There’s little denying that fashion provides an easy and interesting point of entry to talk about the larger role first ladies have played throughout the history of the U.S. We’ve been fascinated with our first ladies since Martha Washington first donned a petticoat, and while their contributions go far beyond Swarovski crystals, silk and satin, a look into these very things provides perspective into what was important during that particular time, what statement the first lady wished to make, and a first lady’s contribution to the presidency.

Each first lady interpreted her role in a slightly different way. Some served in more of a social and ceremonial capacity, while others were more highly visible in the day-to-day government operations and decision-making. Regardless of approach, the first lady’s presence helped to both represent and shape the political and societal landscape during her tenure.

We have extremely high expectations of our first ladies. We require that they strike an extremely delicate balance while in office. Be ladylike but with a strong sense of self. Keep a good household for your family, while advocating for all Americans. Support your husband but don’t be too involved. Choose a cause that you care about but not something that is too controversial. For decades, we have critically looked at our first lady’s appearance, judging her choice of hairstyles, clothes, shoes and handbags on par with her actions or words, and her appearance has come to serve as a reflection and representation of all she – and her husband, the president – stand for.

One of the highlights of the new gallery will be the dress current first lady Michelle Obama wore to the inauguration just over a year ago. There was much buzz about the one-shouldered wonder designed by (then) little-known Chinese-American designer Jason Wu. Mrs. Obama has ignited a fashion-following likened to that of Jackie Kennedy. Quoting LA Times blogger Booth Moore, “Fashion is a business, and Michelle means business.” Her statement, defined through fashion.

The new gallery is sure to keep “First Ladies” at the top of the Smithsonian popularity chart. If you don’t have plans to visit D.C. anytime soon, visit the National Museum of American History web site to view a selection of items on display in the “First Ladies” exhibition, and experience a bit of history through these important moments in time.

Thanks to some good hustle and a bit of creativity, Marvin has been showcased nationally as an example of a company refusing to lay off any of its workforce in the face of flagging industry sales.  For Marvin, it’s all about doing the right thing for its business and its tight-knit community of Warroad, Minn. – and the decisions the company made when times were good have put it in position to weather the storm now.

Coverage has included stories from CNBC, Fox Business, the Associated Press and Bloomberg News – resulting in hundreds of placements around the country portraying Marvin in a positive light.  Check out Marvin President Susan Marvin as a guest on “The Diamond District” explaining the company’s philosophy.

Julio Ojeda-Zapata

For the uninitiated: Twitter is the leading microblogging service. It allows you to use your computer or phone to post short items, called “tweets,” that can’t be more than 140 characters long. Anybody who goes on Twitter can see your post, and there are currently an estimated 4 million people in the growing Twitterverse.

In his book, Julio profiles a number of companies that are successfully using Twitter to advance their business goals: Whole Foods, Comcast, Dell, Zappos and Graco among them (Graco the maker of baby gear, not the Nordeast industrial pump manufacturer).

There are three levels of use, he said:

- Silent monitoring, where companies simply track what’s being said about them

- One-way conversations, where companies use Twitter to push out information about their products and services

- Two-way conversations, where companies truly engage their customers and build relationships with them

Comcast is particularly aggressive about using Twitter to help solve customer problems. Julio leads his book with an anecdote about getting a tweet from a Comcast executive within minutes of tweeting with a negative comment about Comcast service.

Broberg makes a point

As with the entire new online world, a hurdle is getting companies to realize that they can’t control what is being said about them online. People have new channels of communication, and they’re making full use of them. And woe to the company that refuses to recognize this, Julio said: “Ignore Twitter at your peril. It’s a big group and there are a lot of influential people using it.”

Time and again, however, discussion of the new technologies always seems to reaffirm the basics: Know your messages. Communicate them honestly. Strive to understand your customers and engage them on their terms. Build lasting relationships.

Twitter offers an exciting new way of achieving those age-old goals. And Julio welcomes your comments to his Twitter accounts: @jojeda, @twitinbiz and @PiPress.

(Editor’s note: This is John Reinan’s weekly MinnPost column, reprinted with permission. To view the original, go to http://tinyurl.com/5o9wjl.)

People in Switzerland are talking about a billboard in Fridley.

OK, they’re all people from Medtronic Inc., and the billboard stands on Medtronic headquarters property along Interstate 694. But that single billboard is being touted across the Atlantic as an example of simple yet innovative community-service marketing.

In the summer of 2006, Medtronic, through its corporate foundation, began offering a month’s free display on the board to community groups. It’s a prime piece of advertising real estate on one of the state’s busiest highways, with about 125,000 vehicles passing by the sign each day.

At market rates, it would cost about $30,000 to produce and place an ad on the double-sided billboard for a month– a sum that would be a good chunk of the annual budget for many local nonprofits.

Medtronic, whose foundation gives more than $10 million a year to 170 Minnesota nonprofits, decided that a marketing boost could be as useful as a check.

“What’s the best way to communicate your support?” said Rich Fischer, a Medtronic public relations manager who coordinates the program. “Do you make a grant and send out a press release, or can you find a way to really raise the visibility of the groups you’re involved with?

“We can spotlight a hidden gem that you might not have heard of, but that deserves to be known.”

In July, the billboard featured Camp Odayin, a Stillwater-based group that runs three summer camps for kids with heart disease and their families. Sara Meslow, the camp’s executive director, runs the organization with two part-time staffers and an annual budget of $310,000. She also wears a Medtronic defibrillator.

Getting the billboard was “incredible,” Meslow said. “We would never have that kind of money. We want every dollar we raise to go to our kids and our programs. So this is a wonderful opportunity, and we’re very grateful.”

Medtronic provides all design and creative services for the boards, as well as covering the production and installation costs. The billboard program also includes a sponsored segment for the featured nonprofit on KARE-TV’s “Showcase Minnesota” program, a morning show that includes both paid and non-paid information. In addition, participants get regular sponsor taglines on MPR programming during their month in the sun.

Meslow said she got a call from a potential supporter “within two seconds from the time the KARE segment went off the air.”

Second billboard
Before you start calling Medtronic to get your group on the board, take note: It’s not that simple. Medtronic chooses the featured groups, and the company favors those with which it has a longstanding relationship, typically three years or more. The foundation’s primary focus is on chronic illness and science education.

Medtronic recently added a second billboard– actually, one side of a double board– on U.S. Highway 10 at its Mounds View campus. And as you read this, Fischer will just have returned from a trip to Switzerland, where he was invited to discuss the billboard program at an international company gathering.

“We see it as a really unique and innovative way to let people know about the groups we’re supporting,” Fischer said. “It also lets our employees know who we support, and many of our employees have gotten involved with organizations after seeing them on the billboard.

“We’re looking for how we can bring this to life elsewhere.”

[Editor's note: This is John Reinan's weekly marketing column for MinnPost. To see the original, go to http://tinyurl.com/6x7p88.]

The dark cloud over the traditional media business looks like a silver lining to Scott Severson.

As old-line media hemorrhage staff and ad revenue, Hopkins-based ARAnet is moving in with free print and Web content that carries client messages wrapped in consumer lifestyle articles.

Severson, ARAnet’s president since 2006, said he’s seeing more opportunities as newspapers and other media organizations cut staff. More than 65 of the nation’s top 100 newspapers, including the Star Tribune, use his company’s ARAcontent articles, he said.

“Newspapers still want to sell [ads in] those sections, but their own content generation is pulling back,” he said. “We generate feature articles that contain high-quality consumer content. They just happen to be underwritten by our clients.”

As an example, Severson cited a recent article that was offered to auto sections. Lexus was the client, “but the article wasn’t about why you should buy a Lexus,” he said. “Instead, the article was about safety systems and mentioned Lexus. The best advertising doesn’t look like advertising.”

Another selling point: ARAcontent articles are free. Clients pay fees starting at $4,500 for creation, tracking and results reporting. Staff writers at ARAnet produce the articles and post them on a proprietary Web site; newspaper editors download the stories of their choice. Other clients include Home Depot, Microsoft, Best Buy and UPS.

Yet the advertising business, like all media, is rapidly moving online, and so ARAnet’s main focus is on its Web offering, Adfusion. The service offers similar consumer lifestyle articles to Web sites such as CNN.com, MSNBC.com and more than 2,500 others. But where the print content is “an awareness vehicle,” in Severson’s words, Adfusion is “a direct-response online sales vehicle.”

Unlike Google ads, which invite readers to click on them– the one-click model– Adfusion uses a two-click system. A reader can click on an Adfusion article on the hosting Web site, such as FoxNews.com, and read it without taking further action. But each article also contains a link to the underwriting client. If the reader clicks on that second link, ARAnet gets paid.

The two-click method weeds out casual browsers, Severson said. Those who read through the content and seek more information are more likely to be motivated buyers. ARAnet gets a minimum of $2 per click with Adfusion, “but we have many clients paying more than that,” Severson said. “We tell clients, if you’re paying 30 cents per click on Google, we’ll meet your conversion metrics even at $2.”

There’s another difference between ARAnet’s online and print content. Where the online articles typically are identified as sponsored content, the print articles merely carry an “ARA” designation, similar to the “AP” identifier that runs with Associated Press articles.

My old colleagues at the Star Tribune will no doubt gnash their teeth at this blurring of the lines between traditional news content and sponsored information. Maybe I would, too, if I still worked as a newspaper reporter. But I don’t, so I won’t. The game is changing, and Severson has successfully planted his flag at the intersection of old media, new media and commerce.

One of Adfusion’s newest clients is Syndero Inc., a direct-response marketer based in San Francisco. Syndero began using Adfusion in April for one product in its Dermitage line of cosmeceuticals. It has since increased its Adfusion buy to five products.

“They’re bringing content that allows the user to read about the product and understand the product, then giving them the option to go further,” said Tim Hamelen, a senior media buyer for Syndero. “It’s an excellent business model for a direct-response marketer.”

Hamelen wouldn’t reveal how many click-throughs Adfusion is generating, but said he’s happy with the number, adding that the sales conversion rate is “excellent– very high. We’ll use them for every new product going forward.”

ARAnet has added 12 new employees this year, bringing total employment to 42, Severson said. The privately held company doesn’t reveal its sales, but Severson said revenue is on track to grow 400 percent between 2006 and the end of 2008– “and we were already a mature company in 2006.” Adfusion, which became the company’s main focus last year, now provides more than half of ARAnet’s revenue.

“There is no recession in online advertising,” Severson said. “There are big budgets, and people are spending. When all you’re hearing about the economy is doom and gloom, we’re thriving.”