marketing Studio™ Field Partner to help drive successful implementation and seamless delivery of Aprimo Marketing Studio solutions to prospective clients.

TopRight, already a Certified Aprimo Business Partner for the Aprimo Enterprise platform, has expanded its EMM Solution Delivery Team to include a complete array of services specific to Aprimo Marketing Studio™.

In today’s environment, marketers are increasingly demanding the SaaS (Software as a Service) approach that Aprimo Marketing Studio offers, but often continue to face process and organizational challenges that can adversely affect Marketing Studio’s potential.  As an official Marketing Studio Field Partner, TopRight distills 15 years of experience in helping clients improve marketing operations into a structured, fast-paced approach that enables organizations to realize the amazing benefits of Marketing Studio within a matter of weeks.

“Marketing Studio offers clients the perfect blend of functionality they need now and into the future”, said Dave Sutton, TopRight Founder and Managing Partner.  “The trick is to empower organizations to implement quickly so they can immediately begin capturing the competitive advantage that Marketing Studio promises, while simultaneously laying the foundation for future expansion in a self-sufficient manner.  TopRight is unique in its broad level of experience:  our team brings marketing and solution experts.”

“We’re excited that TopRight has chosen to pursue opportunities with Aprimo Marketing Studio”, said Rob McLaughlin, co-founder of Aprimo and General Manager of Marketing Studio.

TopRight has worked toward improving the efficiency of marketing operations and increasing the effectiveness of marketing programs both as both practitioners and consultants.  Dave Sutton is co-author of Enterprise Marketing Management: The New Science of Marketing, published in 2003.  The book outlined a breakthrough strategic marketing approach based on a fact-based, scientific model.  TopRight’s EMM Team, led by Francisco Ruiz, has successfully implemented Aprimo solutions across a number of industries since 2003.

Skateboarding has long been considered an “outlaw” sport that rebels against the social norms of society and commerce. Many corporations have tried and failed to enter the growing $5+ billion skateboarding market, which consists of homegrown skateboarding companies–usually started by skaters or other extreme sport companies that already have a foothold in the market.

Nike and Adidas both tried at different points in the 1990’s.  After failing a few times, Nike made a commitment to taking a different approach. Early in 2000, they started infusing traditional marketing strategies they had optimized in the past with innovative marketing approaches they thought would cater to the market. In 2003, Nike Skateboarding only produced a disappointing $25 million. Today, Nike Skateboarding has grown tremendously and is now a $200+ million business. This remarkable growth can be attributed to four different strategies:

1)      Finding a young, upcoming athlete to sponsor, and to build a business around.

2)      Selling only to independent skate shops.

3)      Bringing back the Nike Dunk and tweaking it to become a functional skate shoe.

4)      Using skateboarding magazines as the only medium of traditional advertising.

Nike is now a staple in skate shops and the market leader in sports gear has once again established itself as a major player in yet another sport. Which market will Nike target next? Will they be able to apply these same strategies and innovative approaches to achieve similar success? Only time will tell.

As part of its growth plan for 2009, TopRight officially launched its Chicago office this week.

While many companies are retrenching and/or shrinking, TopRight is expanding geographically and building on their success in Atlanta and the Southeast region.  Two veteran consultants, Brian Goonan and Charlie Wise have joined the firm as Principals and will lead the practice in Chicago.   Brian and Charlie will be cultivating several opportunities for TopRight in the Chicago metro area and Midwest region:

• Identifying new accounts, closing business and managing engagements across the region
• Supporting TopRight’s partnerships with Aprimo and MarketSphere in the Midwest region
• Bringing TopRight’s successful SQUAREtable to senior-level marketers in the Chicago market
• Refining and further building out TopRight intellectual property in the areas of: CMO Playbook, Consumer BuyWay, EMM and Marketing Spend Effectiveness.
• Attracting top strategic marketing talent to the firm

Contact info for the TopRight Chicago office :

TopRight
225 W. Washington Street
Suite 2200
Chicago, IL 60606
office: (312) 775-1006

TopRight and MarketSphere, two leading business consulting firms, today formalized a strategic partnership to develop and deliver common solutions to help complex, global companies improve marketing operations and attain competitive advantage in their respective markets.  Both firms serve a growing list of Fortune 1000 companies and are considered trusted advisors to companies undergoing transformation of their marketing processes.  The two companies made the announcement with several of their clients at the Aprimo Marketing Summit on February 9th.  To learn more and hear from some of our clients and partners, CLICK HERE.

Within many large enterprises today, marketing is still viewed as a “black box” where substantial resources go in and creative outputs emerge — outputs that sometimes drive increased sales and profits, and sometimes do not. In some businesses, marketing has become so “unplugged” from other functions across the enterprise that it is unclear whether marketing activity is linked to business strategy and financial results in a meaningful way. How ironic — when you consider that marketing and innovation are perhaps the only two significant drivers of business growth (and some would go further to say of our economic growth!). Enterprise Marketing Management is a strategic business discipline and a set of enabling technologies that promise to plug marketing back into the enterprise. Check out the full white paper by Dave Sutton recently published by Henry Stewart Publications in a collection of papers on EMM

At long last, the cat’s out of the bag: TopRight and Navarra Solutions Group join forces! Almost five years ago, Dave Sutton and Francisco Ruiz met for the first time. Both quickly realized they had a lot in common: a keen interest in marketing. However, they approached the problem from different ends of the spectrum: Dave from the strategic end, Francisco from the systems end. Dave had just published his book on EMM and Francisco had just started Navarra Solutions Group. But Dave had a bigger, comprehensive vision which he described in his book…What if both of those ends came together? More importantly, as he compellingly wrote, those ends should come together. Well, as of today they are together in one place: The TopRight Enterprise Marketing Enablement Team. The right people, the right vision, the right technology, the right moment. Nobody says it better than Aprimo’s CEO Bill Godfrey: “This merger is the perfect marriage of two of Aprimo’s leading service partners, both of which are hyper-focused on delivering tangible customer value. Navarra Solutions brings world-class capability in delivering business solutions and a successful track record to TopRight. TopRight, an already-established EMM thought leader, is now positioned among the few full-service, end-to-end solution providers in our partner network.” Read the full Press Release <here>!