Super Searchers on Madison Avenue: Top Advertising and Marketing Professionals Share Their Online Research Strategies (Super Searchers series)

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SUPER SEARCHERS MADISON

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AVENUE

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SUPER SEARCHERS MADISON

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AVENUE

Top Advertising and Marketing Professionals Share Their Online Research Strategies

Grace Avellana Villamora Edited by Reva Basch

Medford, New Jersey

iv First Printing, 2003 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue: Top Advertising and Marketing Professionals Share Their Online Research Strategies Copyright © 2003 by Grace Avellana Villamora Super Searchers, Volume XI A series edited by Reva Basch All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Published by CyberAge Books, an imprint of Information Today, Inc., 143 Old Marlton Pike, Medford, New Jersey 08055. Liability The opinions of the searchers being interviewed are their own and not necessarily those of their employers, the author, editor, or publisher. Information Today, Inc. does not guarantee the accuracy, adequacy, or completeness of any information and is not responsible for any errors or omissions or the results obtained from the use of such information. Trademarks Trademarks and service names have been used throughout this book. The names are used with capitalization in the style used by the name claimant. Rather than insert a trademark notation at each occurrence of the name, the publisher states that all such trademarks are used in an editorial manner without any intent to infringe upon the trademark. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Villamora, Grace Avellana. Super searchers on Madison Avenue : top advertising and marketing professionals share their online research strategies / Grace Avellana Villamora ; edited by Reva Basch. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. Contents: Velda Ruddock : visonary for intelligence -- Douglas Buffo : indefatigable enabler of end-users -- Jordie Garvin Thomson : multicultural information expert -- Kristine Larsen Spanier : from copywriting to librarianship -- Gerard Seifert : creative-side researcher -- Robin Feuerstein : major league coach for the information services team -- Leslie Cole : expert on the African-American market -- Dan Carlton : “Digger Dan” the account planner -- Liz Aviles : trend spotting and marketing promos -- Dee Magnoni : independent research consultant -Carlos Santiago : chief realist strategist -- Gretchen Reed : virtual research provider -- March Appel : 4As for excellence. ISBN 0-910965-63-3 1. Marketing research—Computer network resources. 2. Marketing— Databases. 3. Internet searching. 4. Electronic information resource searching. I. Basch, Reva. II. Title. HF5415.2.V497 2003 658.8’3’02854678--dc21 2002152892 Printed and bound in the United States of America Publisher: Thomas H. Hogan, Sr. Editor-in-Chief: John B. Bryans Managing Editor: Deborah R. Poulson Copy Editor: Dorothy Pike Graphics Department Director: M. Heide Dengler Cover Designer: Jacqueline Walter Book Designer: Kara Mia Jalkowski Indexer: Sharon Hughes

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Dedication

I dedicate this book to Win, my husband and wonderful companion. And to my daughters, Genevieve Anne and Nicole Marie, who are my world and joy. Also to the loving memory of my parents, Benjamin Agpoon Avellana and Ines Rubio Avellana, who taught me how to read and write.

About The Super Searchers Web Page At the Information Today Web site, you will find The Super Searchers Web Page, featuring links to sites mentioned in this book. We periodically update the page, removing dead links and adding additional sites that may be useful to readers. The Super Searchers Web Page is being made available as a bonus to readers of Super Searchers on Madison Avenue and other books in the Super Searchers series. To access the page, an Internet connection and Web browser are required. Go to:

www.infotoday.com/supersearchers

DISCLAIMER: Neither publisher nor authors make any claim as to the results that may be obtained through the use of The Super Searchers Web Page or of any of the Internet resources it references or links to. Neither publisher nor authors will be held liable for any results, or lack thereof, obtained by the use of this page or any of its links, for any third-party charges, or for any hardware, software, or other problems that may occur as a result of using it. The Super Searchers Web Page is subject to change or discontinuation without notice at the discretion of the publisher.

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Contents

Foreword . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix by Linda Garrison, Ogilvy & Mather

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Velda Ruddock . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Visionary for Intelligence

Douglas Buffo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Indefatigable Enabler of End-Users

Jordie Garvin Thomson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Multicultural Information Expert

Kristine Larsen Spanier

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

From Copywriting to Librarianship

Gerard Seifert . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 Creative-Side Researcher

Robin Feuerstein . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Major League Coach for the Information Services Team

Leslie Cole . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105 Expert on the African-American and Urban Consumer Markets

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viii Super Searchers on Madison Avenue Dan Carlton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117 “Digger Dan” the Account Planner

Liz Aviles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Trend Spotting and Integrated Marketing Pro

Dee Magnoni . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143 Independent Research Consultant

Carlos Santiago . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Chief Realist Strategist

Gretchen Reed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 Virtual Research Provider

Marsha Appel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 4As for Excellence

Appendix: Referenced Sites and Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 About the Editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

Foreword

Ten years ago when an ad agency had to get up to speed on an industry or consumer group or market trend, a literal excavation would commence. Librarians and information professionals scoured back issues of trade journals, business press, consumer magazines, and newspapers. Online searching of commercial databases was conducted to retrieve abstracts and full-text versions of articles from select publications. Calls were placed to trade associations, educational institutions, and government agencies for reports not found in databases and inhouse subject files. Trips were made to city or university libraries. Assistant account executives (and any other ablebodied person in the general vicinity) were pressed into duty to help uncover as much information as possible in the shortest amount of time. It was laborious. It was primitive. It was hit or miss. Rarely, in the end, did the quality of the information justify the amount of energy and resources expended to gather it. And heaven help us if more than one search request fell on us at a time. Today the need for quick access to meaningful information is more important than ever. And the number of places to look for that information has globally exploded. Thankfully, the process of excavation has a magical new tool: the Internet. It gives us access to the world’s institutions instantaneously.

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x Super Searchers on Madison Avenue Thankfully, we also have creative, insightful experts to guide us through the welter of online sites and services. So we don’t just get more information, but, rather, higher quality, more substantive intelligence. At our office, we employ three professionals to help us harness the power of this instant, global research engine. They keep a finger on the pulse of the marketing communication industry, informing us daily of trends, news, and personnel moves. They follow the business of our clients and the industries in which they compete and issue daily (and sometimes hourly) reports of relevant developments. They are in the trenches on new business prospects and projects. They also teach the rest of us how to better use online resources so that individually we can be at our best in the world of dot-com reconnaissance. Super Searchers on Madison Avenue will share with you invaluable tips on how to get the most out of online searches, accompanied by anecdotal best practices. Whether you’re an information manager, an account planner, creative or account staff, a student or faculty member in a library or business school, you’re guaranteed to learn something helpful—from favorite Web sites and search engines to ways to turn information into inspiration. After all, anyone can log on. The competitive advantage is in how to find what you really can use. Linda Garrison Managing Director, Ogilvy & Mather

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful to John Bryans, editor-in-chief of CyberAge Books, for believing in me when I said that there are great stories from the trenches of Madison Avenue, and to my executive editor, Reva Basch, for her infinite patience and guidance, and for creating the seminal Secrets of the Super Searchers book that led to the highly acclaimed Super Searchers series. Reva and John have been supportive and immensely helpful in the realization of this book project. I couldn’t have found a pair of more terrific professionals to work with. Thank you, too, to Deborah Poulson, for your gentle reminders and encouragements. I am indebted to the thirteen Super Searchers I interviewed. I couldn’t have done this without their generosity, expertise, and willingness to share and to gain. Thank you Marsha Appel, Liz Aviles, Doug Buffo, Dan Carlton, Leslie Cole, Robin Feuerstein, Jordie Garvin Thomson, Dee Magnoni, Gretchen Reed, Velda Ruddock, Carlos Santiago, Gerard Seifert, and Kristine Larsen Spanier. Thank you for your timely clarifications and, above all, for your courage and time. I am particularly grateful to Patty Shannon of The Workstation for transcribing the interviews in record time. Patty is a joy to work with. She is the best in the class. I would like to acknowledge Mary Ellen Bates, Amelia Kassel, and Susan Detwiler, authors of other Super Searchers books and active members of the Association of Independent Information

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xii Super Searchers on Madison Avenue Professionals, for their support, encouragement, and tips at the onset of my project about how to navigate this book. My special thanks go to Derene Allen and Jenice B. Mariano of The Santiago Solutions Group for making it possible to arrange for a last-minute interview, follow-ups, and prompt delivery of photos. My thanks also go to Rob Carstens and Ken Marier for their time and useful insights on the advertising business and to Estela Virtusio for sharing with me her collection of privately printed Leo Burnett books. Thank you, Justine Mateo, for printing and delivery help. I am deeply grateful to Linda Garrison for taking time from her extremely hectic schedule to write the foreword to this book. I owe a great deal to my husband, Win, who, despite my benign neglect, quickly learned how to cook Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, and single-handedly wrote eighty Christmas letters and cards to our families and relatives, while I kept my nose to the grindstone. Win has been my able second pair of eyes and my critic. Thank you, Genevieve and Nicole for your phone calls, chatty emails, and your extra patience. Grace Avellana Villamora

Introduction

My introduction to the Super Searchers series happened at the 1998 Online World conference in Washington, D.C. when I obtained a copy of Secrets of the Super Net Searchers, authored by Reva Basch. The book is a treasure trove of Internet search techniques collected in thirty-five interviews of leading information professionals and researchers. I was determined to finish reading the book before I got back to doing research projects in Chicago. Later during the conference, Mary Ellen Bates, a fellow member of AIIP, the Association of Independent Information Professionals, asked me if I would consider an interview for her book project. I instinctively agreed to discuss research and ad agency clients, a field I was very conversant with. Mary Ellen’s 1999 book, Super Searchers Do Business, also generated a lot of insights and uncovered useful “secrets” of online searching. That encounter firmly planted in my mind an idea for a book based on conversations with leading advertising research professionals and their best practices. Information professionals in the advertising field are a different breed in that they can be called upon to answer any question under the sun by virtue of the multiindustry, multidisciplinary nature of the advertising business itself. Broad-based knowledge and general awareness of mass American culture are desired traits, along with flexibility and the ability to turn on a dime.

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2 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue Having had vertical advertising agency experience in the U.S. and abroad, I am keenly aware of the rich research resources that the advertising industry relies on. I started out as a creative coordinator/traffic assistant early in my career and moved up to account management, broadcast media, and, ultimately, research, where I found my niche developing information centers and conducting secondary research. I realized that I had gained the experience and could provide a first-hand look at the research resources, online toolboxes, and search strategies from the points of view of my peers and of ad agency end-users of information as they effectively and creatively advance the objectives of their agencies and clients. Inquiring minds may want to know the significance of “Madison Avenue” in the book title. In the 1950s and 1960s, Madison Avenue in New York was the headquarters of several leading advertising agencies and other communication companies, such as magazine publishers and television and radio networks that sold advertising space. Madison Avenue came to symbolize the creative energy and intellectual fervor of the advertising industry. In later years, however, ad agencies broke out of the confines of Madison Avenue and ventured out into the heartland and the West Coast. Leo Burnett, Foote Cone & Belding, J. Walter Thompson, and Tatham had well-established offices in Chicago, where the major ad agencies cluster around the Michigan Avenue area. Many hugely successful creative shops opened up in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland, Austin, Minneapolis, Boston, and Miami. In spite of this diaspora of advertising know-how, Madison Avenue retained its cachet as the trend-setting hotbed of mass communications. Yes, advertising has evolved and spread to the outer reaches. But Madison Avenue in New York is still the recognized nerve center of the industry. The primary focus of this book is online research, with the Web providing a user-friendly front end. The Internet toolbox that facilitates online searching is a perfect complement to today’s advertising business, which is fast paced, intense, and knowledge hungry. The 13 Super Searchers I interviewed share

Introduction and discuss their favorite online search strategies and research tools, both digital and paper based. The interviews are generously sprinkled with anecdotes, “how to” survival tips, and bestpractice examples. Almost all of the interviews were conducted by phone and taped, with email and telephone follow-ups. Two interviews were done by email with phone follow-ups, and a couple of inperson interviews took place with subsequent email and phone follow-ups. Several interviewees good-naturedly acquiesced to be interviewed just hours before their holiday vacations. Another interview was conducted while the interviewee kept watch over a sick child home from school. The Super Searchers interviewed for this book represent a cross section of advertising professionals. They include visionary leaders, seasoned agency information professionals, fresh new talents, and discerning end-users in various advertising agency disciplines such as account planning, copywriting, and inculture specialization. Collectively, they are mentors, thought leaders, consultants, specialists, and generalists who stake their reputations on the quality of their work and take great pride in identifying the real information needs and meeting the customer’s expectations. A significant number of the Super Searchers are professional information trailblazers long recognized for their innovative contributions to their ad agencies. Many are active members of the Special Libraries Association (SLA), an international organization based in Washington, D.C., that provides professional support and training to its members in more than 70 countries. Marsha Appel of the AAAA, Robin Feuerstein of The Interpublic Group of Companies, Gretchen Reed of Euro RSCG MVBMS Partners, all in New York City; Velda Ruddock of TBWA\Chiat\ Day, Los Angeles; and Kristine Larsen Spanier of CarmichaelLynch in Minneapolis have served as chairs and mentors of the Advertising and Marketing Division of SLA. It was through the SLA discussion group on the Internet that I came to know Jordie Garvin Thomson of NSightsWorldwide, a

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4 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue subsidiary of Global Hue (formerly Don Coleman Advertising), Detroit, and Liz Aviles of UPSHOT, in Chicago. I met Doug Buffo of Leo Burnett Worldwide at a Dow Jones/Factiva meeting in Chicago and subsequently invited him to participate in this book project. Leslie Cole of Burrell Communications Group (49 percent owned by Publicis) in Chicago and I worked together when I was chair of the public relations committee of the SLA Illinois Chapter. I met Dee Magnoni during my consulting days at Wieden + Kennedy. She is a consultant and knowledge expert based in Portland, Oregon, and a director of SLA. The Internet has served me well in getting to know the Super Searchers in this book, several of whom I have yet to meet personally. While researching multicultural markets in general and U.S. Hispanic consumers in particular, I came across the Web site of Santiago & Valdes Solutions. Carlos Santiago is the co-founder of this in-culture research group based in San Diego, California. Carlos specializes in strategic marketing approaches for ad agencies and advertisers who target Hispanic consumers. He uses the Internet to acquire Hispanics’ perceptions about products and services as well as information about previous effective marketing methods. Carlos also points out that the Internet is ideal for conducting focus groups, polls, and full research surveys. Mindful of the demographic shifts in the country as indicated by 2000 Census data, I made sure to draw participants from multicultural agencies that are pioneers in these “emerging majority markets.” The importance of these markets resonates in the recent wave of integration and acquisition of multicultural agencies by top global ad agencies such as the Omnicom Group, the Interpublic Group, WPP Group, Publicis, and Havas. Cognizant of these leading agencies, I mapped out my book to include at least one participant from each major group. The convergence of the computer and the Internet in the last decade gave rise to a generation of computer-literate and Websavvy advertising agency end-users. Many are consummate online searchers in their own right; with little help, they use search engines and other Internet resources to find data to complement

Introduction account guidelines and reports, locate images and designs, converse with consumers, acquire company feedback, and collaborate with team members on projects across time and place. I included in this book several end-users who are extremely conversant with the Internet and the nuances of online searching. These end-users, by doing much of their own information gathering, free us professional searchers to do more complex research requests. Using Adweek and Advertising Age, I compiled a list of agencies nationwide with breakthrough creative departments that have won awards and industry recognition. I read art annuals and yearbooks, where I serendipitously found Gerard Seifert’s award-winning student entry in the One Show Annual 2000. Before joining GSD&M as a copywriter, Gerard had been introduced to me by a classmate at the 50th anniversary gala event of the School of Visual Arts in New York. Dan Carlton, account planner at mckinney+silver, is a member of the Havas “research council” in which I participate on behalf of Euro RSCG Tatham Partners. He was the last addition to my Super Searchers lineup and one of the most adept users of the Internet and Web search engines. The Paris-based Havas, formerly named Havas Advertising, owns Euro RSCG Worldwide and its network of communication companies including Messner Vetere, McNamee, Berger and Schmetterer (now called Euro RSCG MVBMS Partners), and mckinney+silver. The effort to create this book has brought to the fore my own observations about the advertising information profession. Advertising is an “energy” business. It has to keep pace with the prevalent lingo, fashion, trends, and the American zeitgeist to connect the dots with consumers. Advertising information professionals constantly work with urgent deadlines to provide images for ideas, words for concepts, data to substantiate copy claims, and business intelligence for new business pitches. Good research means better ideas and solutions to clients’ communication problems.

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6 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue The Internet exponentially increases a searcher’s ability to find scarce information on local or global markets. Many of the standard print industry resources are now Web based, along with the online database systems that used to require separate dial-up access. Super Searchers augment electronic sources with other basic research tools such as art annuals, yearbooks, mood boards, audio and video, graphic design magazines, and conversations with consumers to create memorable advertising campaigns. While the Internet has the capacity to provide instantaneous answers to some pressing information needs, it also tends to generate information overload, an observation not lost on the Super Searchers interviewed for this book, who provide their own perspectives on its usefulness and applicability to the tasks on hand. With an overabundance of information sources and so little time, they point us to the resources and techniques that give the most “bang for the buck.” The Appendix lists an astonishing number of Web sites that the book’s Super Searchers have identified, used, and refer to heavily. I thought I had seen most of the really useful advertising-related Web sites and winnowed the grain from the chaff. But no—more new sites go online every day. The number of Web sites still seems to be growing exponentially, in spite of the “dot bomb” phenomenon. In each interview, the first reference to each of these sites is marked with a number enclosed in brackets, which corresponds to its number in the Appendix. Despite the myriad advertising resources now available online, many Super Searchers still look for printed resources to obtain just the right information or inspirational materials they want. Sometimes, it’s the look and feel of the magazine that they are after. As Gerard Seifert puts it, he wants something he can “sink his teeth into.” For case studies, Kristine Larsen Spanier favors the Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns. Liz Aviles is a big fan of Gale’s Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands and IEG Sponsorship Sourcebook for her promotions and event marketing projects. In this regard, I have also included in the Appendix many essential, tried-and-true printed resources that are in most

Introduction information professionals’ arsenals. As Velda Ruddock aptly said, “Print is not dead.” Throughout the book, our Super Searchers share specific instances of “thinking out of the box” when confronted by unique questions. Doug Buffo uses eBay.com to find movie memorabilia and manufacturers’ Web sites to retrieve old product images. Marsha Appel revealed that her practice of tracking questions asked by member agencies not only serves as a good training tool for new hires but also as documentation for the volume of work her department performs and for the value of membership in the AAAA. Robin Feuerstein tells of finding Scooby-Doo experts through Scooby-Doo Clubs on Yahoo!. Jordie Garvin Thomson found elusive information on lottery play by ethnicity on a family-oriented Web site. Leslie Cole’s detective work led to a timely phone interview with a professor of ichthyology who shared statistics on how many AfricanAmericans have died in shark attacks—information needed to compare the numbers of deaths from smoking vs. other ways of dying for an anti-smoking ad campaign. Super Searchers often employ out-of-the-office sources for unique insights and innovative service. Dee Magnoni visits bookstores in search of travel guides and international newspapers to obtain country demographics for a global project on which she collaborates with agency account planners. Gretchen Reed operates a virtual information center and manages the INFO@MVBMS intranet site, telecommuting out of her home in upstate New York for the past seven years. With the help of a library assistant, Gretchen complements her online searching expertise with a subscription to the New York Public Library’s fee-based Express Service and on-site research at the AAAA. To obtain hard-to-find photos for a high-profile retail client, Velda Ruddock sent out a member of her Intelligence Department to conduct on-site research at the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising. She credits the agency’s successful outdoor campaign to that intelligence-gathering effort. To dig more deeply into understanding the perceptions of consumers, who

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8 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue are becoming increasingly sophisticated, well informed, and innovative purchasers, account planners like Dan Carlton forego the status quo, scour the Web for a wide variety of feedback and perspectives, and even take a group of boys out for pizza to discern what’s on their minds. The process of writing this book has been an enlightening and eye-opening experience for me. It brought into sharper focus areas I had overlooked and filled unexpected gaps in my own knowledge. I hold out the expectation that this book will in some way further the reader’s own continuing education in the advertising and marketing arena. Far from dealing with the abstract aspects of advertising information research, it is my hope that— for librarians, researchers, consultants, advertising students, faculty, and ad agency end-users—this book will shed some light on the down-in-the-trenches issues that advertising professionals must face on a daily basis.

Velda Ruddock Visionary for Intelligence Velda is Director of Intelligence at TBWA\ Chiat\Day. She and her group provide resource training and intelligence services to the North American office. Velda heads the worldwide TBWA Intelligence Ring as well as the Intelligence Bank of the TBWA Worldwide Intranet. [email protected] www.tbwachiat.com

What is your background and how did you get started in advertising? I fell into both information and advertising. I was ready to graduate from college with a degree in social science, but I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. So I went to graduate school. I’d liked libraries all my life and I believed that as a librarian I would never be bored; there would always be something new to learn. When I graduated from library school, the Howard Jarvis Property Tax Initiative had just passed in California, and you couldn’t find a job in the public library system for anything. This seemed like a good time to find a more glamorous career—like advertising. So for two or three years I sold ad space in a magazine and time on a rock-and-roll radio station. For the most part, I liked

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10 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue my job and I loved advertising. I learned how to research new companies and industries daily. I had to be personable, disciplined, and assertive, not take “no” personally, and solve problems creatively. I consider this time my finishing school. A few years later I was plying the information trade. With the exception of grad school and a brief stint at the CSU (Cal State University) Sacramento library, I’ve never worked in a traditional library. It’s always been Information Resources, Information Services, or Learning Resources/Services Departments, and now the Intelligence Department. In 1988 I had the opportunity to start an information department for Hill Holliday, Los Angeles, an advertising agency opening an office to launch the Infiniti account. I thought I had gone to heaven; for the first time I was able to combine my passion for advertising with information, the most interesting discipline there is. And they were paying me, too!

How did your department evolve into planning and intelligence? After Hill Holliday I moved to Chiat/Day, today TBWA\Chiat\ Day. The agency is known for the Apple “1984” and genius campaigns, the Energizer bunny, Nissan, Absolut, and the Taco Bell Chihuahua—may he rest in peace—among many others. At TBWA\Chiat\Day there was an Account Planning Department in place when we launched our Intelligence Department. An account planner is essentially the team’s primary contact with the outside world; the person who, through his or her individual background, knowledge of all pertinent information, and overall experience, is able to bring a strong consumer focus to all advertising decisions. While we work closely with account planning, we report into marketing, specifically to the TBWA Chief Marketing Officer of the agency, Laurie Coots. I regard Laurie as a true visionary, which makes the reporting structure especially rewarding.

Velda Ruddock: Visionary for Intelligence Our mission statement for some time had been “to provide the agency with intelligence, insight, and inspiration.” My boss always referred to what we did as intelligence. The day I was interviewed for Fast Company [84, see Appendix], my title officially changed to Director of Intelligence. I wish we had done this from the beginning. In one fell swoop, the perception of the department changed. What we did was suddenly framed differently. Words are that powerful.

What types of research service do you provide the agency? What do you need? At one time we were willing to do just about anything. We’ve had to step back and ask “What is the smartest way we can do the most for the agency?” Still, that is a lot. We do what is known as desk research. It is also known as secondary research—primary research being what account planners do using tools such as interviews, focus groups, ethnographies, surveys, and so on. Desk research involves looking for answers to questions using published information—online searches, books, magazines, Web searches. But this is only the tip of what we do and a fraction of the resources we use. We provide resource orientation to everyone in the agency and in-depth resource training to as many account planners, account management, media, and other people as are willing and interested. We expect planners and account people to do much of their own research. We’ll help, of course, with direction and additional research, but it is surprising how often a project will evolve as the people asking the question do their research. Once we get involved, the questions are more interesting, more complicated. We do ready reference as well as quick turnaround research. We have a solid Intelligence Center, which is what we call our library, and will lend books to our U.S. offices for a couple of weeks or until a project is complete. We pass on relevant news

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12 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue and research as we find it, and we actively screen for new research. We populate—that is, we supply content for—the network intranet. Our department prepares and delivers a daily email and intranet current awareness newsletter about our agency. We also provide linkage. People all over the world contact us for help with projects they are working on. Often we will link them to other offices and accounts working on similar projects. We call these topical spheres of influence. Later we chase them for what they have found and written and obtain copies to add to the intranet. For the last couple of years we’ve coordinated a lot of email surveys. These have become very time consuming, and we are hoping that a Web-based solution will allow us to delegate this back to the survey originators. A few years ago we would write a “debrief” on many of the projects we worked on, complete with insights and opportunities. We seldom have the time to do this now, although we certainly try. We write topical reports as we have time, and we publish several resource guides annually. Our resource guides are multipage, topic-specific documents that provide a definition of a market; useful places to find relevant information on that market; search strategies; descriptions of key organizations and associations; research reports; and lists of books, magazines, and industry newsletters to help others in the network with their research. Finally, we also oversee the Los Angeles office’s offsite records management function. We established this service when the agency went virtual in 1994 and have continued managing it.

How do you receive information requests? Do you get them by email, by phone, or in the hallways? Yes. We receive requests every way possible, except perhaps through regular mail. We like a combination of discussing the

Velda Ruddock: Visionary for Intelligence project in person or by phone, followed by a detailed request via email. Since we assist offices all over the world, this isn’t always possible. I like to do a “walk around” through the office. It gives me a chance to literally see what is going on and what we can contribute. Sometimes this is the opportunity to link a planner or report with a project in another office, or a way to share one account’s best thinking with the rest of the network. Obviously, I can’t do this with every office, and the way we’ve solved this is by having contacts in other offices. Every week I have a chat with a planning or new-business buddy in each of the North American offices. I catch them up with what I know and they do the same. Then I can call the best person on the project if it looks like that is needed. This year I want to sit in on status meetings for each account. I’ve done this before and find it very rewarding, for a surprising reason. I am so involved with intelligence that I tend to assume the entire agency is as well. I discover in the status meetings that research is only a small part of the advertising process. Important? Yes. But only one part of the process.

When requestors are not sure what and how to ask, how do you clarify their questions? The clearest requests come directly from those interested in the answer. They usually come in an email message that provides the context—the idea they would like to support, how it will be used, and who the ultimate audience will be. They’ll list what they’ve already done, questions that might surround the project, who else—if anyone—is working on this project, what the timing is, what the deliverables would ideally look like, and whether there is money to cover outside costs, if any. Alternatively, they may call or meet with us, but this will be followed up with a detailed email. But we don’t often get requests like this. We get our share of requests that are hurried and not thought through. We get the

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14 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue incomprehensible questions that have been passed down through the ranks. And worst of all, we get low-priority questions passed off as urgent requests. As often as possible we try to get to the original requestor— usually via the phone—to find out what is really needed. We ask all the questions I’ve mentioned and more. The budget question is sometimes a good way to determine if this is a serious request or a time-consuming, low-priority “throw-away.” We ask a number of questions: Have they used the agency research tools available to them? Have they asked someone else to help them find answers? What search strategies did those people use and what results were retrieved? Did they change the direction of their request based on the results they retrieved? Or, do they have new questions as a result of their previous searches? If they haven’t taken the time to do their own preliminary searching, we may ask them to come back to us after they have.

Can you give me a sketch of a typical agency requestor? Who are your most frequent users? What types of research do they need? Everyone asks us questions. Account management and account planning are the two departments that come to us most frequently. Account planning asks about consumer groups and trends, and account management asks about industry trends and marketing topics. About a third of our work is related to new business, the lifeblood of all agencies. We are a part of every initial new business pitch and possibly the first people called by the new business group. Their foundation question usually is, “tell us everything relevant about the industry and the consumer.” We start by reviewing industry surveys and reports and supplement these with a series of searches that point us to additional resources, such as associations, publications, and experts. All the while we make notes about our observations. What are the trends we are seeing?

Velda Ruddock: Visionary for Intelligence What is surprising? What is confusing? How often are certain companies, people, events, or legislative activities mentioned? How often is the company we are pitching mentioned, and in what way? We brief the pitch team and provide industry outlines depending on time limitations. The breadth and depth of our analysis depends on how much time we have to work on it. We have developed an industry outline we work against, and we always take enough notes to be able to brief the team. We especially like finding research studies about the category—that is, the industry or consumer market we’re looking at— and locating analysts and experts through database searches whom we can talk to later on in the project. We also look at the industry trade publications. Their editors are as familiar with their industry as we are with ours, and after we’ve done some of our homework we will want to talk with them. We also have good relationships with RoperASW [180] and Jupiter Research [118]. When we become focused in our targeting or strategy we will often ask our partners at these organizations for their opinions. Later in the process we will be asked for help in strategic or creative development, where we may do fact finding or substantiation, a big-picture trend development piece, a bibliometric study, a timeline, dream analysis, and other great projects. Fact finding is looking for the answers to often obscure questions, while substantiation is finding proof that something we want to say in an ad is actually true. A bibliometric study involves seeing how often our client is mentioned in the press relative to their competitors. Our timelines detail visually how and when our client’s industry evolved and what else is or was happening to the country and population at that time. As for dream analysis, we have a few books on dream interpretations that we have occasionally looked at to see if there is something the account planners might want to explore and use. For instance, a few years ago when we were pitching an airline company, we used dream analysis books to see whether people dreamed more of flying or being flown—the former implying a

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16 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue greater sense of control—and if flying was a fearful experience in dreams. These can be a lot of fun. Or they can be time consuming and frustrating. Some of it is what we call “fuzzy research” because we don’t really know if we’ll get anything out of it. I think it’s important that we do some of these types of projects, though, because they help us remember that “creative” is not a department; it’s a way of being. I believe it helps us approach our “regular” research more creatively as well. If you wonder why I didn’t say that we do the company research for the new business team, it’s because they are able to do their own preliminary research. They focus on company information first off. Not only do they research the company’s history, key personnel, marketing activity, and current presence in the press, they set up online clip folders that track the company through the conclusion of the pitch. That’s when the folders are turned over to the account team that will work on the business.

What other kinds of research topics do you cover? In a given week we can be asked about the fragrance category, what the most successful lottery “scratchers” have been, what percent of the population uses HTML email, how the TV viewing habits of Puerto Rican-Americans differ from those of CubanAmericans and Mexican-Americans, what the perception is of Morocco, who would be good to talk with about business-tobusiness marketing in the ISP market, do we remember who worked on a specific piece of business two years ago … and that’s just Monday. I’ve already talked about industry and, to a lesser degree, consumer questions. We also get asked a lot of advertising and marketing questions. This year two of our top hot-button questions were about advertising during a recession and advertising post-September 11th. We are always asked about wear-in and

Velda Ruddock: Visionary for Intelligence wear-out: How many times does a consumer see a commercial before they get the message, and when is it no longer effective? And everyone wants to know about the youth market.

How do you deliver and package your results? Hard-copy results are printed on ivory paper. I like walking around the agency and seeing ivory reports on as many desks as possible. But the Los Angeles office is only one of many that we service. For that reason I insist on consistency in how we deliver results. Every document uses the same font and style. Every document has a footer naming the department, and the document-naming convention includes the author’s initials, date, and document extension. This year I started using a template for deliverables. By the start of next year I hope to have refined it to the point where everyone in the department will use it. The top part of the document includes the basic request information, including how long it took us to do the project and what—if any—costs were incurred. Several sections follow that: project notes and comments, resource/responsibility—meaning who was responsible for searching which resource—date of project completion, search strategies, and the actual deliverables, sometimes with a table of contents.

Which online services do you use most often to conduct business research? What search features are most important for your work? Everything is Web based today. We don’t do any searching through dial-up anymore. We subscribe to many resources. We use four services for general article searching. We give access to two of these—InSite2 [111] and RDS [91]—to all full-time employees in the U.S. offices and designated searchers in many other offices. We give limited access to designated searchers to Dow Jones Interactive, now Factiva [82].

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18 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue I love InSite2’s smart indexing, which is easy for both beginning and advanced searchers to use. I love RDS for their tables and detailed indexing, which has at times made difficult searches easy. I’m not crazy about their tiny search boxes and I hate how often I get error messages, but the content is great. The Intelligence Department is the only group with access to LexisNexis [124] and the full Factiva product. We use LexisNexis predominantly for trademark searches for creative development—in other words, not for legal clearance. We use Factiva when we need to go back more than five years, or if something needs a wider or deeper search than InSite2 or RDS can provide. Standard and Poor’s [193] Industry Surveys Netvantage product and Euromonitor’s [79] Market Research Monitor have saved me literally hundreds of hours. Their interface is so-so but, again, their content is brilliant. Jupiter Communications [118] answers all things Internet; that is, all questions about Internet-related businesses, site development, and Internet usage. We supplement this with other research resources and are experimenting with eMarketer’s [72] eStat database. RetailForward [178] used to be owned by PriceWaterhouseCoopers and was called the Retail Intelligence System. They have since become an independent consulting company. We look to them for their retail expertise and their excellent conferences, which we attend when we can get to them. Intelligence Data’s Intelliscope [112] provides us with analyst reports from brokerage houses. We have started using these more frequently for business strategies and modeling. I hope they make the search engine easier to use; right now I either hit the jackpot or hit the dirt.

How do you determine what resources to use? We’ve been doing this so long that it’s second nature. But we list the resources in our project database. The project template I mentioned earlier lists certain core resources. We’ve also developed an internal resource database. Whenever we find a great

Velda Ruddock: Visionary for Intelligence resource—magazine, newsletter, association, Web site—we list the URL, geographic area, and subjects covered in the database so others in the department can use it. There are well over five thousand resources listed by now.

What Web search engines do you rely on? We discovered Dogpile [63] years ago, and it is still one of my favorites. It’s a metasearch engine, so I get a response from 15 different search engines. What I find fascinating is how different some of the search results are. When it was first introduced, I used Ask Jeeves [25]. Now I often use Google [93]. I’ve become a big fan of Google since my group started to show me high relevant search results. As a practice, they usually go to Google first when they start their research. When I found out about the “file type” search feature I immediately added Google to my personal toolbar.

How do you find useful Web sites? Everywhere and anywhere. I constantly get emails. I ask colleagues. Sometimes I’ll call my counterparts at other agencies, or they’ll call me. There’s a discussion group for the Advertising and Marketing Division of the Special Libraries Association [191] that sometimes recommends a source I’m not familiar with. Magazines list all sorts of stuff. Sometimes I will follow the links in some of the newsletters through a maze of Web sites. One of the women in the department is the best and luckiest Web searcher I know. I get impatient much more quickly than she does. And sometimes she comes to me with the most amazing reports and Web sites. I tell her how great she is—and she is— and to put the information in our resource database.

How do you use the agency’s Intranet? We post the papers we write, the resource guides we produce, the daily newsletter about us and our business, TBWA\Today, and we encourage others to post their best thinking as well. Over

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20 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue the course of this year we will be more adamant about requestors throughout the network posting their research via the intranet.

How do you allocate training time for your staff and end-users? Our Intelligence Manager, Georgia Garrett, is also our master trainer. Every Monday she holds an orientation for all the new employees in the Los Angeles office. Every Tuesday she holds a 60- to 90-minute training session for any potential research users. We get “First Day” announcements for the other U.S. offices, and Georgia arranges virtual distance training sessions in those offices as well. Once or twice a year Georgia and I travel to our U.S. and Canadian offices to train and bring in speakers and work sessions. These are busy times. The trainings cover not merely how to use certain resources but how to do Internet research, or company research, or find “you-name-the-topic” information. These training sessions are time intensive, work intensive, and worth every minute since they provide others with the tools of successful searching.

How do you acquire new skill sets? What outside interests do you pursue that you find readily applicable to your work? One of my goals is to think of an “idea a day.” The only way I can do that is to try to keep a wide view and to look for ideas in everything I hear and see. At one time I belonged to many organizations. I am still the member of record for many agency organizations. On the professional front, I’ve been active in the Special Libraries Association for almost twenty years and held a variety of offices for almost ten years. There are people in the Advertising and Marketing Division who provide me with enormous support.

Velda Ruddock: Visionary for Intelligence This is especially important given the small number of people who do what we do on the West Coast. I work really hard. I’m lucky that I love what I do. My outside interests are my family, gardening, hiking, movies, and reading. They all contribute in some way. My husband is also in research and we feed each other with our curiosity. We are each other’s biggest fans. My son has taught me more about management than any book I’ve read. I’ve noticed that when I take a break from the office or when I relax with my family, I often get new ideas or get into a zone where project solutions are more accessible.

What are the biggest challenges you run into in serving clients and agency people? At one time I made myself available to clients directly. That didn’t work. Suddenly we were everybody’s intelligence department. Now we ask clients to go through their account planner or manager. But here’s the biggest problem—sorry, challenge—we face: We are really good but there are only a few of us—two senior people, two relatively junior people, and two administrative people. We strive for excellence and hit the bell surprisingly often. So everyone wants a piece of us. And the question is, do we do really excellent work for a few, or pretty good work for a lot of people? There is no right answer. We’ve attempted to address this question by making as many top resources available to as many people as possible and by training as many smart people as we can. We’ve organized a worldwide Intelligence Ring in which each representative is responsible for that region’s intelligence needs. We prepare resource guides and populate the intranet with as many resources as we can. The result is that the need for quality intelligence continues to increase. So we are still faced with “Do we do really excellent

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22 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue work for a few, or pretty good work for a lot of people?” And the answer still is “Yes.”

In looking back to the first year you joined the industry, how different are the resources, requests, and methods of searching, then vs. now? What impact did the Internet have on your ability to conduct research and serve a wider audience? In the nine years I’ve been with this agency, everything has changed—again and again and again. Change is a part of TBWA\Chiat\Day’s DNA. Its roots are in the slogan, “good enough is not enough.” The Intelligence Department was integral to the agency’s move to a virtual office in 1994 and its move to the “Advertising City” office environment in 1997, where the concept of the “agency as a community” was created. Our department played a significant role during the dot-com explosion in 1999. It was the cornerstone of the Intelligence Ring in 2000 and 2001. We went from servicing one office in 1993 to providing direct services to five primary U.S. offices, five regional offices, four Canadian offices, and the rest of the network through its Intelligence Ring today. Resources and services changed during that time, too. In 1993 every search required a job number and I did every search. I practically entered a cone of silence and fastened my seatbelt before doing a search; the prep time for most searches could be an hour. Today everything is Web based and almost everything is designed for end-user access. There isn’t much that isn’t available electronically today. We still prep before going online, but there is so much forgiveness in the databases that sometimes, when I am rushed or confident, I can become a sloppy searcher. Hot subjects have changed over time, too. Retail was the hot topic in 1998; in 1999 it was dot-coms and IPOs; every year we get a lot of interest in the youth market. Sometimes they are

Velda Ruddock: Visionary for Intelligence called teens, sometimes college-age, and sometimes generation fill-in-the-blank. I’ve seldom been asked about the mature market. I think we are all in denial. The type and format of information we’re asked for has changed as well. At one time we were asked for anything and everything. Then we were asked to select the best of the articles and reports. In 1999 someone discovered case studies, and these were often preferred over reports and articles. The following year we started hiring business strategists for the agency, and now brokerage and analyst reports are so hot that we’ve had to add affordable resources for those as well. There are so many different resources to choose from that we sometimes have to remind ourselves not to get stuck on our favorites. The time available to produce results is shorter, too, so sometimes we need to remind our users that their next step should include, say, an analyst interview. And because we have so many projects going on at the same time, we need to be buttoned up with regard to who is doing what, using what, delivering when, and being reviewed by whom. We keep an active project database that includes triple the number of projects this year that it did a few years ago. We update each other by cc-ing each other on emails and memos and through regular status meetings.

Can you share with me some of the print resources you rely on? What sources can’t you live without? Print is not dead. Even online documents are printed. One of my favorite perks is buying almost anything I want when I go to the bookstore. There are certain documents I don’t want to do without. The Veronis Suhler Communications Industry Forecast [221] is one of those. So is TV Dimensions [289]. The Encyclopedia of Associations [253] was on the list at one time, but we get that electronically now. I sometimes prefer the print SRDS (Standard Rate and Data Service) [194], which provides directory

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24 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue and content information for consumer and trade publications, over the electronic version. There are dozens of reference works, like encyclopedias and books of quotations and dream analysis and books on odd facts and “factoids.” We use all sorts of almanacs for ready reference. We refer regularly to the AAAA [298] pamphlets on subjects such as account management, new business, account planning, TV commercial production, and so forth. Remember, too, that there are two kinds of research. The first is the narrow focus, very targeted search. That’s what most requests are about, and electronic clipping services. But people who only read clipping services and forego newspapers are short-changing themselves. Often the more rewarding research is “wide-view” research. This involves browsing the marketing, business, or consumer books—we have thousands—or the newspapers—we carry six—or magazines and newsletters— more than 250 current titles. It involves listening to the radio and to conversations on the bus and wondering, “How will this affect our business or that of our client? How can I adapt this to a big idea?” It is serendipitous research.

What kind of turnaround time do you have for most of your projects? Everything is urgent or ASAP. We try to suggest a reasonable time frame, and we try to deliver pieces of the research as we go along. Sometimes we need to say we can’t make their deadline but here are a few suggestions they can use. Sometimes we need to remember that while their question is important—even more important to us than to the rest of the world—it is, dare I say it?, just advertising.

Let’s talk about global research projects. What resources do you use? We get asked about global issues and about U.S. issues from all over the world. We use many of the same products for global research as we do for U.S.-focused research. But we also get help

Velda Ruddock: Visionary for Intelligence from the Intelligence Ring. These are intelligence people who represent the network’s various regions and countries. We provide the Ring with access to certain resources and they supplement those with their own services. When we get a request from a country that can be answered by their Ring representative we refer them to that person. By the same token, when we have a request that needs an answer beyond what we have immediately available ourselves, we ask them for help. They are very responsive.

Can you discuss any crazy project that delightfully surprised you? How did you prepare for the search? Great question. We had a project related to the Levi’s account. When we won the account we needed an interim campaign while the main work was being developed. This campaign was going to consist of outdoor ads proclaiming that even jeans designers wore Levi’s. In other words, Ralph (Lauren) wore them, Calvin (Klein) wore them, and four or five other name designers wore them. And we, the Intelligence Department, had to substantiate that. If you think about it, an online search on jeans including Levi’s and other designers is looking for a needle in a haystack. You’ll retrieve hundreds of articles that mention jeans, even when you use proximity indicators to try to improve the precision of the search, and 99.9 percent of them are going to be false drops. We got the substantiation by sending an information specialist to the Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising [83], Kaycee Hale’s shop. For two days our specialist looked through files, and all the designer books, and at all the photos—”Was that a Levi’s tag? … a Levi’s snap?” I was very proud when we were able to substantiate three designers, and every time I saw the outdoor ads I always felt it was our department’s work.

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26 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue

What preparation and skills would you advise for a person interested in joining your agency department? There are really two parts to this question. The first is how to get into intelligence and the second is how to get into advertising. I know that some people will say a master’s degree in Library Science is the best preparation for being a Super Searcher. I’m glad I have an MLS. But I don’t think it is crucial to being a great Intelligence Officer. The skill to work in intelligence is something almost intuitive. There’s curiosity of course, and the need to be interested in almost everything. This morning you need to know about financial institutions and later today you need to know about automotive safety. To do a good job you need at least a certain amount of interest in everything. Tenacity and flexibility and the ability to shift gears in a second are also required. You need to be organized. A sense of humor may be optional in some jobs; in our office it’s mandatory. Writing skills are essential. People who know how to write know how to think. Finding information is only part of the requirement. It is also vital to be able to glean the important bits of what is being asked, as well as what is found. In our department we try to find that one extra bit, too—something the other agency won’t find. Now about advertising. I think advertising is easy, but that’s because I’ve worked in it a long time. A newcomer will want to learn about how an advertising agency works. Start off with some of the AAAA’s pamphlets about agencies. Browse the trades— Adweek [16], Brandweek [35], and Advertising Age [13]—and advertising textbooks. Find out what advertising is, what marketing is, and branding, promotions, media—all of it. Know it’s not just a cool ad. But that’s only the advertising bit. We research everything— every category, every consumer, every trend, and we research enthusiastically, passionately.

Velda Ruddock: Visionary for Intelligence We are lucky to get a lot of very smart interns in our department. We give them and everyone who works in our department a resource guide assignment. This requires that they research a category, say sports and sporting goods, or beer, or the hotel and lodging industry, or a consumer group, and look for the best of class research. They need to use all our tools to locate associations, organizations, Web sites, surveys, studies, trade magazines and newsletters, experts, analysts, and books. They learn how to define the category and provide a compelling reason why the category or group is relevant to marketers. This may sound like an easy exercise, but the first guide is always surprisingly difficult to produce. After going through it, all research becomes easier.

Super Searcher Power Tips

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I like to do a “walk around” through the office. It gives me a chance to literally see what is going on and what we can contribute.

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To clarify requests, we ask a number of initial questions: Have they used the agency research tools available to them? Have they asked someone else to help them find answers? What search strategies were used and what search results were retrieved? Did they change the direction of their requests based on the retrieved searches?

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I love InSite2’s smart indexing, which is easy for both beginning and advanced searchers to use, and RDS for their tables and detailed indexing. We use LexisNexis predominantly for trademark searches for creative development—not for legal clearances. Intelligence Data’s Intelliscope provides us with analyst reports.

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Print is not dead. There are certain documents I don’t want to do without, such as the Veronis Suhler Communications Industry Forecast and TV Dimensions. I sometimes prefer the print SRDS, which provides directory and content information for consumer and trade publications, over the electronic version.

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It’s important that we do some “fuzzy research” projects, because they help us remember that “creative” is not a department; it’s a way of being. It helps us approach our “regular” research more creatively as well.

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It is vital to be able to glean the important bits of what is being asked as well as what is found. In our department we try to find that one extra bit, too—something that the other agency won’t find.

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The skill to work in intelligence is something almost intuitive. There’s curiosity, of course, and the need to be interested in almost everything. This morning you need to know about financial institutions and later today you need to know about automotive safety. Tenacity and flexibility and the ability to shift gears in a second are also required. A sense of humor is mandatory in our office.

Douglas Buffo Indefatigable Enabler of End-Users Doug is Information Resources Director at Leo Burnett Worldwide, a global network of Publicis Groupe SA. With graduate degrees in advertising and library and information science, he led his team in developing the definitive online information resources for Burnett. Doug and his staff manage the intranet content and provide secondary research for Burnett and its clients. [email protected] www.leoburnett.com

How did you happen to enter the field of advertising? Back in the mid-’80s, I received my master’s in Advertising from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Instead of entering the profession at that time, however, I headed off to New York City to pursue a career in writing films. I was going to be a famous screenwriter. This was my intention. Instead, I ended up as a researcher for other writers, as well as critics, directors, photographers, and designers. Suddenly—with the growing popularity of the video industry at that time—there was this huge interest on the part of artists and writers to borrow from film. And I knew everything about the movies. Since I really enjoyed doing film research, I decided to return to school to get my master’s in Library and Information Science. When I finished my degree in 1999, I had two job offers. The first was to work at the Donnell Library Center in Manhattan, the major branch of the New York Public Library in New York City for film and video. I sent a cold letter to the director

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30 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue and convinced her that I was the next person she should hire, and I got a phone call and a job offer. Working in that public library would have been a blast. But most of my family is here in the Chicago area and, since I had an advertising degree, it seemed like the perfect fit to choose the second job offer, from Leo Burnett. I had focused on corporate librarianship when I was in school, after briefly toying with the ideas of pursuing jobs in both academic and public libraries. I’m very glad that I joined Leo Burnett. It has been an incredibly rewarding experience for me.

When you joined Burnett, what was the department like? If I had to use one word to describe the library at the time, it would have been “traditional.” It was what I had imagined a traditional corporate library to be like. There was a staff of five professional librarians. We had over 6,000 books and nearly 450 consumer magazines and trade journals, some going back twenty years. The library was a large space with plenty of room for picture files, subject files, corporate files, and an impressive print reference collection. Most of everyone’s time was spent doing reference. It was all very traditional and I thoroughly enjoyed the work. It was a great way to learn the ad business all over again. We had a library site on the company intranet, but it was more or less just a gateway to a few databases. The site had no focus for any particular client group or department.

How is your department organized now? Today, there is no longer a physical library at Leo Burnett. This past year we migrated entirely to our company’s intranet. I hate the term “digital library” and anything tagged “cyber.” Technically, my unit is called Information Resources. We are now part of the corporatewide online knowledge initiative. When I first came to Burnett the company was on the brink of a major reorganization. Some Planning Department managers came to the library and asked us what ideas we had for moving

Douglas Buffo: Indefatigable Enabler of End-Users

the library into the future. At that time I was not the director, so I had just a little input. However, soon after that, the director left and I was promoted and given the opportunity to incorporate some very progressive thinking about librarianship into a new plan for information services. I was also lucky because I had the opportunity early on to hire a friend from school, Scott Jenkins, who was both a librarian and a tech wiz. Scott was able to communicate the library’s technology vision to the company’s technology department, not to mention translate tech jargon for my understanding. Because Burnett has such superior technology and the tech department was so willing to help out, the sky was the limit. The company has been very supportive of us.

How much of your time is spent on content management for the intranet? I spend about half of my time working to develop and maintain content for the intranet. This doesn’t include time spent conducting orientation programs that help familiarize the enduser with the resources that we make available on the intranet and introduce basic methods for conducting research online. We’re very much geared toward discovering ways that we can assist and guide the end-user to finding their own solutions. Providing all the answers to all the questions that people have on a daily basis is a very poor use of our time.

You’re doing a whole process of empowerment. Absolutely. Although it has been a struggle at times to change well-established perceptions of what users often expect our job to be, it is a necessity in this day and age to empower the user. It means that everyone gets what they need faster and more efficiently. And it means that my staff and I get to make better use of our time. Although everyone is expected to demonstrate some basic search skills, my colleagues and I are the ones expected to be able to judge which information resources should be utilized. An important part of my team’s job is to select the best resources

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32 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue and tools and make them accessible to the people who need them so that they can do their best possible work in the most efficient manner. Anybody can go to Google [93, see Appendix] and find the homepage for AAAA [298] or Advertising Age [13], but if you’re looking for specific information about brands or markets or trends or the competition, the Web can be terribly inefficient. Sometimes no electronic resource or database has the best answer. Our job is to assess what resources are the best, which ones can optimize whatever initiative you’re working on, and then provide you with access to those resources. Sometimes it’s a print resource, and sometimes an electronic resource. It might be a book; it might be a database.

Do you use commercial database services such as Nexis [124], Dialog [57], or Factiva [82], or databases developed internally for your end-users? We subscribe to all those commercial databases. We also have an extremely valuable database that archives important documents such as white papers, speeches, studies, and surveys that have been generated internally.

Along with the intranet initiative, what kind of research do you conduct? My team conducts secondary research that includes industry analysis, competitive intelligence, brand trends, issues related directly and indirectly to advertising and marketing, tracking and analyzing consumer and demographic data, providing images, assisting on legal issues … the list goes on and on.

Can you give me a profile of your frequent requestors? What topics do you search for them?


Daily requests come from anyone and everyone—from assistant account executives to executive vice presidents, from art directors to commercial directors. Sometimes someone simply needs to be pointed in the right direction on the intranet or advised about the most appropriate article database for particular needs. They may need search strategy suggestions or help in locating a news item. Sometimes they need to be told that what they wish for isn’t possible or doesn’t exist. Other requests involve tracking advertising or brand or consumer trends. We provide in-depth analysis of industries and companies. We might recommend the best market research report or the best book or the best outside service for any given need. We might say, “That’s available to you online; here’s where you get it.” If it’s a situation where the answer or solution can only be found in a commercial database to which not everyone has access, then we conduct the research. Just the other day somebody was doing a major project that required a great deal of economic data, including time series data for the past 30 years. It took my group four or five hours to find what was needed and it required using a dozen or so different electronic resources.

How do you get your requests? Information Resources can be contacted by phone and by email. There is also a link on the Intranet to a special request e-form that is forwarded to my unit. Depending on the complexity and clarity of the request, we often follow up by telephone or schedule a meeting for further discussion. Often, a highly complex request is actually a number of related questions. Sometimes it requires input from multiple sources or departments, and a timetable for action.

When a request is not clear, how do you refine it into operational terms? A request that is not clear becomes a matter of defining information needs. In most cases, if you can define the underlying

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34 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue need and put the question aside, you can work with greater collaboration, efficiency, and trust. For example, people who say they want to know the most popular future trends in technology—can you get any broader?—might actually just need to know the projected penetration level of cellular phones in the year 2005.

How do you deliver your results? How do you package the materials? Primarily, we deliver results electronically. When that is not possible, we route results through office mail or hand deliver, depending on the urgency. Results are packaged with a summary overview of the materials. Often we ask for confirmation that the materials sent do indeed provide the needed solution or insight.

How much research do you conduct for the creative department? The creative department has a separate workspace that houses a vast collection of picture books as well as access to an extensive picture file. Most of our work with the creative department is to help them with special needs. We once had a request from an art buyer who was working with a creative who had assembled a print campaign using a dozen or so black-and-white photographs

from

the

’60s,

all

photojournalism.

They

didn’t know who had the rights to the photographs, who had taken them or anything, so we really had to use our wits in deciding which books to use and which places to go to identify them. We help locate tough-to-find images using the most unlikely sources, such as eBay [66].

Right; I use eBay for “Americana” searches, too. It’s great! If you’re looking for some particular toy from the 1930s or a rare silver belt buckle or movie memorabilia, eBay can be a lifesaver. I also find that manufacturer Web sites can be


great for images, especially of odd products. We once had a really tough request to find close-ups of apartment building buzzers, the ones with little name plates next to them. Sure enough, we went online and found a company that specialized in manufacturing just such products, and we found more pictures than we ever needed.

In addition to eBay, any other visual images Web sites you can think of? Many of the stock photography sites have great images. I like Corbis [49] quite a bit. For photojournalism we often use AP Photo Archive [23], Time-Life Photo Sight [206], Smithsonian [187], and National Geographic [144]. I like ADAM [7], Artcyclopedia [24], and Great Buildings Collection for Fine Art and Architecture [96]. There are dozens more, many for special topics.

Do you ever monitor ads on the Web? There are more and more great sites for finding ads on the Web every day. We have clients who mix traditional advertising— print, radio, TV, outdoor—with interactive media placements. Interactive clients need competitive information that might include samples of ad banners, promotions, coupons, and sweepstakes on the Internet. Account planners and creative staff often research international ad awards on the Web. We also monitor what our competitors are up to. Through the Web we can view regionally placed commercials without having to pay and wait for VMS (Video Monitoring Service) reels. A few of my favorite sites for this kind of research are Ad*Access [6], AdCritic [9], AdFlip [10], AdForum [11], AdReview [12], Commercial Closet [46], Emergence of Advertising: 1858–1920 [73], and XtremeInformation.com [228]. There’s a slew of historical ad sites; one that comes to mind is Outdoor Advertising Collections [160], which specializes in billboard advertising campaigns since 1900. Shots.net [184] archives new commercials, music promos, and TV spots.

35


Do you support Burnett’s global offices? Do you help people in the U.S. look for international information or vice versa? Burnett has some 90 global offices. Sometimes a foreign office needs information for its particular market, and we can help because we have access to powerful databases that cover international news and trade publications and that require some expertise in searching. Sometimes a foreign office needs the American perspective—U.S. case studies, for example. What was the marketing strategy for launching Brand X in the States? Could a similar strategy work in Mumbai?

Can you describe for me your overall thought process when you conduct business and secondary research? Start on the highest, broadest level possible and work down to narrow the focus. If I know from the start that the best information is not available in a print resource, then I go online. Think about the need and then translate your thoughts into search statements. You must change your thinking each time you change databases because each database works a little bit differently—sometimes a whole lot differently.

Which databases and online services do you rely on? I use InSite2 [111] for top-level industry information. I like its user interface, and I know most of the resources that it indexes in full text. For current news, I’m a big fan of LexisNexis. Of course everyone needs Factiva for the Wall Street Journal [225]. Recently I have been doing quite a bit of work in Factiva, and I’m just beginning to warm up to the functionality of the system. If I can’t find it anywhere else, I go to Dialog. I use Intelliscope [112] for finding analyst reports. And I like using MarketResearch.com


[134] to get a broad overview of available industry and market research reports.

How do you find good Web sites for research? How do you evaluate them for quality of content and usability? By searching the Web. One good Web site will often lead to another. For instance, an industry association Web site is more than likely to be a terrific gateway to a plethora of valuable sites. There are dozens of books about searching the Web, as well as magazines and newsletters. I especially like The CyberSkeptic’s Guide [52] and Searcher [183]. I follow up on references cited in articles or news stories and sites that people mention. Everyone has a favorite Web site. With as much experience as I have, it doesn’t take too long to tell if a Web site has the proper authority. If I’m not sure, then I test the information against other sources or investigate the author. For finding Web-accessible information on the advertising and marketing industry itself, the University of Texas at Austin [15] is probably the Web site that I would recommend first.

What fee-based Web sites do you use regularly? In addition to InSite2, LexisNexis, Factiva, Dialog, and Intelliscope, which I’ve already mentioned, I also use redbooks. com [173], Hoovers [105], and Dun & Bradstreet [65], to name a few.

Where do you go when you cannot find the answer online? Print resources. If an answer is not available in print and we are still pretty confident that an answer exists, we might contact an appropriate association, research firm, consultant, or a colleague in another company. My colleague Scott Jenkins is a big

37

38 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue fan of online discussion groups, and he generally gets pretty good results from them.

What print sources do you find invaluable that are not available online? First, there are a lot of resources available online that I do not have access to. It is nearly impossible to keep up with every new electronic resource or database, let alone contract for access to them all. That said, some of the most valuable print resources for me include the International Directory of Company Histories [263], the Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns [256], Market Share Reporter [268], Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands [255], Brands and Their Companies [242], and the SRDS Lifestyle Market Analysis [280]. I also use a number of different guides to the special issues of the major industry trade journals. There are specialized resources such as the IEG Sponsorship Sourcebook [261], DMA Statistical Fact Book [250], and LIMA Licensing Industry Survey [128]. I like to have the most recent edition of the entire New Strategist Publications [147] series on demographics and markets. I could go on and on. There are so many valuable print resources, and many are not available online.

What types of resources do you find useful for trend research? Where do you start? It depends. Trend research for an industry or a product category or a target market? Once the trend is put into focus, any number of resources might be used. Obviously, for targets, consumer research surveys are great. I love the Zandl [231] for kids and ’tweens, because it gets right to the issue of what’s popular. There are other great consumer resources like RoperASW [180] and Yankelovich [230] and TRU (Teenage Research Unlimited) [202]. Sometimes you can get good target trends from consumer magazines aimed at specific audiences. There are some consumer research reports like those from Packaged Facts [272] that


provide terrific qualitative data on different ethnic markets and age groups. Trend information for industries and across product categories can come from industry trade magazines and newspapers. Year-end reports are great, as are new product issues and state-of-the-industry reports. Books can be okay for looking into the future, but the problem with books is that, often by the time they get written and published, a trend isn’t a trend any longer; it’s either a fad or a way of life. If I know of a particular study or book, I go there first; otherwise I go online. For global market research Euromonitor [79] can be helpful, as well as database services such as Dialog and Factiva that index the major international news publications. Analyst reports are great for global coverage. Again, if I know of a particular print resource that is more or less the definitive source, I go there first; otherwise I head for an article database service like InSite2 or LexisNexis or Factiva.

What is your biggest challenge in servicing your clients and agency people? Time is the greatest challenge. With clients, the issue is generally about time frames; when they want something they want it now. So everything stops until what they need is found and delivered. Another challenge with clients is that they often want data before it is available. Competitive sales and market share, for example, are numbers that take a while to generate and get published—even if you are paying big bucks to access the most recent analyst report or industry market survey. With agency people, the issue is about finding the time to meet and assess information needs. Everyone is so busy that finding time for meetings that aren’t directly related to client business is really tough. You have to be creative in the way you make contact to push out a resource or create interest in a new database.

39

40 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue Technology is probably the third greatest challenge. Keeping up with new technology and understanding how to implement it to further optimize the information process can be exhausting. We need to remind ourselves occasionally that new tools by themselves don’t necessarily change the way people work or help them work better.

What was the most unusual request you’ve done lately? When the legal team needed to know if there was a porno magazine called Beaver, my colleague Scott spent the better part of one afternoon talking to adult magazine publishers in Los Angeles, all the while listening to cheesy love songs playing in the background.

Are there any success stories you can share with me? Transforming the physical library into an online information resource center. We still have quite a bit more to do, but the fact that more and more print resources are becoming available electronically every day, coupled with the growing opportunities to negotiate more cost-effective contracts with database vendors, allows us to continually raise the bar. Advances in technology are further helping to make copyright management both feasible and effective. Creating a two-tier industry taxonomy from scratch was both a pain in the ass and highly rewarding. I really like the day-to-day process of searching for and assessing and then selecting content for the intranet. And I enjoy working with my staff. Each of us contributes something unique to the mix, and we manage to come up with some pretty damned good ideas.

If you were not in advertising, what would you be doing? I’d be a rich, famous, and highly awarded screenwriter.



➤

An important part of my team’s job is to select the best resources and tools and make them accessible to the people who need them so that they can do their best possible work in the most efficient manner.

➤

I use InSite2 for top-level industry information. For current news, I’m a big fan of LexisNexis, and Factiva for the Wall Street Journal. I use Intelliscope for analyst reports. If I can’t find it anywhere else, I go to Dialog. And I like MarketResearch.com to get a broad overview of available industry and market research reports.

➤

If you’re looking for some particular toy from the 1930s or a rare silver belt buckle or movie memorabilia, eBay can be a lifesaver. I also find that manufacturer Web sites can be great for images, especially of odd products.

➤

I love the Zandl for kids and ‘tweens as it gets right to the issue of what’s popular. There are other great consumer resources like Roper and Yankelovich and TRU (Teen Research Unlimited).

➤

A request that is not clear becomes a matter of defining information needs. In most cases, if you can define the underlying need and put the question aside, you can work with greater collaboration, efficiency, and trust.

41


➤

Keeping up with new technology and understanding how to implement it to further optimize the information process can be exhausting. We need to remind ourselves that new tools by themselves don’t necessarily change the way people work or help them work better.

Jordie Garvin Thomson Multicultural Information Expert Jordie is currently senior manager of library information services at NSightsWorldwide, a subsidiary of GlobalHue. Jordie started the advertising library at Don Coleman Advertising, a multicultural company, where she had worked for more than four years as Senior Manager. She was at DCA at the time of this interview. [email protected] www.globalhue.com

What is your background and how did you break into the advertising agency business? My background is writing. I have a Communications degree from the University of Windsor, Ontario, with a minor in English. I started out wanting to be a journalist. While I was pursuing my dream as a reporter in college, I realized that what I loved more was the hunt for information. I found it so exciting to learn new things and do a thorough investigation on a subject. I didn’t really know about the field of library science until I read an article in Cosmopolitan [248, see Appendix] magazine in July 1990. I finally knew what my calling was. My graduate studies in Library Science at Wayne State University gave me an opportunity to do an internship at the Detroit Free Press library, where I learned to conduct research on diverse subjects in a fast-paced environment. After I obtained my master’s degree in Library Science, I worked at the NBD Bank library. It was there that I gained experience conducting financial investigations on companies and

43

44 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue industries. While at NBD Bank, I learned that Young & Rubicam (Y&R), one of the biggest ad agencies in Detroit, wanted to open a library for the Strategic Planning department.

Did switching from a bank to an advertising environment mean quickly changing gears? At NBD I worked with a staff of librarians, and the bank environment was very corporate and rigid. The environment at Young & Rubicam was fast but fun and laid back. I exchanged my blue pinstriped business suits for a business-casual look. And I worked as a solo librarian. I no longer had colleagues at my fingertips to bounce ideas off or share information. Since our biggest client in Detroit was in the automotive industry, I became an automotive expert, conducting research for the Detroit office and for other Y&R offices around the world with automotive accounts. We had other clients as well, which suited my background of conducting research on a wide variety of subject areas. I worked there for three years before I decided to move to Don Coleman Advertising, an African-American advertising agency also in Detroit.

What led you to Don Coleman Advertising? When I joined DCA, they had been in business for eight years. They were in the process of moving their headquarters to a new building where a specific room was set aside for the Information Center. I also had an opportunity to collaborate with a document management and storage specialist who gave me insights into how the library should be designed, and management tips for inhouse materials. It was an opportunity for me to develop something from scratch. I envisioned the library keeping clients’ print ads, audiotapes, reference books, newspapers, and periodicals along with unique materials to make it truly a multicultural reference center. It was a challenge in the beginning to collect materials, but in the five years that I’ve been with Don Coleman, census data

Jordie Garvin Thomson: Multicultural Information Expert increasingly has shown that multiculturalism has moved from an emerging trend to a reality. Now nearly seventy million Americans identify themselves as something other than white. I feel lucky to be involved in an area of research that is so hot right now. Today, DCA not only focuses on African-American research but multicultural research including the Hispanic and Asian markets.

What kinds of research services do you provide at DCA? Can you describe them in detail? My role at DCA is to provide cost-effective secondary research and analysis to support corporate management decisions at all levels and in all departments. I conduct online research, literature searches, and provide summary reports. What is so great about this job is that no two questions are ever alike. My research may range from retrieving the top ten African-American markets by their percent composition to conducting a thorough investigation into the health and beauty needs of the ethnic market. I am also responsible for ordering all competitive print, radio, and television advertising for the account teams through Video Monitoring Service (VMS) [223]. Based on the VMS report, each month I provide to upper management and the account teams a Competitive Intelligence Initiative summarizing the previous month’s ethnic competitive advertising. I also publish a quarterly newsletter called the AACM (AfricanAmerican Consumer Market) Special Report, for distribution to clients and DCA employees. I use Dialog [57] Alerts to compile news and articles. I also pull information from several multicultural newsletters. The report, divided into sections by clients’ industries, provides the reader with African-American news within those industries. The AACM Special Report also serves as a news alert on upcoming African-American events around the country.

45

46 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue I also manage the circulation of materials from the Information Center utilizing the electronic card catalog that I introduced.

How do you receive information requests? What kind of turnaround time do you have? I am in a department of four people called Marketing Services and I report to Ron Franklin, Executive Vice President, Group Strategic Director. As my supervisor, Mr. Franklin receives all incoming research requests and he disseminates each request to the appropriate person in my department. Research requests are sent to Mr. Franklin via email or in person. On the research request form, it clearly states that we have a five-day turnaround to get projects back to the requestor. In our hectic industry, sometimes information is needed ASAP and I try to accommodate that if the need arises.

If you need to clarify ambiguous requests, do you get to do a reference interview directly with the requestor? I wholeheartedly believe in the reference interview. Once I receive the written request, if it is not clearly stated, I simply contact the requestor via phone or in person and ask detailed questions to try to get at the root of what they really want. This is where my skills as a newspaper reporter come into play. Our profession is very service oriented, and being able to communicate with people is an essential element of our job.

Are there projects that require you to collaborate with other agency teams on a regular basis? Can you describe some examples? What tools do you use? Working with the account teams on new business pitches is a very common occurrence. I am asked by the new business teams

Jordie Garvin Thomson: Multicultural Information Expert to retrieve everything from company to industry information. In addition, because we are a multicultural agency, it is very important to know how the multicultural market fits into a particular industry. Sometimes, when I am investigating an industry, I feel like I am digging for a needle in a haystack. For example, I recently was asked to investigate Hispanics and the lottery and how often this ethnic group plays the lottery. It is very difficult to find information on lottery play by ethnicity, but I knew that, by conducting a thorough investigation, I could be successful in my pursuit. After investigating sources that I commonly turn to and not finding anything, I finally found what I was looking for on the Focus on the Family Web site [87]—a report on lotteries in the United States that included information on how common lottery play was within this segment. Another new business pitch involved the hotel industry. I was asked to conduct research on the size of the industry, market share, and the travel habits of African-American travelers. The first place I went to was the Travel Industry Association of America Web site [322], where they had made available a press release regarding minority travelers that was very helpful. In addition, I discovered that the press release was part of a bigger report called The Minority Traveler that had just come out the previous year. This report included everything I had been looking for on this topic. So, in this particular instance, I was able to keep digging for more information that fit the pieces of the puzzle together.

Which agency teams most frequently request help from your department? Can you describe the type of research they need? As I mentioned earlier, I support corporate management decisions at all levels and in all departments. My most frequent requestors are account team members who are involved in new business pitches. They are involved in the actual presentations

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48 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue to the prospective new clients and need to know everything they can on the industry and the ethnic segment or segments within that industry. Recently I was asked to provide a complete overview of the health and beauty segment and the ethnic market. Not only was I asked to analyze several brands within the industry, I was also asked to look at how often some products are used by multicultural consumers. For this one, I investigated the sales channels used for these products. These searches can be very long and involved, and when you are looking for ethnic information, the digging might take even longer. To give you another example of the type of research undertaken at DCA, an account team member needed information on the trends and influences of African-American urban teens. There happens to be a lot of information on this subject, because urban kids do influence all youth and tend to be trendsetters.

How do you determine what resources to use for specific requests? Often I use more than one source to answer a question because I like to have more than one authoritative word on a subject. When I embark on a research project, I don’t like to leave any stone unturned. When I look at a question for the first time, I can pretty much ascertain which sources in my Information Center will have the answer. If the answer is not readily available from the library, it’s time to put my research skills into full gear. But I do have to stress that I am very cost conscious in my pursuit of information and believe in consulting the “free” sources in my library first, before any online research is undertaken. If I’m not happy with the results or need more information, I then conduct an Internet and ProQuest [171] search. If that doesn’t yield the results I’m looking for, then I consult associations through the Encyclopedia of Associations [253]. I have found through experience that, more often than not, these associations are happy to provide free statistical information on the subject

Jordie Garvin Thomson: Multicultural Information Expert being pursued. And if they don’t have what you need, they often recommend other places to call that might have what you are looking for. Finally, an online search utilizing Dialog or LexisNexis [124] almost always yields results.

How do you deliver and package your results? I highlight and package my results in a way that allows the requestor to know right away the type of information retrieved. Because it is so fast paced around here, they often don’t have time to read everything retrieved on a given subject. It is my job to highlight key points and then summarize them in a memo. I also try to include what sources were looked at for the project.

What happens when your research results are skimpy? Do you conduct follow-up interviews to find alternative answers? My goal is to not present skimpy answers, although sometimes that can’t be helped. When I do, it’s because secondary information was not available on the given subject. I recently was working on a project dealing with Hispanic ’tweens—those who are 9 to 14 years old—and drug use. I conducted a very thorough investigation into this segment, but found nothing. However, I did find a lot of information on teenagers and drug use. I then called the requestors and told them about the results. Luckily, they were interested in what I retrieved. But most of the time, because I’m dealing with a very specific niche market, the requestor can’t settle for anything else. Sometimes, I don’t have a lot of information to present to the patron. Fortunately, that doesn’t happen often.

What is your favorite online service? How do you use it for secondary research? In library graduate school, I was taught one online system that to this day has remained my favorite: Dialog. It is the system that I feel most comfortable with and that provides me with the

49

50 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue results I’m looking for. For multicultural research, I find that files 9 (Business & Industry) [37], 148 (Trade & Industry Database) [207], and 570 (MARS, Marketing & Advertising Reference Service) [133] are great tools for what I’m looking for. But it does depend on the type of question. File 570 is wonderful when I want to find out about multicultural advertising within certain industries. For example, I recently used file 570 to find out what other advertising agencies were engaging in African-American responsible drinking commercials.

What are the essential printed sources for business and secondary research that specialize in the multicultural market? Tell me your favorites. I have a number of favorite resources that I turn to first when attempting to answer a research question. My favorite reference book is the Statistical Abstract of the United States [195], which provides the answers to the ready-reference-variety questions that I get. For example, I’m often asked questions about population as it relates to minorities. I’ve been asked to find the percentage of the African-American, Asian-American, or Hispanic population within a certain metropolitan area or city, and the Statistical Abstract provides that answer. Another one of my favorite resources is the Census Web site [215]. It is an invaluable tool for locating detailed, up-to-date population information in a fast manner, especially as it relates to the minority market. Another favorite of mine is Racial and Ethnic Diversity [270], published by New Strategists Publications. This is a great resource for information specialists who are conducting research on ethnic markets, including Asian-Americans, African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and whites. The chapters are broken down by ethnicity and include sections on education, health, households, housing, income, labor force, and population. This is one of the most valuable tools in my collection.

Jordie Garvin Thomson: Multicultural Information Expert Still another favorite source is Marketing to the Emerging Majorities [266]. This is a monthly newsletter published by EPM Communications that targets African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans. It provides information on all aspects of the minority market including healthcare, retailing, income, and which companies are specifically marketing to these segments and how they are doing it. The great thing about this newsletter is that it isn’t limited to one topic so, with the wide variety of clients DCA has, there is always something in this publication that applies to one of the industries I work with. Finally, another valuable tool that I use on a regular basis is The Buying Power of Black America [245], published annually by Target Market News. This reference book provides an analysis of the purchases made by African-American consumers of more than 500 products and services.

Do you use any other unique resources? How do you find sources like these? As I mentioned, Racial and Ethnic Diversity is a unique source that I use often. I’m often asked what the average annual expenditures are for a particular ethnic market, and this book allows me to get what I need. It details expenditures for food at home and away from home, housing, household services, and household furnishings, among other things. I like that this book is so detailed about what ethnic consumers buy and how much they spend on an item. Listed under furniture are mattresses and springs, sofas, living room chairs, living room tables, kitchen and dining room furniture, and outdoor furniture, among other things. I became aware of this resource when I first came on board at DCA and began to network with other librarians, especially public librarians, who had been involved in multicultural research with patrons at their libraries. I work in a very diverse community, and I’m lucky that my public library houses many books

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52 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue that reflect different cultures. So I did peruse my public library collection for ideas on different types of reference books. Another valuable source is the Statistical Record of Black America [285] published by The Gale Group. This reference tool includes chapters on Attitudes; Values and Behavior; Business and Economics; Education; Health and Medical Care; and Income, Spending, and Wealth. For example, I use this book when I’m asked about the number of minorities that attend historically Black colleges or the household composition of AfricanAmerican families. I found out about this reference tool through The Gale Group product catalog as well as through speaking with other librarians. Yet another source that is unique to my collection is The Ethnic Market Report [257], published by Market Segment Research. This book is divided by ethnicity and includes information on shopping behavior and attitudes, media usage, attitudes toward drugs, charitable giving, and automotive information. I found out about this book through my supervisor, who has been aware of the publishers for quite some time. Another great ready-reference source that is unique to my Information Center is the National Minority Business Directory [269], published by Diversity Information Resources. The book is divided by category and then, within the category, broken down by state. For example, under the heading of construction, one can look up minority businesses in Michigan and find out when that company was established and how many employees work there. It also provides general directory information about the company. In order for a business to be included in this directory, 51 percent of the business must be owned, operated, and controlled by minority group members. I discovered this source, once again, at my local public library. Another great source that is used heavily in my library is Demographics USA-Zip Edition and County Edition [53] published by Trade Dimensions [208]. As a multicultural librarian, I’m often asked to map out, by ZIP code or county, the ethnic makeup of an area. This two-volume source provides that information. I

Jordie Garvin Thomson: Multicultural Information Expert found out about this resource when I attended the SLA (Special Libraries Association) [321] conference the very first year I was hired by DCA. By networking with other librarians and speaking with publishers in the exhibit hall, I was able to gather a wealth of information on different types of sources that serve the multicultural market. Yet another source that is very useful to me is the Don Coleman Advertising/Yankelovich African-American Monitor [230]. This report features a segmentation study of AfricanAmericans and reveals the underlying attitudes, social values, and motivations driving African-American consumers, including brands, shopping, leisure/entertainment, technology, and media/advertising. This source is useful because it allows me to track trends among African-Americans and understand the motivations of African-Americans relative to whites. One of our clients is in the retail industry, and this report has been used to track how often African-Americans shop as well as to learn about purchasing decisions among African-Americans. Another useful newsletter is Multicultural Marketing News, published six times a year by Multicultural Marketing Resources [143]. It offers resources to reach ethnic consumers, get leads to new clients, and learn about seminars and multicultural conferences to attend. I learned about this publication through contacts at DCA.

What about consumer magazines and trade publications targeted at multicultural markets? Black Enterprise [29], published by Earl Graves Publishing, is a monthly African-American-oriented business magazine. The June issue each year publishes the Top Twenty B.E. Advertising Agencies. In June 2001, DCA was ranked number one based on billings. Yet another unique source we find helpful is African Americans on Wheels [17], published by On Wheels, Inc. Because one of our clients is in the automotive industry, this is especially

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54 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue useful in understanding what is happening as it relates to the African-American market. For DCA, this is a free source, since it appears as a supplement to newspapers such as the Detroit Free Press [56] six times a year. Furthermore, Hispanic Business [101] is a monthly business periodical that is a valuable resource when I am looking at this particular segment. I found out about this resource through a co-worker who suggested it for our collection. We also house the 2002 U.S. Hispanic Market Report [290], published by Strategy Research Corporation. Some of the chapters covered include population and demography, language use, e-commerce, and product and service usage. I was able to secure this report for my library when a co-worker of mine attended a seminar by Strategy Research and was given a copy. Finally, I keep a core collection of African-American-oriented periodicals that cover the entertainment industry and women’s issues. These include Jet [117], Essence [77], Ebony [67], Honey [104], Today’s Black Woman [287], Sister 2 Sister [185], heart&soul [99], Vibe [222], and The Source [189]. I became aware of these publications when I first started doing multicultural research.

What Web sites do you find relevant to your advertising research projects? Where do you find such Web sites? Attending the Special Libraries Association annual conference affords me the opportunity to attend seminars on the Internet where Web sites are always recommended. I especially found useful a seminar called “60 Sites in 60 Minutes,” as well as the other seminars that covered business Web sites. Also, I come across useful sites by doing a simple Google [93] search. Sometimes I encounter a great multicultural Web site with that strategy. Other times, I peruse the multicultural section of Advertising Age [14] for suggestions on ethnic-oriented Web sites. I prefer Web sites that are user friendly and that allow me to get to the information quickly and efficiently. In addition, I am

Jordie Garvin Thomson: Multicultural Information Expert partial to sites that provide either full-text articles or statistical information for free, a trend that seems to be dwindling. Besides the Census Bureau site, which I mentioned previously, I do have other favorites as well. The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau [304] has on its Web site a Multicultural Resource Center, a free online database designed to provide information on tastes, habits, and viewing profiles among African-American, AsianAmerican, and Hispanic cable viewers. There are different sections divided into Facts and Figures, Psychographics, Cultural Insights, and Case Studies, among others. When a section is clicked, it is further divided by ethnic segment. After clicking again, you are rewarded with useful full-text information. Yet another favorite Web site that I like to access when I’m engaging in any type of retail-related research is the Cotton Incorporated site [50]. I find this most useful because it provides access to the Lifestyle Monitor Report, which allows one to print articles on minorities and fashion or minorities as retail consumers, to name a couple of topics. Another useful site, HispanicTrends.com [103], describes itself as the pulse of the Latino community. It is divided into different channels that include such segments as feature articles and census reports with statistics from the 2000 Census. It also has a search mechanism for specific topics.

Can you share with me some memorable, fun projects you’ve worked on? Each project that comes my way is challenging, new, and different. That is what makes my job fun. As I was going through my files for the past few years, I started to realize that the projects I consider to be the most enjoyable are the ones where I had the chance to do a full investigative treatment of a topic. For example, a request came in recently for research on the quick-service and pizza industries. The patron not only wanted a multicultural demographic profile of users within these industries but also needed general information on recent sales, a snapshot of the

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56 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue industries, share point analysis, penetration of the markets, and brand usage for these two categories. This is the type of search I get the most excited about, because it allows me to delve deeply into the categories. First I looked at the broader category covering these two industries. For industry sales and snapshots, one of the sources I turned to was the National Restaurant Association’s Web site [314]. This is a great site for current industry research and top news stories dealing with restaurants, including pizza and the quick-service segment. My thought process was then to break down the sales for the top quick-service restaurants, which did include pizza stores. For this information, I turned to the Web once again and went to QSR Magazine [172], which is another comprehensive site that provided current full-text information. To retrieve systemwide sales for companies and franchise stores within these industries, I turned to the current edition of Business Rankings Annual [244]. I then wanted to show current pizza industry sales as well as a general snapshot of that industry. For that information I turned to Pizza Marketing Quarterly [163], another great site that provided what I needed. I also conducted an article search utilizing Dialog files 9 and 148 that uncovered this type of information as well as a mention of a company that tracks the pizza industry called Technomic Foodservice Consultants [201]. After contacting them, I was able to secure more statistics that helped in my analysis of the industry. Finally, to track the multicultural market and their usage within these categories, I came across a poll from the periodical Restaurants and Institutions [177] that tracked their fast food usage within the two categories, demographic profiles, and how often they ate at these types of establishments. Another fun project that I had the opportunity to work on was finding information on premium brands that attribute their success to marketing to the African-American market. Not only was this an interesting topic, but also I knew before I started that it would take a lot of digging to find what the requestor needed.

Jordie Garvin Thomson: Multicultural Information Expert I began my search utilizing my multicultural materials in the Information Center, and found some articles in the newsletter Marketing to the Emerging Majorities. One of the articles I uncovered was about how footwear marketers target minorities because footwear is an industry where style, attitude, and advertising are deeply rooted in urban culture. Consequently, brands were listed that helped substantiate my research request. After conducting an online search in Dialog files 9, 148, and 570, I was able to uncover more articles to back up my request. Forbes Magazine [88] did an article entitled “Badass Sells” (April 27, 1997), which told of how the garment trade is getting on the bandwagon with its lines of urban-inspired clothing. And further digging proved that both McDonald’s and Burger King realize the value of minority consumers. Hispanic and AfricanAmerican consumers accounted for 25 cents of every dollar spent at McDonald’s in 1997, or about $3 billion in sales. And Burger King at that time estimated that 30 percent of its U.S. sales came from African-American and Hispanic communities. This search was conducted in June 1999, so the data was still fairly current.

How do you keep up with all the news and new resources relevant to you professionally? What professional groups do you belong to? I am a firm believer in further education. It is very important for me, as a solo librarian, to attend the annual SLA conference. I have also attended the SCIP (Society of Competitive Information Professionals) [320] conference, but I found that the SLA conference was so much more beneficial to me. While at SLA, I especially like reconnecting with the Advertising and Marketing Division [191], where I really get a handle on new Web sites, databases, and sources that could be useful to me as an advertising librarian. In addition, I find that the roundtable discussions help me in knowing how other advertising librarians are doing things. It’s also helpful to know that there

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58 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue is a network of other advertising librarians out there who do what I do and whom I can contact for help or information. In the past I have attended refresher courses with both Dialog and Factiva [82] that helped inform me about what was new in search strategies or databases. Staying in contact with my online vendor representatives also aids me in keeping up-to-date. In addition, I do subscribe to a number of different libraryrelated periodicals, such as Searcher [183] and The CyberSkeptic’s Guide to Internet Research [52], which I find especially useful. Finally, many of the advertising librarians in the Detroit area meet once a year for dinner and a library tour. It gives us all a chance to make contact with each other and to remind us that, if anyone needs anything, we are available.

What is your biggest challenge as an information professional in a multicultural agency? The biggest challenge I have as a multicultural librarian is finding information on the ethnic segment. I sometimes deal with obscure subject matters and that only adds to the problem of finding information. But I am constantly searching for new sources, materials, and Web sites that will help me deliver results to my patrons. In terms of the agency, the challenge I face is making sure DCA employees know about me and the services I offer. I’m lucky because I have a boss who really supports the Information Center and all that it offers. But I also realize that, as a solo librarian, I need to constantly market the library, and I have made it one of my goals for the coming year.

What do you do outside of work? Do you have interests that naturally prove beneficial to your work in the ad agency business? One of my favorite personal interests is traveling. I get such a natural high from the opportunity to discover new places and learn about different cultures. I find that taking in new experiences

Jordie Garvin Thomson: Multicultural Information Expert makes me a better person. I can see how traveling is applicable to being a research librarian. The chance to learn new things on a daily basis is so exciting to me, knowing I’m going to enhance myself and become a more knowledgeable person. Moreover, I am a very outgoing person and love to be around people, so the activities I choose to participate in involve being with others, and also involve pushing myself to the limit. I take a water aerobics class three times a week that not only allows me to communicate with a group of people but also pushes me mentally and physically. I can definitely apply that to my career, where good communication and listening skills are important.


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The Don Coleman Advertising/Yankelovich AfricanAmerican Monitor features a segmentation study of African-Americans and reveals the underlying attitudes, social values, and motivations driving African-American consumers, including brands, shopping, leisure/entertainment, technology, and media/advertising.

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The Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau has on its Web site a Multicultural Resource Center, a free online database designed to provide information on tastes, habits, and viewing profiles among African-American, Asian, and Hispanic cable viewers.

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Racial and Ethnic Diversity, published by New Strategists Publications, is a great resource on ethnic markets, including Asian-Americans, African-Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, and whites. The chapters are broken down by ethnicity and

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60 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue include sections on education, health, households, housing, income, labor force, and population.

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The Cotton Incorporated Web site provides access to the Lifestyle Monitor Report on minorities and fashion, or minorities as retail consumers, to name a couple of topics.

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The Ethnic Market Report, published by Market Segment Research, is divided by ethnicity and includes information on shopping behavior and attitudes, media usage, attitudes toward drugs, charitable giving, and automotive information.

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The Buying Power of Black America, published annually by Target Market News, provides an analysis of the purchases made by African-American consumers of more than 500 products and services.

Kristine Larsen Spanier From Copywriting to Librarianship Kristine started in advertising as a copywriter at Hunt Adkins Minneapolis in 1992. After four years of winning local and national awards, she received a master’s degree in Library and Information Science from Dominican University. She now works as Knowledge Manager at Carmichael Lynch. When Kristine is not at the agency, she can often be found running around the lakes in Minneapolis, traveling with her husband, or working on her first novel. [email protected] www.carmichaellynch.com

Let's talk about how you got started in advertising. After getting my journalism degree at the University of Minnesota, I started as a copywriter at a small creative hot shop in Minneapolis. I worked with some incredibly clever people and for four years we seemed to be winning every national and local award. But then there was a change of ownership in the agency, and it wasn’t like it had been back in the glory days. I struck out on my own and freelanced around the country and Toronto, trying to decide where I wanted to work next. But I always had a nagging feeling that copywriting wasn’t quite right for me. I did some soul-searching and spent a lot of time talking to my aunt, Sue Burch, who is the associate director

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62 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue of the Law Library at the University of Kentucky. She seemed to immediately recognize my potential for the library field, although it took me about another year to come around. I fell in love with library science instantly. I never dreamed I’d end up back in an agency, but a job at Carmichael Lynch in Minneapolis opened up while I was interning at the American Express Investment Library. It’s turned out to be a perfect fit.

At your first ad agency, what accounts did you work on and what ad campaigns won advertising awards for you? Can you give me details? I worked on a little bit of everything including Pig’s Eye beer from the Minnesota Brewing Company, Mystic Lake Casino, the Pioneer Press, Target Stores, the Children’s Theatre Company, Domtar Paper, Caribou Coffee, and Sargento Foods. I did some TV, but most of my work was print and radio. I got pieces into Communication Arts [47, see Appendix], the One Show [271], the Print Regional Design Annual [273], the local Minneapolis show, and the Art Directors Club of New York Show [299]. Pig’s Eye beer, at the time, was my biggest claim to fame. The only thing I wrote that’s still being used is the tagline for Caribou Coffee, “Life is short. Stay awake for it.” It’s funny seeing someone wearing that on a t-shirt thousands of miles from home. I had the great fortune of working with some really talented art directors, designers, and other writers who are now spread around the country and still winning a lot of awards. We usually worked in teams and would spend hours together coming up with ideas for our accounts. We always had a variety of magazines and books around for idea fodder. Personally I spent an inordinate amount of time at the public library doing research for our concepts. Award show annuals were also a constant staple in the agency. Sometimes seeing how other people solved problems allowed us to think in new directions. A lot of the writers, including myself,

Kristine Larsen Spanier: From Copywriting to Librarianship collected unusual reference books like the Encyclopedia of Bad Taste and Japanese Death Poems. These books would send us off in directions that we would never have gone without them. We watched a lot of directors' reels—ad collections that showcase the work of art and creative directors—as well, and listened to a ton of music.

What kind of information research do you now provide at your agency? I’m a solo librarian so I field anything and everything that comes up, as long as it’s a request for secondary research. For new business pitches, I do in-depth research on the account, such as company background, the industry climate, and its competitors. I do category research on products and services, I verify facts and figures, I look up demographic information, I do trademark searches, get market share and sales information, get trend information, and on and on. I’ve learned that in advertising, no question is too off the wall. Once someone needed to know what people eat at Easter and if the traditions have changed. Another person needed to know the dollar figure of Halloween decorations sold in the last year.

Where do these questions come from? Who are your big users and what do they need to know? I get most of my requests from the account management department and the new business team. After that it’s split between the planning department and public relations. I get the occasional requests from media, relationship marketing, interactive design, and the creative department. Account management, new business, and public relations usually need to know classic business information like financials and industry overviews, media mentions, market share, and things like that. Planning usually wants more of the psychographic and attitudinal information that is almost impossible to answer without paid market research or our Yankelovich [230] subscription. The

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64 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue creative department usually wants me to back up claims they make in their concepts.

When you receive questions that are not clearly stated, what technique do you use to get a better understanding of what the requestor is really looking for? I use a number of different tactics, depending on the situation and the requestor. I’ll rephrase the question or ask them to clarify terminology, or I’ll ask how they will be using the information. The response to this usually determines how much time I’ll spend on the request. For example, if it’s going to be one bullet point in a 100-slide presentation, I find it difficult to justify spending more than an hour or so on it. Sometimes I tell them what I think might be available and ask if that would work for their project. Then there’s the classic question I pose only when I’m really desperate, which is, “In a perfect world, what would this information look like if you had it in front of you right now?”

What online sources do you use for business and secondary research? I primarily use LexisNexis [124] and Factiva [82]. I also use Jupiter Research [118] and Forrester [89] for our technology accounts and our e-commerce research. Jupiter has a lot more of the basics, such as size of audience for different technologies, so I seem to use it a lot more than I do Forrester. But as the dotcoms have faded, so has my need for this kind of research. I use Hoover’s [105] for basic business information. And, of course, I use the Internet quite a lot.

How do you use the Internet? What are your favorite sites and how do you find them? When I’m not sure of where to start, I turn to my favorite search engine, Google [93]. Web sites that I use a lot are

Kristine Larsen Spanier: From Copywriting to Librarianship AdAge.com [13], Adweek.com [16], the National Retail Federation Web site [315], the Conference Board [306], 10Kwizard [1], the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office [217] for initial trademark searches, the Dismal Scientist [59], the Bureau of Labor Statistics [214*], and the Census Bureau [215]. I mainly use association and government Web sites because I feel I can trust this information more. I learn about new or good sites through my subscriptions to the CyberSkeptic’s Guide [52] newsletter and Information Advisor [262]. I also subscribe to Information Outlook [107], Searcher [183] magazine, and The One Person Library [154]. I read Gary Price’s List of Lists report [166]. I’m a subscriber to the BUSLIB-L [40] discussion list and the SLA Advertising and Marketing Division list [40]. I learn a lot from my colleagues this way.

Do you rely on any Web search engines other than Google? I know the experts say to use more than one, but Google pretty much uncovers exactly what I’m looking for. The other engines are so cluttered and time consuming. This year I’m making it my mission to finally be a better invisible Web searcher, so I will start branching out.

What challenges do you find working in an agency that fully utilizes your information services? My biggest challenge is consistent throughout all the departments: Everybody wants the information very quickly, within a few hours or at the end of the day. Usually the longest deadline I get is the next day, first thing in the morning. That can be challenging, because everybody’s working so fast all the time and sometimes great information takes a little longer than just a few hours to get. But I’ve gotten used to the tight deadlines and have learned to work with them. The great part is that the more I learn, the faster I work.

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How do you handle this sense of urgency and the very quick turnaround time? Do you ever negotiate for deadline extensions or outsource the request? We never outsource. I handle everything for the agency, although sometimes our department assistant helps out where and when she can. I just work very fast and have learned to prioritize the work. In extreme cases, I ask people if they can wait just another few hours or until later the next day. Many times I will run multiple searches at once, sometimes literally doing two searches at once in LexisNexis. Or I will place phone calls and, while I wait for callbacks, I run literature searches for something else. When I get stuck, I call on my network of librarians who help me think through where I should be looking instead. If a question is really simple and I’m jammed, I will direct the requestor to a Web site where I know the answer is. Another thing I do to save time is send the information to the requestor electronically instead of personally walking it to them, which I usually do.

What research tools do you rely on to find quick answers for your projects? What are your favorites? I blend a number of resources. I might use LexisNexis for article searches for companies and industries. I also use it for people searches. I’ve learned to always search on a variety of different spellings of the person’s name because what I’m given is usually not correct. I like to use trade associations for industry information. I either go to their Web sites or call them. Association Web sites usually have a lot of helpful links to other sources of information that I explore. Often I talk to agency people who are experts in the field. I like the print version of the Statistical Abstract of the United States [195] because it’s so much faster for looking up stats than wading through government Web

Kristine Larsen Spanier: From Copywriting to Librarianship sites. I’m also a big fan of the agency and advertisers Red Books [173] online site. My department was devastated when American Demographics [22] started charging for article downloads. We had used that site a lot. Of course, I can still get the needed documents from LexisNexis or Factiva, but my co-workers don’t have the freedom now to get the articles on their own. When I’m pressed for time or I get a very specific advertisingrelated question, I turn to the AAAA (American Association of Advertising Agencies) [298] Member Information Service. I feel that it’s unnecessary to reinvent the wheel when I know they will likely have the information I need. Their librarians are always a big help to me and I’m so grateful the AAAA offers that service.

What are some of the print resources you can’t live without? My print collection is filled with the basics. I’m a fan of the Market Share Reporter [268], the Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns [256], which I use for case studies, the Encyclopedia of Associations [253], the annual Tradeshow Week Data Book [210], the Research Alert Yearbook [278], and the All About Women Consumers Yearbook [240]. I’ve learned that, although the information is already a year or two old in the most recent version of Market Share Reporter, I can just go to the next year’s edition of the print source the Reporter cites and get the newest market share information. I’m also a big fan of the Books of Lists put out by American City Business Journals [27]. I keep special editions of Adweek, Advertising Age, and other publications in my office. I always have the editorial calendars of the advertising trade publications at my fingertips so I can easily go back and pull certain issues. We also have a subscription to Yankelovich, which is especially helpful to our Planning Department.

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Can you describe a memorable research request to which you've creatively provided an answer? Last year a client asked a key management member this question: “What Minnesota companies are most likely to appear on the next Fortune 500 list that haven’t already been on it?” The question ended up in my voicemail box. The pressure was on, since I was new and it was coming from upper management. I gathered some local business publications and I studied the current Fortune 500 list. I made calls to some business writers here in town and looked at the financial reports of some of our biggest public companies. I finally put a list together with five names on it, based on the information I culled from the interviews and the research I did. A few months later, the new Fortune 500 list came out, and I was gratified to find that the only two new Minnesota names on the list had also been on mine.

You must have earned a lot of stars from that request. Can you tell me about a project that was particularly fun to do? We recently pitched a piece of business that targeted teens. Our agency needed to get up to speed on teens fairly quickly, so I got immersed in the demographic as fast as I could, reading teen magazines and writing up some executive summaries of books on the market. I also explored the most popular Web sites for teens and looked at some teen-focused market research sites. I found this stimulating because of how trend-focused it all was. Unfortunately, we didn’t get that particular account, but this really whetted my appetite to get resources in place for the next one that comes around.

How do you use the agency intranet? We have a brand new intranet committee at the agency that is charged with revamping its entire structure. Currently it’s being

Kristine Larsen Spanier: From Copywriting to Librarianship used to disseminate agency information to employees, such as policies, procedures, weather reports—which are always important in Minnesota—how to submit an MIS support request, and the like. Now that I’ve been at the agency for a while and I have a better understanding of how everyone uses information and what kind of research they typically need, I’m creating online pathfinders for some specific industry and knowledge categories. I feel that if I do this job well enough and make the information easy to find, some users will be able to find answers to the simpler questions on their own. This will free up some of my time so I can create more value-added research and more information products for the agency. I will also add to the intranet more general information such as what resources we have, what they’re used for, and how employees can access them. I’ve learned that even the people who don’t really use our resources for their job, such as HR and print production, still have a genuine curiosity about what all transpires in the knowledge area.

How do you stay up-to-date on new information sources? What is on your reading list? You mentioned some professional newsletters; what else do you do? I stay up-to-date through reading and talking to my colleagues. Aside from the publications I already mentioned, I also scan Forbes [88], Fortune [90], Business Week [39], Adweek, Advertising Age, Brandweek [35], Time [205], the Wall Street Journal [225], the New York Times [150], our local papers, and a variety of other journals that find their way into our space. Many of these business publications also publish guides to great sites, like our own trade publications do. But perhaps my favorite way of staying up-to-date on new information sources is the network that I’ve built up. I started my network while I was in college. Again, my mentor and aunt Sue encouraged me to join

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70 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue the SLA (Special Libraries Association) [321] right away. But she didn’t stop there. She pestered me to start a student chapter of the SLA, which the school hadn’t previously done. This allowed me to meet a lot of working professionals while I was still working on my degree. I started going to the Minnesota chapter meetings and volunteered for a chair position. Just a few months after that, I volunteered for a board position in the Advertising and Marketing division. I’ve found the annual SLA conferences great for continuing my education. The first conference I attended taught me so much. I use the techniques and the resources I learned there on a daily basis. Locally the ad librarians have an informal network that I call on sometimes, and I am also part of a group called Infocorps, which is a coalition of downtown Minneapolis business librarians. I learn so much from these people, probably more than I do from my reading. My network has proven invaluable, especially when I first started my job. I had the advertising part down, but, since I didn’t have a whole lot of library experience, I really depended on the network for my initial success. I’m totally grateful to them all.

What value-added services do you provide in conjunction with the secondary research projects you handle? Do you prepare summaries or topline reports? When I can negotiate a deadline longer than just a couple of hours or the next day, I use that time to do topline summaries of the information, which my coworkers appreciate. As the knowledge area grows and we eventually add a second librarian, I hope to always provide that value-added service. If there isn’t time to summarize, I highlight the important parts to make it very obvious where the answer to their question lies. We are also adding completely new services to the agency. Soon we’ll be kicking off a quarterly speaker series. My supervisor, Doug Hagge, and I want to showcase a variety of people who

Kristine Larsen Spanier: From Copywriting to Librarianship bring creativity and admired ideals to their life’s work. We’re hoping to get speakers from all walks of life, everyone from a color analyst to an FBI profiler.

Do you disseminate news alerts or current awareness reports? Yes, I use LexisNexis to run daily client news alerts, and I have set up two separate alerts for specific clients to track their competitors. I’ve also set one up for the new business team. But I think something gets lost when you go from the manual scanning of publications to an electronic search. When you’re looking for something as elusive as an account that hasn’t yet announced they are mulling over the idea of picking a new agency, the oldfashioned methods of information-gathering are sometimes best. I always think of that scene from Working Girl when Melanie Griffith is reading a newspaper society page and has that “ah-ha” moment, realizing that Trask Industries should go into radio. These unusual connections can really only be made by keeping an eye open all the time. Something I might hear on the news at night might connect with an article I read in Wired magazine [226], which then might trigger an idea when I’m talking to someone in the hallway.

Outside of work, what activities do you pursue that naturally benefit your work? As I mentioned, I’m very involved with the SLA. I am chair of the Advertising and Marketing Division this year, which has been an awesome learning experience. When my term ends, I hope to continue to stay involved wherever I am needed. I’m interested in continuing to work on the bulletin because it gives me a great excuse to interview other librarians and learn about new vendor products or great resources. I’m also still involved in the Minnesota chapter and have helped to spearhead our mentoring program. I’m always working to coordinate more mentoring

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72 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue relationships. This is important to me because of how invaluable my own mentors have been to me. Outside of my association work, what I’ve found beneficial to being an effective advertising librarian is an active involvement in pop culture. So much of our business feeds off what’s happening now in TV, films, music, books, the arts, and more. I see movies every week and watch a little too much TV. I spend way too much money on books and CDs. I’m a huge fan of Ani DiFranco. She has put out an album on her own label every year for over a decade and it’s simply amazing to literally hear how her talent and creativity have developed and evolved with each album and without the constraints of a corporation telling her what to do. I’m totally fascinated by the creative process, so she’s a perfect artist for me.

If you were not in advertising, what would you be doing? If I didn’t have to work at all, I’d be spending a lot more time on the novel I’m writing, which is about an advertising librarian.

Would you like to add anything else we haven’t talked about? I can’t stress enough how important my background in advertising has been to my success on the job as an agency librarian. I was able to hit the ground running by understanding the language of the business and having that instant rapport with my co-workers. If someone new starts at the agency, and they come into my office and seem a little standoffish or are unsure of my capabilities, I have found ways to work both my copywriting background and my library degree into the conversation. This seems to create a higher trust and respect level. Of course, I also have to explain why I made the apparently crazy career switch. What they don’t understand is that information work is highly creative. We’re always coming up with new places to find information, new ways of disseminating it, and new ways of making

Kristine Larsen Spanier: From Copywriting to Librarianship it work for us. But when they ask, I change my answer every time—just to keep things interesting.


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My print collection is filled with the basics. I’m a fan of the Market Share Reporter, the Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns, which I use for case studies, the Encyclopedia of Associations, the Tradeshow Week Data Book, the Research Alert Yearbook, and the All About Women Consumers Yearbook.

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Perhaps my favorite way of staying up-to-date on new information sources is the network that I’ve built up. I started my network while I was in college. I learn so much from these people, probably more than I do from my reading.

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Information work is highly creative. We’re always coming up with new places to find information, new ways of disseminating it, and new ways of making it work for us.

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Outside of my association work, what I’ve found beneficial to being an effective advertising librarian is an active involvement in pop culture. So much of our business feeds off what’s happening now in TV, films, music, books, the arts, and more.

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Gerard Seifert Creative-Side Researcher Gerard works as copywriter for GSD&M in Austin, Texas. His clients have included Land Rover North, Kohler, Southwest Airlines, Chili’s, and Americans for the Arts. Gerard represents the new generation of ad professionals who are infusing the industry with an innate sense of pop culture and trends. Coming at research from the creative side of the business, he uses Web search engines to uncover some unique sources, including audio, video, and still images. In his free time he teaches cardio kickboxing. [email protected] www.gsdm.com

How did you break into advertising? I went to an art school in New York called the School of Visual Arts (SVA), where I actually wanted to study illustration. When I first got there, I met fellow illustrators who asked me what kind of illustration I wanted to do. When I described to them what I wanted, they said, “That’s not illustration, that’s graphic design.” So from there I went into graphic design, where they make you take an advertising class. I thought it was going to be a waste of time. I was very mad. I took Introduction to Advertising. My instructor, who worked for an agency called DeVito/Verdi at the time, was kind of scary. He came in wearing sunglasses and a leather jacket. He yelled at us, and he gave us our first assignment, Tom’s of Maine toothpaste. I did a little research for the assignment. He told us to buy the product, try it out, and then come back with an ad. And I did. He put all of our ads on the wall, critiqued them, and one by one he ripped them down.

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76 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue There were two ads that he liked that he left on the wall, and one of them was mine. I realized that I had put all of my knowledge of popular culture and useless things to good use, and from there on I loved it. I couldn’t get enough of it. I looked into the advertising department of the School of Visual Arts, which is part of the graphic design department. I asked other students what classes and what portfolio instructors I should take, what exhibits to see, and what clubs to join. I was told to look at the bible, which is the One Show Annual [271, see Appendix]. They told me that the best of the best is in this book, and to memorize it.

Tell me about the One Club and how you joined it. Was it a rewarding experience? The One Club [317] is an advertising organization based in New York that organizes an annual advertising competition for the best print, radio, and TV commercials. It’s called The One Show, a competition open to all copywriters and art directors in the world. Lectures, exhibits, and portfolio reviews are held throughout the year for members. The top awards are known as the Gold Pencils. The great thing about the One Club is that they have exhibits all the time that show work I might not otherwise see, like the best print ads in Spain, for example. They have international shows and speakers come to talk about them. They also have student competitions I wanted to be a part of. So you enter work and win awards as if you were a professional, because you’re being judged by the same panel who do the professional show. It’s such a prestigious award; it’s the Oscars of the advertising industry. And, of course, I wanted to be part of that. I submitted my work for the Student One Show Competition. At the time, the assignment was for a print campaign for tourism to Vietnam. And I won a merit award.

Gerard Seifert: Creative-Side Researcher

Way cool, congratulations! Now you’ll be in the book. Is your work in the One Show Annual? Yes, it’s in the 2000 One Show: Advertising’s Best Print, Radio, and TV.

What led you to Austin, Texas? I was doing so well at SVA in advertising that an instructor, Sal DeVito, who is the creative head of DeVito/Verdi, asked me to come and intern at his agency. So I did that for about a year, and I met a girl named Kristen Hanson. We said if we ever leave New York, we should send out our book—portfolio—together, because in advertising you work in teams, for example, copywriter/art director. I thought it was a great idea. We went to One Show Annual, Communications Arts [47], and other advertising annual shows. Then we made a list of where we’d want to go and where we’d want to live. We sent our book to an agency called GSD&M Advertising in Austin. They literally called us back the next day. They asked us if we would be interested in meeting some of their reps who come up for the One Show awards, and we said, “Yes.” We met with them, and they were great. The work that GSD&M has done is pretty diverse. And it’s big enough so that I can touch a lot of things. GSD&M is well known for its brand-building strategies and creative work. The agency has done award-winning work for brands such as DreamWorks, Southwest Airlines, Pennzoil, Charles Schwab, MasterCard, Wal-Mart, and SBC Communications. It’s a subsidiary of Omnicom and reportedly had billings of $1.1 billion in 2000.

What was the first copywriting work that required a lot of research on your own? I had to do a radio spot for the new Land Rover Freelander. I didn’t know what a Land Rover was. I lived in New York; I used public transportation. Land Rover makes three SUVs right now. They make the Land Rover, the Range Rover, and the Freelander.

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78 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue Each one is targeted toward a specific person, and each one has a specific voice. Coming in, I had to learn that those who drive a Range Rover listen to Tchaikovsky, and those who drive a Land Rover like to go to the mountains on the weekends, and those who drive a Freelander like to, you know, still party and be hip.

How did you get this lifestyle information? I went through a department called account service. GSD&M has more than 650 employees in departments like account service, media, creative, planning, and so on. Account service gave me a creative brief, and I read it. That’s where I started. A creative brief will tell you who the client is, the target audience, what the client specifically wants for the brand, how much they have to spend, if they have certain mandatory requirements like inclusion of phone number, logo, and things like that. I pulled out some keywords, like “affluent,” and information about age range and demographics. A brief is structured from what the agency knows about the client. Account service will come in and say, “This is what they’re sort of looking for. You might want to try this avenue.” They may show us what was successful in the last campaign, or what wasn’t. Account service provides as much as they can. But a lot of times they’ll leave it up to the creative teams and the creative directors.

Where do you go from there? What agency resources do you tap? We have two great libraries, a creative library and a general business library, which have specific resources like reference books and back issues of magazines. But I do most of my research by myself. I get most of my hard information from the Internet.


How do you find useful Web sites? How do you determine the accuracy and quality of their content? I stick to several key Web sites, but I’ll ask friends and coworkers if I’m not getting what I need. Sometimes magazines I read suggest Web sites. Newsweek [148], for instance, has a Web site of the week. For accuracy, I look at the people behind the site, and I check against print sources.

What are the search engines that you can’t live without? I love Google [93]. And for pictures, Lycos [131]. A lot of the image houses are online now, and it’s so much easier because they can send you images digitally. I often use About.com [5]. I like About.com because these are people whose job it is to surf and then give you a synopsis about whether it’s a good Web site and what it provides, or whether it’s a waste of your time.

What industry-specific Web sites do you frequently check out? AdCritic.com [9], AdReview [12], and AdForum [11]. Believe it or not, I don’t watch much television. I try to watch television, but I’m never in the room when the commercials are on. A lot of times I’ve been cooped up in my office. With Adcritic.com, I can log on and find out what the most popular commercials are. They also have started to provide movie and television trailers and new music, realizing that popular culture is such a big part of advertising. Once in a while, I use Gettyone [92] for photos and images. I also read a lot of magazines like Wallpaper [224], Adweek [16], and Creativity [238].

What other print resources do you rely on that are not online? Communication Arts [47], for one. And design books and annuals.

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One of the classic advertising books [260] had an interview with David Ogilvy. He was quoted as saying, “If you’re trying to persuade people to do something or buy something, you should use their language, the language they use everyday. Try to write in the vernacular.” How do you keep up with the current idiom? MTV [142]. As much as I hate to say it, it’s a popular culture and trend goldmine. There’s a show on MTV called TRL, which stands for Total Request Live. What happens is that the viewers decide the top ten videos for the day. I like that it’s in Times Square in New York, which is supposed to be the capital of the world, so whatever’s going to be hip and happening should come out of there. It’s funny to see how easy it is to become a celebrated person, a celebrity, with the right amount of “in your face.” If your video’s shown enough, of course you’re going to be popular. I also try to keep up with Entertainment Weekly [74], Rolling Stone [179], and The Onion [156].

You mentioned Wallpaper. What’s hip about it? What else do you read for inspiration? If I want to be inspired, I go to bookstores. I usually go next door to a place called Book People and look at magazines like Paper [162], Interview [264], Details [54], and Detour [55], because image is so important. I like Wallpaper so much because it’s great colors and saturation; it’s just luscious. I mean, you can sink your teeth into it. It’s bigger than life and it’s always mod and European. European advertising is supposed to be a little kooky and a little funny and maybe a little hard to understand. Wallpaper is so nice to touch; visually it looks great.


Describe for me a campaign you’ve sold lately. We did a print and radio campaign for Americans for the Arts. It’s basically a public service campaign to get more art in school for kids. We had to do a print campaign and a radio campaign, both national. They wanted it to be different enough to reach many audiences but with enough continuity that people will recognize it. For the print, we tried to show that kids today are not getting enough art because they don’t know certain important artists. We used artists of all kinds, like Martha Graham, Tchaikovsky, Louie Armstrong, and Caravaggio. To do these ads I needed to know about these people, know their lives. I started at About.com. I put in “Martha Graham” to look for quotes, for any evidence I could find that these people thought art was more important than life, more important than the air they breathe. And from there I got facts and figures about their lives, through books and things like that. The print campaign needed to be very factual, to show how important art was and how, although some of these people started late, they still became great. We needed to make that relevant to the children, and to deliver the message that it doesn’t matter how much art your kids get, just make sure they’re getting some. From there we went to radio, where I was allowed a little more creative freedom, because, for me, radio is probably the hardest medium to work on.

Can you explain why? Because nobody listens to radio commercials. What do you do as soon as you hear a commercial on the radio? You flip to another station. So you make people think that it’s not a commercial, or you’ll lose them. But radio is also the best medium, because you can do anything you want. I can tell you that there is a purple elephant with wings, and it works because you can visualize it in your head. What I did for this campaign was try to make it as funny as I can, because I think humor is so important in advertising. The radio spots for the Americans for the Arts are

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82 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue spoofs of an emergency hotline. I have this mom calling in describing all these physical problems, but in the end it’s just because the kids are so bored that there’s no life in them. So the operator talks them through and tells them that they’re not getting enough art.

What can you say about your work, your craft? So far, what I’ve learned is that it’s really hard to do good work. It’s a struggle, because there are so many hoops, so many people who are going to touch your work. You have to be true to so many people. You have to make sure that you’re doing a good job for the client and sell their product, but you also want to entertain people by convincing them that this is the best product ever. But things change so quickly. Things will get killed for no reason other than that it’s Tuesday. There are a lot of ups and downs. Sometimes things will just die very deep into the project. If you’re producing a commercial, sometimes you can get into production and they’ll just turn around and say, “You know what, we decided not to do it.” It’s hard because all the work I do is very personal. You have to keep things in perspective. There’s a lot of criticism in advertising. People will tell you, “This is good. This is not good.” If you take it personally, you’re going to be a wreck. You have to learn to separate yourself from your work, and I learned that right away.


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I like About.com because these are people whose job it is to surf and then give you a synopsis about whether it’s a good Web site and what it provides, or whether it’s a waste of your time.


➤

With Adcritic.com, I can log on and find out what the most popular commercials are.

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If I want to be inspired, I go to a bookstore and look at magazines like Paper, Interview, Details, Detour, or Wallpaper, because image is so important.

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MTV is a popular culture and trend goldmine. It’s in Times Square in New York, which is supposed to be the capital of the world, so whatever’s going to be hip and happening should come out of there.

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Robin Feuerstein Major League Coach for the Information Services Team Robin is Vice President and Director of Information Services in the Center for Marketing Intelligence at The Interpublic Group of Companies, a global marketing communications company headquartered in New York City. Robin and her staff provide information and analysis to Interpublic companies worldwide. When she’s not at work, she goes jogging and also serves as Crew Chief of her husband’s sports car race team. She’s a diehard fan of Joe Torre and the New York Yankees. [email protected] www.interpublic.com

Can you tell me about your background and how you got started in advertising? I have a master’s in Library and Information Science from Pratt Institute. The way I got started in this profession was actually quite serendipitous. I was looking at the job postings on the bulletin board at Pratt when I was ready to graduate. I went to three or four different interviews. The first one that made me an offer was an ad agency. That was D’Arcy McManus Masius when they had an office in New York. I moved to the Interpublic Group a couple of years later.

How did your department evolve into Interpublic CMI? CMI stands for Center for Marketing Intelligence. Our mission is to provide information and analysis on the U.S.A. market to all

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86 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue of Interpublic’s operating companies worldwide. Our specialty, or point of difference, is that we are organized to provide coverage by category or industry. Back in the early ’70s, Chuck Middlestadt, an executive with Interpublic, traveled the world, and in his meetings with other executives he learned about projects they were working on. As a follow-up when he got home, he would find information that might help them and informally send it their way. Interpublic management asked Chuck to write a proposal formalizing this function. Thus, the Center for Advertising Services, our old name, was born. At first, Chuck and one other person gathered information that was on hand or they called the 4As (AAAA, American Association of Advertising Agencies) [298, see Appendix]. Then, in the late ’70s, management decided to hire its first Information Specialist, Joan Leake, who is still with us, and we grew from there. In the mid-’80s, I spearheaded in-house analysis. Our manager had often done analysis but, together with Chuck, I developed it so that all of the researchers, whom we call Project Directors or PDs, would do analysis in their categories. In 2000, the Center for Advertising Services changed its name to the Center for Marketing Intelligence to better reflect Interpublic’s evolving mission. Interpublic began as a holding company for advertising agencies. We used to be just in advertising, but now our company is active in all marketing disciplines. The corporation wanted that reflected in our name. “Intelligence” refers to the value-added/analysis level that we add to our information. So this new name suits us much better.

How is your department organized? We have a staff of ten Project Directors who have responsibility for certain categories and industries. It’s their job to answer questions that come in on these industries—all the ad hoc questions—plus develop proactive reports and analyses to be used by our agencies and their clients. Then we have our Agency Liaison unit. They are the people charged with understanding all of our agencies out there—what kinds of information they need and

Robin Feuerstein: Major League Coach for the Information Services Team what resources they have in-house—so, when they get calls from the field, they can understand what to do with the question. Should we do it or should it be redirected within the requestor’s own company? We have a few other staff members who perform other functions, but I’ll stick to describing those most involved with search and analysis.

What types of research services do you provide? We do a gamut of things—from basic reference questions, to quick searching, to full analytical reports, to oral presentations to our company’s clients. To top management, we provide current awareness services and reports of breaking news, and we maintain agency and client lists and do a lot of massaging of those data.

With many of your requests coming from the field, how do you get them? Email and faxes are popular as we get requests from all corners of the world. Sometimes, things get lost in email limbo, so some people prefer to fax. One Monday morning, we even had somebody from L.A. waiting for our office to open. It was such a hot project that he needed to get started immediately. So requests come in any way known to man.

When you receive an ambiguous question that you feel needs further translation, how do you help focus it? We have a team of people here—Agency Liaisons, headed up by Katherine Favilla and Laura Rosen. We use little triggers like asking what they are trying to accomplish and who or what the client is. Sometimes the requestor is asking on behalf of someone else and is unable to respond to our question. If necessary,

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88 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue we might ask to speak to the originator of the request. These liaison executives actually take the requests. I am aware of the old adage that the optimal situation is requestor communicating directly with searcher. However, because of the volume of requests we get, and because requestors’ needs are so different depending on which company they are calling from, it makes sense for us to operate in this manner. A great many of the calls that come in never even get to a Project Director. The PD is afforded the time to concentrate on complex searching and is less subjected to interruptions. Of course, if a question seems unclear to the liaison, she will either come to me or ask the industry specialist on staff to sit in and listen to the requestor. Sometimes we talk about ways to broaden or narrow the search. Or something we’ve read about the client may help us to formulate a good question. Sometimes you think you know what someone is asking, then when you’re ready to start the project questions arise or instinct kicks in. When that happens we just call them back. Here’s a case in point that happened a couple of days ago. A rather long and complex request came in, with many, many questions about mobile messaging. The team that reviewed this all thought it was about ad marketing on mobile devices—cell phones, Palms, and so on. But something about it was bothering me, and I asked the agency contact to go back and ask for confirmation. It turned out they were really looking for marketing activities using road shows, or tours or vehicles that display advertising. Can you imagine if we had done all that research on the wrong topic? It would have been a waste of our time and they would have thought we were insane.

Can you give me a sketch of your most frequent requestors? What types of requests do they make?

Robin Feuerstein: Major League Coach for the Information Services Team Our most frequent requestors are account executives and new business execs, and they generally need information on their prospective clients’ businesses. The type of information required is fairly straightforward—categories, companies, or some issue that’s important to the client. The next most frequent are the account planners or research types. They generally require theoretical or consumer information, such as psychographics or attitudinal information. Then we have our top executives—the holding company level, the top executives of Interpublic. They ask for a lot of ad marketing information for speeches they might be making. It could be something about the growth of global marketing, for example. They need to be briefed for press or Wall Street interviews, or for strategic planning, or—very importantly—for acquisitions. We do a lot of research on different companies that we might be interested in acquiring, or we may research sets of companies in certain disciplines. These are our core competencies. We are starting to get other types of requests from our marketing service agencies, such as press runs for the public relations agencies. The great bulk of what we do, however, is categories and industries—say, the fast food industry, the banking industry, or brands therein. We also do a lot on ad marketing at large, covering the various ad agencies, marketing companies, different topics such as advertising effectiveness and branding. The PDs and I are industry analysts. I cover everything pertaining to toiletries and cosmetics. Others on our staff do food, beverages, financial services, and so on.

When you get a topic that’s fairly new and it’s not in your line of expertise, where do you go next? How do you quickly come up to speed? We seldom face this circumstance, due to our volume of requests. But basically, if one of our Project Directors does not cover an area, either a generalist handles it—we usually have one or two generalists at any given time—or whoever has time

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90 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue pinch-hits. If it’s way out of our range, which rarely happens, we might go to a trade association or a trade publication or even an outside consultant. We have a loose network of consultants whom we have worked with in the past. We cover the top advertising and marketing topics and categories in the country—everything from packaged goods to services to restaurants and such. These are all the businesses that Interpublic companies have or are trying to get clients in—basically every business with significant advertising and marketing activity and budgets.

How do you package and deliver your results? Most often, we write a brief. Depending on timing and our level of expertise, it could range from a short summary of a few sentences all the way to a multipage analytical write-up. We believe very strongly in the value added. The key is providing context or perspective to our requestor. Over half of our work is for our non-U.S.A. client companies, so it’s important to give them background as to how a topic fits into the U.S.A., or what it means. Even for the domestic requestors, we try to provide a broader perspective than has been asked for. I feel it’s critical for someone to understand the meaning behind something, not only what they are specifically asking for. Being in the business so long and hearing what our requestors need enables us to sometimes know better than they do what they really need or should be asking. We generally include major attachments to the brief. We always try to narrow down what we include, since nobody seems to have the time to read piles of information. This is really the best-case scenario—what we try to do if we’re given enough time. If time is really short, though, it can be just the old proverbial “rip-and-ship,” or an email with attachments. We always try to give them something helpful, even if it’s just a sentence.

Robin Feuerstein: Major League Coach for the Information Services Team

Following our earlier discussion, I get the impression that you get more long-term projects than quick reference requests. It’s probably about even. But the PDs tend to handle longerterm projects while the Agency Liaison group and the agencies themselves handle quick reference. The longest lead times we are generally given are when clients want a presentation on a subject. For that we often get two or three months, which gives us time to really dig in, learn everything we need to learn, and write the presentation.

That’s a luxury and rare in our business. Yes. Sometimes, when clients come in from other countries, they schedule their visit that much in advance. Sometimes, we’re lucky enough that they even think to call us in advance. We’ve also had some calls at the last minute—“My client’s coming in a week—or tomorrow. Can you do something?” Here is where the benefits of cultivating searchers into long-term analysts come in. We can often sit down with a client and have a serviceable informal discussion at a moment’s notice.

What kinds of online services do you rely on for business and secondary research? We subscribe to the usual suspects; those would be LexisNexis [124], Factiva [82], Dialog [57], Investext [116], and Productscan Online [167].

How do you become experts on all these tools? We rely on the online vendors for training and refresher sessions. Basically, we’re large enough and spend enough that they come in here as needed. We also have certain staff members become expert in the lesser-used services. They might handle searches on those services, regardless of the topic. As for books and other nononline materials, we rely on our more experienced

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92 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue researchers to train the newbies when they’re hired, because we still get a lot from books and media. Online would not necessarily be our first choice for histories of brands, proofs of ads, and very broad topics.

How do you determine the best sources for a given project? That depends, of course, on the type of question and the deadline. It could be any combination, in no particular order, of commercial online databases, the Internet, our own books and vertical files, outside sources such as business libraries, the 4As, and the Advertising Research Foundation [296]—whom we rely on for the more theoretical advertising questions—trade associations, publications, consultants, you name it. If somebody is unfamiliar with the topic, she may start with the Internet to gain a quick understanding of possible search terms. If the deadline is tight, we might just do whatever is fastest. That might mean going online to LexisNexis, say, and sending a quick email with the results, rather than doing something more time consuming, like a spin through the files, prowling the Internet, or phoning around. We librarians are a democratic bunch, with a small “d.” We like to think we treat every client the same way. But we all know that for top execs, or a critical project such as a new business pitch, we might go even an extra mile more than the extra mile that we go for everybody, and call an additional expert or Wall Street analyst, or get a research report.

What Web search engines and sites do you rely on? For me, it’s Google [93]. I had read over and over that my fellow librarians prefer it, so I started using it. Generally, it works well for me. Our Project Director John Lovari concurs and points out that the results seem a lot more targeted than those from other search engines. I, for one, am anxious to see this new

Robin Feuerstein: Major League Coach for the Information Services Team Teoma [203] I’ve heard so much about. Some members of my staff are fond of AltaVista [20], Hotbot [106], and Northern Light [151], although Northern Light has now moved away from the free search engine model. Our Intranaut, Irene Filippi, and others on our staff prefer sites from recognizable sources such as associations and the government—something with authority. Most of us tend to prefer Boolean logic and other ways to focus our search results, although sometimes, for basic reference questions, it’s fun not to have to think at all and just pop in the question, like on Ask Jeeves [25], for instance. A few people like to use the site map feature and I agree with this, especially if I’m not finding what I need and I suspect it should be there. As for portals, Yahoo! [229] is a good place to start. Information specialist Florrie Cohen recommends About.com [5], Refdesk.com [174], and CEOExpress [42]. I have had great success with all of these as well. I would add the Librarians’ Index to the Internet [125]. Of course, we rely on the portals or sites of our important trade publications as well, such as Adweek.com [16] and AdAge.com [13]. Our Project Directors all have favorites in their subject areas. We also use the Web-based WARC (World Advertising Research Center) [227]; it contains a compendium of articles and reports on the more theoretical aspects of our business. We like the University of Texas site [15], which is a portal to information on a wide array of ad/marketing topics, as is the Zenith Media site [232]. Check out the neat timeline of noteworthy events in communications. We’ve recently subscribed to Mind Advertising [140]. We have not had much chance to use it yet, but it looks like it has a lot of useful information on agencies, clients, and brands.

How do you find those useful Web sites? Is there someone on your staff who compiles and disseminates new sites?

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94 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue Our professionals do a great job of keeping us all informed through sharing and word of mouth. Our Intranaut has responsibility for keeping up on this subject as well. We all look at publications such as The CyberSkeptic’s Guide [52], Searcher [183], EContent [69], Information Today [109], and BUSLIB-L [40], a business searcher discussion group. We circulate the best of these to each other. I have a wonderful, highly organized set of bookmarks, and I would be greatly inconvenienced, to say the least, if I ever lost it.

Can you illustrate for me some of the unusual and fun projects you and your staff have worked on lately? Were you surprised at the answers you found in record time? Yes! We had a question on consumers of psychic hotlines, to include demographics and psychographics. Resisting the urge to be wise guys, we decided to turn to our legitimate tools. LexisNexis led us to a whole body of publications in this area that we had never delved into. Some of the traditional measurements Web sites, such as Nielsen/Netratings [323], broke out demographics of astrology Web sites. So we actually did very well on that one. We also located a market research report that was exactly on target, but generally requestors tend not to have the budget for this. Here’s a fun one: Stand-up meetings. We called back to find out what this meant. It turns out it was quite literal—meetings in which participants stand for the entire time. Who knew? Our very own Mayor, Mike Bloomberg, encouraged this at Bloomberg L.P. Maybe he’ll conduct city business like this. A lot will get done that way. Another fun one—Scooby Doo experts. Honestly, you can’t make this stuff up. Intranaut Irene Filippi, who happens to specialize in entertainment, reported partial success. We found, on the Internet, Scooby Doo clubs. She did a search on Yahoo!— +“Scooby Doo”+club—after a general search in Google yielded

Robin Feuerstein: Major League Coach for the Information Services Team too much. The deadline only permitted us to send the club URLs to the requestor. Presumably he contacted these Scooby Doo fanatics who might know of, or be, “experts.” For this project, traditional online sources were tapped by the requestor, who also made a call to the license holder. We were called on for our expertise in going beyond what an end-user can do. A “surprising” project might be the one we did on the distances that people go to shop various channels. For instance, do they go five minutes to supermarkets whereas they might go a half hour to discount stores? I didn’t think there’d necessarily be an answer for that one, but surprisingly, the Statistical Abstract of the United States [195] led Nancy Kalish to information from various government agencies. There was excellent information in an old favorite of ours, American Demographics [22], which we found through online searching. We actually lucked out on that one. Not much we do is “surprising,” though. I always expect there to be an answer, even if it is only an answer “of sorts,” or a lead. It just depends on whether we are good enough, creative enough searchers to find it. In my twenty-plus years, I think there might have been only one or two questions for which we did not find any sort of answer or lead. Of course, we’ve had several unanswerable questions because the information asked for was proprietary in nature and we generally do not call companies and try to wrestle the information from them.

How do you use the agency’s intranet? Our holding company Interpublic’s intranet is just about to be launched. We plan to have a presence on it, describing our function and directing people to our own Web site. We do have a page of description on the Interpublic Web site. And we have our own Web site, CMI Online, which we’ve developed. It contains a full selection of our current reports, contact information, and so on. It’s available to everyone working in Interpublic companies but not directly to their clients. We have a lot of exciting plans for the future, such as having our category researchers “host” subject areas.

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Bearing in mind all the online subscriptions, print, and nontraditional tools you have, how do you allocate training time for your staff and yourself? Do you provide training for end-users? Our staff is thoroughly professional, and our interests lie in areas other than training. So we have an informal, “as needed” approach to training. We encourage our staff to get trained on new tools and refreshed on existing tools. We rely heavily on our vendors for this. I may make suggestions about who should get trained, or further trained, if I see a need. But basically it’s up to the professionals to decide for themselves. As for the end-user, every contract that we maintain on behalf of Interpublic explicitly includes unlimited onsite training and enhanced customer support. We inform end-users of this when we enter into contracts with the vendors. Some of our more proactive vendors approach end-users directly and offer highly tailored training.

This segues to my next point. How do you acquire new skill sets? First of all, Interpublic is very supportive of our taking outside seminars, academic courses, and degrees. We learn a lot this way. The Internet was the last big thing. Basically, we all learned on our own and shared information with each other. Some of us have taken some formal courses. Negotiating global contracts is a new skill for us. I and others on our staff, Neil Bindelglass in particular, picked it up. I became a skilled negotiator mostly through “trial by fire” and learning from my boss, Interpublic Senior Vice President, Ron Sugarman. Neil and I exchange helpful hints and we’ve taken a few courses. Negotiating global contracts has become an important part of my job. I just stepped in and grabbed it when I saw the need.

Robin Feuerstein: Major League Coach for the Information Services Team Management has responded extremely favorably. But it was not something I’d ever been taught or done before.

What are some of the biggest challenges you run into in servicing your clients? One is quickly coming up to speed in a new discipline when Interpublic acquires a company in that discipline. For example, when we got into public relations we discovered that this discipline really required a different kind of research service than we were used to giving. It requires exhaustive and comprehensive literature searches, which, ironically, we have been evolving away from in our march toward the value-added. Heretofore, CMI had prided itself on providing a highly massaged selection of materials and analysis—no “data dumps” for us. Needless to say, we are helping them out with these sorts of searches now, but the idea is to get them to be self-sufficient in this aspect of their work, which we can easily accomplish through our global online contracts. Another challenge is publicizing CMI to and servicing a brand-new management. Nearly the entire top tier of IPG executives has changed in the past year or so. How do we do this? Well, our Director, Ron Sugarman, is a long-time Interpublic employee and knows the executives who come from within. He does a good job of getting the new execs to sit down so he can explain our services. It all works. We put the appropriate parties on distribution lists for some of our current awareness and breaking news services. We try to make them, or their assistants, aware of desktop tools that might help them. A challenge unique to us as a holding company is occasionally helping competing agencies with the same pitch. Instinctively, you might think we would send them the same materials to give them the same background. However, a lot depends on the questions they ask. They could actually end up getting quite a different set of materials for the same pitch. A related challenge is understanding and keeping up with the informational needs of

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98 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue many, many companies with all sorts of information capabilities—from zero, to agencies with their own full libraries. And finally, we face the same challenge that everybody can relate to in tight economic times like these—doing more with less, doing things quicker.

Looking back to the first year you joined the industry, how different are the resources and the methods of searching vs. today? And what kind of impact did the Internet have on your ability to conduct research and serve a wider audience? I love this question. Okay, so now will you know that I’m a relic of some kind? At my first job, we had no online databases. I’m sure many readers cannot imagine this. This was probably the most profound shift in the history of the information business. In the “old days,” a great deal of time was spent looking things up in indexes. You often had to look under several terms, since you could not use “and” or “or” search logic the way you can electronically. To retrieve the articles, you then had to get on the phone and call around trying to locate the publications you did not have in-house. Or, you took a trip to the library where you could use media such as microfilm or microfiche, a time-consuming process. The development of online databases and, to a lesser extent, the Internet drastically reduced search and retrieval time, thus enabling us to put that time into analysis. What a win/win situation! Better information for the client, and much more interesting work for the information professional. The Internet is partially responsible for bringing information to the desktops of our clients. By partially, I mean that it compelled the traditional online vendors to develop interfaces that would enable endusers to use them with a minimum of training. Prior to these developments, you would not even entertain the thought of

Robin Feuerstein: Major League Coach for the Information Services Team putting the “old-fangled,” clunky online databases onto the desktops of end-users. At our operating companies, nearly everyone has access to the Internet. Now that the traditional online databases have become more user-friendly, we are in the process of negotiating global contracts, which give end-users these powerful tools to do simple searching such as companies and bios. This saves them the time of calling us, explaining what they need, and waiting for a response. We do hope they call on us if they cannot find what they are looking for. We try to assist them by having our resident Intranaut, Irene Filippi, recommend and disseminate on our Web site useful Web search engines for them to use.

What print resources do you use heavily in your work? Some of our most important print resources are also available online, but we use them in the print form for reasons such as convenience or price. I don’t know how we survived before the Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands [255] and the Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns [256] were published. We also rely on Brandweek’s SuperBrands annuals [243], Advertising Age’s Agency Billings and Leading National Advertisers annuals [2], Value Line [219], Veronis Suhler Directories [221], the World Almanac [294], Statistical Abstracts of the United States, Encyclopedia of Associations [253], Standard Periodical Directory [284], Standard & Poor’s Industry Surveys [193], and U.S. Industry Profiles [291]. Other important print resources include a series of books on brands by David Aaker [233, 234, 235, 236, 237] and the New Strategist [270] books on demographics information.

Do you have interests outside of work that naturally blend in with your job? I think that, in our profession, everything is applicable. I read a lot, and I’m constantly bringing in articles and ads. Heaven

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100 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue help the person who tries to read a magazine after I’ve been through it. Take something as seemingly unrelated as the gym. Well, I’ve hired from there. I was able to predict a lot from someone’s approach to exercise about her demeanor and work ethic. My participation in the New York City marathon helped me develop more focus, discipline, and goal-setting skills—all very good qualities for this job. Another interest of mine is figure skating, spectator more than participator, and I absorb a lot about sports marketing, believe it or not. For example, which skaters endorse products and why, do endorsement activities have any impact on their performance? It’s the same story with my love of baseball, especially the New York Yankees. In addition to the marketing angle, I’ve learned a lot from Joe Torre’s management style, believe it or not. Those who are not so in tune with the baseball world might be interested to know that his management skill set was the subject of a lengthy Fortune magazine [90] article written by Jerry Useem (April 30, 2001). So others concur with me. Watching him relate to his players has been a positive learning experience for me. His management book, Ground Rules for Winners [288], is an excellent read. I gravitated to it because I know there are some similarities in our styles, and I tremendously admire his success in team building. I take my management responsibilities very seriously, and I’m constantly reading and taking courses on this subject. My husband is in the telecom field. Listening to him talk about his day-to-day work has given me a much better understanding of this extremely complex subject, which is one of our busiest practice areas. Thus, I’m better able to discuss projects with our telecom specialist here.

When you are in a hiring mode, what kind of background do you look for in a candidate?

Robin Feuerstein: Major League Coach for the Information Services Team A broad background—for instance, liberal arts. I look for good communication skills, since we do a lot of client presentations and writing. I try to assess whether someone has good judgment or not. Due to information glut, I believe we perform an important function in selecting the most germane information for our audience, i.e., “less is more.” People at CMI need to be flexible, willing to learn, and not prickly when it comes to being edited. Further, I look for curiosity, perseverance, and creativity, which enable you to slog on when an answer seems elusive. Finally, people who do best at CMI are self-starters—I do not enjoy micro-managing—have a passion for what they do, and are conscientious and committed to excellence. We have assembled a team in which many members exhibit most of the qualities I’ve mentioned. It is an extremely talented team, and it is my good fortune and pleasure to work with its members every day. I learn so much from them. I enjoy their company and their suggestions.

Would you like to address anything we haven’t covered? I’d like to point out that at CMI we have worked simultaneously to roll products out to the end-user desktop while upgrading our skills for analysis and complex searching, Internet expertise, and so on. We have transferred a lot of basic search activities to the nonresearchers here at CMI. This frees up the PDs for more challenging work and gives staff who heretofore had mostly administrative duties, marketable professional skills. I don’t know if this is right for everyone, but it has been embraced by our organization. In all honesty, there have been some fits and starts, but this is how we are evolving. I do believe that this is the direction of our industry and that all information professionals should be thinking of ways to upgrade their services in terms of sophistication, to remain relevant as better and better searchers, with more and more tools, begin to populate the workplace. I also believe we should get into the forefront of putting these tools on the desktops of end-users. Who

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102 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue better than us to select which tools are best for our users? In many organizations, IT departments are handling this aspect, and I have heard several horror stories. We are fortunate that this is not the case at CMI. We really are the content experts. We must continue to develop core competencies. We specialize in categories and industries. I honestly believe we are the best in the country in covering categories that are advertised and marketed. I do not believe that any facility can compete with us. But in order to maintain this high level of excellence, I have no hesitation to outsource some of the labor-intensive questions, way out of our core competencies, that come to us occasionally. Another point that I would like to make is that, in the world of advertising and marketing, the consumer is king. We can support our clientele better these days by milking the Internet for consumer feedback sites and such, so our companies and clients will be aware of what’s being said about them, often to large audiences. Deja, now known as Google Groups [94], and PlanetFeedback [164] are good places to start for this. I’d also like to say that anyone interested in advertising should go for it. You'll love it! Be familiar with what the 4As, the Advertising Research Foundation, and the Association of National Advertisers [302] have to offer. Before I moved into management, I used to say, “I can’t believe they pay me to do this … it’s so much fun!” Now that I am in management, I really earn my pay.

If you were not in advertising, what would you be doing? Announcing Yankee games or being a post-game interviewer. Yes, with locker room privileges. Honestly, these are the only jobs on the planet that might be better than mine.

Robin Feuerstein: Major League Coach for the Information Services Team


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We tend to use a wide variety of materials, not just online. For example, online would not necessarily be the first choice for histories of brands, proofs of ads, and very broad topics.

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Some of our most useful general-purpose Web sites are About.com, Refdesk.com, and CEOexpress, as well as the Librarians’ Index to the Internet.

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We rely on ad industry Web sites such as Adweek. com and AdAge.com, the World Advertising Research Center, the University of Texas site, and the Zenith Media site.

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We believe very strongly in the value added. The key is providing context or perspective to our requestor.

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We can support our clientele better these days by milking the Internet for consumer feedback sites like Google Groups and PlanetFeedback, so our companies and clients will be aware of what’s being said about them, often to large audiences.

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Joe Torre’s management book, Ground Rules for Winners, is an excellent read.

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Leslie Cole Expert on the AfricanAmerican and Urban Consumer Markets Leslie is Vice President and Director of Information Services at Burrell Communications Group based in Chicago. She manages information services for the nation’s leading advertising agency specializing in AfricanAmerican and urban consumer marketing. [email protected] www.burrell.com

Can you tell me about your background? I graduated from the University of Illinois with a B.A. in History and Political Science. Although I had worked in libraries in high school and in college, I never considered becoming a professional librarian. Right after graduation, I taught first grade in one of the Chicago public schools. I quit teaching—of course, these days no one would think of quitting a job without having another one— and one day as I was roaming around the main Chicago Public Library I saw an employment notice for research assistants. I thought, “That might be interesting,” remembering that I had worked in libraries before and enjoyed it. So I thought I’d give it a try, and “the rest is history.”

After working in the public library, where did you go next? From the public library I went to a city social service agency. I taught myself the Dewey Decimal System and created a library from scratch. While that was fun, I thought that working for a

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106 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue corporation might be more challenging. So I moved on to an engineering firm, knowing absolutely nothing about railroads, mass transit, or bridges. In addition to learning all about civil engineering, I also took on the task of records management and had to teach myself that subject. I decided that I was meant to be a librarian and went to Rosary College, which is now called Dominican, and got a master’s in Library Science (MLS). My next job at Sara Lee Corporation’s Chicago headquarters was my dream job. It was very exciting because I got to start another library from scratch and work with really smart people from all across the country. Throughout my career, I’ve developed a specialty in designing research facilities, resources, and services for organizations, as well as honing my research skills. At Sara Lee we conducted research for corporate marketing, and for mergers and acquisitions staff. We had a wide range of subjects to look at—everything from hot dogs to baked goods, vacuum cleaners to handbags and hosiery. We also supported all U.S. and global divisions and subsidiaries. We looked at a huge variety of industries and products, researching their market share, financial data, and consumer and demographic data.

From a global conglomerate environment, what made you shift to advertising and marketing? Advertising has always had a well-deserved glamorous reputation. So, when the opportunity arose at Burrell, I jumped at it. I’ve always been interested in popular culture, design, and the arts, and again, it was an opportunity to start a library from scratch. Also, because Burrell Communications Group is one of the leading agencies in African-American and urban consumer markets communications, it was an opportunity for me to gain specific expertise in a new area. Although we’re on Michigan Avenue, not Madison Avenue, Chicago is a hub for some of the best global advertising agencies and advertising. It’s a great city for working in the advertising business.

Leslie Cole: Expert on the African-American and Urban Consumer Markets

How different was your research function at Sara Lee compared to what you do now for Burrell? At Sara Lee, we looked at very specific trade and industry data, and at very detailed company data. At Burrell, I spend more time keeping up with industry and consumer news, researching trends in advertising, media, consumer behavior and buying habits, music, and fashion trends. I provide research that supports our new business activities by digging up relevant information on companies and industries, competitive advertising expenditures and market share trends, and consumer and demographic data. What I’m doing now builds on my past experience and goes beyond it.

Does online searching play a significant part in looking for answers to your questions? It depends on the question being asked. If the inquiry is about a company, the first place to go is its Web site. It’s amazing, the information you can get not only immediately, but for free. You can learn a lot from consulting a company’s Web site: press releases that tell you about new products, management, financial data, events, key people, and much more. Online searching, whether it’s through contracting with Factiva [82, see Appendix] or using free government and industry Web sites, has profoundly changed our profession. I believe that knowledge managers should take leadership roles in their organizations and spread the word about this invaluable resource.

Do you have a favorite online service that you rely on? What features do you like best? I like Dow Jones Interactive, now Factiva, and Dialog [57] very much. Factiva is wonderful for up-to-date news and for retrospective research, and it also indexes some of the major

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108 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue African-American magazines and newspapers. I like to use Dialog when I want to focus on a specific subject or area. Their files are so defined that, for example, you can go directly to the MARS database—the Marketing and Advertising Reference Service [133]—or to Magazine Database [132], which covers the key African-American magazines like Ebony [67], Essence [77], Jet [117], and Black Enterprise [29].

When you select a Web site, how do you evaluate it for content and usability? The same way I would evaluate any other service. It needs to be authoritative, accurate, and current. And it needs to be inclusive of what I’m looking for. I don’t want to go to five or six different Web sites if I don’t have to, to find what I’m looking for.

What are your favorite Web sites and search engines? Google [93] is by far my favorite search engine. Through Google, you can find just about anything you want. And it leads you to other links very easily. I also have favorite sites for specific subjects, for news, music, for industry updates, and so on. I also use FindArticles.com [85], which is very good, and it’s free. For African-American consumer market information, say on music, there are a number of hip-hop sites, like 360hiphop.com [3], SOHH.com [188], and the Original HipHop Lyrics Archive [159]. VIBE [222], a very popular music magazine, has a Web site. If I’m looking for news, I’ll use AfroCentric News [19] or BlackHeadlines.com [30] or BlackPressUSA.com [31]. Then there’s Africana.com [18]—a very good reference source. These are some of the Web sites I use when I’m scanning for the latest news. There are many, many good African-American-oriented Web sites. They cover everything—from music to book reviews to celebrities’ own sites.


How did you find those Web sites? There are a number of ways. Yahoo! [229] has a listing. About.com [5] has a listing, too. And Digital Librarian [58] has an excellent listing of African-American Web sites. Links are everywhere. You just have to be selective, continuously evaluate the site, and compare it to others that may have better content, more current information, and so on.

Can you give me a profile of your frequent requestors and the types of research they need? We provide research to staff from all departments as well as folks in our Atlanta office. We get questions from media planners, copywriters, art directors, client services, public relations, new business, and research staffers. For the creative people, we frequently check slogans and tag lines, look for specific print ads or TV commercials, for pictures and/or biographies of history makers and current celebrities. We look for poetry. We check songs to see if they are in the public domain. Client services staff wants to know what their clients’ competitors are up to. They also want regular updates on the state of the industry they are working in. Trends are extremely important—not only creative trends but also cultural, economic, demographic, and attitudinal trends. We compile and disseminate reports that include published studies and articles. We also clip lots of pictures and hang them for staff to review and see for themselves. Information Services makes reels of the latest commercials available for review as well. What I find so exciting about working in an ad agency is that you get to become knowledgeable about information and resources on a wide variety of industries. And you have the ability to turn that information into knowledge that can be put to work to build your agency and your clients’ businesses.

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Where do you go next when you can’t find the answer online? One of my favorite resources is an old standard—the telephone. Go directly to the source for the most authoritative data. The source could be a professor, the writer of a research paper, an expert quoted in an article. It could be someone in a particular company, at a manufacturer, or a writer for a trade publication. Often it’s a trade association.

Can you describe some of your research work on urban youth and multicultural audiences, and how you find relevant resources? We do environmental scans of the music sites that are youth and music oriented. I mentioned some of them earlier. There are huge numbers of music sites where you can see what stars are popular, who’s upand-coming, what they’re wearing. We like the print newsletters from EPM, such as Youth Markets Alert [295] and Marketing to Emerging Majorities [266]. In terms of the youth market, there are good publications on this topic from TRU (Teenage Research Unlimited) [202]. We manually review many publications that are not indexed anywhere. We find multicultural resources by keeping our eyes open, surfing the Internet, following links and other leads, and being on publishers’ and other organizations’ mailing lists.

Have you introduced any news alert or current awareness initiative at the agency? Yes, I come to work early and create a report based on what I scan that particular morning. I get daily emails on advertising from Moreover.com [141], from UnityFirst.com [212], which deals with the African-American market in general, and from the MediaLife magazine [137] Web site.

Leslie Cole: Expert on the African-American and Urban Consumer Markets After reviewing those, plus the ad trade Web sites and major national newspapers, I put together at least two emails to staff, one on advertising news—we call it “Advertising News You Can Use”—and one on urban market news. We concentrate on culture because many global trends actually start among African-American youth and cross over to the general population. We maintain a leg up on our competition by providing news that staff can access and share with their clients. We email news alerts every morning and, when we have time, target them to specific client groups.

Given the target audiences for the agency, which are the urban youth and AfricanAmerican market, what unique information tools can’t you do without, either print or online? The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies [309] has Philip Morris’ Directory of African-American Organizations on its Web site. Gale Research also has the African-American Information Directory [239]. Africana.com and the Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History [252] are invaluable. I can’t live without Target Market News’ publication The Buying Power of Black America [245]. It’s U.S. consumer expenditure survey data that’s been massaged and reported in a way that’s very useful to us. Market Segment Group [135] in Miami, Florida, has the important Ethnic Market Report [257]. Packaged Facts [272] has published reports on the African-American market and on the urban youth market. It’s secondary information that’s been repackaged and summarized in one book. Gale Publications has a series, Contemporary Black Biography [247], that profiles living, accomplished African-Americans.

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What’s the biggest challenge you run into in servicing your clients and agency people? The biggest challenge is that a lot of the information available for the general market is not actually available for the AfricanAmerican market. For example, when you buy a car or a house, it’s illegal to be asked your race. The information we need is not always readily available by race.

How do you keep up with everything? What do you read? What discussion groups do you participate in? I rely on ResearchBuzz [176] for what’s new on the Web and other useful tools. I am a member of the Special Libraries Association [321] and its business and advertising chapters. I also belong to the Public Relations Society of America [318] because I also do some PR agency work. It’s very synergistic with my library work. Both fields rely on taking information, evaluating it, summarizing it, repackaging it, while making certain that what you are repackaging and disseminating is highly relevant to your audience.

Speaking of repackaging, how do you package information requests and how do you deliver the results? Our staff still likes print. Many are so busy at work that they want to be able to take our research with them to read at home. So, we package it “to go.” People want us, as the “infomediary,” to summarize or highlight the material. At a minimum we review and highlight the most relevant data with underlining, making sure to delete anything that doesn’t address the request. If the research is about a company, say, for a new business pitch, we do a comprehensive summary page that covers what people want to know right away: revenue, net income, brands, ad expenditures, market share, key competitors, key people, ad agencies.


How do you approach doing “people” searches? I’m talking here about potential spokespersons, talent as well as corporate people. For corporate folk, I would conduct a Dialog search to see if the person has been quoted, if I can find a speech, or if they’re involved in activities in their community. Many entertainers have their own Web sites now. There are sites like Black Talent Network Online [32] and Black Athlete Sports Network [28].

What are your personal interests outside of work? I watch a lot of TV, and I don’t zap the commercials! I really try to keep my eyes open for creative trends, celebrities being used, slogans and so on, and I review a lot of magazines to see what’s going on in popular culture.

Can you discuss how you searched and found the answer to a particularly obscure topic in record time? Yes. We were working on an anti-smoking campaign. We were trying to compare the numbers of African-Americans who have died from smoking to other ways of dying like, for example, automobile accidents. Creative staff wanted to know how many African-Americans have died in shark attacks. We went on the Internet, and one thing led to another. After having asked ourselves a series of questions about where we could find such data, such as where do shark attacks take place, our detective work led us to an expert on the topic. We called a professor of ichthyology at the University of Florida and got the answer to that question.

What kinds of fun projects do you get involved in?

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114 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue One of the most fun projects was a new business pitch for a very big, high-profile account. The entire agency was involved. We had hundreds of pictures, leaflets, posters, reference books, and CDs. We were down on our hands and knees looking at pictures, listening to music, and brainstorming. For the library staff, it was very rewarding because we were heavily involved in the creative process from beginning to end.

If you were not in advertising, what would you be doing? I would probably either be in public relations or I would be teaching young people research skills. That’s something I would like to do.

Would you like to say anything we haven’t covered in this interview? I think the secret to being successful—and by successful, I mean making a contribution to your organization—is to really understand your organization, its goals and information needs. You need to know how the information you’re asked for is going to apply to your company and to your requestor’s goals. Always go beyond being a gatekeeper. Emphasize service. Retrieve relevant information that goes beyond library walls and beyond the actual question asked. The Internet allows us greater creativity in addressing our organizations’ needs than ever. Be creative, and have fun becoming a super searcher.


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We concentrate on culture because many global trends actually start among African-American youth and cross over to the general population.


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For African-American consumer market information on music, there are a number of sites, like 360hiphop.com, SOHH.com, the Original Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive, and VIBE, a very popular music magazine.

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I come to work early and create a report based on what I scan that particular morning. I get daily emails on advertising from Moreover.com, from UnityFirst. com, which deals with the African-American market in general, and from MediaLife magazine.

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I like to use Dialog when I want to focus on a specific subject or area. Their files are so defined that, for example, you can go directly to the MARS database, the Marketing and Advertising Reference Service, or to Magazine Index, which covers the key AfricanAmerican magazines like Ebony, Essence, Jet, and Black Enterprise.

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In order to truly contribute to your organization, you need to understand your organization, its goals and information needs, and how the information requested applies to the organization and the requestor’s goals.

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Dan Carlton “Digger Dan” the Account Planner Dan is an Account Planner at mckinney+ silver, which was named “Southeast Ad Agency of the Year” by Adweek for 2000. His planning experience includes work with Nordstrom, BMW, Bacardi, and Audi, among others. Dan began his planning career at Fallon Minneapolis. He doesn’t miss the winters. [email protected] www.mckinney-silver.com

Can you share with me your earliest experience on the Internet? My first Internet experience was in high school. I was at a friend’s house working on a group project for class. His family had just gotten a subscription to Prodigy. We jumped online to look up something in an encyclopedia, but soon found ourselves wasting the night on ESPN’s site. Thinking back on it, it was pretty enthralling. Up until that point, the TV stations and newspapers filtered every piece of sports information a person saw. For the first time I could absorb myself with only the teams, players, and statistics I cared about.

How do you find useful Web sites? How do you evaluate the authority and accuracy of their contents? Friends. It’s ironic, but word of mouth is what directs me to the best places on the Web. It’s easy to get duped on the Net. Even

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118 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue search engines are suspect nowadays. Friends and colleagues seem to be the best editors of content. I’ll also follow the recommendations of offline media on occasion. Like them or not, they’re still the best at creating and presenting valuable content. As far as the authority and accuracy of a site is concerned, I usually only look for one thing: It needs to be more than a Web site. What I mean by that is that the company behind the site must present its information through more “mediums” than just the Internet.

What kind of impact did the Internet have on your ability to accelerate information-gathering? Having been introduced to the Internet at an early age, I’ve never really been without it. I’ve appreciated that. The college I went to even issued laptops to all its students and provided Internet access in each dorm room. I can literally count on my fingers and toes how many times I actually had to go to the library during my college career. Every project, every paper, was researched from my futon. I feel that this gave me a head start on using the Internet. I think I’m more comfortable with it than most. When I first started in the agency business, co-workers would come to me when they needed to find relatively obscure information. It earned me the nickname “Digger Dan.” I could dig up pretty much anything from the Internet.

When you can’t find the information online, where do you go next? What in-house and external sources do you tap? I always lean on our Market Information Manager within the agency. She has a more extensive knowledge of all of the resources that are available. I’m comfortable with the ones that I use often, but if I’m working on a new business project, for example, that’s in a category that I’m not familiar with, she will

Dan Carlton: “Digger Dan” the Account Planner know which industry Web sites would be helpful and where I should start my search. So I always turn to her. We also use a service called Find/SVP [86, see Appendix], which is great for quick turnaround information dumps whenever I have a specific question. I can just phone it to them and they will have, within a couple of days, a stack of information for me. I’ve used the 4As (American Association of Advertising Agencies) [298] a number of times for these types of searches, too. They can pull a good amount of information from their Member Information Services. One resource that I think is too often overlooked, and which I’ve found helpful on a number of occasions, is the public library. At my first agency, I remember working with a client that was just launching a new line of meat products. There was this dusty book at the Minneapolis Public Library [312] that was probably about sixty years old, which provided our team with some really cool inspiration and helped us think about our assignment in a different way.

Can you tell me what account planning is all about? How does it work? In simplest terms, planners help lay the strategic foundation upon which a brand and its communications are built and executed. To do this, planners work at uncovering new insights that can help make a brand more relevant and distinctive. Many times this comes from understanding the consumer—not just what they want from a particular product, but also how they use it, what role it plays in their lives, and even how they live their lives in general. This has resulted in many people calling planners the “consumer voice” or “consumer representative” in the brand development process.

What does it take to become an account planner?

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120 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue A genuine curiosity with a healthy dose of cynicism. If you’re not constantly questioning things, you’re in the wrong job.

What is your background? Did that help you break into planning? I grew up as the ninth of ten children. All were adopted— many from different parts of the world. I have a brother from Guatemala. I have two sisters from Vietnam who were baby-lifted at the end of the Vietnam war. My youngest sister is from South Korea. Since I grew up in a culturally and racially diverse family, I’ve grown to understand different types of people. It has given me a greater understanding of what makes people tick. One brother has very methodically worked his way up to a vicepresidency at a technology firm, while another quit his international marketing job with GM and moved to South Carolina to work and play golf every day of his life. Another was an outstanding Marine and has aspirations of becoming a rock star. We all have very different stories that make for a good study on human behavior.

From your point of view, what kind of agency culture is most conducive to the account planning function? A collaborative culture where each discipline is on equal ground. This doesn’t mean we always need to agree with each other; a little tension can be a good thing. But you’ll notice that the agencies where one department constantly holds the trump card always seem to self-destruct, or teeter on the edge of mediocrity. I’d hate to work in either of those environments. I’d also say a learning culture. If an agency and their client partners think they already have everything figured out, account planning is just a paper tiger. One thing I strive to do is get people I work with to think about things in a new way. That’s the only way a brand can really grow. Status quo is like a death sentence. At mckinney+silver, we talk about helping clients create new

Dan Carlton: “Digger Dan” the Account Planner futures for their brands by opening their eyes to things they never thought were possible. We can only do this for clients if we challenge ourselves within the agency to continue learning … and challenge our own assumptions every now and then.

Where do you find information to help articulate your strategy? How do you obtain industry background and competitive information? I see each project as a two-part process. The first is defining the problem you’re trying to solve. The second part is setting out to solve it. Sounds intuitive, but the first step usually receives short shrift. Too many people are so geared up to dig into the project that they miss this step. I think Einstein said something like “a problem well defined is a problem half solved.” I truly believe that. In defining the problem, the Internet is an invaluable resource. You can thoroughly investigate the brand and the company behind it. You can see what customers think about the brand at Epinions.com [75] or PlanetFeedback [164], how the competitors market themselves at AdCritic.com [9], eCreativeSearch [70], or AdForum [11], what the analysts and investors are saying at Hoovers Online [105] or Company Sleuth [48], what their own employees are saying at Vault.com [220], and what the future holds for the industry. A lot of this information can be found on industry Web sites or even a company’s own Web site and annual report. All of these resources can help me understand what might be “wrong,” and how advertising and brand communications may be able to help fix it. The “solve the problem” stage is where you start developing a plan of attack for primary research. Focus groups are usually the standard. But when I have the opportunity, I prefer to find ways to get closer to the customer and their life. Sometimes this means conducting interviews in their home, going shopping with them, or letting them take you for a drive.

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How important is trend-spotting in your work as a planner? What trend reports do you follow online and in print? Trend spotting is crucial. Most brands would give up their first sub-brand to get credit for starting the next big trend. By the way, brands don’t start trends, people do. But that’s beside the point. Trend reports are great for keeping you up-to-date. Yankelovich [230] does a great job of packaging their trend information. But I’ve found that trend reports are best for pointing you in the right direction. Helping your brand tap into a current trend requires more connecting of the dots. In our planning department we have a dedicated “Pop Culturalist” whose role is essentially to connect the dots. She collects random articles and pieces of information from every source imaginable and pulls together common themes. Themes that generally work within the broader trends outlined by the trend reports but usually much more subversive. One time she even made a connection between Windows NT and sliced peanut butter. She runs what we call a “Consumer Connections” program. Throughout the course of the year, she does her own focus groups—actually, they aren’t traditional focus groups—that are independent of any of our clients. This process almost always requires real conversations with real people, not just focus groups. People who attend focus groups are rarely trendsetters. You have to determine with pinpoint accuracy who the influencers are and hunt them out. Sit down with them and talk to them like a friend, not a researcher. One time we took a group of high school boys to a pizza parlor and just talked about all sorts of unrelated topics such as MTV, theme parks, high school football, the Internet, what bothers them most about adults, et cetera. The discussion wasn’t intended to be about a specific brand. That’s not the point of it. It was about getting a general understanding of who they are and what’s on their minds.

Dan Carlton: “Digger Dan” the Account Planner The role of this Pop Culturalist within our agency is to make not just the planners but also the agency as a whole more culturally aware.

She is a resource for everyone in the agency. Yes. She works within the account planning department, but she’s really a resource for everybody. It’s easy for not just planners but everybody in the agency to get so consumed with their job and with their clients that they don’t see the big picture. That’s what her role is. She’s in charge of making the agency as a whole understand where society is going, what’s the next big thing, and how we can connect our brands with certain subcultures and trends.

How do you keep up with the American zeitgeist? What do you read and listen to? Broadly speaking, I think design is where some of the coolest stuff is happening right now. Flipping through design magazines and product innovation award annuals can help tip you off to the next big trend. At the very least, it’ll force you to look at your own brand and products in a new way.

What are your favorite search engines, e-zines, and chat groups? How do you apply them to your planning projects? I have several favorite search engines, and I use them differently depending on what I’m looking for. I think that, overall, Google [93] is the best. There’s no fluff. It’s just the information that you need. If I have a very obscure or specific question, I can type it into Google, and there’s a fairly good chance that on the first page of results I will find something helpful. If I’m looking for something that’s pretty simple and mainstream, I usually just go to Ask Jeeves [25]—mainly because it categorizes the most relevant Web sites for you. And you can go

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124 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue through the drop-down menus and find specifically what you’re looking for. When I’m looking for personal maps, directions, phone numbers, and that sort of thing, I prefer AltaVista [20]. I think their tools are a little easier to use than Yahoo!’s [229]. As far as e-zines are concerned, Fast Company [84] is one of my favorites. I think business articles in general are a dime a dozen. But Fast Company does a really good job of putting an innovative spin on things. Not only that, they give you tangible ideas to help you actually use the things that they outline, which I find helpful. A lot of times, when I’m in the midst of a project or developing a strategy for one of my brands, I will actually go to fastcompany.com and type in a few relevant words to see what they have. You usually find thought leaders talking about the same topic that you’re trying to communicate to your clients. It helps support and communicate some of your assumptions. I also love The Onion [156]. Whenever I have a spare second I’m on that site because you need to infuse yourself with humor every now and then. That’s the way I look at it.

What about chat sites? What do you use them for? A lot of times I use chat sites for new business projects. Sometimes I just go in and ask who’s owned this type of tire before, and what do you think, and that sort of thing. I get people’s past experiences and recommendations. It’s all pretty superficial stuff, but it can at least point you in the right direction before you start doing the heavy Internet search through articles, Web sites, and trade publications.

When I’m not familiar with a company at all I often check a site like About.com. About.com [5] is a good one, because the discussion groups there tend to stay more on topic. If you’ve ever spent any time in chat rooms, you know that in 95 percent of them the conversation

Dan Carlton: “Digger Dan” the Account Planner is not based on the topic that that chat room was designated for. But the members of the About.com community do a good job of adhering to the topic. If I need to talk about a health issue, I can go to the health chat room, and there’s a better chance that they’re talking about health-related topics than if I went to Yahoo!.

What’s good for connecting to younger audiences? I like Bolt [33]. They do a good job of collecting all the best Gen Y information and links. If you’re dealing with that audience, it’s a good place to start your search.

A book written by Eva Lederman on careers in advertising [265] quoted Leo Burnett, founder of the Leo Burnett agency, saying, “My technique is to saturate myself with knowledge of the product. I believe in good depth interviewing where I come realistically face to face with the people I am trying to sell.” Is this true for account planning? I agree with this for the most part. Planners are generally regarded as the voice of the consumer. But there is a danger in being overly consumer-centric. Consumers are notorious for being future-blind. They can’t tell you what they’ll want in six months. And they don’t long for things that don’t exist yet. If you asked people ten years ago if they would pay $3.50 for a cup of coffee, they’d think you were insane. Now it seems everyone does it. That said, I still think too few marketers truly understand their customers. But I also think insight can come from other areas. Locking on the customer can be paralyzing.

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What observational techniques do you use? How do you take the pulse of the consumer? There are some standard techniques. You ask any planner and they’ll tell you. A lot can be learned by observing how someone shops, how they go up and down the aisle, what they look at, and what they put in their cart. Even how they watch TV, or watching them going through magazines. You can also have people journal their lives over a period of time; usually a week is sufficient. That way you have a better sense of how they spend their time and, in turn, where your brand can fit in their life. But you don’t necessarily need “techniques.” I found that simply socializing with your target audience can be most insightful. Social situations not only give you a glimpse of what they really aspire to be; you also see how other people interact with them. People can tell you anything they want about themselves, but their friends will always give you the straight dope. They will not pull any punches. I always find that interesting.

Can you illustrate for me how you use images and photos in trying to understand the consumers’ habits? How do you dig for those unique insights? There’s great value in using images to understand consumer motivations. It helps them articulate thoughts they’ve never put words to before. Words, by nature, are structured and rational. Thoughts, on the other hand, are rarely either of those. As a planner, that’s what we strive to uncover. Those things beneath the surface tend to be the most insightful. Many times, in focus groups, I’ll have respondents do collage work. They pull images that best represent how they feel about a particular brand. Another thing I’ve done is construct what we like to call mood boards, where each board is a collection of images that is intended to represent the emotional elements of a brand. You can have different positioning territories mapped

Dan Carlton: “Digger Dan” the Account Planner out on different boards and have people react to them. It helps them conceptualize the positioning more vividly than just the written word.

Where do you find your images? What resources do you tap? I’m a little embarrassed to say this, but many people in the agency catch me scavenging through recycling bins for discarded magazines and stock books. I’m always looking for good conceptual images. When I come across an image that is unique and expressive, I rip it out and put it in my file. My drawer full of images is my baby. For some reason, I’ve found the best pickings in men’s magazines, business publications, and airline magazines. However, when I’m looking for a very specific image, I go online. Ditto.com [60] is a cool visual search engine. AltaVista also does a good job of visual searches if you work it right. Also, many of the big stock photo companies have searchable online archives; my favorites are Corbis [49], EyeWire [81], and Masterfile [136].

How did your work as account planner transform you as a consumer? Planning hasn’t really changed me as a consumer. This may sound trite, but the way I’ve always thought about advertising and shopping is what drove me to planning. I vividly remember dissecting the Ronald McDonald ads I saw as a kid when I watched Saturday morning cartoons. I’m a bit embarrassed to say that, but it’s true.

What is the biggest challenge you see in your planning function right now? Resisting conventional thinking. Well-trodden paths rarely lead to new and exciting places. Unfortunately, the well-trodden paths are usually quicker, easier, and have fewer thorns. I’ve got to continue to resist the well-trodden path. In five years, if I’m

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128 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue approaching problems the same way, with the same output, as I am today, I should consider it time to find a new occupation.

What are your interests outside the office that contribute to your work as a planner? Sports. It’s not a sexy answer, but I think it’s invaluable. You need to clear your mind periodically. Saturate yourself with information and then forget about it for a while. This is how my best thoughts germinate. I’ve found playing sports to be the best way to clear my mind.

If you were not in advertising what would you be doing? A semi-pro basketball player in Argentina.


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In defining the problem, the Internet is an invaluable resource. You can thoroughly investigate the brand and the company behind it. You can see what customers think about the brand, how the competitors market themselves, what the analysts and investors are saying, what their own employees are saying, and what the future holds for the industry.

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Simply socializing with your target audience can be most insightful. Social situations not only give you a glimpse of what they really aspire to be, you also see how other people interact with them. People can tell you anything they want about themselves, but their friends will always give you the straight dope.

Dan Carlton: “Digger Dan” the Account Planner

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There’s great value in using images to understand consumer motivations. It helps them articulate thoughts they’ve never put words to before. Words, by nature, are structured and rational. Thoughts, on the other hand, are rarely either of those. As a planner, that’s what we strive to uncover. In focus groups I’ll sometimes have respondents do collage work. They pull images that best represent how they feel about a particular brand.

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A learning culture is very important to an agency that embraces planning. We talk about helping clients create new futures for their brands by opening their eyes to things they never thought were possible. The only way we can do this for our clients is if we challenge our own assumptions every now and then.

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Liz Aviles Trend Spotting and Integrated Marketing Pro Liz works as Director of Information at UPSHOT, a Chicago-based marketing agency named the Agency of the Year by Promo magazine in 1999. Liz established the first Information Center for the agency and supports the information needs of all disciplines at UPSHOT, recently purchase by Equity Marketing Inc. of Los Angeles. [email protected] www.UPSHOTmail.com

Tell me about your background and how you got started in the information industry. After completing my master’s in Library and Information Science at Florida State University, I moved to Chicago with the goal of working in one of the city’s many special libraries. Through the Illinois chapter of the Special Libraries Association [321, see Appendix], I was alerted to an opening at Russell Reynolds, an executive search firm. Little did I know at the time that search firms, especially global firms such as Russell Reynolds, tend to employ a high number of information professionals throughout their organizations. I spent a year at Reynolds’ Chicago office working as a research assistant, serving both their industrial and consumer goods practices. This entailed providing research throughout the life of a search assignment, from the preparation of company and industry overviews for a consultant’s initial contact with a potential new client, to the creation of candidate profiles once an assignment was initiated. In addition to a great deal of online

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132 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue searching, most often via LexisNexis [124], I typically relied on a variety of specialized corporate directories, including those published by trade associations and companies such as Leadership Directories [123]. Intrigued by the opportunity to work in a corporate headquarters serving an international end-user base, I left Reynolds and made the move to Spencer Stuart, another search firm, where I spent three years in their Library Services group. Our team provided research services to the firm’s senior executives, spearheaded Internet training, and managed the firm’s varied, and often global, online subscriber services. In this last capacity, we negotiated contracts, created customized user documentation, administered training, and provided troubleshooting for end-users.

How did you break into the advertising and marketing field? Approximately two years ago, UPSHOT made the strategic decision to create an in-house information center, later called The Source, and hired an information professional to spearhead its creation and administration. Previously, UPSHOT had outsourced the majority of its research needs, but as the agency grew it recognized the obvious advantage in establishing an inhouse information center, especially one aligned with the agency’s overall strategic mission. At this point in my career, not only was the chance to create this type of library from the ground up an appealing opportunity, but I was also excited by the diversity of research projects and responsibilities that the advertising and marketing world afforded.

Along with developing The Source, what kinds of research projects do you provide at UPSHOT? Are they similar to the ones you handled at Spencer Stuart? When I worked in executive search, most of the research I conducted centered on companies, financial information, and,

Liz Aviles: Trend Spotting and Integrated Marketing Pro of course, biographical information. In general, I’d say the key difference in the work I do now lies in its utter diversity. Since UPSHOT’s clients represent so many different industries, including beverages, financial services, consumer package goods, retail, travel, and the automotive industry, I find myself exploring an amazing variety of topics on a daily basis. As a result of the agency’s focus on consumer behavior, I also now spend a great deal of time collecting and disseminating information about our clients’ target demographics. It wasn’t until I moved into the marketing world that I began to research and analyze demographic and psychographic information. Another significant, and definitely exciting, change has come with working in such a creative environment. Serving a creative end-user group has proved to be one of the most unique and fun aspects of working in an agency. I’ve always been interested in art, architecture, and design. I now get to indulge these interests with the specific goal of creating an information center collection that sparks ideas and creativity in our creative teams, while simultaneously supporting the information needs of our account teams and senior management.

Working on such diverse topics, how much online searching do you conduct on the open Web, in relation to fee-based online services? With few exceptions I use the open Web for every request we receive in The Source, at the very least to augment other tools. In my opinion, it is now a matter of due diligence to run just about any type of search on the Web. A few years ago, it seemed that information professionals were often called on to justify the need for subscription-based online services, not to mention print resources. However, I think most end-users are now familiar with the differences between the information available on the open Web vs. elsewhere. Our end-users appreciate the thoroughness of an approach that incorporates information from all types of sources.

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What online services do you most rely on, and why? On a daily basis, I use Factiva [82], Gale Group’s TableBase [198], and Gale Group’s Business & Industry (B&I) [37]. With fantastic coverage of so many retail and marketing publications, B&I and TableBase are essential resources for this industry. I often turn to them for their full-text archives of EPM Communications’ newsletters. EPM publishes newsletters such as Marketing to Women [267], Marketing to Emerging Majorities [266], and Youth Markets Alert [295], all key titles for anyone in a marketing environment. To be comprehensive, I’ll usually run searches on ABI/INFORM [4] on OCLC FirstSearch [153], available to me via our local library consortium, the Chicago Library System [305]. For company-specific information, my search typically begins with Hoover’s Online [105] and may be supplemented with additional information from traditional directory sources such as those produced by Dun & Bradstreet [65] and the type of content you can only get in analyst reports from Investext’s Research Bank Web [175]. Prior to working in the marketing world, I had only a library student’s experience with trademark research. I now execute these types of searches on a regular basis using the Trademarkscan [209] files via Dialog [57]. Although a legal expert is the final decision maker in these situations, I provide our account teams with a full report that includes Trademarkscan results, a search of URL registrations, a literature search, and a Web search.

How do you evaluate Web sites for their content and usability? The same rules apply today as when the Web was in its infancy. I look for currency, objectivity, authority, and logical navigation. I have a librarian’s obsession with the sourcing of

Liz Aviles: Trend Spotting and Integrated Marketing Pro data, so I’m apt to avoid sites that fail to adequately cite their sources or collection methodologies. Since I’m regularly looking for information on retail and consumer goods, I frequently turn to trade association data. However, I’m acutely aware of how their numbers can sometimes be skewed in favor of the association members’ interests, so I try to find a second source whenever possible. In terms of content, I’m especially interested in sites that track consumer trends, both short-term trends or fads, and longerterm cultural shifts. Again, since the agency’s strategic point of differentiation is its focus on consumers, I keep this focus foremost in all the work I do. There are so many excellent news sites, company information sites, and other research-related sources on the Web, but the true gems for me are those sites that allow me to act as a source of consumer trends for the entire agency.

What are your favorite Web sites, search engines, and free Web-based publications? Google [93] is definitely my favorite search engine. Sometimes I feel a little guilty that I’m not turning to other search engines more often. But when I do, in the interest of testing out other search tools, I invariably go back to using Google. Not only is it comprehensive, but also its interface remains clean and simple, while still offering advanced features such as image searching and the indexing of PDF files. For trend-tracking purposes, I routinely scan and read the New York Times Online [150], The New Yorker’s Web site [149], and Salon.com [181]. All three of these sources provide thoughtful, timely coverage of the sort of cultural issues that are so important in creating marketing communications that resonate with consumers. Of course, the Web offers a variety of excellent industryspecific sites including CyberAtlas [51] for online usage statistics and other Internet-related research, Moreover [141] for its free daily company and industry news alerts, and, via email, the

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136 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue GMA’s (Grocery Manufacturers of America) SmartBrief [186] with its daily coverage of the food and food retailing industries. With so much attention recently focused on marketing to kids, teens, and Generation Y, more sources of information about these demographic groups have become available online. One of my favorite sites in this area is definitely the Big Blue Dot Trend Update [26], an online and email biweekly newsletter created by an agency that specializes in youth marketing. Trends among these consumers are fleeting and therefore difficult to track, so it’s great to have a consistent source like that. For professional development purposes I like to look at some of the Web sites maintained by librarians at business schools. Wharton has a great Web site for its business school library called Lippincott Library@Wharton [129]. I like the Baker Library site at Harvard Business School [98], too.

How do you find the Web sites you use most often? I find sites through a variety of sources, including BUSLIB-L [40], which is a business searchers’ discussion group, academic business library Web sites like the ones I mentioned, and just plain word of mouth. Plus, having gotten some great resource recommendations from around the agency, I constantly encourage everyone to tell me about good sites they come across.

Can you give me a sketch of your frequent requestors? And what kind of turnaround time do you typically have? I can honestly say that I receive requests from every function in the agency—account services, agency management, and creative services. However, many of the day-to-day research requests are submitted by account services. The creative teams tend to use the print collection often, albeit independently. The turnaround time is determined by the nature of the request and the requestor’s panic level. Most everyone I work

Liz Aviles: Trend Spotting and Integrated Marketing Pro with has a good sense of the time required to compile relevant information. If someone needs an answer today, I’ll do anything I can to get them that answer. If I cannot, I’ll be certain to provide them with an outline of every avenue I’ve pursued. Typically, cost is the only obstacle that can’t be circumvented. Sometimes, that one perfect but elusive statistic needed for a presentation is locked away in the pages of a costly market research report available only in full text. Needless to say, I love the option to access market research reports by the page, as you can using Dialog Profound [168]. If a question is unclear, as they often are when delivered via email, voice mail, or by a particularly panicky account person, I make every effort to speak to the requestor. Relying on basic reference interview skills, I focus on the intended use of the information to ensure that what’s been requested is actually the best possible answer for the question at hand.

Can you share with me any unusual or fun project you’ve completed? I keep an electronic log of all of our research requests. Looking through that, it’s really hard to highlight any one particular question. I just think in this industry they are so across the board, and so many of the popular culture-related questions, unusual to others, are standard fare for us. I did have something interesting just a few months ago where I ended up talking to Marsha Appel at the 4As (American Association of Advertising Agencies) [298]. She thought it was a great question, too. I had to find or compile a list of all sorts of significant birthdays or anniversaries coming up for 2002, 2003, and 2004. For instance, 2001 was the 100th anniversary of the Oreo cookie. 2002 is the 100th anniversary of the Barnum animal crackers, which they’re commemorating by asking everyone to vote for a new animal. That was a really fun list to compile, and the 4As helped a lot. They were great. We also utilized another service we have access to here, The L.A. Office’s

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138 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue [119] Entertainment Update. They helped out with some of the important movie anniversaries that were coming up. I would say that was one of our more unusual projects.

How do you deliver and package your results? I’m actually very proud of the way my search results are packaged. With a smaller end-user base, I can take the time to cull through my findings, selecting the most relevant information, and editing where necessary. I love the highlighting feature in Microsoft Word. I personally scan every article I download in order to reformat the facts and insights I believe will be most useful. At the end of each package I prepare, I include the tagline “compiled by Liz Aviles at UPSHOT,” the date, and a list of all the sources I’ve used. To further “brand” the work, I give each document a title and paste The Source’s logo at the top of the first page. I’m very keen on the idea of creating a brand for the information center. Working in a creative environment, I’m not one to underestimate the impact of establishing a graphic identity. I strongly recommend taking the time to create and promote an identity in keeping with your agency’s brand. Finally, most of the materials that I’ve retrieved are accompanied by an explanatory email or memo containing a quick overview of the results. I cannot imagine giving a requestor a stack of articles with no analysis on my part. The ability to highlight the most relevant sections while still including the full text satisfies both the type of patron who wants the quick “sound bite” type of answer and those who like to read through everything themselves.

What print resources and external sources do you turn to when the answer is not available online? I’m a big fan of Gale’s Encyclopedia of Business Information Sources [254]. It makes for a good start in the process of selecting resources when we acquire a new client in an industry we

Liz Aviles: Trend Spotting and Integrated Marketing Pro haven’t previously served. I also use Gale’s Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands [255], Gale’s Business Rankings Annual [244], and the IEG Sponsorship Sourcebook [261]. If the answer I’m looking for is not available online or in any of the resources in our print collection, I turn to either the Chicago Reference Hotline, a local library consortium service [305], or the 4As Member Information Services, a professionally staffed advertising and marketing library based in New York. The Hotline is a great resource for access to the type of reference tools typically available at a public library’s reference desk. Since I only rarely need to consult such tools, it doesn’t make sense for me to purchase them for our collection. I consider the 4As an indispensable source of assistance, since it’s hard to imagine that an advertising-related research question exists that they haven’t already encountered in their fifty-plus-years’ existence. I can’t tell you what an immense help Marsha Appel of the 4As is—just fantastic, and so willing to give advice.

What does your information research toolbox consist of? What resources can’t you live without in a marketing agency? Again, due to UPSHOT’s focus on consumer behavior, many of my industry must-haves address demographic and psychographic information needs. One of our key research vendors in this area is RoperASW [180], a global consumer research firm. As a client we not only receive their published findings, Roper Reports, but are also entitled to utilize their consulting services. The library manages this relationship. Since we’ve designed several campaigns targeting teens and college-age consumers, we have a relationship with Teenage Research Unlimited (TRU) [202]. TRU tracks teenage trends, lifestyles, attitudes, media usage, and behavior. Their reports are some of the most-often-circulated items in our collection. Other titles on my regular reading list include the “usual suspects”—Brandweek [35], Advertising Age [13], Adweek [16],

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140 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue American Demographics [22], and Promo magazine [169]. Advertising Age’s Data Center and Brandchannel’s [34] collection of branding-related articles are also essential industry resources. In print, the Advertiser and Agency Red Books [173], EPM’s Research

Alert Yearbook

[277],

and The

L.A.

Office’s

Entertainment Update are also in the “toolbox.” I read Online [157] magazine for general information and trends.

With the vast collection of resources and the variety of information networks you have on hand, what is the biggest challenge you run into in servicing your agency? The limits imposed by time. I’m always re-evaluating our services and thinking of new ways to make The Source truly indispensable. Of course, it invariably takes far longer to implement such changes than you initially envision.

Would you like to describe some of the new things you’ve initiated at UPSHOT? Probably the most important, and most successful, initiative I’ve implemented at UPSHOT is the agency’s current awareness service. Utilizing a Factiva Web-based service, I’m able to disseminate customized daily news about our industry, our clients, and their industries. The software allows me to post news to the agency’s intranet, known as MindFuse, while also targeting specific recipient groups via email. Everyone really seems to appreciate the time they save by having this type of news filtered by The Source. To market our collection, I periodically compile pathfinders I call “In the Know.” These are one- to two-page documents listing and describing all the resources, online and offline, available via The Source on a given topic. So far I’ve covered specific consumer groups and clients, and next plan to compile an “In the Know” of classic marketing and advertising books.

Liz Aviles: Trend Spotting and Integrated Marketing Pro I’ve also created a section in The Source that we’ve named The Gist. Here I can post reports from some of our external research partners, such as RoperASW and Teenage Research Unlimited, plus reading recommendations from publications not included in our current awareness services. When we have copyright clearance, we’ll make several copies, attach a cover page, and encourage people to grab some reading on their way out the door. Next on my agenda is a monthly film series to be sponsored by The Source. The scope will be broad, including everything from screenings of both new and historic award-winning television commercials, to examples of popular culture as portrayed in movies, music videos, and other visual media.

If you were not in advertising, what would you be doing? Honestly, I can’t imagine I’d enjoy working in another industry at this point in my career. It’s never dull, and almost always fun!


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For company-specific information, my search typically begins with Hoover’s Online and may be supplemented with additional information from traditional directory sources such as those produced by Dun & Bradstreet and the type of content you can only get in analyst reports from Investext’s Research Bank Web.

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On a daily basis, I use Factiva, Gale Group’s TableBase, and Gale Group’s Business & Industry. With fantastic coverage of so many retail and marketing publications, B&I and TableBase are essential resources for this industry. I often turn to them for their full-text archives of EPM Communications’ newsletters.

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With so much attention focused on marketing to kids, teens, and Generation Y, more sources of information about these demographic groups have become available online. One of my favorite sites in this area is the Big Blue Dot Trend Update, an online and email biweekly newsletter created by an agency that specializes in youth marketing.

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I periodically compile pathfinders I call “In the Know.” In one or two pages, I provide a list of all the resources, online and offline, available via The Source on a particular topic.

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I’m very keen on the idea of creating a brand for the information center. Working in a creative environment, I’m not one to underestimate the impact of establishing a graphic identity. I strongly recommend taking the time to create and promote an identity in keeping with your agency’s brand.

Dee Magnoni Independent Research Consultant Dee is President and Founder of the Magnoni Group, based in Portland, Oregon. Her ad agency and PR clients are located all over the U.S. She previously worked as Agency Librarian at Wieden + Kennedy. [email protected] www.magnonigroup.com

Could you tell me a little bit about your company and the services you provide your clients? I started the Magnoni Group for professional and personal reasons. Professionally, I felt there was a need for advertising and PR agencies to have access to both quality research and quality analysis. Many agencies do not have their own research staff. While there are research services available, there is very little analysis done on that research. Also, I take great pride in the relationships I build with my clients. The Magnoni Group goes beyond basic research services and provides analysis, staff training, and needs assessments. We also form project partnerships. Recently I partnered with an agency to deliver MBA-style coaching sessions to an executive. I gathered research, produced and summarized case studies, tracked trends, and put the information into presentations that were used in each of the sessions. Clients will approach their ad or PR agencies with questions, and

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144 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue I’ll partner with the agencies to provide the research behind the answers. My input can be transparent or direct. On a personal level, I was ready to take my years of experience and channel them into a venture that could grow with me over time. The Magnoni Group is positioned to serve the research needs of advertising and PR agencies, as well as their clients. Over time, the company can expand to provide new professional challenges for me and the other group members.

What is your background? How did you happen to enter the field of advertising? My path to advertising is a long and winding one. I have a bachelor’s degree in English and government from Lehigh University, and a master’s in Library Science from the State University of New York at Albany. My personal and professional interests vary so widely that I have found myself in a number of work situations. I’ve run an architecture library and an engineering library. I’ve been a social sciences librarian and a business librarian. In all my positions I developed my interest in leadership, management, teaching, and service excellence. In the winter of 1998–99, I was working at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as the business librarian. Because my husband was a student at the business school, we knew our time on campus would be coming to an end. I began putting out feelers on a couple of Special Libraries Association [321, see Appendix] discussion lists to see what I might do next. The most intriguing reply came from a colleague who knew me through an online book discussion group. She asked if I would consider interviewing at an advertising agency that wanted to open a new library. As I thought about the field of advertising, I realized that here was an industry where I could bring my love of technology, arts, business, and society to play in one role. As an added bonus, I would have the rare opportunity to start a worldwide corporate library from scratch! I was hooked.

Dee Magnoni: Independent Research Consultant In March of 1999 I had my first interview, and meeting the people involved cemented my feelings. While it took several months to relocate and get started, I was on my way to the most exciting career change I’d ever had.

Let’s back up a moment and talk about the resources you developed for the ad agency you worked for. What kind of collection did you manage? The physical collection I developed for my agency encompassed a wide range of materials. We had approximately 5,000 music CDs, 7,000 videos including directors’ reels, a couple hundred magazine and newspaper titles, and a few thousand books. The books ranged from business, demographics, and geographic titles to cultural overviews, to a large photography and design collection. Our visual curator also kept a special collection of images that struck him as interesting or significant. Any of these materials could be shipped out to the other four offices, though each office kept core materials of their own. The video collection did present a challenge because many of the videos had been there when I came and were degrading. My music video librarian and I made the decision to go ahead and migrate to the DVD format, at least for our movies. Directors’ reels, which are sent to us on a regular basis, simply needed to be kept up and weeded. Electronically, we had access to LexisNexis [124], Dow Jones Interactive/Factiva [82], the advertiser and agency “Red Books” online [173], and Hoover’s [105]. We also had subscriptions to Sports Business Daily [192], the Yankelovich Monitor [230], Jupiter Research [118], TRU (Teenage Research Unlimited) [202], and a number of specialized media resources.

Would you describe for me the range of information research you handled at the ad agency? What kind of topics did you cover?

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146 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue The research I handled at the agency ranged from the quick and easy look-up, such as finding a particular citation, to indepth industry analysis and cultural overviews. The topics truly did call upon all of my past expertise. I looked at urban development, compared teen lifestyles across countries and cultures, analyzed emerging technologies for new business prospects, and pondered the long-term impact of the World Trade Organization meetings in Seattle.

Can you expand on that? For example, what sources did you use for the global teen lifestyle project? The global teen project in particular was both a challenge and a success. A client wanted to roll out a new product globally positioned for teens and young twenty-somethings. The client had chosen several countries in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia. My job was to look at teenagers in each of those countries. I needed to find out what music they listened to, what they did in their spare time, what they felt was important, what was considered fashionable, and their thoughts on politics, jobs, their future, et cetera. It really called on all of my resources. I used electronic resources such as LexisNexis to gather news stories from international newspapers as well as U.S. newspapers. I went to Powell’s City of Books [165] and trawled their collections for travel guides to those countries to get basic demographics and statistical information. I was also able to get a lot of statistical information from world agencies such as the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs [211] and the U.S. Department of State Country Background Notes [216]. To get down to the nitty-gritty of how teens really felt, I looked at both newspapers and magazines of those countries and images. I pooled the expertise of my music librarian and my visual curator.

Dee Magnoni: Independent Research Consultant It took a number of months to do that project. We had large folders and then we had electronic files of URLs and of Web pages and news stories we had come across, and eventually it became an intranet site for the client to use as a resource as they rolled out their new global product.

That sounds like a collaborative project among the agency groups and client. Did you start the initiative on this one? The agency planning staff initiated the research request. It was a collaborative project that started in the library, where we did all the research, and we did a bit of packaging and analyzing. The planners took it from there and created the product concept. Our media and interactive departments created the intranet site for the client. It was a collaboration among quite a number of groups.

Can you give me a profile of a typical agency requestor and the kind of information requests you handled for them? Asking for a profile of an agency requestor is a bit like describing a snowflake. The people I worked with were all extremely smart and creative. That’s where their similarities ended. There were artists, writers, and musicians coming to the library along with account planners and technology folks. Requests ranged from pictures of four-star hotels in Third World countries, to songs with a particular sound, to analyzing two businesses entering a market to see which was the better prospect.

What about some memorable ad agency success stories? A “success story” can be defined several different ways in advertising. I did a tremendous amount of research once to help a team decide not to do a pitch. While no business resulted from

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148 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue my research, the decision was the right one for the agency and I consider the effort a success. A number of times research led directly to successful pitches for new business. Those are obvious successes. One of the subtler, yet very satisfying, successes came with a speech our co-founder needed to deliver in South America. He was talking about the advertising industry, its growth and trends over the past forty years, where it was headed, and the impact of recent political uprisings around the world on people’s perspective as global citizens. I had just a few days to pull together a mountain of information and boil it down to a digestible product. Because of the time span of the research, online resources were not able to answer all of my questions. I ended up on the phone, in libraries, and at my computer. The picture that emerged was fascinating, and I found myself learning a great deal about our industry in a macroscopic way. The research led to a successful speech for our co-founder and a lot of education on my part—a true success! A different type of success altogether involved my library’s mission. When I set up the library, I wanted the space to provide more than research and materials. I wanted it to be a center for creativity and spark, where agency staff could come before they even had questions, or when they were stuck in the creative process, or simply wanted a place to relax and contemplate ideas. I provided small things such as magnetic poetry on the shelving and well-displayed selections of cultural, business, and popular magazines. I wanted to push the center’s boundaries further, though. Last winter I invited a well-known author into the agency to run a creative writing seminar. For five weeks people from across the agency came together for this class. We had creatives, writers, accountants, IT folks, a human resources person, and myself. While the time with the author was fantastic, the real magic happened between sessions. We all had to write a new or revised piece of fiction each week, and we ended up with endless conversations, readings, sharing-of-ideas, and general pooling of

Dee Magnoni: Independent Research Consultant creative juices. One of the participants went on to publish some short stories, and is now working on a novel. A couple of others moved on to further writing courses. The seminar was an enormous success, and a number of bonds were formed among the participants.

When a request from your client is not clear, how do you refine it into searchable terms? What techniques do you use to get more detailed background for the request? Some questions have obvious clarification points. When looking at companies, should they be private or publicly held? If a company has an international presence, are we interested in global views or just North America? The global or North America question applies to industries as well. If the material is for a pitch and cultural information is involved, who is the target? Male or female? Age? Region? Some questions are not as easily defined, and the client may not know what they want until they see it. If, after a thorough reference interview, I still feel the topic is cloudy, I will do initial research, send off results, let the client look over the material, then do a second interview. Sometimes three or four of these probe-research-probe cycles will be involved, but the results are usually worth the time.

What online databases do you use for secondary research? I use fee-based services such as LexisNexis, Factiva, and the Red Books online. I’ll tap into government databases such as the Census Bureau’s [215]. For trademarks I’ll check the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office site [217] first. Defining databases in a broader sense, I use free online databases such as the Internet Public Library [113] and the Information Please Almanac [108]. I use Hoover’s for company and industry information. Yankelovich is an awesome source of cultural information,

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150 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue especially when you want to get beyond simple demographics. I’ll turn to the archives of the New York Times [150] and other online newspapers if I want visuals and charts with news stories.

What search engines do you rely on? Can you describe the features that you find most useful? I turn first to Google [93]. I love its toolbar, the image search capability, and checking to see what sites link back to a particular page. And the results are usually solid. Once I have a set of results, I can use Google’s highlight feature to find the keywords I used, or search within the results with more terms. I will use AltaVista [20] for its image searching as well as a backup to other searches. Sometimes, it’s fun to use the language translation on AltaVista, though I wouldn’t trust the results for a client. Before its transition to a fee-based site, I used Northern Light [151] when I wanted to see results broken down into folders. I also like to look at the guides they put together on specific topics. I’ll use additional search engines as needed to make sure my Web research is thorough.

How do you find your preferred Web sites? How do you keep track of your favorites? I try to proactively find outstanding Web sites. I read magazines, newspapers, electronic newsletters, and discussion lists for recommendations. When I need to find sites in a new area, I will either research across several search engines or go to a university Web site. I maintain my long-term favorites in subject folders in my browser. Project favorites I file in temporary files that I purge from time to time.

Where do you go next when you cannot find the answer online? I use The Oxford English Dictionary [161] for etymology and historical definitions. I will frequently tap into my network and

Dee Magnoni: Independent Research Consultant pick up the phone. If I need a physical answer, I have a number of local collections I can use. One of my favorite collections is Powell’s City of Books. Their browsing quality can’t be beat, and they are very friendly to businesses. Portland also boasts the American Advertising Museum [297], which has an impressive collection covering the history of business and advertising in the U.S. Numerous original ads are available to researchers. The Multnomah County Library [313], which serves Portland, has a nice collection that I especially like to use for children’s resources.

What print sources do you find invaluable that are not available online? Back issues of Communication Arts [47] are valuable for both their visuals and their articles. The journal provides a historical perspective on our industry that really can’t be found in any other resource. Current magazines and newspapers in their physical form are great for spreading around and mocking up storyboards and presentation ideas. I still use a lot of books. Cultural Creatives [274] by Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson is one of my favorite books this year. Occasionally, one comes along that everyone in the industry should read. A fairly recent example is The Tipping Point [259] by Malcolm Gladwell.

What is the biggest challenge you run into in servicing your ad agency and PR clients? Time. That is absolutely the biggest challenge. Advertising is a fast industry. Trends and moods change with the wind. I frequently get research requests that need to turn around in minutes or hours. When two, three, or four of these requirements pile on top of each other, the power of multitasking and the gift of feeding partial answers to clients as you cycle through the requests becomes critical.

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What value-added services do you provide your clients to ensure repeat business? When I work with a client, I form a relationship with that person. I learn their interests, their stresses, and their business focus. As I come across something that fits into a client profile, I send it their way. It may be a magazine story, a National Public Radio [145] broadcast, a new song, or a personal contact. I listen to my clients. That doesn’t sound like much, but the results that active listening can yield are astounding. The client not only knows that they are important to me, they also benefit from everything I learn about them.

How do you keep abreast of the latest tools, the most current search engines, and the volatile ad industry landscape? I read and scan many, many resources. I cast my net wide for the ad industry because the ad industry is basically interested in just about everything. For the research profession, I read regularly publications like Searcher [183] and Online [157] magazines. For advertising I look at Advertising Age [13], Adweek [16], and Brandweek [35]. I look at the Harvard Business Review [97], Wired [226] magazine, Utne Reader [218], and The Economist [68]. Another publication is strategy + business [196], which is an outstanding magazine. Newspapers are important. I look at my local one, The Oregonian [158]; I read the online ad columns in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times [130], the Chicago Tribune [44], Chicago Sun-Times [43], and Wall Street Journal [225]. One of my favorite magazines is MIT’s Technology Review [200]. That provides a wonderful look at some emerging technologies.

What is on your e-publications reading list? Fast Company [84], New Scientist [146], and Business Week [39] have email services that I regularly receive. On the research professional side, I get the Internet Scout Report [114] and LII

Dee Magnoni: Independent Research Consultant New This Week [127], which is an update of library and information resources. I’m a fan of the Global Business Network [307] because of Peter Schwartz and his book on scenario planning [279], and of the Long Now Foundation [310], which Stewart Brand co-founded. I like to go to those two Web sites and see what their leaders are doing. They’re always doing or thinking about something new and interesting. I am a member of the Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP) [301]. Their discussion list is often quite useful professionally. BUSLIB-L [40], which is a business library discussion list, is also useful.

Do you have interests outside of work that you naturally find beneficial to your profession? Being a mother of three “tweens” provides me with great balance. On the one hand I understand on a personal level many of the advertising requests I receive. On the other hand I have the opportunity to feel far removed from my industry as I listen to one of my children’s concerts or keep track of a timing watch at a swim meet. My husband and I enjoy cooking together as well as exploring Oregon’s wine country. I personally love to read a good story. Advertising involves being current with life, not just information, and that involves all of my senses. I listen to interesting speakers, new music, and good friends. The scents of life provide me with context to fill in requests about urban life, mountain bikes, and coastal wanderings. I like to play with clay, run my hands through sand, and feel the weight of a fine paper grade. When a client asks about an abstract concept, I can pull from my collection of tactile sensations to give an idea shape and meaning. I absorb images along with scents and sounds. I watch television as much for the ads as the programming. As my husband and I cook or find a new ethnic restaurant, I add these flavors to my understanding of our culture. Really, excelling in advertising involves being a fully engaged human being. The experience is an exhilarating ride, worth every moment.

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Yankelovich is an awesome source of cultural information, especially when you want to get beyond simple demographics.

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I still use a lot of books. Cultural Creatives by Paul Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson is one of my favorites. Occasionally, one comes along that everyone in the industry should read, like The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell.

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I’m a fan of the Global Business Network because of Peter Schwartz and his book on scenario planning, and of the Long Now Foundation, which Stewart Brand co-founded. I like to go to those Web sites and see what their leaders are doing. They’re always doing or thinking about something new and interesting.

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When I work with a client, I form a relationship with that person. I learn their interests, their stresses, their business focus. As I come across something that fits into a client profile, I send it their way. It may be a magazine story, a National Public Radio broadcast, a new song, or a personal contact.

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Advertising involves being current with life, not just information, and that involves all of my senses. Excelling in advertising involves being a fully engaged human being.

Carlos Santiago Chief Realist Strategist Carlos is President and CEO of The Santiago Solutions Group, multicultural strategy arcchitects. His multicultural research study for Verizon earned the 1996 corporate Baldrige Award for Total Quality. His expertise in the Hispanic market is regularly featured by NBC, Advertising Age, National Public Radio, Wall Street Journal, and other media outlets. At the time of this interview, Carlos was co-chair and partner of Santiago & Valdes Solutions, LLC. [email protected] www.santiagosolutionsgroup.com

Your online bio shows an incredible variety of marketing experiences in multicultural markets. Can you share with me one of your best projects? Probably the most strategic, comprehensive, and longlasting piece of research was at Verizon. At the beginning of the development of their multicultural initiative, Isabel Valdes, my co-founder at Santiago & Valdes Solutions, conducted a huge quantitative study, looking at Hispanics in the Northeast. We looked at Verizon’s internal database of consumers and predicted those that were Hispanic. We developed a segmentation model on which we overlaid years of actual telecommunications consumer behavior. We looked beyond local telecommunications into all the new areas that the company was planning on getting into, including entertainment, cable, premium TV

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156 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue channels, pay-per-view, wireless, Internet service provider, highspeed data, long distance, pre-paid calling cards, and so forth. From the study, we developed and refined various predictive models. From there we were able to very precisely develop our marketing and sales strategies for each product or new bundle of services that we later introduced into the marketplace. We cut the incredible amounts of data in different ways for three years, and always found actionable strategies that we tested and refined before rolling out to two million households. We replicated this very scientific approach for the African-American and Asian markets. The studies’ findings and the segmentation models served as the foundation of an integrated multicultural strategy that extended through customer service and sales channels. They formed the scientific base that allowed us to develop a corporatewide program with quantified best-in-class results that eventually won the corporate Baldrige Award.

What led you to this project at Verizon? Verizon, at that time, was NYNEX. NYNEX understood that the marketplace had already changed dramatically and that the multicultural markets were essential to achieve incremental growth. This was especially so in the more competitive lines of business, like Internet and long distance. The corporation walked their talk and quickly made major investments to make up for the years that they had been sleeping at the wheel. That included building new multilingual service centers, expanding and consolidating call centers, face-to-face centers, collection centers, installation and repair service language capabilities, introducing billing in Spanish, relationship building through events and community loyalty programs, and so on.

In your role as co-chair and partner of Santiago & Valdes Solutions (SVS), what exactly is your function?

Carlos Santiago: Chief Realist Strategist I am the “chief realist strategist” of the company. I help corporations look internally at their infrastructure and identify gap areas that need tightening or closing in order to truly tap their multicultural opportunities. SVS works hand-in-hand with many functional areas internally that should be perfectly aligned before turning on the marketing switch. We develop plans for those functional units until they are well on their way to closing the gaps. We develop multicultural strategies from a very high level: which subsegment of Hispanics to target first, to how best to reach them. We do careful analysis of the competitive landscape, and the strengths and the weaknesses of the corporation’s current product line, distribution system, post-sale service, billing, and so on.

How can you best describe in-culture marketing as it relates to the Hispanic ethnic group? In-culture marketing is creating marketing approaches based on Hispanics’ behavior toward products based on their acculturation level. We have seen over and over that needs change dramatically according to acculturation level. Not only product and service needs but also attitudes, values, and beliefs. Actual purchasing behavior—for example, what channels of distribution they prefer—varies significantly by acculturation levels. In developing an integrated marketing strategy for a client, we look very specifically at the different acculturation segments to decide which ones are best for introducing or expanding the product line.

What do you see as the greatest impact of the Internet on Hispanic families? The greatest impact of the Internet on Hispanic families is that the wealth of information serves as an equalizer. For example, when a Hispanic is applying for a mortgage, he/she will get the same service as a non-Hispanic. If a Hispanic is sorting out car insurance quotes, it doesn’t matter whether he/she speaks

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158 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue English well or with an accent. On the Internet, consumers have unlimited virtual access. Many Hispanics are afraid of doing business with American companies because they lack information, lack education about products and services, lack familiarity with brands, and distrust the American system because there are many stories of scammers. The Internet equalizes the product purchase process. From the cultural point of view, the Internet has made U.S. Hispanics closer to their countries of origin and roots. Hispanics often communicate via email with relatives across borders. They can easily find out who won their favorite soccer match yesterday, or what’s happening this morning with Argentina’s economic fiasco, by going to one of the many bilingual portals. The Internet has also played a major role in raising Hispanic children by helping them understand their ancestry without having to visit those countries. The Internet is such a neat way for children to learn.

Do you see a growing incidence of Internet usage in Hispanic households? Absolutely. PC penetration in the last three years grew 11⁄2 times as fast among Hispanic households as among nonHispanic households. The initial gaps between different ethnic segments have decreased. With competitive computer prices well under $1,000, attractive payment plans, and training in Spanish, Hispanics have been going online at a very fast pace, highly driven by Hispanic children influencing parents from an education necessity angle.

How do you use the Internet in your work? At SVS, we do a lot of strategic analysis and competitive assessments for clients. The Internet allows us to learn the latest about any industry, and we can perform additional research to learn what Hispanics’ perceptions are about products and services and how they make purchasing decisions. We often rely on the Net to learn about what previous marketing strategies have

Carlos Santiago: Chief Realist Strategist been most effective and what advertising agencies have done with similar products. The Internet is an excellent first step, one that we exhaust before going to the market or investing in primary research. It is ideal for conducting focus groups, polls, and full research surveys.

What Web sites do you search for information on companies and industries? What sites are useful for competitive information? The Web sites we use in industry and competitive research for our clients include multicultural sites such as Hispanicad [100, see Appendix] and Diversity, Inc. [61] to Spanish language media sites like La Opinion [120] and El Nuevo Herald [71]. We also search other Hispanic publication sites like Hispanic Magazine.com [102], Latina Online [121], HispanicBusiness.com [101], or Latina Style [122] depending on the target segment we’re researching. Some of the Spanish language portals also provide excellent insights into trends, who’s popular now, and so on. Those include Terra [204] and Univision [213]. Using some of the traditional portals and search engines like Yahoo! [229] and Google [93] also produces results for us. Industry association sites also provide key insights. For statistics, the Census Bureau [215] has an excellent site, but it can take some time to become familiar with all of the various reports it offers.

Can you recommend some excellent print resources that provide market information on Hispanic consumers and insight into why they buy what they buy? Some print resources we use to find information include the books written by Santiago & Valdes Solutions co-founder, Isabel Valdes. Marketing to American Latinos: A Guide to the

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160 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue In-Culture Approach Part 1 [292] is an excellent basic guide to understanding the U.S. Hispanic market. Hispanic Market Handbook [293] is another good book by Isabel. Another important resource is Research Alert Yearbook [278], published by EPM Communications. It is an annual review of research, with abstracts. It covers general as well as ethnic markets. Strategy Research Corporation publishes the U.S. Hispanic Market Report [290], which contains a variety of statistics on the U.S. Hispanic market, ranging from general demographic information, to products and service usage, to media habits. This is also known as the “blue book,” published every year. Then there are various directories we use for locating multicultural experts, such as the Source Book of Multicultural Experts [190], from Multicultural Marketing Resources, and the Standard Directory of Hispanic Advertising Agencies [283], published by the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (AHAA) [300].

Tell me briefly about your experience with EthnicGrocer [78] and Querico.com. Querico.com, an EthnicGrocer site, developed a huge virtual “bodega” to allow U.S. Hispanics to find truly authentic products from their countries of origin. Familiar brands we saw at our dinner tables as we grew up abroad, hard-to-find products in the U.S., including food, kitchenware, music, arts, crafts, and jewelry. We developed about nine country sites with food and other products from Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Spain, Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and Colombia. Items with strong emotional connections were easily arranged and conveniently delivered at competitive prices. When I got there, the site had 1,000 SKUs and when I left, it had more than 12,000 SKUs. But providing food over the Internet is a very difficult proposition. Nobody has yet been able to do it in a profitable way. I believe that consumers, especially Hispanic ones, still want the family experience of shopping together, seeing, touching, meeting, talking to store employees, and even standing in long lines. The

Carlos Santiago: Chief Realist Strategist margins were high but the demand wasn’t there. It was not as easy as ordering music or software from the Internet. More importantly, I found that there is a competing dichotomy culturally between the less acculturated Hispanic segment, who knows and wants authentic brands and products, and acculturated Hispanics, who have access to the Internet. While acculturated Hispanics tend to have credit cards and often order from the Net, they are not as emotionally tied to authentic brands and products from their countries of origin. The less acculturated Hispanic segment that has high familiarity with authentic brands, high involvement, high interest, and high potential frequency purchase is also likely to live in high-density Hispanic areas. Thus, this segment also has more convenient access to bodegas or neighborhood food retailers that carry nearly authentic U.S.-made brands of their favorite staples. Even with a PC at home, the Internet does not replace their cultural tradition of family shopping. That contributed the most to the short life span of Querico.com. Research could have quantified and validated this behavior, but dot-coms were pushed so fast to the market that they didn’t follow the standard, proven rules of successful product introductions.

Who are your current clients? We have worked extensively with AARP. We have worked with Qualcomm’s Leap Wireless, PSGE—a South American utility company that merged with Seasa to become Austral de Electricided Chile—and Hewlett-Packard, among others. Many clients prefer to stay in secrecy while we are planning their overall strategy, reinforcing their infrastructure, developing new or enhanced products. It gives them a competitive advantage. Once the strategy is done, clients “go public.”

In 1995, Crain’s New York Business took note of your outstanding community work; you were featured in the “Top 40 Under 40.”

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162 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue Yes, indeed. A lot of satisfaction comes from that recognition. It is wonderful and rewarding helping your own community. The beautiful thing about the community is that they don’t care if you came from Puerto Rico, New York, Mexico, or Colombia. Hispanic nonprofits are thirsty for new leadership, especially if one has advanced education and experience in the private business world.

Super Searchers Power Tips

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The Web sites we use in industry and competitive research for our clients include multicultural sites such as Hispanicad and Diversity, Inc., as well as Spanish language media sites like La Opinion and El Nuevo Herald.

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Some of the Spanish language portals, such as Terra and Univision, provide excellent insights into trends, who’s popular now, and so on.

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Strategy Research Corporation publishes the U.S. Hispanic Market Report, which contains a variety of statistics ranging from general demographic information, to products and service usage, to media habits.

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We use various directories for locating multicultural experts, such as the Source Book of Multicultural Experts, from Multicultural Marketing Resources, and the Standard Directory of Hispanic Advertising Agencies, published by the Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies.

Gretchen Reed Virtual Research Provider Gretchen is Director of Information Services at Euro RSCG MVBMS Partners. She is the author of Information Services for the Advertising Professional, 2002 [275, see Appendix], published by the American Association of Advertising Agencies [298], and International Advertising and Marketing Information Sources [276], published by the Special Libraries Association [321]. Gretchen is a frequent lecturer on telecommuting and virtual libraries. [email protected] www.mvbms.com

How did you happen to enter the field of advertising? I grew up in Los Angeles and moved to New York with the intention of working in publishing. After interviewing with every publisher I’d ever heard of, I ended up at an employment agency. Since I had a liberal arts background, the recruiter suggested that I try advertising. I started in the Traffic Department of Leber Katz Partners in 1980, and after a few months, I was asked to join the Research Department to revive their library, which had languished for a number of years. I was given a small space with some metal shelving, and literally waded through the materials on hand. The computer revolution had just begun to fundamentally change the way agency information centers conducted their business, and I was authorized to sign up with LexisNexis, which had just launched the first online database of marketing-specific

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164 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue information such as Marketing and Advertising Reference Service (MARS) [133]. Over time, the library evolved to include media publications such as Leading National Advertisers (LNA) [2] and Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) [303], as well as books, magazines, and other research materials.

Can you talk a little bit about your background? As an undergraduate, I worked in the Public Inquiry Unit of the Los Angeles County Department of Housing and Community Development and taught English as a second language at Santa Ana Community College while in graduate school at UCLA. I hold a master’s degree in Library Service from Rutgers University. In 1980, after a year of law school, I moved to New York and began working at Leber Katz Partners. After their merger with FCB in 1985, I joined Backer & Spielvogel’s information center. B&S was acquired by Saatchi & Saatchi, and subsequently merged with Bates Advertising. In 1988, I moved to Della Femina McNamee and created their first information center. DFM had a series of European owners: first WCRS, then Eurocom, which became EURO RSCG. In 1992, DFM merged with what was then Messner Vetere Berger Carey Schmetterer (MVBCS) and, after a quick switch of initials, MVBMS was born. I rechristened the information center INFO@MVBMS. MVBMS is one of the fastest-growing advertising agencies in the U.S. With over a billion dollars in billings, its client list includes MCI Worldcom, Intel, Volvo, Nestlé, and Schering-Plough.

Tell me a little bit about your department, your function, and the background of your staff. At MVBMS, we focus on solving problems and exploring opportunities with our clients. In our business, information is the content of everyday work. It empowers people to reach more informed insights and create better strategies and advertising. It’s central to MVBMS’s identity that we are at the leading edge of

Gretchen Reed: Virtual Research Provider the information age. We talk about it in new business presentations and feature it in partner speeches. We take pride in being an agency that is information rich, and the mother lode is INFO@MVBMS. For the past decade INFO@MVBMS has operated as a twoperson department. As Director, I’ve been responsible for the creation and growth of INFO@MVBMS, from a small, one-person library to a virtual information center serving over 600 employees. For the last three years, Eric Perl has worked with me as an Information Associate. Before joining MVBMS, Eric was a factchecker at Scholastic Inc. and a library assistant at LebharFriedman, a publisher of trade magazines. He has been instrumental in creating and maintaining the INFO@MVBMS intranet site and is also responsible for “infoscans,” INFO@ MVBMS’s current awareness tool. INFO@MVBMS is part of the agency’s Strategic Planning Department, which includes the agency’s account planners. We also work closely with the new business team and with the agency partners on special projects. In fact, INFO@MVBMS makes a significant contribution to every agency function, from account management to creative services to media planning. User demand proves our success; our user base has doubled in the past five years. This is partially a function of agency growth, but it is also a result of the high value placed on our services.

What kinds of research services do you provide? We work across every account and every department in the agency. This includes categories currently ranging from automotive, beverages, computers, drugs, entertainment, and financial services to food, health & beauty aids, restaurants, sporting goods, and telecommunications. We work with agency partners, account managers, account planners, art directors, and copywriters. And the services we provide are as diverse as our internal and external clients. For example, yesterday I did research on

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166 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue international telecommunications, children and the common cold, condiments, and pizza trends. Also, since our agency has international clients as well as a European office and European parent company, I often deal with global marketing issues. The bulk of my day is spent doing research. I don’t spend much time on administrative duties or in meetings. Of course, I also have to meet with vendors, negotiate contracts, pay bills, and deal with timesheets, but providing the best possible information to the greatest number of our staff is my primary goal, so I try to focus the bulk of my efforts on the actual work. I mentioned that INFO@MVBMS is a virtual information center, and one of the most virtual things about it is I. For the past seven years, I have telecommuted several days a week from my home in upstate New York. I was one of the architects of the agency’s telecommuting program, and its first participant. Advertising is a 24/7 business, and information needs to be available to the user, wherever she or he may be. In my case, that may mean an art director on a commercial shoot in California, an account supervisor meeting with a client in Sweden, or a partner making a new business pitch in Miami. In fact, at any given time, many of our employees aren’t even at the agency. For them, it’s virtual or nothing. Every day, I provide information to hundreds of people in dozens of locations. It doesn’t matter where they are because I can be everywhere through our computer network and intranet. “Virtuality” is really a state of mind. You have to be committed to shaping the technology, seeking out the content, identifying the support network, and solving the inevitable problems as they arise. And you also have to be committed to investing your own time and effort; most users make no distinction between the virtual library and the virtual librarian. Last Saturday, when I logged on to my laptop at 9 A.M., I found two emails waiting for me. One had come at 1:30 that morning, from a partner who had some questions about information he found online. The second had come at 8:30 A.M., from that same partner saying, basically, “Where’s my answer?”

Gretchen Reed: Virtual Research Provider Virtuality is not for the faint of heart. But it really is worth the effort and commitment. We’ve spent a lot of time and energy developing information resources, but that’s all wasted if no one uses them. And, in this era of the couch potato, the only sure way to get people to use your service is to deliver it to them—when they need it, where they need it, and how they need it. And that’s what INFO@MVBMS is all about.

Can you give me a composite sketch of your frequent requestors? What types of research do they need? In terms of sheer volume of requests, members of the new business team are our biggest users. The types of research they require depend largely on the status of the prospect. In some cases, we provide basic company information on a potential prospect or group of prospects in a particular industry. This generally includes profiles from sources such as OneSource [155] and Hoover’s [105], as well as recent information from advertising, marketing, business, and trade publications. In the initial phase of a new business contact, especially with a new company, we may also provide additional information from Dun & Bradstreet [65] or other sources to assess financial stability. Once we are actively participating in a new business pitch, our research broadens to include more general industry information, as well as creative- and media-specific research. MVBMS is well known in the industry for our use of “war rooms,” based on a concept that originated in political campaigns. MVBMS actually grew out of a group who worked together on Reagan’s Tuesday Team, a group of ad agency executives from all over the country who worked together pro bono to promote Ronald Reagan’s 1984 presidential bid. The agency sets aside an actual room for each client containing everything everyone in each discipline knows about the client and its business that can be taped, stapled, or glued to the walls.

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168 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue INFO@MVBMS is an integral part of this process and provides much of the information that fills the war rooms. For account managers, we provide a wide variety of information on topics ranging from competitive reviews to new product introductions. Agency partners and senior clients often need information for speeches, interviews, or presentations. Account planners frequently need information that is not strictly business or marketing oriented. For example, they may want to know about possible mythological or religious connotations of a product. Often, they are looking for attitudinal information—what a particular group thinks about a product or category. These questions can be challenging, in that they require us to go beyond our usual information sources. Creatives also have unique information needs that transcend traditional business information boundaries. For example, they may need particular photographs or biographical information on a prospective spokesperson. They may be looking for background on a particular historic event or all the songs that mention the word “hair.” We find that, true to their occupations, this group comes up with the most creative questions, which impels us to find equally creative ways to respond.

How much of your research volume comes from creatives? About ten percent of our requests are creative driven. They don’t always come directly from the creative department. The questions may come through account management or account planners. But we can usually tell when they’re creative based, because of the nature of the topics. We used to maintain in-house picture files for photo research, but now that kind of material is widely available in digital form and most of those requests are handled by the art-buying group. We still do a fair amount of trade name and slogan searching for creatives and handle a lot of what I refer to as “encyclopedia”

Gretchen Reed: Virtual Research Provider questions, such as “how long was the longest telephone call?” or “when was the first radio commercial broadcast?”

What kind of turnaround time do you have? Advertising is a deadline-driven business, so we almost always provide same-day service and often respond to requests within a matter of hours. Occasionally we work on long-term projects, where more time is available to expand and amplify our research, but for the most part, we operate under a “need it yesterday” mentality.

How do you deliver and package your results? We have a variety of methods for delivering results, ranging from emailing a URL for a useful Web site to developing a PowerPoint presentation complete with charts and graphs. We really try to tailor our presentation to the user’s needs. For example, in a war room situation, more is usually better, as the account team is trying to assemble the greatest possible amount of information to stimulate thinking. In that situation, we’d be likely to do broad-based searching and provide as much material as possible. On the other hand, a creative team may just need a specific fact verified for legal clearance. In this case, we would strive to provide a concise, well-documented answer. The key is knowing your audience and understanding their needs. Having worked with many of my colleagues for over a decade, I’ve come to know their “information styles” fairly well. I know which ones really do want to know “everything” about a subject, and which ones will be happier with one good chart or graph.

How do you present skimpy results? Do you conduct a follow-up interview to find alternative approaches? We will explain which sources were consulted and discuss any suggestions we have for additional research. Of course, Eric and

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170 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue I also consult with one another, as we each have strengths in different areas. For example, Eric is also a professional musician, so he handles most of the music requests, while I have a more extensive marketing background and tend to handle most of the requests on general marketing topics. If we do end up presenting less-than-desirable results to one of our users, it’s only after we have exhausted our internal and external resources.

Where do you go next, when the answers cannot be found in-house? What external resources do you use? We are fortunate to be members of the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) and have access to their Member Information Service. Since we are located in New York, we are able to send staff over to their library to use materials. We also subscribe to New York Public Library’s fee-based Express service [316]. We recently subscribed to Business360 [36], which is a primarily Internet-based search service. These services are particularly helpful in dealing with arts and humanities-based questions, since those topics are less well covered by our commercial databases.

Can you describe your thought process when you conduct research? What online services do you rely on? What in-house sources do you tap first? After making sure that I understand the question, I decide which of our resources is best suited for the task. Often, this is a commercial database. The main fee-based databases we use are LexisNexis [124] and Dow Jones Interactive [64]. We also subscribe to OneSource for basic company information. In addition to these databases, we have access to MRI [138] media and demographic information, CMR [45] advertising expenditure data

Gretchen Reed: Virtual Research Provider through our media department, and to Yankelovich [230] research through our account planning department.

How do you find the Web sites you use most often? A frequent first step is to determine whether there is a relevant trade or industry association Web site. These often provide reliable information and have useful links to other pertinent sites. We also use most of the major search engines—Yahoo! [229], Google [93], AltaVista [20], and so on—especially when tracking specific company or industry Web sites. We always look at the Web site to evaluate not only content, but also usability, before referring it to a user.

What types of resources do you find useful for trend research, multicultural projects, and global markets? We subscribe to a number of publications that cover trends, such as American Demographics [22], The Futurist [258], Trends Journal [286], and Research Alert [277]. We also belong to EURO RSCG’s Trendspotting Group, an international network of trends researchers. Some of their recent reports have included Wired and Wireless, which examined current and upcoming capitals of high technology, and a worldwide post-9/11 attitudes poll. For multicultural information, we maintain in-house article files on all major ethnic groups and are always on the lookout for current books from publishers like New Strategist Publications [270]. Also, MVBMS has its own separate Hispanic division, which provides access to many Hispanic-related research materials.

What is the biggest challenge you run into in servicing your clients and agency people?

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172 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue Probably the biggest challenge is dealing with unreasonable deadlines. I’m sure this is an issue in other industries, but it seems particularly acute in advertising. In particular, new business pitches are almost always conducted under intense time pressure.

What kinds of news alert and current awareness service do you provide? For current awareness, we do weekly “infoscans” for our account groups using commercial databases. We also provide current and archived information on our clients and agency on our intranet site.

How else do you use the agency’s intranet? We have access to both MVBMS’s agency intranet and Starnet, the intranet of our parent company, EURO RSCG. INFO@ MVBMS has its own section on the agency’s intranet. We created this site to allow users to access our vertical file material online and to be able to search our online book and magazine catalog. The intranet is subject classified, and users can view material on hundreds of advertising and marketing topics. In order for an intranet to succeed, people need to be able to get to it. I was lucky that my agency was an early adopter of technological solutions. Everyone has been on a network since 1992, and we’ve all had full Internet access since 1994, so people are used to exchanging information online. Also, I was involved from the beginning in designing our agency’s intranet, so it was built with a virtual library in mind. For years, I was there every step of the way, pushing for a home for my content. The point is, I didn’t wait for the technology to come to me; I became a driver of the process. INFO@MVBMS also contributes to the agency’s general Web site. In addition to providing research, I have written articles for the site, including one that describes our office-sharing philosophy.

Gretchen Reed: Virtual Research Provider

What other information-related service do you participate in? We participate in the agency’s “Brain Food” series. These are lunchtime meetings that feature discussions of important agency resources. We also work with the agency’s interns each summer, introducing them to INFO@MVBMS and advertising research.

How do you keep up with new resources and search strategies? What do you read? What discussion groups do you subscribe to? How do you acquire new skill sets? I’m a longtime member of the SLA (Special Libraries Association) and have served in a variety of capacities in the Advertising & Marketing Division, including Division Chair, Publishing Chair, and Director. I’ve also been active with the New York Chapter and, until its dissolution, the Ad/Marketing Group. I’m fortunate to be in such close proximity to many of my advertising and marketing colleagues, and frequently turn to them for help in assessing new products or dealing with difficult requests. I also keep up with the industry trade publications and try to attend at least a couple of conferences each year. I have a number of longtime friends in the vendor community with whom I can consult. I also try to contribute to the profession by writing and speaking about information services. I’ve authored two editions of International Advertising and Marketing Information Sources for SLA and wrote Information Services for the Advertising Professional, 2002 for the AAAA. The original title was What Every Account Executive Should Know About Information Services. I’ve been a speaker and moderator at several SLA meetings and conferences and was part of the New York Chapter Outreach group that traveled to area high schools and colleges to discuss information services careers.

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How are you doing with your telecommuting? Telecommuting is fabulous. I’m practically a poster child for telecommuting. I’ve been doing it for seven years now. When I first started, I was telecommuting two days a week. Now, I telecommute three or four days a week. Frankly, it just gets easier and easier as the technology improves. For example, I’m now able to have high-speed cable access at home. It’s something that I didn’t have for a long time because I live in a fairly rural area. Personally, it’s been a great experience.

Would you recommend it as long as you have an “Eric” in the office? Yes, I should absolutely say that so much of the success of my telecommuting depends on having a reliable staff. Eric provides an essential physical presence in the agency. Also, Eric and I work in a very collaborative way; we’re constantly either on the phone or exchanging email. So I’m not entirely isolated. I’m not just sitting at home by myself in a vacuum, handling the requests.

Do you have any memorable success stories or fun projects you’d like to share with me? One of the projects I remember most fondly involved working with NASA to create an authentic commercial for one of our clients. This was in the early 1990s, when the Internet was still primarily a tool for scientists and educators and information professionals. We had learned that an astronaut was communicating with an elementary school class from space using the Internet. We began by finding out as much as we could about how this process worked: What networks and equipment were used, how often contact was made, and so on. The project then expanded to include getting information on weightlessness, both for portraying the astronaut in space, and for the children in the classroom. The result was a commercial that successfully

Gretchen Reed: Virtual Research Provider demonstrated the importance of the Internet as a tool not only for education, but for communication as well.

What are your interests outside of work? I’m president of the D&H Canal Historical Society in High Falls, New York. We operate the D&H Canal Museum and Five Locks Walk, a towpath trail that is a National Historic Landmark. I also live in a locktender’s cottage along the canal, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. I’ve served on my community’s Historic Preservation Commission, and I’m president of the High Falls Water Coalition, a citizen’s advisory group working with the EPA on a local Superfund site. In all of these endeavors, my background as an information professional and marketer has been invaluable. I’ve provided research for grants for the Museum, done deed research on my cottage for the National Register listing, and collected information on water contamination and treatment issues for the Water Coalition.

If you were not in advertising, what would you be doing? I’ve been working in advertising for twenty years now, and I have always considered myself very fortunate to work in an industry that allows me to do research on such a wide variety of topics. If I were to work in another industry, I think I would look for something similarly diverse, perhaps broadcasting or journalism. I also find my work with the Historical Society very rewarding, so I might pursue something in the not-for-profit sector.

Is there anything you’d like to add that we haven’t covered in this interview? Looking to the future, I see agency information centers becoming less rooted in the physical office and more virtual. Also, as more agencies become part of holding companies, I think there will be increased collaboration between sister companies,

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176 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue at least in terms of negotiating group contracts for online and other research services. Agency intranets and Web sites offer new opportunities to collect and disseminate information, and information professionals should be key players in those arenas. Finally, I believe that, whatever their shape and size, information centers and the people who staff them will continue to be critical to the success of their agencies.


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We subscribe to a number of publications that cover trends, such as American Demographics, The Futurist, Trends Journal, and Research Alert.

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New York Public Library’s fee-based Express service and Business360, which is a primarily Internet-based search service, are particularly helpful in dealing with arts and humanities-based questions, since those topics are less well covered by our commercial databases.

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MVBMS is well known for our use of “war rooms.” The agency sets aside an actual room for each client containing everything everyone in each discipline knows about the client and its business that can be taped, stapled, or glued to the walls. We are an integral part of this process, and provide much of the information that fills the war rooms.

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In order for an intranet to succeed, people need to be able to get to it. I was involved from the beginning in designing our agency’s intranet, so it was built with a

Gretchen Reed: Virtual Research Provider

virtual library in mind. For years, I was there every step of the way, pushing for a home for my content. I didn’t wait for the technology to come to me; I became a driver of the process.

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Advertising is a 24/7 business, and information needs to be available to the user, wherever she or he may be. At any given time, many of our employees aren’t even at the agency. For them, it’s virtual or nothing.

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Marsha Appel 4As for Excellence Marsha is Senior Vice President, Member Information Service of the American Association of Advertising Agencies, or 4As (AAAA) [298, see Appendix]. She and the MIS staff have developed resources for new business, ad concepts, and advertising subject matter second to none in the U.S. She has compiled eight volumes of the Illustration Index [241], a source for identifying illustrations in periodicals, covering 1972 through 1996. She is a contributor to and member of the advisory board of the Encyclopedia of Advertising 2002 [251]. [email protected] www.aaaa.org

How did you happen to enter the field of advertising? I got a degree from library school and got my first job at the AAAA. I have an undergraduate degree in history and sociology from SUNY at Albany and an MSLS from Syracuse University. I didn’t go after a job in advertising in particular, although I found advertising very interesting, and I had taken some undergraduate courses. I just fell into it, and I’ve been here twenty-five years.

Can you describe for me how you developed the information resources that AAAA offers its members and its own staff? To tell you the truth, I inherited a lot. The information service at the 4As has been around since about 1938, so I walked into a going concern. It was a phenomenal training resource because it

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180 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue had a fairly large staff, a tremendous amount of variety in the subject matter, and users with all sorts of information needs. Marilyn Bockman, my predecessor, deserves most of the credit for building the service. My first contribution was helping to introduce online search capabilities to the department. And that was before faxing and Federal Express, never mind electronic mail and the Internet. So I guess we’ve seen some changes over the years in how we do our research.

What was your very first online service subscription? In 1978, we got the New York Times Information Bank, followed by Dialog [57]. When the New York Times became available only through Nexis [124], we got Nexis, and we used those little teeny tiny red machines [editor’s note: dedicated search terminals]. They are now in museums, I think. Julie Zilavy, our manager of online services, has worked directly with vendors for over twenty years, helping them to develop tools that suit our needs.

Let’s bring the focus to today: What kind of resources do you have, both online and print? We still have a tremendous collection of print resources, all sorts of directories, for example, for a lot of very good reasons. Bear in mind that as an association we serve advertising agencies of every size everywhere in the country, and the needs vary. It can’t be a collection focused on packaged goods products or on business-to-business. It’s got to be everything to serve the needs of all members. So we need a tremendous variety of resources—directories and statistical reports, and a couple of hundred subscriptions to trade publications, as well as a lot of online resources and products on CD-ROM.

Marsha Appel: 4As for Excellence

Let’s backtrack a little bit and talk about the 4As. Tell me what the 4As is all about and what it does for its members. Where do you fit in? It’s the American Association of Advertising Agencies. The AAAA was created in 1917 and is there to represent the voice of the advertising agency business to various publics—U.S. government, business, students, and consumers—as well as serving the needs of advertising agency management. It helps the member agencies run their businesses better. It is really a management organization in that sense. And it serves these needs by running national and regional conferences and training programs, doing surveys among the membership, allowing them to share information and network among themselves, publishing manuals, how-to guides, and position papers as well as—where we fit in—customized secondary research for members all over the country.

Are your resources accessible only to 4A’s members or are they open to the general public as well? They are pretty much just for members of the AAAA, with rare exceptions. We’ll try to at least advise Special Libraries Association [321] members if they call and to help where we can. But we won’t do in-depth research for anybody but a member agency.

If you have a member in the U.S., based in Chicago, and they also have an office in Hong Kong, can that Hong Kong office call you for information? No, our services are only for U.S. member agencies.

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Let’s talk about your department, the function, and the background of your staff. The function is to meet the information needs of member agencies and staff. The professional staff members are hired with library degrees. We have two sections: U.S., managed by Marge Morris, which is where the bulk of the work and the collection fall, and a smaller International Service, headed by Koichi Tasa, that does research on international topics for our members. With backgrounds in library science, our staff members come to us with good training and experience, preferably in research, and they learn the advertising subject matter from the ground up. There are ten professionals in our department, and we do about 22,000 projects a year. We are very service oriented and take every project very seriously. There are over 1,200 member offices around the country, and the promise we make is that any employee at any member agency can call whenever they need to, as often as they want, with whatever they need, and we’ll meet their deadlines. As a result, we cannot often say “no” to a question, and we’re generally juggling about eighty projects that must be done at any given moment. The research tends to be “quick and dirty”—whatever is the fastest way to connect them with an answer. Although a lot of interpretation and analysis goes on in selecting material that will answer their questions, we do not do any written summaries or analyses for member projects. When it comes to staff projects, however, proprietary lists, documents, and databases are often developed from the research, which sometimes can take weeks to complete.

What kind of basic research skills do you require from a new staff member? I assume that their library degrees demonstrate their commitment to doing this kind of work and, one hopes, a basic set of research skills, including how to conduct the all-important reference interview. I think actual resources and how to use these resources can be learned on the job. What’s more important to

Marsha Appel: 4As for Excellence me when I’m hiring is broad awareness and curiosity and a dogged “I’ll-get-to-the-bottom-of-this-and-find-an-answer” attitude. And as far as the specific reference sources go, if they’ve never heard of the advertiser and agency Red Books [173], I don’t care. They can learn that in five minutes. So it’s more the attitude and the interest and what I would call a general awareness of American mass culture. These are important to me, and essential to success at this job.

What kinds of information requests do you get on a daily basis? They run the gamut. Our work is geared to help agencies with the information they need to pursue new business, to support recommendations to clients, and to help them keep abreast of trends in advertising and the agency business. The single most common type of project we handle is for agency new business efforts. Typically, we’ll get a call from a new business person at an agency, saying, “We have a prospect that we’re going to be talking to in the ‘fill-in-the-blank’ industry. We need to become very smart very fast on the company, the state of the industry, forecasts, sales trends, market share, who the competitors are, what they’re doing in terms of advertising and marketing, marketing strategies by these competitors, and everything we can find on consumer behavior”—which is always the hardest to get. We’ve geared a good part of our collection and research focus toward addressing these kinds of questions. Other product and industry requests come in when an agency’s client is trying to get into a new category, or an agency just wants to get up to speed on its client’s competitors, or an agency is trying to identify categories that might be good sources of potential new business. At this point, probably more than half of our work involves advertising and marketing concepts. Perhaps an agency is trying to recommend a particular type of advertising execution or a particular type of strategy or medium to clients in developing a

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184 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue campaign. And they need supportive information, like success stories where something worked well in the past. Of course there are no such things as case studies the way people would like to see them, the way they come up in business school. We also look for research data proving that one approach may be better than another. For example, the mechanical kinds of things—color vs. black-and-white in a print ad, the best position in a string of commercials, how big the headlines should be, where the logo should be on the page.

With the kinds of topics you mentioned, where would you draw your answers? Success stories are gleaned mostly from the trade press or compilations of award-winning campaigns. For research kinds of questions, statistical data like newspaper readership by day of the week, the materials often come from media associations or other advertising organizations. We try to stay on top of what research is out there so we can get our hands on it very quickly. We don’t have the luxury of a lot of time to do the research, so we try to collect it proactively and have it at our fingertips or know exactly who would have done that kind of research if it exists.

Describe for me your International Service group. What coverage can I get from them? We’ve got what used to be a separate division called the International Service, which is now under the auspices of the Member Information Service. There are two information specialists who monitor international trends and information. They don’t attempt to monitor every single industry and product category in every country in the world. So they rely more heavily on online services for that. Their emphasis is a little bit different, too. They respond to the information needs of U.S. advertising agencies that need to know about what’s happening elsewhere in the world. The topics that are most commonly requested are

Marsha Appel: 4As for Excellence media, advertising agencies in other countries, basic economic climate, cultural differences, and demographic data.

What international media information is readily available in-house? Is there something similar to the Standard Rate and Data Service [194]? There is no comprehensive international version of SRDS. The SRDS directories are probably the primary tools for U.S. advertising agencies to identify and get preliminary prices for advertising in consumer and business publications, radio stations, newspapers, and outdoor. But if a U.S. client wants to market a product to farmers in Bolivia, where do they start? Do the farmers listen to radio? Do they read the newspapers? What are the media habits of this group and what media are available in that country to reach them? I know of no single source for that level of detailed information about individual media in every country. So what our International Service does is acquire the media directories from every country that publishes one. It is only a matter of time until there is a comprehensive online source for all this, but it’s not there yet, despite a few attempts in Europe. So we acquire these directories manually and can tell you the publications that can reach carpenters in Germany or doctors in Japan or teenagers in Egypt or whatever the case may be.

When a request is not clear, how do you refine it into workable terms? Most of our requests come in by phone. We discourage faxing and emailing requests because there generally has to be some voice-to-voice communication in order to adequately understand their needs. As information professionals everywhere know, people do not word their questions in a way that’s exactly what they mean the first time. Most of the time, we’re on the phone with them trying to ascertain what they are really after. I regard it as our job to help them reword their request and turn it into something that we can help with.

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186 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue As a matter of fact, one of the most important functions we’ve evolved into performing for the members in the past few years has been a consultative one. Members will often call to describe a “situation” without knowing how to verbalize a request, and we’ll discuss it with them at length. Helping them work through the problem in order to identify the specific questions that need to be answered is a valuable service in itself. Then we bring to them knowledge of what sorts of research resources are out there that can be thrown against those questions to satisfy their needs.

Having done the reference interview and established what information is needed, do you negotiate for deadlines? And how do you do that? We charge “rush” fees. In the advertising world, everybody is always in a hurry. We say that we are the service industry behind the service industry. When advertising agencies call us, they are already under external pressure from their clients and they transfer that pressure to us. So, for almost every project that comes in, the deadline is “as soon as possible.” Since we’re always working on a tremendous number of projects, we are constantly juggling deadlines, but we cannot say “no” to a member. Instead of just helping the squeaky wheels first, as it were, we instituted a “rush” charge when someone needs “dropeverything” service and we need to shove aside other requests that may have been submitted earlier.

How much do you charge for “rush” fees? It’s $100 per project if they need it done same-day, regardless of how it’s delivered, and $50 if they need it done tomorrow. I should also add that if it’s something we can do in 10 or 15 minutes, no charge is imposed. That’s just quick reference to us. And we encourage people to call even if they are going to need it quickly and they don’t have a budget for a “rush” fee. Most of the time, we

Marsha Appel: 4As for Excellence can find something that will help them on a quick reference basis. Aside from requests like these, there is never a charge.

Can you give me an example of quick reference question? It can range from “Can you look up a phone number for me?” to “How many ads does a person see in a day?”—which to someone else could be a five-hour research project. But one of the things going for us is that, because of the volume of requests we handle, we aren’t going to hear that many questions that require our starting from scratch. In many cases, we’ve developed a quick answer to a common question, or we already know the one thing that’s ever been written on that particular topic, or the best source to go to. Or we’ll refer someone to a Web site that’s the best place to find the information, and they can retrieve the answer themselves. That’s quick reference to us.

With over 22,000 projects a year, do you compile FAQs? How do you track all the questions you’ve been asked? Do you use the logged data as a management tool? Yes. Out of 22,000 questions a year, there could be several hundred frequently asked questions we can handle very quickly. Some are in a database and others are not. We have Inmagic [110] software, and Edith Ziffer did a brilliant job in adapting it to track our requests. Logging the data actually serves several purposes, not just to track questions we’ve been asked, although we do use it for that purpose, too. We can find out if we’ve handled the same question for that same agency, which sometimes happens. It’s also an excellent training tool for new employees, who can see what resources were consulted for earlier requests on similar topics. But first and foremost, it was developed as a way of documenting the volume of work we do. We use the database to generate a statistical report on how many projects we’ve done for

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188 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue what sizes of agencies, for which geographic regions, for what kinds of topics, et cetera. This helps to provide justification for our existence. Another extremely important function the database performs for us is documenting the value of AAAA membership to agency CEOs. We send an annual printout of all projects handled for each agency the previous year, which includes the name of the requestor and the specific questions asked. We always get a positive response to the mailings, because CEOs often have no idea how extensively and frequently the service is used and how many people in the agency use it. We do this at the beginning of the year, usually around February.

Moving on to another topic, how does the Internet impact the way you research now compared to the way you researched in pre-Internet days? Do you have any favorite Web sites that are specifically relevant to the industry? Bearing in mind that we cover every subject under the sun, there is no specific all-purpose site. For advertising topics, we like the Advertising World site from the University of Texas at Austin [15]. One of my favorite sites for anything to do with sales promotion, especially coupons, is Santella and Associates [182]; for Internet statistical topics, I use CyberAtlas [51], eMarketer [72], NUA Internet Surveys [152], and Internetstats.com [115].

As you mentioned, you are often crunched for time. If you cannot find the answer online, where do you turn? Due to handling a large volume of requests on so many industries, online is not usually the first place we go. We have subject files, concept files, print resources that are sometimes easier to access than online services. If a requestor gives us a company

Marsha Appel: 4As for Excellence name or a brand name, it is always easier to use an online database. There is no ambiguity in those kinds of questions. It’s only a question of how much literature to plow through and which online database to use for that topic. For certain kinds of industries, we do better through print resources. For example, with a request for an overview of the automotive or soft drink industry, I would not go looking for it online. There is such a proliferation of printed materials on this subject that it is so much easier to just get it off the shelf or out of a file.

In our line of work, we often get requests that cannot be easily defined by a few words or a phrase in an online search. When you get a question about product launch strategies, for instance, or execution of advertising ideas and concepts, how do you start your research? Advertising concepts, in particular, are easier to trap up front than to try to do online. We have extensive information organized by concept. This sounds a bit vague. Concept files deal with the kinds of questions I mentioned previously, where an agency is trying to evaluate a particular strategy or execution, or if somebody is giving a speech and wants trends in the advertising agency business. We may have speeches that were given in the past, reports, or significant articles that often aren’t available online, or where it would be difficult to put together an effective strategy to locate them even if they are. There are some concept file examples that are near and dear to me. A couple of years ago, somebody wanted an example of a situation where a company changed a product and there was such a hue and cry from their customers that the company had to bring back the original product. Where do you start to look for that? The obvious answer is new Coke. The concept does not have a neat little keyword to throw into a database. One of the advantages of a large department is that we have a lot of people who read a lot of publications. Through brainstorming

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190 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue and by poking around some literature on product failures, we ultimately found five or six other cases of similar situations. For example, Ovaltine was a malt-flavored drink in a stodgy little old-fashioned bottle. The company thought consumers would want a more chocolate-flavored product, so they reformulated the product and switched to a more modern-looking bottle. They were forced to bring back the original product and bottle in response to a set of diehard Ovaltine fans. Another example is when Hardee’s bought Roy Rogers and wanted to convert all Roy Rogers establishments to the Hardee’s name. I can still picture a Wall Street Journal headline about irate Roy Rogers fans demanding the return of Roy Rogers restaurants. Another example is a marketing-strategy type of question. A company manufacturing a premium product wants a cheaper line to sell more products. What name do they give the cheaper product? Do they link it to the existing brand or do they give it an entirely new name? And where do they sell it? If you sell the cheaper product at Kmart, what does this do to the image of the original product? Again, we started to deal with this question by brainstorming. There are other companies that have faced this same issue before. The first time we get a question like that, we may only come up with a couple of relevant examples, but experience tells us that we will hear that question again. The trick is labeling the concept and setting aside the mechanism for capturing new literature on the topic as it is published. These concepts tend to take on a life of their own so that, by the time someone else calls with a similar question, we’ll have a place to look and a good head start on answering it. Our concept files make us look like heroes when a member calls us in a panic with a seemingly complex question at 4:45 P.M. One type of question that we’ve developed a somewhat unorthodox way of handling is company anniversaries. We’ve been asked for names of companies and brands that will be celebrating significant anniversaries in specific upcoming years, so that an agency can propose a possible tie-in promotion to a

Marsha Appel: 4As for Excellence client. If you think about it, there is no obvious source to consult for this information; it really requires some ingenuity. Harvey Wiener, one of our senior information specialists and a very creative researcher, came up with an inspired solution: Check the 1978 Business Periodicals Index [38] for mentions of articles about 25th anniversary celebrations, for example, to identify companies that may be celebrating a 50th anniversary in 2003. We supplemented what we found with pertinent material from our files about corporate anniversary celebrations, and were ultimately able to compile an impressive list. The postscript to the story is that we’ve developed these things into several proprietary lists of all sorts of companies and brands founded in years ending with 1 and 6, 2 and 7, 3 and 8, et cetera, which will prove useful in answering various kinds of questions in the future.

Other than the ones you’ve compiled, what print resources that are not accessible online do you find invaluable? The Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands [255] is a favorite, as well as the 43-volume and growing International Directory of Company Histories [263], both from St. James Press. Gale’s Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns [256] series is also very helpful. We also have some historical resources not readily available anywhere else. We have Advertising Age’s agency income [14] and leading national advertisers [2] issues going back for decades, and we have the Standard Directory of Advertising Agencies [282], and the Standard Directory of Advertisers [281] back to the ’50s.

What challenges do you face in serving your members? One is when intermediaries call us instead of the person who actually needs the information. They are reading off a piece of paper and they cannot answer questions we pose. They get defensive when we challenge them. This has been a big problem.

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192 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue Probably the biggest problem recently is the presumption that everything is on the Web. Everybody is an expert and they only have to go on the Web to resolve their questions. There is also some resistance to using expensive online databases that contain the answers to a question. As an association we have negotiated flat rates with some online services and there are others for which we bill back. We cannot incur out-of-pocket expenses unless the agency authorizes the expenditure. I ran into someone who thought that everything they wanted should be available for free on the Internet. If a member does not authorize the money, we are in a difficult spot, because a commercial online service may contain the only answer to a question. But we do what we can. The Internet has been a curse and a blessing. A related issue is that, because of the proliferation of information on the Internet, we have agency executives who say “We can search the Internet ourselves. What do we need you for?” They start to question why they should be members of the AAAA. This is very frustrating to hear and we are hearing it more and more. The answer I came up with that seems to work best is to ask them if that’s what they’re paying their employees to do—spend hours at a time trying to find a nugget of credible information on the Internet.

What value-added services do you provide to ensure satisfied members? One is helping them interpret their own requests. We’ve heard more than once from agency members that this alone was worth the price of their membership. Helping them understand their own questions is half the battle. Another is the economy of scale we’ve achieved because of the volume of requests we handle, the collection we’ve developed, the number of professionals we have, and the experience we’ve gained answering these questions. We can save members a

Marsha Appel: 4As for Excellence tremendous amount of time they might otherwise spend reinventing the wheel. More specifically, we have created many mini-databases containing information not compiled anywhere else, organized for quick retrieval. I can cite several examples. We keep track of women executives running advertising agencies. We monitor ad spending for new products. We have also compiled examples of successful direct marketing campaigns where response rates are given. We track account changes and look at agency review standards and practices. We are gradually adding this kind of information to the members-only section of the AAAA Web site, where agencies can have 24-hour access to it.

How do you keep up with new resources and search strategies? What do you read? What discussion groups do you subscribe to? It’s very difficult to stay on top of things due to the rapid changes and the proliferation of resources. The Special Libraries Association Advertising and Marketing discussion group [191] has been very helpful. I subscribe to a whole bunch of email newsletters, like Media Post [139] and one from The Market Segment Group [135] in Florida, a multicultural marketing company. We are also members of other associations and get announcements about whatever they are publishing. Lately, the Travel Industry Association’s [322] email alerts have been particularly helpful to us, as the travel industry is experiencing dramatic changes on an almost weekly basis. As research professionals, we read Searcher [183] and Online [157] magazines.

To what degree does professional networking help you deal with answers that are not readily available in-house or are difficult to obtain? Time is always an obstacle in taking external steps to find answers. Fortunately, thanks to the size and depth of our collection, we have the luxury of not often needing to go elsewhere. We

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194 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue have good working relationships with other U.S. and global advertising and media associations like the British IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising) [308], the ARF (Advertising Research Foundation) [296], the RAB (Radio Advertising Bureau) [319], the MPA (Magazine Publishers of America) [311], and others.

Do you share information about new resources in the form of periodic publications to your members? Do you alert the AAAA management to address emerging topical issues? MIS does not put out a newsletter about our services or acquisitions, but we do publish something called Research Matters, which summarizes recent studies in the fields of advertising and consumer research. We try to identify topics of recurring interest among the membership and develop some standardized responses to them. For example, we are often asked for examples of agency self-promotion brochures, so we put out a bulletin requesting them and put together a large case of promotion pieces that can be borrowed by agencies for weeks at a time. Occasionally we’ll get a spate of requests on a new topic and will then alert AAAA management to an emerging trend that may not yet be adequately covered by the trade press, or worse, not covered from an agency perspective. The AAAA may then do a study or produce a white paper or a speech package on the topic. Going back a few years, one of those topics was the value of brands. When that became a hot topic, the AAAA published several booklets and a speech package so we had something ready to send. The AAAA was also proactive on the subject of advertising during a recession. The information service did extensive historical research that resulted in a booklet summarizing all the previous studies that documented the importance of continuing to advertise in a down economy.


Multicultural marketing is hot lately. This is partly due to the Census population report that indicates Asian-Americans and Hispanics are the fastest growing multicultural markets across the U.S. What kind of resources do you have on the Hispanic market, for example? We do not have any of the expensive syndicated studies on multicultural consumers, but we have purchased books and several reports, like The U.S. Hispanic Market Report [290], from Strategy Research Corporation. It is an area of growing importance, and we are trying to build up our resources with every snippet of data we can find. We have developed a prototype for an internal database and are currently testing and modifying it. Our resources in general are probably very good, but I’m wary of over-promising our capabilities, since we do not have access to comprehensive research studies and cannot guarantee finding specific data. I don’t know that we’re offering much that an agency that has expertise in Hispanic marketing, for example, doesn’t already know. We are most helpful at providing a solid orientation to topics outside an agency’s area of expertise.

What personal interests do you pursue that you find beneficial to your profession? It goes back to the general awareness issue. Advertising topics fall into that area of general familiarity with mass American culture. I joke about requiring my staff to watch television, but that’s part of it, along with movies, music, and reading. When we pick up the phone, we can’t be totally ignorant about anything. Back when Barney the dinosaur was really popular, it would not be acceptable for somebody on our staff who did not have children to say “Barney? What’s that?” We need to have some general awareness of everything. If that means reading the newspapers and magazines or watching TV, that’s what’s important.

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196 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue We lose credibility with our members if we have no idea what they are talking about on the phone. It is said that people go into information careers because they are generalists and don’t want to spend their lives immersed in arcane subject disciplines. We are professional generalists, and just look at the subject matter we get to work with! The most wonderful thing about working as an information professional in advertising is that it permits you to gain broad-based knowledge while monitoring the cultural scene. I can’t think of anything more interesting than the variety of topics we are obligated, as well as privileged, to keep track of.

If you were not in advertising, what would you be doing? I would be indexing or doing something else that involves organizing information in some way.

You are the author of a very successful book titled Illustration Index. It is now in eight volumes, covering 1972 to 1996. I’m amazed at the depth of indexing that you have put in considering that there are 19,000 subject headings and 28,000 entries. Tell me a little bit about how you got started on this project and where you’re going next. I got started through a professor at library school. He started out asking me to co-author it with him. I then inherited it on an ongoing basis. It was almost like therapy for me, something I could do curled up in my little corner and have complete control over. However, I’m not continuing with it. It was a guide to locating illustrations in periodicals, and there are so many resources where one can instantly retrieve pictures electronically that the concept for the book is obsolete.


Is there anything you’d like to add that we have not covered? You have been pretty thorough. I’d just add that, as information professionals, my colleagues and I like doing research and we enjoy helping people. These traits have served us in good stead, particularly at a trade association whose entire reason for being is service. It’s a job that has been constantly changing, both in subject matter and in the nature of the industry. There is so much opportunity to fill a significant role in this organization, particularly in the areas of computerized resources and the association’s Web site. Looking at the broader picture, I see an excellent future for information professionals. We talked about the frustration of people thinking that everything is at their fingertips on the Internet and you do not need to have special expertise to do research. I see signs that this is turning around. People are now saying, “Wait a minute. This is too time consuming. I just spent four hours and I found something, but it was not what I was looking for. You know what? You’re the expert. You find it.” I find that in some ways we are gaining more respect than we used to have. When people know a little bit about what’s involved in finding something, they have more respect for people who do it really well. I think that it is really encouraging. And, as the amount of electronically available data proliferates, there will be more demand for those skilled in assessing its credibility, organizing it, and analyzing it, and those are our strong suits.


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We don’t have the luxury of a lot of time to do the research, so we try to collect it proactively and have it at our fingertips or know exactly who would have done that kind of research.

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Logging data serves several purposes, not just to track questions we’ve been asked. It’s an excellent training tool for new employees, who can see what resources were consulted for earlier requests on similar topics. But first and foremost, it was developed as a way of documenting the volume of work we do.

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We have good working relationships with other U.S. and global advertising and media associations like the British Institute of Practitioners in Advertising, the Advertising Research Foundation, the Radio Advertising Bureau, and the Magazine Publishers of America.

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Our International Service acquires the media directories from every country that publishes one. There is no comprehensive online source for all this yet. So we acquire these directories manually and can tell you the publications that can reach carpenters in Germany or doctors in Japan or teenagers in Egypt.

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To identify companies that may be celebrating a 50th anniversary in 2003, check the 1978 Business Periodicals Index for articles about 25th anniversary celebrations. We’ve developed several proprietary lists of companies and brands founded in years ending with 1 and 6, 2 and 7, 3 and 8, et cetera, which will prove useful in answering questions in the future.


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The most wonderful thing about working as an information professional in advertising is that it permits you to gain broad-based knowledge while monitoring the cultural scene. I can’t think of anything more interesting than the variety of topics we are obligated, as well as privileged, to keep track of.

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Appendix Referenced Sites and Sources www.infotoday.com/supersearchers ONLINE RESOURCES 1.

10Kwizard www.10kwizard.com

2.

100 Leading National Advertisers www.adage.com/datacenter.cms

3.

360hiphop.com (defunct)

4.

ABI/INFORM (Dialog File 15) library.dialog.com/bluesheets/html/bl0015.html

5.

About about.com

6.

Ad*Access scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/adaccess/

7.

ADAM www.adam.ac.uk

8.

Adbrands.net (formerly Mind Advertising Profiles) www.mind-advertising.com

9.

AdCritic.com www.adcritic.com

10.

AdFlip www.adflip.com

11.

AdForum www.adforum.com

12.

AdReview www.adreview.com

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202 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue 13.

Advertising Age www.adage.com

14.

Advertising Age Annual Agency Report www.adage.com/datacenter.cms

15.

Advertising World (University of Texas at Austin) advertising.utexas.edu/world/

16.

Adweek.com www.adweek.com

17.

African Americans On Wheels www.onwheelsinc.com

18.

Africana.com www.africana.com

19.

AfroCentric News www.afrocentricnews.com

20.

AltaVista www.altavista.com

21.

Amazon www.amazon.com

22.

American Demographics Online www.inside.com

23.

AP Photo Archive photoarchive.ap.org

24.

Artcyclopedia www.artcyclopedia.com

25.

Ask Jeeves www.ask.com

26.

Big Blue Dot Trend Update trendupdate.bigblue.com

27.

bizjournals.com (American City Business Journals) www.bizjournals.com

28.

Black Athlete Sports Network, LLC www.blackathlete.com

29.

Black Enterprise www.blackenterprise.com

30.

BlackHeadlines.com www.blackheadlines.com

31.

BlackPressUSA.com www.blackpressusa.com

Appendix: Referenced Sites and Sources 32.

Black Talent Network Online blacktalentnetwork.com

33.

Bolt www.bolt.com

34.

Brandchannel www.brandchannel.com

35.

Brandweek www.brandweek.com

36.

Business360 www.business360.com

37.

Business and Industry (Dialog File 9) library.dialog.com/bluesheets/html/b10009.html

38.

Business Periodicals Index www.silverplatter.com/catalog/wbpi.htm

39.

Business Week www.businessweek.com

40.

BUSLIB-L (Business Librarian discussion group) To subscribe, email: [email protected] In message body type: subscribe buslib-l your firstname your lastname

41.

The Buying Power of Black America www.targetmarketnews.com/

42.

CEOExpress www.ceoexpress.com

43.

Chicago Sun-Times www.suntimes.com

44.

Chicago Tribune www.chicagotribune.com

45.

CMR, a Taylor Nelson Sofres Company www.cmr.com

46.

Commercial Closet www.commercialcloset.org

47.

Communication Arts www.commarts.com

48.

Company Sleuth www.companysleuth.com

49.

Corbis www.corbis.com

203


Cotton Inc. www.cottoninc.com

51.

CyberAtlas cyberatlas.internet.com

52.

The CyberSkeptic’s Guide to Internet Research www.infotoday.com/cyberskeptics.htm Deja see Google Groups

53.

Demographics USA County Edition www.tradedimensions.com/p_demographics.html

54.

Details www.details.com

55.

Detour www.detourmag.com

56.

Detroit Free Press www.freep.com

57.

Dialog Corporation www.dialog.com Dialog Profound see Profound

58.

Digital Librarian www.digital-librarian.com

59.

Dismal Scientist www.economy.com/dismal/

60.

Ditto.com www.ditto.com

61.

Diversity, Inc. www.diversityinc.com

62.

Diversity Information Resources www.diversityinforesources.com

63.

Dogpile www.dogpile.com

64.

Dow Jones Interactive see also Factiva djinteractive.com

65.

Dun & Bradstreet www.dnb.com

66.

eBay www.ebay.com

67.

Ebony www.ebony.com

Appendix: Referenced Sites and Sources 68.

The Economist www.economist.com

69.

EContent www.ecmag.net

70.

eCreativeSearch www.ecreativesearch.com

71.

El Nuevo Herald www.miami.com/elnuevoherald/

72.

eMarketer www.emarketer.com

73.

Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850–1920 scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/eaa/

74.

Entertainment Weekly www.ew.com

75.

Epinions epinions.com

76.

EPM Communications, Inc. www.epmcom.com

77.

Essence www.essence.com

78.

EthnicGrocer www.ethnicgrocer.com

79.

Euromonitor International www.euromonitor.com

80.

Excite www.excite.com

81.

EyeWire www.eyewire.com

82.

Factiva www.factiva.com

83.

Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising www.fidm.com

84.

Fast Company www.fastcompany.com

85.

FindArticles.com www.findarticles.com

86.

Find/SVP www.findsvp.com

205


Focus on the Family www.family.org

88.

Forbes www.forbes.com

89.

Forrester www.forrester.com

90.

Fortune www.fortune.com

91.

Gale Group www.galegroup.com

92.

Getty Images Creative creative.gettyimages.com

93.

Google www.google.com

94.

Google Groups (formerly Deja) groups.google.com

95.

GMA SmartBrief (Grocery Manufacturers of America) www.gmabrands.com www.smartbrief.com

96.

Great Buildings Online www.greatbuildings.com

97.

Harvard Business Review www.hbr.com or www.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbr/

98.

Harvard Business School Baker Library www.library.hbs.edu

99.

heart&soul www.heartandsoul.com

100. HispanicAd www.hispanicad.com 101. Hispanic Business.com www.hispanicbusiness.com 102. Hispanic Magazine.com www.hispaniconline.com/magazine/ 103. HispanicTrends.com www.hispanictrends.com 104. Honey www.honeymag.com 105. Hoover’s Online www.hoovers.com

Appendix: Referenced Sites and Sources 106. HotBot www.hotbot.com or hotbot.lycos.com 107. Information Outlook www.sla.org/pubs/serial/io/index.shtml 108. Information Please Almanac www.infoplease.com 109. Information Today, Inc. www.infotoday.com 110. Inmagic, Inc. www.inmagic.com 111. InSite2 www.insite2.gale.com/is2/enduser_index.cgi 112. Intelligence Data www.intelliscope.com 113. The Internet Public Library www.ipl.org 114. Internet Scout Project (The Scout Report) scout.cs.wisc.edu/report/sr/current/ 115. Internetstats.com www.internetstats.com 116. Investext (Dialog File 745) library.dialog.com/bluesheets/html/b10745.html 117. Jet www.jetmag.com 118. Jupiter Media Metrix www.jmm.com 119. The LA Office www.laoffice.com 120. La Opinion www.laopinion.com 121. Latina Online www.latina.com 122. Latina Style www.latinastyle.com 123. Leadership Directories, Inc. www.leadershipdirectories.com 124. LexisNexis www.lexisnexis.com

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208 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue 125. Librarians’ Index to the Internet www.lii.org 126. Lifestyle Market Analyst (Standard Rate and Data Service) www.srds.com 127. LII New This Week www.lii.org/search/ntw 128. LIMA Licensing Industry Survey www.licensing.org 129. Lippincott Library@Wharton www.library.upenn.edu/lippincott/ 130. Los Angeles Times www.latimes.com 131. Lycos www.lycos.com 132. Magazine Database (Dialog File 47) library.dialog.com/bluesheets/html/b10047.html 133. Marketing and Advertising Reference Service (MARS) (Dialog File 570) library.dialog.com/bluesheets/html/b10570.html 134. MarketResearch.com www.marketresearch.com 135. The Market Segment Group www.marketsegment.com 136. Masterfile www.masterfile.com 137. Media Life www.medialifemagazine.com 138. Mediamark Research Inc. www.mediamark.com 139. Media Post www.mediapost.com 140. Mind Advertising www.mind-advertising.com 141. Moreover www.moreover.com 142. MTV www.mtv.com

Appendix: Referenced Sites and Sources 143. Multicultural Marketing Resources, Inc. www.inforesources.com or www.multiculturalmarketingresources.com 144. National Geographic Online www.nationalgeographic.com 145. National Public Radio www.npr.org 146. NewScientist.com www.newscientist.com 147. New Strategist Publications www.newstrategist.com 148. Newsweek www.newsweek.msnbc.com 149. The New Yorker www.newyorker.com 150. The New York Times www.nytimes.com 151. Northern Light www.northernlight.com 152. NUA Internet Surveys www.nua.com/surveys/ 153. OCLC FirstSearch www.oclc.org/firstsearch/ 154. The One Person Library www.ibi-opl.com 155. OneSource www.onesource.com 156. The Onion www.theonion.com 157. Online Magazine www.onlinemag.net 158. The Oregonian www.oregonian.com 159. Original Hip-Hop Lyrics Archive www.ohhla.com 160. Outdoor Advertising Collections scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/hartman/oa 161. Oxford English Dictionary www.oed.com

209

210 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue 162. Paper www.papermag.com 163. Pizza Marketing Quarterly www.pmq.com 164. PlanetFeedback www.planetfeedback.com 165. Powell’s City of Books www.powells.com 166. Price’s List of Lists www.specialissues.com/lol/ 167. Productscan Online www.productscan.com 168. Profound www.profound.com 169. Promo Magazine www.promomagazine.com 170. PROMT (Dialog File 16) library.dialog.com/bluesheets/html/b100016.html 171. ProQuest www.proquest.com 172. QSR Magazine www.qsrmagazine.com 173. The Red Books Online www.redbooks.com 174. Refdesk.com www.refdesk.com 175. Research Bank Web www.investext.com 176. ResearchBuzz www.researchbuzz.com Responsive Database Services see Gale Group 177. Restaurants and Institutions www.rimag.com 178. Retail Forward www.pwcris.com 179. Rolling Stone www.rollingstone.com

Appendix: Referenced Sites and Sources 180. RoperASW www.roperasw.com 181. Salon Magazine www.salon.com 182. Santella and Associates www.santella.com Scout Report see Internet Scout Project 183. Searcher Magazine www.infotoday.com/searcher/ 184. shots www.shots.net 185. Sister 2 Sister www.s2smagazine.com 186. SmartBrief www.smartbrief.com 187. Smithsonian Institution Office of Imaging, Printing and Photographic Services photo2.si.edu/ 188. SOHH.com www.sohh.com 189. The Source www.thesource.com 190. Source Book of Multicultural Experts www.inforesources.com 191. Special Libraries Association Advertising and Marketing Division www.sla.org/division/dam/index.html To subscribe to discussion list, send email message to [email protected]. Leave subject line blank; in message body type: [email protected] your email address your first name your last name. 192. Sports Business Daily www.sportsbizdaily.com 193. Standard & Poor’s Industry Surveys www.standardandpoors.com 194. Standard Rate and Data Service www.srds.com 195. Statistical Abstract of the United States www.census.gov/statab/www/

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212 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue 196. strategy + business www.strategy-business.com 197. Strategy Research Corporation www.strategyresearch.com 198. TableBase (Dialog File 93) library.dialog.com/bluesheets/html/b10093.html 199. Target Market News www.targetmarketnews.com 200. Technology Review www.techreview.com 201. Technomic Foodservice Consultants www.technomic.com 202. Teenage Research Unlimited (TRU) www.teenresearch.com 203. Teoma www.teoma.com 204. Terra www.terra.com 205. Time www.time.com 206. Time Life Photo Sight www.pathfinder.com/photo 207. Trade and Industry Database (Dialog File 148) library.dialog.com/bluesheets/html/b10148.html 208. Trade Dimensions www.tradedimensions.com 209. Trademarkscan (Dialog Files 246, 226) library.dialog.com/bluesheets/html/b10246.html library.dialog.com/bluesheets/html/bl0226.html 210. Tradeshow Week Databook www.ceir.org 211. United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs www.un.org/esa 212. UnityFirst.com www.unityfirst.com 213. Univision\ www.univision.com 214. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics www.bls.gov

Appendix: Referenced Sites and Sources 215. U.S. Census Bureau www.census.gov 216. U.S. Department of State Country Background Notes www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/ 217. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office www.uspto.gov 218. Utne Reader www.utne.com 219. Value Line Investment Survey www.valueline.com 220. Vault www.vault.com 221. Veronis Suhler Communications Industry Forecast www.veronissuhler.com/publications/forecast/CIFIntro.html 222. Vibe Magazine Online www.vibe.com 223. Video Monitoring Service www.vidmon.com 224. Wallpaper www.wallpaper.com 225. The Wall Street Journal Online www.wsj.com Wilson Business Periodicals Index see Business Periodicals Index 226. Wired www.wired.com 227. World Advertising Research Center (WARC) www.warc.com 228. XtremeInformation.com www.xtremeinformation.com 229. Yahoo! www.yahoo.com 230. Yankelovich www.yankelovich.com 231. The Zandl Group www.zandlgroup.com 232. Zenith Media www.zenithmedia.com

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214 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue BOOKS, ANNUALS, NEWSLETTERS, MAGAZINES, AND ARTICLES 233. Aaker, David and Scott M. Davis. Brand Asset Management. Jossey-Bass. July 2000 www.josseybass.com 234. Aaker, David (editor) and Alexander L. Biel (editor) Brand Equity & Advertising’s Role in Building Strong Brands. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. April 1993 www.erlbaum.com 235. Aaker, David and Erich Joachimsthaler. Brand Leadership: The Next Level of the Brand Revolution. Free Press. January 2000 www.freepressonline.com 236. Aaker, David. Building Strong Brands. Free Press. December 1995 237. Aaker, David. Managing Brand Equity: Capitalizing on the Value of a Brand Name. Free Press. June 1991 238. Advertising Age’s Creativity Magazine Crain Communications www.creativitymagazine.com 239. The African-American Information Directory, 4th Edition Gale Publications, 1998 www.galegroup.com 240. All About Women Consumers Yearbook EPM Communications, Annual www.epmcom.com 241. Appel, Marsha. Illustration Index I - VIII. Scarecrow Press. 1972–1996 www.scarecrowpress.com 242. Brands and Their Companies Gale Group www.galegroup.com 243. Brandweek’s Annual Superbrands Report Brandweek www.brandweek.com 244. Business Rankings Annual Gale Group www.galegroup.com

Appendix: Referenced Sites and Sources 245. The Buying Power of Black America Target Market News, Annual www.targetmarketnews.com 246. Communication Arts Annual Communication Arts www.commarts.com 247. Contemporary Black Biography Gale Group www.galegroup.com 248. Cushine, Lisa, “Shh! There Are Great Jobs In The Library” Cosmopolitan Magazine, July 1990 www.cosmomag.com 249. “Director of Intelligence: Job Titles of the Future: Velda Ruddock.” Fast Company, February–March 1997 www.fastcompany.com 250. DMA Statistical Fact Book Direct Marketing Association www.the-dma.org 251. Encyclopedia of Advertising Fitzroy Dearborn www.fitzroydearborn.com 252. Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History Salzman, Jack, David Lionel Smith and Cornel West Macmillan Library Reference www.mlr.com www.gale.com/macmillan 253. Encyclopedia of Associations Gale Group www.galegroup.com 254. Encyclopedia of Business Information Sources Gale Group www.galegroup.com 255. Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands St. James Press, 1994 www.galegroup.com 256. Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns Gale Group, 1999 www.galegroup.com 257. Ethnic Market Report Market Segment Research www.marketsegment.com

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216 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue 258. The Futurist The World Future Society www.wfs.org 259. Gladwell, Malcolm, The Tipping Point. Little, Brown & Co., 2000 www.twbookmark.com 260. Higgins, Denis, The Art of Writing Advertising: Conversations with William Bernbach, Leo Burnett, George Gribbin, David Ogilvy, Rosser Reeves. NTC Books, 1965. p. 93 www.ntc-cb.com 261. IEG Sponsorship Sourcebook IEG www.sponsorship.com 262. Information Advisor FIND/SVP Publishing www.informationadvisor.com 263. International Directory of Company Histories St. James Press www.galegroup.com 264. Interview Brant Publications, Inc. www.interviewmagazine.com 265. Lederman, Eva, Careers in Advertising. Random House, 1998. p. 25. www.randomhouse.com 266. Marketing to the Emerging Majorities EPM Communications, Inc. www.epmcom.com 267. Marketing to Women EPM Communications, Inc. www.epmcom.com 268. Market Share Reporter Gale Group, Annual 269. National Minority Business Directory Diversity Information Resources, Annual www.diversityinforesources.com 270. New Strategist Editors Racial and Ethnic Diversity, 3rd Edition New Strategists Publications, May 2000 www.newstrategist.com

Appendix: Referenced Sites and Sources

217

271. The One Show: Best Print, Radio, TV Annual The One Club, Annual www.oneclub.org 272. Packaged Facts Reports FIND/SVP Publishing www.findsvp.com 273. Print Regional Design Annual Print Magazine, Annual //printmag.com 274. Ray, Paul and Sherry Ruth Anderson, Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World. Harmony Books, 2000 www.harmonybooks.com 275. Reed, Gretchen, Information Services for the Advertising Professional. American Association of Advertising Agencies, 2002 www.aaaa.org 276. Reed, Gretchen, Editor, International Advertising and Marketing Information Sources. Special Libraries Association, 1999 www.sla.org 277. Research Alert EPM Publications, Inc. www.epmcom.com. 278. Research Alert Yearbook EPM Communications Inc. www.epmcom.com 279. Schwartz, Peter. The Art of the Long View: Paths to Strategic Insights for Yourself and Your Company. Currency/Doubleday, April 1991 www.randomhouse.com 280. SRDS Lifestyle Market Analysis SRDS and Equifax www.srds.com 281. Standard Directory of Advertisers Advertising Red Books www.redbooks.com 282. Standard Directory of Advertising Agencies Advertising Red Books www.redbooks.com

218 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue 283. Standard Directory of Hispanic Advertising Agencies Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies www.ahaa.org 284. Standard Periodical Directory Oxbridge Communications, Inc. www.mediafinder.com 285. Statistical Record of Black America Gale Group www.galegroup.com 286. The Trends Journal Trends Research Institute www.trendsresearch.com 287. Today's Black Woman TBW Publishing Group www.magazania.com/id/cji/group/2246 288. Torre, Joe, Ground Rules for Winners: 12 Keys to Managing Team Players, Tough Bosses, Setbacks and Success. Hyperion, 1999 www.hyperionbooks.com 289. TV Dimensions Media Dynamics www.mediadynamicsinc.com 290. U.S. Hispanic Market Report Strategy Research Corporation www.strategyresearch.com 291. U.S. Industry Profiles, Second Edition Gale Group www.galegroup.com 292. Valdés, M. Isabel, Marketing to American Latinos: A Guide to the InCulture Approach (Part 1: 2000, Part 2: 2002). Paramount Market Publishing, Inc. www.paramountbooks.com 293. Valdés, M. Isabel and Marta H. Sloane, Hispanic Market Handbook, 2nd Edition. Paramount Market Publishing, Inc., 1995 www.paramountbooks.com 294. World Almanac and Book of Facts World Almanac Books www.worldalmanac.com 295. Youth Markets Alert EPM Communications, Inc. www.epmcom.com

Appendix: Referenced Sites and Sources PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS, TRADE ORGANIZATIONS, AND OTHERS 296. Advertising Research Foundation (ARF) 641 Lexington Avenue New York, NY 10012 Phone: (212) 751.5656 www.arfsite.org 297. American Advertising Museum 211 NW Fifth Ave. and Davis Portland, OR 97209 Phone: (503) 226-0000 www.admuseum.org 298. American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) Headquarters: 405 Lexington Avenue, 18th Floor New York, NY 10174-1801 Phone: (212) 682-2500 www.aaaa.org Tel (212) 751-5656 299. Art Directors Club of New York 106 West 29 Street New York, NY 10001 www.adcny.org 300. Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (AHAA) 8201 Greensboro Drive, Suite 300 McLean, VA 22102 www.ahaa.org Tel (703) 610-9014 301. Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP) 8550 United Plaza Boulevard Suite 1001 Baton Rouge, LA 70809 Phone: (225) 408-4400 Fax: (225) 922-4611 www.aiip.org 302. Association of National Advertisers (ANA) 708 Third Avenue New York, NY 10017-4270 Phone: (212) 697.5950 www.ana.net

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220 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue 303. Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC) Headquarters: 900 N. Meacham Road Schaumburg, IL 60173-4968 Phone: (847) 605-0909 www.accessabc.com 304. Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau (CTAB) 830 Third Avenue New York, NY 10022 Phone: (212) 508-1200 www.cabletvadbureau.com 305. Chicago Library System 224 S.Michigan Avenue Chicago, IL 60604 Phone: (312) 841-8500 www.chilibsys.org 306. The Conference Board 845 Third Avenue New York, NY 10022-6678 Phone: (212) 759-0900 www.conference-board.org 307. Global Business Network (GBN) 5900-X Hollis Street Emeryville, CA 94608 Phone: (510) 547-6822 www.gbn.org 308. Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (IPA) 44 Belgrave Square London SW1X 8QS, England Phone: 020 7235 7020 www.ipa.co.uk 309. Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies (Joint Center) 1090 Vermont Avenue, NW, Suite 1100 Washington, DC 20005-4928 Phone: (202) 789-3500 www.jointcenter.org 310. The Long Now Foundation Bldg 116, top floor, The Presidio PO Box 29462 San Francisco, CA 94129-0462 Phone: (415) 561-6582 www.longnow.org

Appendix: Referenced Sites and Sources 311. Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) 919 Third Avenue New York, NY 10022 Phone: (212) 872-3700 www.mpa.org 312. Minneapolis Public Library 300 Nicollet Mall Minneapolis, MN 55401-1992 Phone: (612) 630-6000 www.mpls.lib.mn.us 313. Multnomah Country Library (Central Library) 801 S.W. 10th Ave. Portland, OR 97205-2597 Phone: (503) 988-5123 www.co.multcolib.org 314. National Restaurant Association (NRA) 1200 17th Street, NW Washington, DC 200036 Phone: (202) 331-5900 www.restaurant.org 315. National Retail Federation (NRF) 325 7th Street, NW, Suite 1100 Washington, DC 20004 Phone: 202-783-7971 or 1-800-NRF-HOW2 www.nrf.com 316. New York Public Library Express (NYPL Express) 188 Madison Avenue New York, NY 10016-4314 Phone: (212) 592.7201 www.nypl.org/express 317. The One Club 32 East 21st Street New York, NY 10010 Phone: (212) 970-1900 www.oneclub.com 318. Public Relations Society of America 33 Irving Place New York, NY 10003-2376 Phone: (212) 995-2230 www.prsa.org

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222 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue 319. Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB) 1320 Greenway Drive #500 Irving, TX 75038 Member Service Helpline: 1-800-232-3131 www.rab.org 320. Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals (SCIP) 1700 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone: (703) 739-0696 www.scip.org 321. Special Libraries Association (SLA) 1700 Eighteenth Street, NW Washington, DC 20009-2514 Phone: (202) 234-4700 www.sla.org 322. Travel Industry Association of America (TIA) 1100 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 450 Washington, DC 20005-3934 Phone: (202) 408-8422 www.tia.org 323. VNU, Inc. (Nielsen/Netratings parent company) 770 Broadway New York, NY 10003-9595 Phone: (646) 654-5000 www.vnu.com, www.nielsen-netratings.com

About the Author Grace A. Villamora is director of Knowledge Management at Euro RSCG Tatham Partners, a subsidiary of Euro RSCG Worldwide. At Tatham Partners in Chicago, she manages a department that provides secondary research for account management and the new business team, including collaborative research projects with account planning, creative, and the integrated marketing units. Her department develops knowledge resources for strategic utilization by the various Tatham Partners network agencies in Portland, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, and Chicago. Grace received Tatham’s Dale H. Jackson Award in 2000, the agency’s top award, in recognition of her contributions and efforts displayed with the highest standards of professionalism and courage. Villamora rejoined Tatham Partners in 2000 after managing her own research and consulting company since 1992. As a consultant she worked with clients in Australia, Southeast Asia, and New York City. Grace maintained a Manila service office for her research clients and handled consulting projects for Wieden + Kennedy and Tatham. Prior to that, Grace served as director of information services for DDB. Her department participated in new business pitches and handled secondary research and reference work for all departments including offices in Sydney, Hong Kong, Seoul, Paris, and Madrid. As a vice president at DDB, she brought in fee-based clients for information services such as Disney World, Land’s End, Discover Card, and Norval Stephens Associates. She developed a creative library with extensive images and pictures heavily used in creative concepts, agency presentations, and focus group sessions. Prior to DDB, Villamora worked at Ogilvy for eight years, where she created an information service department from scratch. At Ogilvy, Grace worked on major accounts such as Sears, Cessna, Mercedes Benz, and NutraSweet. She also collaborated on new business projects for Ogilvy’s Sydney and New York offices. Grace graduated from the University of the Philippines with a Bachelor of Arts degree in public administration and governance. Her initial exposure to research took place in the University’s Department of Linguistics and Oriental Languages. As a researcher, she worked on a Ford Foundation study of 87 Philippine dialects, subsequently published in English-Filipino dictionaries. Villamora is an active member of the American Marketing Association, the Association of Independent Information Professionals, and the Special Libraries Association, where she has served as director and chaired various committees for the Advertising and Marketing Division. Grace, her husband Win, and their two daughters travel extensively in Europe and Asia. She is a passionate gardener, flies and collects kites, and enjoys a round of golf—weather permitting—in Chicago.

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Photo by David Torres

About the Editor Reva Basch, executive editor of the Super Searchers series, has written four books of her own: Researching Online For Dummies (Hungry Minds, 2nd edition with Mary Ellen Bates), Secrets of the Super Net Searchers (Information Today, Inc., 1996), Secrets of the Super Searchers (Information Today, Inc., 1993), and Electronic Information Delivery: Evaluating Quality and Value (Gower, 1995). She has edited and contributed chapters, introductions, and interviews to several books about the Internet and online information retrieval. She was the subject of a profile in Wired magazine, which called her “the ultimate intelligent agent.” Prior to starting her own business in 1986, Reva was Vice President and Director of Research at Information on Demand, a pioneering independent research company. She has designed front-end search software for major online services; written and consulted on technical, marketing, and training issues for both online services and database producers; and published extensively in information industry journals. She has keynoted at international conferences in Australia, Scandinavia, and the United Kingdom, as well as North America. Reva is a Past-President (1991–1992) of the Association of Independent Information Professionals. She has a degree in English literature, summa cum laude, from the University of Pennsylvania, and a master’s degree in library science from the University of California, Berkeley. She began her career as a corporate librarian, ran her own independent research business for ten years, and has been online since the mid-1970s. Reva lives on the remote northern California coast with her husband, cats, and satellite access to the Internet.

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Index

A AAAA (American Association of Advertising Agencies). See also Appel, Marsha advice from, 137, 170 current awareness newsletters, 194 end-users and, 32 information resources, 179–180 Information Services for the Advertising Professional, 163, 173 International Service Group, 184–185 Member Information Services, 119, 139, 184–185 member services, 67 pamphlets, 24, 26 resources available, 181 rush fees, 186–187 staff roles, 182 value of membership, 7 volume of requests, 187–188 AACM (African-American Consumer Market) Special Report, 45 Aaker, David, 99 ABI/INFORM, 134 About.com, 79, 93, 124–125 Account management, 14, 63 Account planners agency culture and, 120–121 Dan Carlton, 117–129 information needs, 168 monitoring Web ads, 35 roles of, 10, 119 trend spotting and, 122–123 typical queries, 14 Account service departments, 78

Ad*Access, 35 AdAge.com, 65, 93 ADAM, 35 AdCritic.com, 35, 79, 121 AdFlip, 35 AdForum, 35, 79, 121 AdReview, 35, 79 Advertiser, 140 Advertising Age Agency Billings, 99 agency income, 191 current awareness and, 26, 67, 69, 139, 152 Data center, 140 end-users and, 32 Leading National Advertisers, 99 multicultural resources, 54 national advertisers, 191 as resource, 5 “Advertising City” office environment, 22 Advertising Research Foundation (ARF), 92, 102, 194 Advertising World, 188 Adweek, current awareness and, 5, 26, 67, 69, 79, 139, 152 Adweek.com, 65, 93 African-American Information Directory, 111 African-American markets, 53–55, 57, 105–115, 156 African Americans on Wheels, 53 Africana.com, 108, 111 AfroCentric News, 108 Agency Billings, 99 Agency Red Books, 140

225

226 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue All About Women Consumers Yearbook, 67 Almanacs, 24 AltaVista, 93, 124, 127, 150, 171 American Advertising Museum, 151 American Demographics, 67, 95, 140, 171 American Express Investment Library, 62 Americans for the Arts, 81 Analyst reports, 18, 36 Anderson, Sherry Ruth, 151 Anniversaries, 137, 191 AP Photo Archive, 35 Appel, Marsha, 179–199. See also AAAA (American Association of Advertising Agencies) background, 179 challenges, 191–192 documentation, 7 Illustration index, 196 International Service Group, 184 Internet impact, 188 networking, 193–194 outside interests, 195 Power Tips, 197–199 profile of requestors, 183–184 reference interviews, 185–186 research strategies, 137, 139, 184, 188–189 resource choices, 180, 185, 191, 193–194 SLA membership, 3 trend spotting, 189–191 turnaround times, 186–187 value-added services, 192–193 Archives at DCA, 44–45 images, 34, 109, 168–169 internal documentation, 32 multicultural information, 171 music, 145 rights management, 40 videos, 145 ARF (Advertising Research Foundation), 92, 102, 194 Art Directors Club of New York Show, 62 Artcyclopedia, 35 Asian markets, 156, 195 Ask Jeeves, 19, 93, 123 Association of Hispanic Advertising Agencies (AHAA), 160 Association of Independent Information Professionals (AIIP), 153 Association of National Advertisers, 102 Association Web sites, 65

Audit Bureau of Circulation (ABC), 164 Aviles, Liz, 131–142 background, 131––132 challenges, 140–141 currency awareness initiative, 140 Internet use, 133 Power Tips, 141–142 product delivery, 138 profile of requestors, 136–137 research strategies, 137–138, 139–140 resource choices, 6, 134–136, 138–139 SLA membership, 4 Awards, 35, 62–63, 156

B Backer & Spielvogel, 164 “Badass Sells” (Forbes), 57 Baker Library site, 136 Baldrige Award, 156 Bates, Mary Ellen, 1 Bates Advertising, 164 Bibliometric studies, 15 Big Blue Dot Trend Update, 136 Billboard advertising, 35 Bindelglass, Neil, 96 Birthdays, 137, 191 Black Athlete Sports Network, 113 Black Enterprise, 53, 108 Black Talent Network Online, 113 BlackHeadlines.com, 108 BlackPressUSA.com, 108 Bloomberg, Mike, 94 Bloomberg L.P., 94 Blue book, 160 Books of Lists, 67 “Brain Food” series, 173 Brand, Stewart, 153 Brandchannel, 140 Branding, 17, 138 Brands and Their Companies, 38 Brandweek, 26, 69, 139, 152 Brandweek’s SuperBrands annuals, 99 British IPA (Institute of Practitioners in Advertising), 194 Buffo, Douglas, 29–42 background, 4, 29–30 challenges, 39–40 eBay.com and, 7, 34–35 international research projects, 36

Index intranet management, 30–31 Power Tips, 41–42 product delivery, 34 profile of requestors, 32–33 reference interviews, 33–34 research strategies, 36 resource choices, 35, 37–38 trends research, 38–39 Bureau of Labor Statistics, 65 Burger King, 57 Burnett, Leo, 125 Burrell Communications Group, 105, 106–107 Business360, 170 Business Periodicals Index, 1978, 191 Business Rankings Annual, 56, 139 Business schools, 136 Business strategies, 18 Business Week, 69, 152 BUSLIB-L, 65, 94, 136, 153 Buying Power of Black America, The, 51, 111

C Cabletelevision Advertising Bureau, 55 Career advice, 26–27, 100–101, 119–120, 182–183 Caribou Coffee, 62 Carlton, Dan, 117–129 background, 117, 120 career advice, 119–120 challenges, 127–128 Havas “research council” membership, 5 keeping current, 123–124 Power Tips, 128–129 research strategy, 117–119, 121 resource choices, 121–125 trend spotting and, 122–123, 124, 126 Web feedback, 8 Carmichael Lynch, 61, 62 Census Bureau, 4, 65, 159 Census Web site, 50 CEOExpress, 93 Chat sites, 124 Chicago, 2 Chicago Library System, 134 Chicago Reference Hotline, 139 Chicago Sun-Times, 152 Chicago Tribune, 152

227

Children, 38, 136, 151 CMI online, 95 CMR, 170 Cohen, Florrie, 93 Coke, 189 Cole, Leslie, 105–115 background, 105–107 challenges, 112 current awareness initiatives, 110–111 identifying experts, 113 keeping current, 112 outside interests, 113 Power Tips, 114–115 product delivery, 112 profile of requestors, 109 research strategies, 109–110, 113–114 resource choices, 7, 107–109, 110 SLA membership, 4 Commercial Closet, 35 Communication Arts, 62, 79, 151 Company Sleuth, 121 Competitive intelligence, 158–159 Computerization, 40 Conference Board, 65 Consumer feedback, 102, 121, 126 Contemporary Black Biography, 111 Coots, Laurie, 10 Copyright management, 40 Corbis, 35, 127 Cosmopolitan, 43 Costs, 13, 17 Cotton Incorporated, 55 Creative departments, 34, 35, 64, 168–169 Creative development, 15 Creativity, 79 Cultural Creatives, 151 Cultural information, 149–150 Currency, maintenance of Aviles, Liz, 123–124 Dan Carlton, 123–124 Dee Magnoni, 152 Gretchen Reed, 173 at Interpublic Group, 102 Jordie Garvin Thomson, 57–58 Kristine Larsen Spanier, 69–70 Leslie Cole, 112 Marsha Appel, 193–194 Robin Feuerstein, 96–97 Velda Ruddock, 20–21 Current awareness AAAA newsletters, 194 AACM Special Report, 45

228 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue Current awareness (cont.) client news alerts, 71 Gretchen Reed, 172 Intelligence Ring, 21–22 Kristine Larsen Spanier, 71 Leslie Cole, 110–111 Liz Aviles initiative, 140 newsletters, 12, 110–111, 140 TBWAToday, 19 CyberAtlas, 135, 188 CyberSkeptic’s Guide to Internet Research, The, 37, 58, 65, 94

D D’Arcy McManus Masius, 85 Databases, internal, 18–19 Decision support, 47–48 Definitions, 150 Deja. See Google Groups Deliverables, branding, 17 Della Femina McNamee, 164 Demographics, 136 Demographics USA-Zip Edition and Country Edition, 52 Details, 80 Detour, 80 Detroit Free Press, 43 DeVito, Sal, 77 DeVito/Verdi, 75, 77 Dialog at AAAA, 180 courses, 58 Douglas Buffo, 32, 36 file 9 (Business & Industry), 50, 56, 57 file 570 (MARS), 50, 57, 108, 164 file 148 (Trade & Industry Database), 50, 56, 57 identifying experts through, 113 Jordie Garvin Thomson, 49 Leslie Cole, 107 Magazine Database, 108 Robin Feuerstein, 91 Trademarkscan, 134 trends research, 39 Dialog Profound, 137 Directory of African-American Organizations, 111 Dismal Scientist, 65 Ditto.com, 127 Diversity, Inc., 159

Diversity Information Resources, 52 DMA Statistical Fact Book, 38 Documentation archives, 32 branding, 17, 138 deliverables, 17 of query results, 13 work volumes, 187–188 Dogpile, 19 Don Coleman Advertising, 44–46 Don Coleman Advertising/Yankelovich African-American Monitor, 53 Donnell Library Center, 29–30 Dow Jones Interactive, 107, 145, 170. See also Factiva Dream analysis, 15–16 Dun & Bradstreet, 37, 134, 167

E Earl Graves Publishing, 53 EBay.com, 7, 34–35 Ebony, 54, 108 Economist, The, 152 EContent, 94 ECreativeSEarch, 121 El Nuevo Herald, 159 Electronic clipping services, 24 Email information requests, 13 newsletters via, 12, 110–111, 140 queries via, 33 surveys, 12 EMarketer, 18, 188 Emergence of Advertising: 1858–1920, 35 Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, 111 Encyclopedia of Associations, 23, 48, 67 Encyclopedia of Bad Taste, 63 Encyclopedia of Business Information Sources, 138–139 Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands, 6, 38, 99, 139, 191 Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns, 6, 38, 67, 99, 191 End-users empowerment, 30–32, 101–102 training, 20, 22–23, 96 Entertainment Weekly, 80 Epinions.com, 121 EPM Communications, 51, 110, 134, 140, 160

Index Essence, 54, 108 EStat database, 18 Ethnic Market Report, 52, 111 Ethnic markets. See also Specific markets; Specific resources AACM Special Report, 45 Ethnic Market Report, 52, 111 music in, 108 Racial and Ethnic Diversity, 51 EthnicGrocer, 160–161 Etymology, 150 EURO RSCG, 164 Euro RSCG MVBMS Partners, 163 Eurocom, 164 Euromonitor, 18, 39 Experts, identification of, 110, 113, 160 EyeWire, 127

resource choices, 7, 91–92, 99 SLA membership, 3 turnaround times, 91 File type features, 19 Filippi, Irene, 93, 94 Find/SVP, 119 FindArticles.com, 108 Focus groups, 126–127 Focus on the Family, 47 Foods, ethnic, 160–161 Foote Cone & Belding, 2 Forbes Magazine, 57, 69 Forrester, 63 Fortune, 69, 100 Futurist, The, 171

F

Gale Group Business & Industry (B&I), 134 Business Rankings Annual, 139 Encyclopedia of Business Information Sources, 138–139 Encyclopedia of Consumer Brands, 139 Encyclopedia of Major Marketing Campaigns, 191 Statistical Record of Black America, 52 TableBase, 134 Gale Publications, 111 Gale Research African-American Information Directory, 111 Garrett, Georgia, 20 Generation Y demographics, 136 Gettyone, 79 Gladwell, Malcolm, 151 Global Business Network, 153 Global research projects, 24–25, 36, 39, 146–147, 149 GMA (Grocery Manufacturers of America), 136 Gold Pencils, 76 Google Dan Carlton, 123 Dee Magnoni, 150 end-users and, 32 file type features, 19 Gerard Seifert, 79 Gretchen Reed, 171 Kristine Larsen Spanier, 64–65

Fact finding studies, 15 Factiva. See also Dow Jones Interactive courses, 58 Dee Magnoni, 145, 149 Douglas Buffo, 32, 36 Kristine Larsen Spanier, 63 Leslie Cole, 107–109 Liz Aviles, 134, 140 trends research, 39 Velda Ruddock, 17–18 Fallon Minneapolis, 117 Fashion Institute of Design & Merchandising, 7, 25 Fast Company, 11, 124, 152 Favilla, Katherine, 87 Feedback from consumers, 102, 121, 126 post-9/11 attitudes, 171 surveys, 12 Web-based sources, 8 Feuerstein, Robin, 85–103 background, 85–86 career advice, 100–101 challenges, 97–98 on industry trends, 98–99 keeping current, 96–97 outside interests, 99–100 Power Tips, 103 product delivery, 90 profile of requestors, 88–89 research services, 87–89, 91 research strategies, 89–90, 91–94, 94–95

G

229

230 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue Google (cont.) Leslie Cole, 108 Liz Aviles, 135–136 multicultural resources, 54 Robin Feuerstein, 92–93 Spanish language access, 159 Velda Ruddock, 19 Google Groups, 102 Government Web sites, 65 Great Buildings Collection for Fine Art and Architecture, 35 Ground Rules for Winners, 100 GSD&M Advertising, 77, 78

H Hagge, Doug, 70 Hale, Kaycee, 25 Hanson, Kristen, 77 Harvard Business Review, 152 Harvard Business School, 136 Havas, 4 Heart&soul, 54 Highlighting, 138 Hill Holliday, 10 Hip-hop music, 108 360hiphop.com, 108 Hispanic Business, 54 Hispanic Magazine.com, 159 Hispanic Market Handbook, 160 Hispanic markets. See also Ethnic markets; Multicultural markets; Specific resources in-culture marketing, 157–158 Internet usage, 158 tweens, 49 Hispanicad, 159 HispanicBusiness.com, 159 HispanicTrends.com, 55 Honey, 54 Hoover’s, 37, 63, 149, 167 Hoover’s Online, 121, 134, 145 HotBot, 93 Human Resources departments, 69 Hunt Adkins, 61, 62

I IEG Sponsorship Sourcebook, 6, 38, 139 Illustration Index, 196 Images. See also Archives clipping, 109 creative team use, 136 Gettyone, 79

Google, 135 Illustration index, 196 locating, 34, 127 photo research, 168–169 search engines for, 79 use in focus groups, 126–127 videos, 145 Web sites for, 35 Industry Surveys Netvantage, 18 Infocorps, 70 INFO@MVBMS, 164–167, 172 Information Advisor, 65 Information Outlook, 65 Information overload, 6 Information Please Almanac, 149 Information requests, 12–13 Information Services for the Advertising Professional, 163, 173 Information Today, 94 Inmagic software, 187 InSite2, 17–18, 36, 39 Institute of Practitioners in Advertising (British IPA), 194 Intelligence Data, 18 Intelligence Ring, 21–22, 24–25 Intelliscope, 18, 36 Interactive media placements, 35 International Advertising and Marketing Information Sources, 163, 173 International Directory of Company Histories, 38, 191 Internet. See also Online resources; Web resources access, 158 impact on research, 22–23, 118, 188 inefficiency of, 32 information access, 6 Jupiter Communications on, 18 Kristine Larsen Spanier, 64–65 Liz Aviles and, 133 site guides, 69 strategic analysis using, 158–159 Internet Public Library, 149 Internet Scout Report, 152 Internetstats.com, 188 Interpublic Group, 4, 85–87, 93, 95 Interview, 80 Interviews, 3, 49. See also Reference interviews Intranets current awareness newsletters, 140

Index Doug Buffo, 30–31 Interpublic Group, 93, 95 Kristine Larsen Spanier, 68–69 product delivery, 20 strategies for, 68–69 TBWAToday, 19 uses of, 172 Velda Ruddock, 19–20 Investext, 91, 134

J J. Walter Thompson, 2 Japanese Death Poems, 63 Jenkins, Scott, 31, 37–38 Jet, 54, 108 Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, 111 Jupiter Communications, 18 Jupiter Research, 15, 63, 145

K Kalish, Nancy, 95 10Kwizard, 65

L L.A. Office, The, 137–138, 140 La Opinion, 159 Land Rover Freelander, 77–78 Latina Online, 159 Latina Style, 159 Leadership Directories, 132 Leading National Advertisers, 99, 164 Leber Katz Partners, 163, 164 Lebhar-Friedman, 165 Lederman, Eva, 125 Leo Burnett, 2, 30–31 Levi’s, 25 LexisNexis Aviles, Liz, 132 client news alerts, 71 Dee Magnoni, 145, 149 Douglas Buffo, 36 Gretchen Reed, 170 Jordie Garvin Thomson, 49 Kristine Larsen Spanier, 63, 66 MARS, 164 Robin Feuerstein, 91 trademark searches, 18 Velda Ruddock, 18

231

Librarian’s Index to the Internet, 93 Lifestyle information, 78 Lifestyle Market Analysis, 38 LII New This Week, 152–153 LIMA Licensing Industry Survey, 38 Linkage, 12 Lippincott Library@Wharton, 136 List of Lists report, 65 Listening, value of, 152 Logos, 138 Long Now Foundation, 153 Los Angeles Times, 152 Lovari, John, 92 Lycos, 79

M Madison Avenue symbolism, 2 Magazine Database, 108 Magazine Publishers of America (MPA), 194 Magnoni, Dee, 143–154 background, 143–145 challenges, 151 keeping current, 152 outside interests, 153 Power Tips, 154 research strategies, 147–149 resource choices, 7, 144–145, 149–153 SLA membership, 4 value-added services, 152 Market Research Monitor, 18 Market Segment Group, 52, 111, 193 Market Share Reporter, 38, 67 Marketing and Advertising Reference (MARS) service, 50, 57, 108, 164 Marketing to American Latinos: A Guide to the In-Culture Approach Part I, 159–160 Marketing to the Emerging Majorities, 51, 57, 110, 134 Marketing to Women, 134 MarketResearch.com, 36–37 Masterfile, 127 McDonald’s, 57 mckinney+silver, 117 Media Post, 193 MediaLife magazine, 110 Mentoring, 71–72 Messner Vetere Berger Carey Schmetterer (MVBCS), 164 Michigan Avenue, 2 Middlestadt, Chuck, 86

232 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue Mind Advertising, 93 Minority Traveler, The, 47 Modeling, analysts reports and, 18 Moreover.com, 110, 135 Morris, Marge, 182 MPA (Magazine Publishers of America), 194 MRI, 170 MTV, 80 Multicultural Marketing News, 53 Multicultural Marketing Resources, 53 Multicultural markets. See also AfricanAmerican markets; Ethnic markets; Hispanic markets; Specific resources AAAA and, 195 agencies, 43–60, 105–115, 155–162 challenges, 58 experts, 160 research archives, 171 Multnomah County Library, 151 Music sites, 108, 110 MVBMS, 164–165

N National Geographic, 35 National Minority Business Directory, 52 National Public Radio, 152 National Restaurant Association, 56 National Retail Federation Web site, 65 NBD Bank, 43–44 Networking. See also Specific organizations “Brain Food” series, 173 within the company, 13 finding Web sites, 19 Intelligence Ring, 21–22 SLA meetings, 53, 54 New Scientist, 152 New Strategist Publications, 38, 50, 99, 171 New York Public Library Donnell Library Center, 29–30 Express Service, 7, 170 New York Times, 150, 152, 180 New York Times Information Bank, 180 New York Times Online, 135 New Yorker, The, 135 Newsweek, 79 Nexis, 32, 180 Nielsen/Netratings, 94 Northern Light, 93, 150 NUA Internet Surveys, 188 NYNEX. See Verizon

O OCLC First Search, 134 Ogilvy, David, 80 Omnicom Group, 4, 77 On Wheels, Inc., 53 One Club, 76 One Person Library, The, 65 One Show: Advertising’s Best Print, Radio and TV, 5, 62, 76, 77 OneSource, 167 Onion, The, 80, 124 Online magazine, 140, 152, 193 Online resources. See also Specific resources Dee Magnoni, 144–145, 149–150, 152–153 Jordie Garvin Thomson, 49–50 Kristine Larsen Spanier, 64–65 Leslie Cole, 107–109 Liz Aviles, 134–136 Marsha Appel, 180 multicultural, 54–55 Robin Feuerstein, 91–92 Velda Ruddock, 17–18 Oregonian, The, 152 Original Hip-Hop Lyrics Archives, 108 Outdoor Advertising Collections, 35 Ovaltine, 189 Oxford English Dictionary, The, 150–151

P Packaged Facts, 38–39, 111 Paper, 80 PDF files, 135 Perl, Eric, 165, 169–170, 194 Philip Morris, 111 Phone calls, 66 Photography, 35 Photojournalism, 34 Pig’s Eye beer, 62 Pitch teams, 15, 46–47 Pizza Marketing Quarterly, 56 PlanetFeedback, 102, 121 Planning departments, 67 Pop culture, 79, 122–123 Powell’s City of Books, 146, 151 Power Tips Carlos Santiago, 161 Dan Carlton, 128–129 Dee Magnoni, 154 Doug Buffo, 41–42

Index Gerard Seifert, 82–83 Gretchen Reed, 176–177 Jordie Garvin Thomson, 59–60 Kristine Larsen Spanier, 73 Leslie Cole, 114–115 Liz Aviles, 141–142 Marsha Appel, 197–199 Robin Feuerstein, 103 Velda Ruddock, 27–28 Price, Gary, 65 Primary research, 11 Print Production departments, 69 Print Regional Design Annual, 62 Print resources Dee Magnoni, 151, 152 Douglas Buffo, 37–38 Gerard Seifert, 79–80 importance of, 6–7 Jordie Garvin Thomson, 50–54 Kristine Larsen Spanier, 67 Leslie Cole, 110 Liz Aviles, 138–139 Marsha Appel, 180, 191 Robin Feuerstein, 99 Velda Ruddock, 7, 23–24 Prioritization, 14 Product delivery. See also Branding; Documentation Douglas Buffo, 34 Gretchen Reed, 169 Jordie Garvin Thomson, 49 Leslie Cole, 112 Liz Aviles, 138 paper color, 17 repackaging, 112 Robin Feuerstein, 90 topical reports, 12 Velda Ruddock, 17 via Intranet, 20 Productscan Online, 91 Promo magazine, 140 ProQuest, 48 Public Relations Society of America, 112 Publicis, 4

Q QSR Magazine, 56 Querico.com, 160–161

R RAB (Radio Advertising Bureau), 194

233

Racial and Ethnic Diversity, 50, 51 Radio Advertising Bureau (RAB), 194 Radio commercials, 81 Ray, Paul, 151 RDS, 17–18 Reagan, Ronald, 167 Records management, 12 Red Books, 67, 140, 145, 149, 183 Redbooks.com, 37 Reed, Gretchen, 163–177 background, 163–164 “Brain Food” series, 173 challenges, 171–172 current awareness initiatives, 172 outside interests, 175 Power Tips, 176–177 product delivery, 169 profile of requestors, 167–168 reference interviews, 170–171 research services, 164–167 research strategies, 170–171, 174–175 resource choices, 171, 173 SLA membership, 3 telecommuting, 7, 174 trend research, 171 turnaround times, 169 Refdesk.com, 93 Reference interviews AAAA staff, 182–183, 185–186 Douglas Buffo, 33–34 Gretchen Reed, 170–171 Jordie Garvin Thomson, 46 Kristine Larsen Spanier, 64 Robin Feuerstein, 87–88 Velda Ruddock, 13–14 Repackaging, 112 Research Alert, 171 Research Alert Yearbook, 67, 140, 160 Research Bank Web, 134 Research environments, 22–23 Research Matters, 194 Research strategies Carlos Santiago, 157–160 Dan Carlton, 117–119, 121 Douglas Buffo, 36 Gerard Seifert, 77–80 Gretchen Reed, 170–171 Jordie Garvin Thomson, 48–49 Kristine Larsen Spanier, 66–67 Leslie Cole, 109–110 Liz Aviles, 139–140

234 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue Research strategies (cont.) Marsha Appel, 188–189 Robin Feuerstein, 89–90, 91–94 ResearchBuzz, 112 Resources. See Online resources; Print resources; Web resources; Specific resources Restaurants and Institutions, 56 Retail Intelligence System. See RetailForward RetailForward, 18 Rights management, 34, 40 Rolling Stone, 80 Roper Reports, 139 RoperASW, 15, 38, 139, 141 Rosen, Laura, 87 Roy Rogers restaurants, 190 Ruddock, Velda, 9–28, 23–24 background, 9–11 career advice, 26–27 challenges, 21–22 end-user training, 20 information requests, 12–13 keeping current, 20–21 outside interests, 20–21 Power Tips, 27–28 product delivery, 17 reference interviews, 13–14 on research environments, 22–23 research services, 11–12 research strategies, 24–25, 25 resource choices, 7, 17–20 SLA membership, 3 staff training, 20 topics covered, 16–17 turnaround times, 24 typical requestors, 14–16 Russel Reynolds, 131

S Saatchi & Saatchi, 164 Salon.com, 135 Santella and Associates, 188 Santiago, Carlos, 155–162 background, 4, 155–156 client profiles, 161 Internet use, 158–159 Power Tips, 161 research strategies, 157–160 Santiago & Valdes Solutions (SVS), 155, 156–157, 159–160

Santiago Solutions Group, 155 Sara Lee Corporation, 106, 107 Scenario planning, 153 School of Visual Arts (SVA), 75, 76 Schwartz, Peter, 153 SCIP (Society of Competitive Information Professionals), 57 Scooby Doo clubs, 94–95 Search engine choices. See also Specific search engines Dee Magnoni, 150, 152 Gerard Seifert, 79 Kristine Larsen Spanier, 65 Leslie Cole, 108–109 locating images, 127 Velda Ruddock, 19 Searcher, 37, 58, 65, 94, 152, 193 Secondary research, 11, 45–46, 49–50 Seifert, Gerard, 75–83 background, 75–77 One Show Annual 2000 award, 5 Power Tips, 82–83 research strategies, 77–80, 81–82 resource choices, 79–80 Shots.net, 35 Sister 2 Sister, 54 SmartBrief, 136 Smithsonian, 35 SOHH.com, 108 Source, The, 54 Source Book of Multicultural Experts, 160 Spanier, Kristine Larsen, 61–73 background, 61–62 challenges, 65 current awareness reports, 71 information requests, 63–64 Intranet use, 68–69 keeping current, 69–70 outside activities, 71–72 Power Tips, 73 reference interviews, 64 research strategies, 66–67, 68 research types, 63 resource choices, 6, 64–65 SLA membership, 3 turnaround times, 66 value-added services, 70–71 Special Libraries Association (SLA) Advertising and Marketing Division, 19, 20, 57, 65, 71, 193 annual conference, 57

Index Gretchen Reed, 173 International Advertising and Marketing Information Sources, 163, 173 Kristine Larsen Spanier, 65, 70 Leslie Cole, 112 Liz Aviles, 131–132 membership, 3 networking, 53, 54, 144 staying current, 20 Spencer Stuart, 132 Spheres of influence, 12 Sports Business Daily, 145 SRDS (Standard Rate and Data Service), 23, 38 St. James Press, 191 Staff training, 20, 91–92, 173, 187–188 Standard & Poor’s Industry Surveys, 99 Standard and Poor’s, 18 Standard Directory of Advertisers, 191 Standard Directory of Advertising Agencies, 191 Standard Directory of Hispanic Advertising Agencies, 160 Standard Periodical Directory, 99 Standard Rate and Data Service, 185 Statistical Abstract of the United States, 50, 66, 95, 99 Statistical Record of Black America, 52 Status meetings, 13 Strategic development, 15 Strategy + business, 152 Strategy Research Corporation, 54, 160, 195 Style, branding and, 17 Substantiation studies, 15 Sugarman, Ron, 96, 97 Summaries, 49, 70 Super Searchers Do Business (Bates), 1 Surveys, email, 12

T TableBase, 134 Target Market News, 51, 111 Tasa, Koichi, 182 Tatham, 2 TBWAChiatDay, 10 TBWAToday, 19 Technology challenges, 40 Technology Review, 152 Technomic Foodservice Consultants, 56

Teens, 38, 68, 136, 146–147 Telecommuting, 7, 166, 174 Telephone, 3, 110 Templates, 17 Teoma, 93 Terra, 159 Thomson, Jordie Garvin, 43–60 AACM Special Report, 45 background, 43–45 challenges, 58 collaboration, 46 decision support, 46 information requests, 46 keeping current, 57–58 memorable projects, 55–57 online services used, 49–50, 54–55 outside interests, 58–59 Power Tips, 59–60 print resources used, 50–51 product delivery, 49 reference interviews, 46 research services, 45–46 research strategies, 48–49 SLA membership, 3 Time, 69 Time-Life Photo Sight, 35 Time management, 23, 39–40, 98–99. See also Turnaround times Timelines studies, 15 Tipping Point, The, 151 Today’s Black Woman, 54 Trade associations, 110 Trade Dimensions, 52 Trade publications, 15 Trademark searches, 18, 65, 149 Trademarkscan, 134 Tradeshow Week Data Book, 67 Training end-users, 20 by online vendors, 91–92 staff, 20 virtual sessions, 20 Travel Industry Association of America, 47, 193 Trend spotting account planning and, 122–123 Dan Carlton, 124, 126 global, 111 Gretchen Reed, 171 importance, 109 Marsha Appel, 189–191 queries about, 14–15

235

236 Super Searchers on Madison Avenue Trend spotting (cont.) reference recommendations, 33 research strategies, 107 resources, 38–39 time management, 98–99 Trends Journal, 171 TRL (Total Request Live), 80 TRU (Teenage Research Unlimited), 38, 110, 141, 145 Tuesday Team, 167 Turnaround times, 13, 24, 65–66, 91, 169 TV Dimensions, 23 Tweens, 38, 49

U United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, 146 UnityFirst.com, 110 University of Texas, 93, 188 Univision, 159 UPSHOT, 132 U.S. Hispanic Market Report, 54, 160, 195 U.S. Industry Profiles, 99 U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, 65, 149 Useem, Jerry, 100 Utne Reader, 152

W Wall Street Journal, 36, 69, 152, 189 Wallpaper, 79, 80 War room environment, 167–168 WARC (World Advertising Research Center), 93 WCRS, 164 Web resources. See also Internet; Online resources feedback, 8 finding sites, 150 Gerard Seifert, 79 Gretchen Reed, 171 identification, 92–94 locating, 109 monitoring ads on, 35 site evaluation, 37, 108, 117–118, 134–135 Velda Ruddock, 19 visual images, 35 Wieden + Kennedy, 143, 144–146 Wiener, Harvey, 191 Wired, 71, 152, 171 Wireless, 171 World Almanac, 99 WPP Group, 4

X

V

XtremeInformation.com, 35

Valdes, Isabel, 155 Value-added services Dee Magnoni, 152 Kristine Larsen Spanier, 70–71 Marsha Appel, 192–193 Value Line, 99 Vault.com, 121 Verizon, 155, 156–157 Veronis Suhler Communications Industry Forecast, 23 Veronis Suhler Directories, 99 VIBE, 108 VMS (Video Monitoring Service), 35, 45

Y Yahoo!, 93, 109, 124, 159, 171 Yankelovich, 38, 63, 67, 122, 149–150, 171 Yankelovich Monitor, 145 Young & Rubicam (Y&R), 44 Youth Markets Alert, 110, 134

Z Zandl, 38 Zenith Media, 93 Ziffer, Edith, 187 Zilavy, Julie, 180

237

More CyberAge Books from Information Today, Inc. Business Statistics on the Web Find Them Fast—At Little or No Cost By Paula Berinstein Statistics are a critical component of business and marketing plans, press releases, surveys, economic analyses, presentations, proposals, and more—yet good statistics are notoriously hard to find. This practical book by statistics guru Paula Berinstein shows readers how to use the Internet to find statistics about companies, markets, and industries, how to organize and present statistics, and how to evaluate them for reliability. Organized by topic, both general and specific, and by country/region, this helpful reference features easy-to-use tips and techniques for finding and using statistics when the pressure is on. In addition, dozens of extended and short case studies demonstrate the ins and outs of searching for specific numbers and maneuvering around obstacles to find the data you need. 2003/336pp/softbound/ISBN: 0-910965-65-X • $29.95

Smart Services Competitive Information Strategies, Solutions, and Success Stories for Service Businesses By Deborah C. Sawyer Here is the first book to focus specifically on the competitive information needs of service-oriented firms. Author, entrepreneur, and business consultant Deborah C. Sawyer illuminates the many forms of competition in service businesses, identifies the most effective information resources for competitive intelligence (CI), and provides a practical framework for identifying and studying competitors in order to gain a competitive advantage. Smart Services is a roadmap for every service company owner, manager, or executive who expects to compete effectively in the Information Age. 2002/256 pp/softbound/ISBN 0-910965-56-0 • $29.95

238

Web of Deception Misinformation on the Internet Edited by Anne P. Mintz Foreword by Steve Forbes Intentionally misleading or erroneous information on the Web can wreak havoc on your health, privacy, investments, business decisions, online purchases, legal affairs, and more. Until now, the breadth and significance of this growing problem for Internet users have yet to be fully explored. In Web of Deception, Anne P. Mintz (Director of Knowledge Management at Forbes, Inc.) brings together 10 information industry gurus to illuminate the issues and help you recognize and deal with the flood of deception and misinformation in a range of critical subject areas. A must-read for any Internet searcher who needs to evaluate online information sources and avoid Web traps. 2002/278 pp/softbound/ISBN 0-910965-60-9 • $24.95

Net Crimes & Misdemeanors Outmaneuvering the Spammers, Swindlers, and Stalkers Who Are Targeting You Online By J. A. Hitchcock Edited by Loraine Page Cyber crime expert J. A. Hitchcock helps individuals and business users of the Web protect themselves, their children, and their employees against online cheats and predators. Hitchcock details a broad range of abusive practices, shares victims’ stories, and offers advice on how to handle junk e-mail, “flaming,” privacy invasion, financial scams, cyberstalking, and identity theft. She provides tips and techniques that can be put to immediate use and points to the laws, organizations, and Web resources that can aid victims and help them fight back. Supported by a dynamic Web site. 2002/384 pp/softbound/ISBN 0-910965-57-9 • $24.95

239

Electronic Democracy, 2nd Edition Using the Internet to Transform American Politics By Graeme Browning Foreword by Adam Clayton Powell III “By harnessing the power of the Internet to inform, organize, and advocate, Americans can use technology to broaden and deepen their role in our representative democracy. Combining political savvy with computer know-how, Graeme Browning shows us how.” —Bill Bradley

In this new edition of Electronic Democracy, awardwinning journalist and author Graeme Browning details the colorful history of politics and the Net, describes key Web-based sources of political information, offers practical techniques for influencing legislation online, and provides a fascinating, realistic vision of the future. 2002/200 pp/softbound/ISBN 0-910965-49-8 • $19.95

Building and Running a Successful Research Business A Guide for the Independent Information Professional By Mary Ellen Bates Edited by Reva Basch This is the handbook every aspiring independent information professional needs to launch, manage, and build a research business. Organized into four sections, “Getting Started,” “Running the Business,” “Marketing,” and “Researching,” the book walks you through every step of the process. Author and independent researcher Mary Ellen Bates covers everything from “is this right for you?” to closing the sale, managing clients, promoting your business on the Web, and tapping into powerful information sources beyond the Web. 2003/360 pp/softbound/ISBN 0-910965-62-5 • $29.95

240

Internet Prophets Enlightened E-Business Strategies for Every Budget By Mary Diffley Since the bursting of the dot.com balloon, companies are approaching e-business with a new wariness—and rightly so, according to author and entrepreneur Mary Diffley. In Internet Prophets, Diffley speaks directly to the skeptics, serving up straightforward advice that will help even the most technophobic executive do more business on the Web. This readable, easy-to-use handbook is the first to detail the costs of proven e-commerce strategies, matching successful techniques with budgetary considerations for companies of all types and sizes. Unlike other books, Internet Prophets gets down to the nitty-gritty that every businessperson wants to know: “What’s it going to cost?” Supported by a dynamic Web site. 2001/366 pp/softbound/ISBN 0-910965-55-2 • $29.95

Millennium Intelligence Understanding and Conducting Competitive Intelligence in the Digital Age By Jerry P. Miller and the Business Intelligence Braintrust With contributions from the world’s leading business intelligence practitioners, Millennium Intelligence offers a tremendously informative and practical look at the CI process, how it is changing, and how it can be managed effectively in the Digital Age. Loaded with case studies, tips, and techniques, chapters include: What Is Intelligence?; The Skills Needed to Execute Intelligence Effectively; Information Sources Used for Intelligence; The Legal and Ethical Aspects of Intelligence; Small Business Intelligence; Corporate Security and Intelligence; ... and much more! 2000/276 pp/softbound/ISBN 0-910965-28-5 • $29.95

241

The Extreme Searcher’s Guide to Web Search Engines A Handbook for the Serious Searcher, 2nd Edition By Randolph Hock Foreword by Reva Basch “Whatever your Internet search needs, the second edition of Hock’s book is essential reading.” —CHOICE

In this completely revised and expanded version of his award-winning book, the “extreme searcher,” Randolph (Ran) Hock, digs even deeper, covering all the most popular Web search tools, plus a half-dozen of the newest and most exciting search engines to come down the pike. This is a practical, user-friendly guide supported by a regularly updated Web site. 2001/250 pp/softbound/ISBN 0-910965-47-1 • $24.95

International Business Information on the Web Searcher Magazine’s Guide to Sites and Strategies for Global Business Research By Sheri R. Lanza Edited by Barbara Quint Here is the first ready-reference for effective worldwide business research, written by experienced international business researcher Sheri R. Lanza and edited by Searcher magazine’s Barbara Quint. This book helps readers identify overseas buyers, find foreign suppliers, investigate potential partners and competitors, uncover international market research and industry analysis, and much more. Supported by a Web page. 2001/380 pp/softbound/ISBN 0-910965-46-3 • $29.95

242

Super Searchers in the News The Online Secrets of Journalists and News Researchers By Paula J. Hane • Edited by Reva Basch “Notable for its comprehensive coverage and wealth of penetrating insights. I enthusiastically recommend it as essential reading not only for news research professionals but for the ‘news junkies’ of the world.” —Barbara Semonche, NewsLib List Administrator and Library Director, UNC-CH School of Journalism and Mass Communication

Professional news researchers are a breed apart. The behind-the-scenes heroes of network newsrooms and daily newspapers, they work under intense deadline pressure to meet the insatiable, everchanging research needs of reporters, editors, and journalists. Here, for the first time, 10 news researchers reveal their strategies for using the Internet and online services to get the scoop, check the facts, and nail the story. If you want to become a more effective online searcher and do fast, accurate research on a wide range of moving-target topics, don’t miss Super Searchers in the News. Supported by the Super Searchers Web page. 2000/256 pp/softbound/ISBN 0-910965-45-5 • $24.95

Super Searchers Cover the World The Online Secrets of International Business Researchers By Mary Ellen Bates • Edited by Reva Basch Foreword by Clare Hart The Internet has made it possible for more businesses to think internationally, and to take advantage of the expanding global economy. Through 15 interviews with leading online searchers, Mary Ellen Bates explores the challenges of reaching outside a researcher’s geographic area to do effective international business research. Experts from around the world—librarians and researchers from government organizations, multinational companies, universities, and small businesses— discuss such issues as nonnative language sources, cultural biases, and the reliability of information. Supported by the Super Searchers Web page. 2001/250 pp/softbound/ISBN 0-910965-54-4 • $24.95

243

Super Searchers on Mergers & Acquisitions The Online Research Secrets of Top Corporate Researchers and M&A Pros By Jan Davis Tudor Edited by Reva Basch “If you have even the slightest interest in researching M&A information, read this book.” —ONLINE

The sixth title in the “Super Searchers” series is a unique resource for business owners, brokers, appraisers, entrepreneurs, and investors who use the Internet and online services to research Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) opportunities. Leading business valuation researcher Jan Davis Tudor interviews 13 top M&A researchers, who share their secrets for finding, evaluating, and delivering critical deal-making data on companies and industries. Supported by the Super Searchers Web page. 2001/208 pp/softbound/ISBN 0-910965-48-X • $24.95

Super Searchers on Wall Street Top Investment Professionals Share Their Online Research Secrets By Amelia Kassel Edited by Reva Basch Through her probing interviews, Amelia Kassel reveals the online secrets of 10 leading financial industry research experts. You’ll learn how information professionals find and analyze market and industry data, as well as how online information is used by brokerages, stock exchanges, investment banks, and individual investors to make critical investment decisions. The Wall Street Super Searchers direct you to important sites and sources, illuminate the trends that are revolutionizing financial research, and help you use online research as a powerful investment strategy. Supported by the Super Searchers Web page. 2000/256 pp/softbound/ISBN 0-910965-42-0 • $24.95

244

The Invisible Web Uncovering Information Sources Search Engines Can’t See By Chris Sherman and Gary Price Most of the authoritative information accessible over the Internet is invisible to search engines. This “Invisible Web” is largely comprised of content-rich databases from universities, libraries, associations, businesses, and government agencies. In their award-winning book, authors Chris Sherman and Gary Price introduce you to top sites and sources and offer tips, techniques, and analysis that will let you pull needles out of haystacks every time. Supported by a dedicated Web site. 2001/450 pp/softbound/ISBN 0-910965-51-X • $29.95

Naked in Cyberspace How to Find Personal Information Online, 2nd Edition By Carole A. Lane Foreword by Beth Givens In this fully revised and updated second edition of her bestselling guide, author Carole A. Lane surveys the types of personal records that are available on the Internet and online services. Lane explains how researchers find and use personal data, identifies the most useful sources of information about people, and offers advice for readers with privacy concerns. You’ll learn how to use online tools and databases to gain competitive intelligence, locate and investigate people, access public records, identify experts, find new customers, recruit employees, search for assets, uncover criminal records, conduct genealogical research, and much more. Supported by a Web page. 2002/586 pp/softbound/ISBN 0-910965-50-1 • $29.95 Ask for CyberAge Books at your local bookstore or order online at www.infotoday.com For a complete catalog, contact:

Information Today, Inc. 143 Old Marlton Pike Medford, NJ 08055 609/654-6266 • email: [email protected]

Super Searchers on Madison Avenue: Top Advertising and Marketing Professionals Share Their Online Research Strategies (Super Searchers series)

Super Searchers Cover the World (Super Searchers series)

Super Searchers Go to the Source: The Interviewing and Hands-On Information Strategies of Top Primary Researchers-Online, on the Phone, and in Person (Super Searchers, V. 7)

Super Searchers on Competitive Intelligence: The Online and Offline Secrets of Top CI Researchers

Super Searchers on Mergers & Acquisitions: The Online Secrets of Top Corporate Researchers and M&A Pros (Super Searchers series)

Super Searchers in the News : The Online Secrets of Journalists and News Researchers

Super

Super

Super Etendard (Super Profile)

Super

Super

Organisational Culture and Context Super Series (ILM Super Series) (ILM Super Series)

Coaching and Training your Work Team Super Series, Fifth Edition (Super Series) (Super Series)

Super

Super

Super

Super

Super

Super

Preventing Accidents Super Series

Understanding Finance Super Series

Understanding Change Super Series,

Making Communication Work Super Series, Fourth Edition (ILM Super Series) (ILM Super Series)

Improving Efficiency Super Series, Fourth Edition (ILM Super Series)

Controlling Physical Resources Super Series, Fourth Edition (ILM Super Series)

Becoming More Effective Super Series, Fourth Edition (ILM Super Series) (ILM Super Series)

Delegating Effectively Super Series, Fourth Edition (ILM Super Series)

Commitment to Equality Super Series, Fourth Edition (ILM Super Series)

Super Searchers on Madison Avenue: Top Advertising and Marketing Professionals Share Their Online Research Strategies (Super Searchers series)

Super Searchers Cover the World (Super Searchers series)

Super Searchers Go to the Source: The Interviewing and Hands-On Information Strategies of Top Primary Researchers-Online, on the Phone, and in Person (Super Searchers, V. 7)

Super Searchers on Competitive Intelligence: The Online and Offline Secrets of Top CI Researchers

Super Searchers on Mergers & Acquisitions: The Online Secrets of Top Corporate Researchers and M&A Pros (Super Searchers series)

Super Searchers in the News : The Online Secrets of Journalists and News Researchers

Super

Super

Super Etendard (Super Profile)

Super

Super

Organisational Culture and Context Super Series (ILM Super Series) (ILM Super Series)

Coaching and Training your Work Team Super Series, Fifth Edition (Super Series) (Super Series)

Super

Super

Super

Super

Super

Super

Preventing Accidents Super Series

Understanding Finance Super Series

Understanding Change Super Series,

Making Communication Work Super Series, Fourth Edition (ILM Super Series) (ILM Super Series)

Improving Efficiency Super Series, Fourth Edition (ILM Super Series)

Controlling Physical Resources Super Series, Fourth Edition (ILM Super Series)

Becoming More Effective Super Series, Fourth Edition (ILM Super Series) (ILM Super Series)

Delegating Effectively Super Series, Fourth Edition (ILM Super Series)

Commitment to Equality Super Series, Fourth Edition (ILM Super Series)

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