NEMOA

Stan Krangel, president of the MKC Catalog/Internet division of Blyth Inc., which also operates the Exposures, Boca Java, The Home Marketplace, Walter Drake and As We Change catalogs, outlined several ways to roll with the punches this year and next in a session during the Sept. 16-18 NEMOA Fall Conference in Mashantucket, Conn. As proof, he injected how he’s modernized things at Miles Kimball over the past couple of years.

Social media has been broadly embraced by the public for several reasons. But two stand out in my mind, as I relayed to attendees of the NEMOA Conference in Mashantucket, Conn., Sept. 16-18, during my session, "Social Media Marketing — Separating Hype from Reality."

For those of you who don’t ordinarily attend NEMOA events, they’re usually like minireunions of longtime catalog practitioners and typically have a big "Rah! Rah! Go Catalog!" flavor to them. But the mood and whole underlying tone at the Spring 2009 NEMOA Conference held a couple of weeks ago in Boston was different from any NEMOA event I’ve ever attended.

Beyond the myriad of problems affecting so many businesses this year, you know what else is causing trouble? Consumers aren’t finding shopping fun anymore. During a presentation at the NEMOA Spring Conference in Boston in mid-March, Monica Smith, president/CEO of Morristown, N.J.-based marketing resources firm Marketsmith Inc., shared results of a recent consumer focus group her firm conducted. She offered several pointers on how marketers should react this year.