By Mike Zacharski
VP of Publisher Acquisitions, CPX Interactive

When we first opened offices in Europe (Italy and Spain), we had a vision of how we wanted these International incarnations of CPX to turn out. The process was much like telling someone about your favorite place, and then hearing their own opinion after they’ve made their own memories there. Before each new office opened, we did all we could to teach them what it meant to be CPX Interactive, but then we had to step back and let them develop into their own. I spent this past week visiting CPX Italy, and the following is my recounting of how they have taken the core of CPX and added some Italian flavor:

Milan, the city itself, is modern and fast-paced. It is the fashion capital of the world and it’s a great mix of the traditional and modern. Of course, the Internet is not new to Italy. There are many successful online companies there, and Milan has grown into a hub of activity in the space since the late 1990s. Companies based there include those that service the local market as well as others that span globally and reach hundreds of millions of users in many countries. Most of the major .com’s have offices there, along with the .it’s, and you feel a definite and established online culture there, something both traditional and modern.

We have a dynamic staff led by Massimo Fontana as well as Piero Mundi on the Ad Sales side and Cecilia Sandrucci on the Business Development/Publishing side. They are like our Italian cousins, and the office is equally vibrant and lively. The days do seem to go by much faster there though, as interfacing with the US begins in the middle of the day…or maybe it’s the 2-3 espressos.

My first few days, I was focused on working with Cecilia and Henar Perez, our new hire who flew in from our Spain office. I spent the last few days there going to meetings with some of the publishers located in town.  Our team is very well respected, and as it was explained to me by a friend, “the online world is a large city with a small population”. This credibility and respect is tied deeply into the culture of the country and part of the traditional way of doing business in Italy, yet at the same time, there is a deep appetite for change and growth built on new technology and a global approach, as well as a vision of media and consumption.

There is a heritage of understanding there, a very academic approach to things. Companies and people desire to learn and understand all things fully, and from all angles. There is also a sense of nationalism and pride in Italian companies and brands and a genuine welcoming of those institutions that, like CPX, have opened their doors here, and are looking to service the local market. We have the opportunity to educate a hungry market on the value of our company while at the same time filling the needs of a growing marketplace.

We have been successful there, and will continue to be, because we have aligned our solutions to meet the local needs. We reach 11 million unique users each month. We provide scalability and value for publishers and for advertisers, and we have traffic solutions from numerous sources, such as local publishers, large .com’s, and exchanges, to create campaigns that can provide branding as well as performance. We are bringing with us efficiency, as well as the experience of being a global player and of course, a healthy sense of competitive appetite and creativity that has always set us apart.

CPX is welcome in Italy, and in a short time we have established ourselves as a strong and respected brand in the market. All in all, it was great to see how the Italy team has taken the foundation that we laid for them and carved out their own place in the online advertising space.

Contact CPX Italy:

CPX Interactive Italia
Via Conservatorio, 22
20122 Milano-Italy
Italy@cpxinteractive.com
http://cpxinteractive.it/

Welcome back to the CPX Interactive Blog! If you haven't already, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed, and be sure to connect with CPX across the Web! Thanks for visiting!

Last Monday, February 23, 2009, advertising professionals took to the stage as they traded their suits for spandex, and put down their briefcases to pick up guitars. This was the scene at CPX Interactive’s Battle of the Bands, as three top ad agency “bands,” and a record label team competed in an intense Guitar Hero battle. The teams represented Ogilvy, MediaEdge, MediaVest, and Shady Records. Although the rockers and their groupies are all connected through the online advertising industry, the aim of the event was to have fun and leave work at the office. “This is a creative industry with a lot of creative spirits…and it turns out, a lot of really good Guitar Hero players,” CPX VP of Sales, Stephen Shearin, said after the event.

Each team had a catchy name and some wore costumes or brought props. “Travis and the Chimps,” were fittingly accompanied by a large stuffed monkey. The MediaEdge team, “Uncle Jesse & His Creepy Minions,” wore full body spandex suits. At the end of the night, Travis and the Chimps, the team from MediaEdge was crowned the winner. But, the battle is far from over. In fact, this was only a seeding round, and the competition will continue in a series of events planned by CPX Interactive in the coming months. Stay tuned for more information.

Check out the photo album here.

By Samantha Karol
Marketing Assistant, CPX Interactive

Love reading our blog, but don’t always remember to visit this page?

Not interested in joining Twitter yourself, but want to read all of the CPX updates?

• Create a page on  MyYahoo or Google Reader. (If you’re big on simplicity and ease of use, choose Yahoo)
• Follow the instructions below to put our RSS feeds on your page.

NOTE: These instructions are based on Mozilla Firefox. If you are using Internet Explorer, feeds will automatically be added to a Feeds folder if you follow these instructions. Keep reading for more info.

Blog:

1) Go to the main page of the blog by clicking on the CPX logo at the top of this page. Click on the little orange RSS icon in the upper right corner of the page above Recent Posts.

2) On the feed page,  click on the drop down menu and select either MyYahoo or Google (depending on which site you’re using).

3) Click Subscribe Now, and you’re done. It’s that easy.

Twitter:

1) Go to http://twitter.com/cpxinteractive

2) Scroll down until you see the rows of little pictures on the right side.

3) Below them you will see the same little orange icon. Click on it.

4) This will bring you to a similar feed page as above, so do the same thing.  Choose, click, and you’re done.

For Internet Explorer users, as I said above, the process is a little different for you. If you would rather have these feeds on a page like Google Reader or MyYahoo instead of in the Feeds folder, you can add them through the Add Content feature on those pages by inserting these feed links:

http://cpxinteractive.wordpress.com/feed/

http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/16246531.rss

Help Resources: Google Reader Help and MyYahoo Help.

The week after Carlton Hickman, CTO & Co-Founder of CPX Interactive, had finished the nine day, 3500 mile journey of Fireball Run, he knew that he wanted to donate his team’s car to a good cause. Hickman participated in the race with Tony Pascal, Graphic Designer at CPX, and Sean Beymolla, CPX VP of Traffic and Optimization. Fireball Run is a cross country road race to raise awareness for missing children in partnership with the Child Rescue Network. Each team is assigned a missing child, given a full color decal to put on their car, and hundreds of flyers to hand out along the way. The team’s race car was a special edition Dodge Charger that they outfitted especially for the race.

When Hickman wanted to donate the car for auction, he decided to further support the beneficiary of Fireball Run, the Child Rescue Network (CRN). Jeff Griesemer, President & CEO of CRN, traveled to the CPX headquarters in Westbury, NY to accept Hickman’s donation. Griesemer and Hickman discussed the importance of promoting awareness about missing children, and how CPX and CRN can work together to further these efforts.

The partnership between Fireball Run and CRN began when J. Sanchez, Organizer and Founder of Fireball Run, and fellow board member for the Orlando Chamber of Commerce, spoke with Griesemer about his initial ideas for a cross country race. Initially, CRN was simply going to be a beneficiary, but Griesemer realized just how much they could utilize the cars and the teams to get information out. It was Sanchez who later connected Griesemer with Hickman before last year’s race.

In addition to Fireball Run, CRN holds safety seminars and awareness presentations for parents, as well as assisting with investigations on cases. Griesemer feels that people are generally unaware of the number of kidnappings that occur in our country on a daily basis. He shared these statistics: over 2000 children are reported missing every day in this country; there are over 500 parental abductions every day; and non-family members are abducting kids 150 times a day.

The car donated by CPX will be raffled at several events near the CRN headquarters in Orlando, FL. All proceeds will go to CRN. CPX looks forward to continuing their relationship with CRN and helping to raise awareness nationwide. Please continue to check back here for more CRN/CPX raffle updates.

Tony Pascal (CPX Graphic Designer), Sean Beymolla (CPX VP of Traffic & Optimization), Carlton Hickman (CPX CTO) and Jeff Griesemer (President & CEO, CRN)

• Fireball Run
• Child Rescue Network
• Team CPX

To see more photos of Fireball Run and car donation day, visit our new Shutterfly photo page.

According to a survey conducted by Abrams Research, Twitter is the most popular social marketing tool for businesses. Of the 200 social media leaders surveyed by Abrams Research, 40% picked Twitter as #1, followed by LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook, in that order.

Read about the survey results, and check out the CPX Interactive pages on:

• Twitter
• LinkedIn
• YouTube
• Facebook

For more of our Web 2.0 sites, go to: http://www.cpxinteractive.com/visitus.

A company’s mission statement should act as a compass for its growth and evolution. Without a clear mission to guide it, a company can, too easily, run astray of its plotted course. And yet, a mission statement that is too constricting may not allow a company to reach its highest potential.

Here is CPX Interactive’s mission statement:

Our mission is to achieve and maintain a position of unparalleled excellence within the interactive marketing space.

To accomplish this, we will consistently demonstrate the highest levels of integrity, operational transparency and value delivery… to both our advertisers and publishers.

Our vision includes the development of new and innovative interactive strategies, processes and platforms that deliver on, and leverage, these goals.

By Samantha Karol
Marketing Assistant, CPX Interactive

This week, TIME Magazine released it’s second annual ranking of the world’s top blogs. The list includes a wide variety of sites, large and small, personal and company run, serious and funny, old and new. As admin of CPX blogs (including this one), and a personal blogger in my own right, I wanted to see what a blogger has to do to receive such an honor as Top 25.  I learned that multimedia is key. In this interactive age, photos and videos are a must. Each of these blogs is unique, and each has a clear message and purpose behind it.  Some of them have some pretty witty tag lines, too. So, whether you blog for yourself or your company, or don’t blog at all, these 25 are worth a look. Read on to find out more about “the best of the blogosphere.”

Continue Reading

If you have 4 minutes and have ever used Facebook, give yourself a laugh and WATCH THIS

By Dana Posner

Marketing Manager, CPX Interactive

CPX Interactive helped kick off the iMedia Brand Summit Sunday night at the Hyatt Regency Coconut Point Resort & Spa in Bonita Springs, FL. Brand Summits bring together brand marketing executives, and provide the opportunity to connect with peers and solution providers, share ideas and insight on how to deal with the issues surrounding the integration and application of interactive media in their overall marketing plans. As a regular sponsor of iMedia events, CPX threw the opening reception, and it was a great success!

A light breeze complimented the clear night sky as a slew of Brand attendees, from companies like Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, Zappos, Nestle, Disney, Capital One and A&E (to name a few) began to crowd around the colorfully lit poolside terrace.

The buffet style dinner was nothing less than tantalizing and delicious. The stations were nicely arranged and creatively named, including “Wok on the Beach,” stir-fry woks with all the fixins, “Sushi by the Shore,” a variety of savory sushi, “Tropical Infusion Salad,” a create-your-own salad station, and of course dessert – “Breezy Berry Delight,” moist and sweet cakes, filled pastries and fruit compote. As with most CPX cocktail parties, the signature drink was once again a hit, the CPX Chillaxer…not only tasty, but simply a fun drink to order.

If the dishes and drinks didn’t capture people’s attention, the looping video that glimmered through the flowing waterfall certainly did. We put together a fantastic compilation showcasing the various creative assets our in-house team designed throughout the past few years. As it was a Brand conference, this was a nice tie-in for all attendees to appreciate.

After being introduced by Kurt Indvik, iMedia Communications General Manager, Stephen Shearin, CPX Interactive’s VP of East Coast Sales, welcomed guests to the reception. With the conference theme, Bottom Line or Flat Line: It’s Time for Digital Marketing to Prove Itself, in mind, Stephen spoke about the continued success we have experienced despite difficult economic times (Watch Stephen’s speech on YouTube).

Many appreciative thanks were given to the CPX team on site including Stephen Shearin, VP of East Coast Sales; Matt Cohen, Director of Sales, Agency Group; John Rieselman, Director of Sales, West Coast and myself.

CPX greatly appreciates our relationship with iMedia, and we are looking forward to working together again at the iMedia Agency Summit in Austin, TX, 5/17-5/20.

By Michael Fleischman, EVP of Business Development, CPX Interactive

There are a number of factors that lead us to believe that there is significant growth ahead for the internet advertising sector. Some of these factors include:

1. Worldwide Internet penetration continues to rise.
2. Newspaper and magazine businesses continue to lose ad market share while dependence on mobile and Internet use increases.
3. Failure of newspapers to manage their existing cost structure, making their business model unsustainable in the future.
4. Increased dependence on the Internet medium for breaking news.
5. Emergence of blogs as a trusted news source and opinion provider.
6. Growing broadband penetration is a catalyst for more robust commercial Internet activity.
7. Growth of online retail is closely related to increasing broadband penetration.
8. Over the past five years, performance-based advertising has gained market share over the CPM based model.
9. Advertisers placing higher value on clear ROIs; hence, a shift to performance-based models is likely to accelerate in this recessionary environment.
10. Brick & Mortar retail bankruptcies, and especially store closings, should lead to pricing pressure, and thus margins pressure on the survivors in both online and offline retail.