'Save Now' Is the New 'Buy Now" -- And 6 More Recession-Messaging Ideas

Last year, marketers seemed to be slow to change their messaging in response to the yet-to-be-formally-declared recession. During the holidays, retailers responded to slowing sales largely by promoting deep discounts in email after email. However, since the turn of the calendar, I've seen retailers adopting a variety of tactics to coax sales from their recession-wary customers.

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Making More Than a Good Impression

As marketers continue to grapple with how to best make use of social media, moves are afoot to change the way success and failure are measured. And as the point of advertising in these venues is to engage users, the current dominant forms of measurement, based on clicks and impressions, fall short.

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Google, WPP Team To Research Ad Effect

Google is teaming with the world's largest buyer of media, Martin Sorrell's WPP Group, to conduct new primary research to understand how advertising works on both digital and traditional media outlets. Details of the initiative, first reported in today's edition of The Wall Street Journal, is expected to be released today, and will include an investment of $4.6 million to fund three years of research including projects with such prestigious think tanks as the Harvard Business School, MIT, and Stanford University, and will leverage data from some of WPP's biggest clients, including Ford and Unilever, the paper reported.

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