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Erik Hauser

Giving Meaning to the Term “Customer Engagement”

By Erik Hauser
Swivel Media Creative Director

“Giving Meaning to the Term Customer Engagement” will be 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., Tuesday, June 5. Here’s a preview from the presenter.

It is amazing how renaming something can lend epiphany-like clarity to a subject. This is certainly the case with experience marketing.

The term experience marketing can replace all other discipline labels because it encompasses—well, everything. Everything we do as humans, good or bad, is an experience.

Any interaction a customer has with your brand, product or service is an experience. Experience marketing is the basis of every marketing initiative undertaken by a company.

As humans, we are byproducts of three things: our genetics, experiences and environments.

When smart marketers use the term experience, they take a giant step back and fully grasp the need for customers to have a seamless interaction with their marketing and advertising initiatives.

Marketers see how integrated marketing efforts that are relevant and meaningful to their customers will lead customers to develop long-lasting relationships based on positive experiences with their brands.

We are seeing the shift to marketing that engages customers in a positive dialogue that meets their needs and desires, versus marketing that pushes products with monologue messaging.

Several companies have begun to not only grasp this shift, but also assign executives to address it intelligently and boldly.

In this session, I’ll address the experiential marketing methodology—the most powerful tool in the experience marketing arsenal.

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DAM celebrated its 50th anniversary in 1992 with this commemorative poster designed by member Gretchen Reed.	It was also in 1992 that Grace Villamora presented DAM’s first Award of Merit to Holly Rutkowski.

 

DAM Celebrates 65 Years of History, Accomplishments

By Robin Feuerstein
DAM Archivist

Going through the archives in search of fodder for a brief history of DAM has convinced me we ought to raise our glasses and toast our fine division, which, presumably, we will be doing shortly in Denver!

While I can recall some highlights of my 20-plus years with DAM, I have unearthed some fascinating endeavors of the advertising, marketing and media information professionals who came before us.

The division was established in the fall of 1942; hence, we are celebrating our 65th anniversary. But did you know there were activist advertising librarians advancing our causes well before then?

Early history & DAM founder Mary Louise Alexander

We can look back as far as 1923 when, according to Ed Strable in the Winter 1987 DAM Bulletin (part of a multi-issue article on the history of DAM), Mary Louise Alexander, director of research at a precursor to BBDO started the first advertising group in SLA, the Advertising-Industrial Commercial Group.

In the September/October 1921 issue of Special Libraries, Alexander reported of 1,200 or more agencies in the United States (250 in New York City) only four had libraries: BDO, the Batten Co. (the other B in BBDO prior to the merger), JWT (where she first worked) and the MacMartin Agency in Minneapolis.

Throughout her career, Alexander spoke on the value of agency libraries. She also arranged for Bruce Barton (the original B in BBDO) to speak during the banquet at the 1923 annual conference and for Paul T. Cherington, director of research at JWT, to speak at the 1926 conference.

She chaired numerous groups in SLA, rising to the top as two-time president (the first ad agency librarian to hold the office). Alexander held other interesting jobs along the way, including special assistant to Eleanor Roosevelt. Alexander retired in 1965 and was elected to the SLA Hall of Fame in 1966. She died in 1976. We are greatly indebted to Mary Louise Alexander, our founding mother, so to speak!

1940s

The precursor to DAM was established in the fall of 1942 with 63 members. That number nearly doubled by the next year, and more than doubled again by 1951 with 258 members.

The earliest chairs were from McCann-Erickson, Campbell-Ewald, Foote Cone & Belding, Benton & Bowles, McKinsey, and Consumers Union (there were several others, but they probably wouldn’t be much recognized today).

The DAM Bulletin followed in 1943. And “What’s New,” a subscription publication that described new resources of interest to advertising and marketing librarians and was published until fairly recently, began in 1946 (well, actually it began life earlier as a publication by the SLA Illinois Chapter) and had 161 subscribers by the 1950s.

An interesting and proactive endeavor began in 1945 when what was then called the Advertising Section of SLA’s New York Chapter gave a series of courses in advertising sources. The classes were to train paraprofessionals and assistants in advertising libraries. Librarians pooled their talents and presented 10 sessions held in the library of the instructor. This went on for several years.

1950s

1951 ushered in another watershed event. Delphine Humphrey of the Advertising Division, as it was now called, along with eight other New York City ad agency librarians hosted sessions devoted to the ad agency library at the Eastern Annual Conference of the AAAA.

They featured speakers from different departments of various agencies to discuss how each department used the agency library services.

Another session featured a panel of librarians. The January 1952 issue of Special Libraries was devoted to printing the seven speeches given at the conference and congratulated the group on promoting ad agency libraries.

The conference was also covered in the December 1951 issue of Advertising Agency, then a must-read trade publication.

The AAAA provided transcripts of the speeches to their members. The literature generated by this conference was among the earliest on the subject of ad agency libraries.

On the lighter side, in the 50s and again in the 70s, the bulletin ran a trivia column of unanswerable reference questions, such as:

• How much chocolate milk is consumed in the U.S.?
• Where can I find info on the doggie bag market in the U.S.?
• How many people are paid on the 15th and 30th of the month?
• How many members are in the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band?
• What is the total U.S. flea population?

1960s

More excellent publicity for the division and profession occurred when Elizabeth Smith of Campbell-Ewald detailed her successful promotion of National Library Week in the March 1962 issue of Special Libraries.

In 1963, the new “What’s New” board was announced in The New York Times, New York Herald Tribune and Advertising Age. And in 1964, DAM wrote SLA’s “Subject Headings in Advertising, Marketing and Communications Media.”

The April 1969 bulletin covered Canadian advertising sources and ad agency libraries.

1970s

Perhaps our predecessors were a bit burned out from the swinging 60s as the 70s, at least from what can be gleaned from the bulletins, were devoid of major DAM activities.

The bulletins were short, often confined to news of upcoming and recently attended conferences, membership directories and bibliographies.

There was an interesting juxtaposition of articles published three years apart. In 1973, Elizabeth Smith of Campbell-Ewald ran a detailed description of her library’s vertical files (ah, remember the days).

Just three years later, Duane R. Day of the General Mills library glowingly wrote of the wonders of online databases, particularly The New York Times Information Bank.

That seems to say it all for the 70s as many of us who are still around to tell of it experienced the magic of online (you had to be there to see how this revolutionized the information profession).

1980s

The 80s were about public relations. Several DAM members were active with SLA headquarters in steering the association’s public relations policy.

One of the highlights of these efforts was the Summer 1991 issue of Special Libraries that was devoted to “Public Relations in Special Libraries.”

Our own Holly Bussey, a former DAM chair, contributed an article and edited the issue. Holly was subsequently honored by SLA for her work in public relations, which included spearheading SLA’s marketing and media plan, leading a CE course in PR at conference and making various presentations.

In addition, DAM members Holly Rutkowski, Gretchen Reed and many others gave generously of their time and brainpower.

The 80s brought fine moments for DAM as many of us worked with vendors of online advertising databases such as The New York Times Information Bank’s AMI and Predicast’s MARS. It was worth the effort to have databases specific to our industry.

DAM members also worked with LexisNexis as part of an indexing advisory group, and participated in focus groups and advisory panels for other vendors in the online community.

1990s

In 1991, DAM members Gretchen Reed, Bert Schachter and Eric Halvorson contributed to the SLA publication “Tools of the Profession.”

Speaking of publications, Gretchen Reed, another former DAM chair, was involved with advertising publications such as the 1999 update of the AAAA pamphlet “What Every Account Executive Should Know about Agency Information Centers.” It is the gold standard on ad agency library services. She also created a publication on international advertising and marketing sources, and was involved in SLA headquarter activities for many years.

In 1992, we celebrated our 50th anniversary at the annual conference in San Francisco with a commemorative poster (thanks again to Gretchen), a champagne toast and a big delicious sheet cake! And we presented our first Award of Merit to Holly Rutkowski.

And on a fun note, in 1994 former DAM Chair Jenny Mueller-Alexander performed a belly dance at a relaxation session at the annual conference. I would venture to guess it was the first time such an event took place, and no surprise it took place during a DAM session.

In the 90s we introduced the “Ad Agency Roundtable” at the annual conference and it’s been a smash ever since, drawing a mix of about 30 attendees each year.

21st century

Highlights of the 21st century include (I’ll be brief to leave this to future archivists as this sort of stuff is better with perspective):

• Surely, one of our finest moments came in 2003 when long-time member Grace Villamora recruited several of us for the book “Super Searchers on Madison Avenue”
• A revamped, snazzy DAM Web site, including a Community of Practice area
• The DAM listserv where our colleagues help answer those near-impossible questions
• And in 2004, we introduced our new logo

We encourage all readers, especially newer DAM members, to get involved making meaningful contributions to the world of ad agency information for the advertising information specialists who will follow us!

Author’s note: I am indebted to Ed Strable and the late Mary Margaret Regan for the histories of DAM that they’ve written.