The MMI Blog | Marion, Montgomery, Inc.

Calling all Houston Marketers!!

March 2nd, 2010, Posted by Maggie

It’s that time of the year again Houston! Time for the AMA Houston Marketer of the year awards that is…

On March 15, marketers, social media mavens and tech geeks from all over town will meet at the Alley Theatre to honor the 40 Best of Category winners and (drum roll please) announce the 2009 Marketer of the Year. Top 40 companies include some of Houston’s favorite organization’s and businesses. Honorees include the Children’s Museum, the Houston Food Bank and everyone’s beloved road trip stop… Buc-ee’s! We can’t wait to see who comes out on top.

The event includes a reception, a presentation of the Top 40, a super special address by a keynote speaker and then the final announcement of the AMA Houston marketer of the year. AMA National Chief Marketing Officer Nancy Costopulos will also be attending the event as a guest speaker and will present a special award. Stay tuned to the AMA Houston twitter stream for the keynote announcement!

Tickets to this event can be purchased online for $35 for AMA Houston members and $45 for non-members. We hope to see you there!!

It’s that time of the year again Houston! Time for the AMA Houston Marketer of the Year Awards that is…

The event includes a reception, a presentation of the Top 40, a super special keynote address by a Kenneth Price of Boeing and then the final announcement of the AMA Houston marketer of the year. AMA National Chief Marketing Officer Nancy Costopulos will also be attending the event as a guest speaker and will present a special award.

Tickets to this event can be purchased online for $35 for AMA Houston members and $45 for non-members. We hope to see you there!!

Posted in Houston Events, Social Media | No Comments »

Hello from the newest MMIer!

February 24th, 2010, Posted by Maggie

Testing testing, one two three… Is this thing on?

Well hello!

My name is Maggie McDonald (magsmac for short) and I’m the new girl on the Marion Montgomery team. Well new-ish… Yesterday was actually my two week anniversary but I’ve been busy working on the amazing Mom 2.0 Summit since I walked through the door and hadn’t had a chance to say hi until now!

It’s got to be said though…. As busy as I have been, I could not have asked for a more perfect first project! Last year I was actually a volunteer for Mom2 so this wasn’t my first rodeo and if you know me, you know I love the Mom2 crew. If you don’t know me, I thought I would take a second to tell you about myself.

Once upon a time…. I graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in Public Relations. I was a bartender in college (and LOVED it) and I decided I couldn’t do an “office job” so I went into wedding planning for a very prestigious country club. One day I realized that as much as I loved event planning, my brain needed more stimulation than long conversations centered around the difference between taupe and off-white table linens. And I missed writing!! Back to PR it was for me. My first job in marketing was at the awesome Schipul where I learned everything I know about Social Media and now here I am at my new home in Rice Village, MMI.

While I have enjoyed working on Mom2 the last few weeks (especially the part where I had to change a tire in an evening gown) I am looking forward to working with the rest of MMI’s amazing clients. Next up for me is the Shell Houston Open.

**I’m going to put the picture of Jenny and I here and below it, a picture of all of the MMI girls (I scanned the one)**

Wish me luck!

Love always,

Maggie

Www.twitter.com/magsmacWell hello!

It’s got to be said though, as busy as I have been, I could not have asked for a more perfect first project! Last year I was actually a volunteer for Mom2 so this wasn’t my first rodeo and if you know me, you know I love the Mom2 crew. If you don’t know me, I thought I would take a second to tell you about myself.

Once upon a time I graduated from the University of Houston with a degree in Public Relations. I was a bartender in college (and LOVED it) and I decided I couldn’t do an “office job” so I went into wedding planning for a very prestigious country club. One day I realized that as much as I loved event planning, my brain needed more stimulation than long conversations centered around the difference between taupe and off-white table linens. And I missed writing!! Back to PR it was for me. My first job in marketing was at the awesome Schipul where I learned everything I know about Social Media and now here I am at my new home in Rice Village, MMI.

Other little known Maggie facts that may interest you: I love Mac ‘n’ Cheese, I used to play the tuba, I hate odd numbers, I have two cats, I drive a big red truck and I LOVE Guitar Hero. But I digress…

Oh… and here is my favorite photo from Mom2. You gotta love photo-booths with a green screen!

Mom2Crew

Wish me luck!

Love always,

Maggie

Posted in Behind The Scenes, MMI News, Our Buzz | 6 Comments »

Addy Season

February 24th, 2010, Posted by Lauren

Every year the excitement builds and the hype escalates to what is fondly known as the Houston Addy Awards. This month at the 2010 Houston Addy Awards ceremony we were honored to take home four awards for outstanding campaigns in online and broadcast media.

We’re honored and elated by the recognition, but for us the real excitement of those successes started long before the nominations came in, because beyond the awards, it’s the results of those campaigns that make us most proud.

Like the 35% increase in visits to the new Perry’s Steakhouse & Grille website since the first five months of redesign, addys 002 the 15% rise in site visits to Sugar Land Town Square’s website and the 114% and 61% increase in site visits from Google to the Perry’s and Town Square websites, respectively.

Or the 415 airings of the US Family Health Plan PSA in four key markets, inspiring every-day Americans to redefine “What is Courage,” and prompting a collective 4.6 million viewers to the US Family Health Plan website to find out more.

Some were more long-term in their success, like the Military OneSource campaign that led to a 71% increase in utilization of the Military OneSource 24-hour hotline from 2008 to 2009, and culminated with the Addy Award-winning spot.

Like Bryan noted with his work on the interactive projects, it’s a labor of love, a creative endeavor, but ultimately it is providing results to take home to our clients that makes us love what we do.

Thanks to all our clients who allow us to do great work, we could not have done this without you!

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

Marketing Lessons at Mom 2.0, Part Two – Flicka!

February 20th, 2010, Posted by Robin

Horse meets girl in "Flicka 2," releasing May 4, 2010

“Ridiculously beautiful.” That’s how one Mom described the scene in Flicka 2 where the starring horse first canters into the frame.

The opening session of today’s Mom 2.0 Summit was a visit from “Flicka 2″ directors Michael and Janeen Damian, an entertainment industry family focusing on family films. As Michael put it, “We need more live-action films the whole family can enjoy without having to use blindfolds or ear muffs during some of the scenes.”

In addition to showing the Flicka 2 promotional trailer, the Damians premiered the first ten minutes of the movie, coming out May 4, 2010. As the lights came back up in the ballroom of the Four Seasons hotel, and the crowd applauded, Michael Damian shared his nervousness — “You are the first people ever to see this,” he confided, “so your opinion really matters to me.”

The opinions of the Mom 2.0 audience really do matter to Damian and the folks at producer Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment. Not only are the mothers in the room the main movie decision-makers in their families, the moms’ blog readers total approximately 10% of the American public.

Flicka 2 is bypassing movie houses and going direct to DVD. Back in the day, “direct to DVD (or VHS)” meant a movie probably had some problems. Today, going direct to DVD is an increasingly successful strategy for scoring well in niche markets.

If the moms in this morning’s audience like the preview, they’ll tweet and blog about it, they’ll remember it, they’ll tell their friends, and the movie’s potential audience will grow exponentially. Flicka 2 won’t just be another “direct to DVD” movie, it will be a successful film with a successful “Mom 2.0″ marketing strategy.

At MMI, we refer to replicating significant audiences as “identifying psychographic twins.” A psychographic twin is someone who shares a value-set that leads them to similar behaviors and purchasing/use habits.

This may have seemed like a post about a horse, or maybe about a movie. Really, it’s a post about marketing strategies. This morning saw the perfect combination of a product and an asymmetrical, influential marketing force.

Twentieth Century and the Damians made a smart decision to debut their film at the Mom 2.0 Summit. If this core audience rents/buys it, their psychographic twins will too.

Tags: Flicka 2, Mom2Summit
Posted in Behind The Scenes, Social Media | 2 Comments »

A Labor of Love

February 16th, 2010, Posted by Bryan

This Saturday, the Houston Advertising Federation hosted its annual Addy Awards. Among the MMI projects nominated for an award were the websites for Sugar Land Town Square and Perry’s Steakhouse & Grille.

A lifelong resident of Fort Bend County, I’ve witnessed firsthand the massive growth of the county, and Sugar Land in particular. I have been a frequenter of Sugar Land Town Square since the first businesses opened in 2002, including Perry’s. Our lead designer, Brian Lee, is also a resident of Sugar Land. Needless to say, both of these sites were built with love.

With the Sugar Land Town Square redesign, we streamlined a myriad of homepage banners, promos, and information into a clean, aesthetically pleasing home page. The latest promos are contained in an interactive flash element, and users can vote for the latest “Movie Under the Moon”, sign up for the newsletter, or navigate to other areas of the site, all without a scroll of the mouse. A couple technologies we implemented in this site are a RSS (Real Simple Syndicate) feed for users to subscribe to retailer coupons and a backend CMS (Content Management System), which allows our client to manage their event listings. Both of these systems are time sensitive so that expired coupons and past event dates are automatically removed from the site, ensuring all information is accurate and timely.

Perry’s Steakhouse & Grille is the flagship restaurant for Perry’s Restaurants. There are six locations in the Houston area, including Sugar Land Town Square, one in downtown in Austin, and coming this spring, one in Dallas’ uptown area. If you haven’t been, go and get the pork chop, it’s epic. With many locations, and varying menus and components for each location, sitemapping was critical element of the development. Sitemapping is the process of organizing the site’s pages and structure, similar to building a floor plan for a house or laying out the chapters of a book. We implemented many ways to navigate the site and each location essentially has it’s own microsite within the framework of the whole site, so that information such as private dining is specific and relevant to each restaurant. The menus, unlike some restaurant websites, are built within the site and broken down by categories, as well as offering a printable PDF. Offering users multiple ways to navigate and access information is always a key component of a functional website.

With Sugar Land Town Square and Perry’s Steakhouse, we believe we accomplished the task of creating well-designed and functional websites, and we hope all of the sites’ visitors agree. When the voters/judges of the Addys like them as well, then that’s just icing on the cake.

Posted in Our Buzz | No Comments »

Cross-Training

January 27th, 2010, Posted by Sarah

I have been working in public relations for almost six years, and in that time I have never had the privilege of working on such a diverse list of clients all at once. That’s how it is for everyone at MMI. A day’s work can involve different projects for financial, health care, consumer and real estate clients. This may seem stressful to some, but to me it’s pretty great.

weights image

MMI is an agency of all-around athletes – working and thinking in different ways to stretch and tone complementary skills. From the ground-level leg work to the high-level concepting, this flexibility of roles makes us a stronger team. We do have specialists in design, interactive and public relations for example, but we all bring diverse industry experience. We find that this broad knowledge base and understanding brings great ideas to the table–applying lessons learned and successes from one area to another.

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »