Martini Media

San Francisco, January 28, 2010 – Martini Media, the leading media group targeting affluent consumers, today announced the acquisition of Decision Maker Media (DMM), the largest vertical media platform online capturing Business-Decision-Makers. With the acquisition, Martini Media has created a media asset with more than 40M unique users with annual household incomes exceeding $100K, on a combination of professional and lifestyle sites that, in aggregate, reaches this affluent audience in the entirety of their time engaged online.

Michael Downing, Co-Founder of DMM, states, “We’re incredibly excited to join forces with Martini; not only have the aims of our two companies been strikingly similar, but we have been consistently impressed by the work they’ve done this past year. Engaging the affluent audience online in both the professional and lifestyle environment provides Martini Media with a powerful position in the marketplace moving forward.”

In the discovery phase of this transaction, Martini Media partnered with Datran Media, using the company’s Aperture audience measurement technology to learn that DMM’s audience is highly accretive and incremental to Martini’s.

“The depth with which we can help our partners identify and understand the audience of any media asset has increased dramatically in the past year through Aperture,” said Patrick Vogt, Chairman and CEO of Datran Media.  “Our software’s analysis made it clear that DMM was a perfect complement to Martini and its objectives, and we look forward to our continuing work with the company.”

“The $100K+ audience has quickly become the most engaged segment online, at over 30 hours spent per week, so this acquisition is perfectly aligned with the Martini strategy of capturing affluent engagement,” said Skip Brand, CEO of Martini Media. “Martini, from the beginning, has been able to capture half this time through the passions and pursuits of this audience. Now, with the addition of Decision Maker’s business network, we now have affluent engagement at work and at play.”

Martini has broken new ground in this field, being the only media network directly targeting the 50M affluent consumers – the 25% of the domestic online population accounting for 54% of all spending.  Decision Maker Media’s strategy has been similar, specifically reaching leaders in the business world on behalf of Fortune 1000 advertisers.

“Our advertisers have been thrilled with the positive results seen reaching the affluent online,” said Brand. “Now, we’ll be able to offer distinct campaigns reaching this audience through their professional and personal pursuits, doubling the size of our market.”

Hello, all:

Apologies for an execusably long break from the blogosphere! Here at Martini Media, we’ve been very wrapped up in our latest venture, the amazing Martini Life Newsletter (which you should sign up for, here, now!). Of course, that’s no real excuse. But, as the third quarter ends today (wow), I felt it was time to return and introduce a very interesting, very promising new blog.

Joe Lambe has just kicked off his blogging career with the captivatingly titled “Posterizing The Posers.” His first post speaks directly to our interests at Martini, discussing targeted advertising and the sometimes negative responses to what many fear is an “invastion of privacy.”

However, Joe believes that, “the personalization of advertising is both logical and inevitable.”  He continues:

“When I watch TV and see an ad for Extense or Maybelline, I shake my head.  (Not because of what these products say about our society, because that’s too scary to contemplate).  Instead, wasted advertising dollars.  Wasted eyeball renting to borrow a Seth Godinism.  I will never, ever buy these products.  Makes me want to use my DVR to skip the ads entirely.  If given the choice between an ad spot for something I might buy vs. an irrelevant product or service, I would always pick the former. And I think most would agree.”

We most certainly do. Advertisements can only be effective if they’re actually viewed, and Joe (along with most others) are far more likely to pay attention if said ad is portraying something that interests us.

Joe also has provided a list of very useful (and we think right on) tips for brands: 1. Keep policies transparent 2. Allow advanced users the right to opt-out 3. Make advertising social and fun 4. Don’t forget to make exciting products.

Great stuff, overall. We look forward to reading more, and recommend you check out his full post here.

Cheers, with promises to appear more regularly,

Lauren

Big news: We’re launching a newsletter. Not just any newsletter, however. This is a daily dose of what we like to call the Martini Life – and meant for you, the person who knows how to live it. Travel, gear, food and wine – we find the best of the best and deliver it straight to your inbox.

Sound good? We think so too. Sign up here.

Cheers,

Lauren

It’s been far too long! We have a very exciting project brewing in the Martini headquarters – details of which I’ll post soon. Let’s just say it’s a daily dose of the finer things in life, which we know you happen to appreciate.

That said, there have been a great number of interesting articles in the past few days of relevance. I’ll give you a digest-style rundown here, but don’t hesitate to report back with comments upon seeing full articles.

First,  the New York Times reported on an extensive study being run by Disney to track user’s response to ads in even more detail than before. To quote:

“It is relatively easy for Internet companies and their advertisers to measure precisely how often Web site visitors click on advertisements, and which kinds of ads draw the most clicks. But what about those who do not click, the many millions of others whose eyes merely flit across the screen? Disney and other companies say they believe that not nearly enough is known about them — what kinds of ads in which configurations are likeliest to draw them, and hold them?”

Imagine the possibilities of campaigns tailored to this kind of information. Getting into the heads’ of users is just another step in upping the dominance of online media, and the reach of which it’s capable.

See the full article here.

Speaking of the Times, they’ve been in the news themselves with their adoption of a new online strategy – a self-serve ad system for businesses to advertise on various hyperlocal sites. Says paidContent:

“When the NYTimes.com introduced the hyperlocal news sites in Febuary, executives had already been eying ways to attract the kinds of small-business marketers, such as plumbers and pizza parlors, that many newspaper sites had left to the online directories.”

Further signs of the mass movement from print to online. See the full post here.

Silicon Alley Insider posted a video answering the ever-intruiging question (especially to us): “why can’t big companies ever get their act together fast enough to jump on an emerging opportunity before some hot startup monopolizes it?”

In short, the little start-ups that could (Google, ring a bell?). See the video here.

Finally, Wired’s auto-blog Autopia had a great post about a newly developed hybrid engine for aircrafts, “as an intermediate step to all-electric aircraft.” Says Autopia,

“German planemaker Flight Design is testing a hybrid that’s very similar to the hybrid-car concept, with added safety benefits that can be utilized by airplanes.”

Great news for environmentalists and aviation enthusiasts alike. See the full post here.

Don’t be shy with comments, and check us out on twitter.

Cheers,

Lauren

No great surprise there. However, AdAge did point out some interesting stats about the decline of print ads in Business Week, Fortune and Forbes. The reason? Marketers have, “gotten much better at maintaining databases of the crucial decision makers who buy their products or services, focusing on preserving their loyalty and contacting them more or less directly than through a major magazine ad buy.”

We’d be quick to tell you that marketers have changed their practices because directly targeting the appropriate consumer is, simply, far more effective.

A great and insightful comment from a comment on the article: “People are using the web for knowledge vs. the news stand.” This is certainly true – at a time when acquiring the best and most accurate business news is all the more essential, time is of the essence, and online is far faster.

See the full article here.

Cheers,

Lauren

Courtesy of Business Week, in part because it’s Friday: the new “Vulcano” “has up to 90 percent fewer calories than regular chocolate.” As if that’s not good enough, “high temperatures can’t touch it—unless, by chance, they soar higher than 55 degrees Celsius (131 degrees Fahrenheit).”

Lest you think I am sharing this incredibly exciting information simply as a gift to you on this Friday afternoon, there is in fact some serious business wisdom to be found in this article. In short, “Vulcano” is a fantastic example of creativity and innovation in a long-standing, tradition based industry. The Swiss makers of this new “super chocolate” have gone to great lengths developing and testing, ” to use it to tackle a growing problem: In Western Europe and North America, chocolate consumption has leveled off and, in some cases, begun to decline.”

As the saying goes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. And it’s hard to think of anything less broke than chocolate. However, if sales have declined, the perfect opportunity presents itself to innovate, and create something even better. If the chocolate makers can do it, who can’t?

See the full article here.

Cheers,

Lauren

Today’s AdAge features a great article about new marketing tactics – in short, how marketing not only can and should change in the face of a very different market, but can reap serious benefits by doing so. Wide reach isn’t necessarily the answer, hence the term “4% factor.”

To quote: “What marketers are starting to discover is that the target universe is smaller than originally thought. So small, in fact, that 4% of a brand’s consumer base is driving most of the business. This deeper dive into audience targeting is what I call the 4% Factor. Simply stated, it is another level down from the typical 80/20 rule of prioritizing (80% drive, 20% of the business) because, well, everything is getting smaller.”

The article further details specific steps that can be taken in order to hone in on this specific group. The idea of targeting a specific group of like-minded individuals because they have the same tendencies is not a new one (especially here at Martini), but it’s great to see that this concept is being given serious weight by experts.

Another key excerpt: “Today, brands are built by communities of like-minded individuals who share their brand experiences with others and those with whom they have some connection. Pinpoint those communities — or markets of business opportunity — and find creative ways to get them to help recruit your next customers.”

See the full article here.

Cheers,

Lauren

Today’s Marketing Daily in MediaPost pressed marketers associated with health and wellness, technology, and financial products to pay special attention to male Baby Boomers as a relevant and high-spending demographic.

From the article: “According to the NMI survey, 40% of men over the age of 50 said they are not feeling increased stress because of the economy, compared with 30% of women in the same age group. In addition, Baby Boomer men are taking on more family shopping roles and are more likely to buy brand-name products. The survey found that about one-third of Baby Boomer males are the main household grocery shopper, up from 20% ten years ago. While in the store, about half (46%) of these men are willing to purchase brand names over store brands, compared with about 26% of women.”

Perhaps this is because “Women are more pragmatic”, as explained by Steve French, executive vice president and managing partner at the Natural Marketing Institute. Whatever the reason, men are spending, and it is the marketers role to hone in on this tendency.

See the full article here.

Cheers,

Lauren

The Martini team is freshly back from our Q3 offsite, and we are both inspired to work and full of new ideas. Our days in Tahoe proved to be filled with strategy and celebration, as we discussed the upcoming months, relished the natural beauty of the mountains, and proved that the Martini team can live up to its name.

Our discussions got me thinking about the nature of the team, and our ability and desire to run hard until we reach our goal. As chance would have it, the New York Times was thinking similarly, and discussed just that in an essay from last week’s Sunday Book Review. The book in question was Thorstein Veblen’s “The Theory of the Leisure Class“, published in 1899 and decrying the wealthy for their tendency towards lazy indulgence. However, the Times (and I) are of the opinion that Veblen is indeed 110 years out of date – for today’s leisure class, “leisure”, or affluence, is akin to being constantly connected, and constantly working.

The article sums it up nicely here: “In the contemporary money culture, to be at leisure, to be idle, is to be irrelevant … A great many people can afford not to work and could spend their time shuttling between multiple homes, eating fabulous meals and playing golf. Yet they continue to work around the clock. Of course, the private jet, the BlackBerry and the Internet allow people to do all of the above. But among Type-A, self-made members of the leisure class, there’s a sort of reverse prestige associated with leisure.”

A different approach, perhaps, but the article reminded me of just how connected today’s affluent population is, and how digitally relevant they are as a demographic. Further, I couldn’t help but notice how much of what we do here is based off of the American work ethic – work hard, and you shall be rewarded. Today’s wealthy, rather than being pariahs responsible for the country’s economic woes, are often examples of self-motivation and determination.

As if this wasn’t inspiration enough, Seth Godin (my favorite) discussed the need for businesses to take a “quantum leap” to set themselves above the competition. In his far more sage words: “going for the leap is essential for creating a business for the ages.” I’ll refrain from continuing the theme of early American business ethics and fully diving into the John Winthrop “City upon a Hill” reference that comes to mind, but it is comparable when thinking of landmark businesses that manage to define an entire space by their successes, and the quantum leap of faith they require.

In short? We’re working hard. We’re targeting some of the most influential consumers out there. And Martini, as it has before, will continue to take quantum leaps. Check out the Time’s review here, and Seth’s post here.

Keep an eye out for offsite photos on Living the Martini Life.

Cheers,

Lauren

Greetings from beautiful Lake Tahoe. We’ll be back in action with a full update and insightful commentary Friday.

Cheers,

Lauren