Posts Tagged ‘marketing automation’
No Bull! IBM Marketing Innovation Summit 2012
I’m heading back to one of my favorite cities in the world in May, to Madrid.

Turbo during his first visit to Madrid in June 2008, where he visited the world-famous Plaza de Toros de Las Ventas, the "home" of bullfighting in Spain.
I first visited Madrid traveling on business in June 2008, an auspicious time to be there, as the UEFA Euro 2008 tournament was quickly winding down to a conclusion.
One night, June 10th to be precise, my IBM cabal and I were looking for a small bar or restaurant to take in the Spain v. Russia match, when we heard a loud cheer go up in unison across the city.
“Spain one, Russia nil,” I announced.
That echo sent chills down my spine, as did the wild celebration later that evening after Spain trounced Russia 4-1. Spain later went on to win the whole shebang in a 1-0 final over Germany.
Anyhoo, enough reminiscing.
If you’ve never visited Madrid, I’m going to provide you with an excellent raison: The IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit 2012.
From May 22-24, the IBM Smarter Commerce will be the most significant European gathering of marketing professionals in a single place, one filled with four days of learning, networking, and exploring best practices in the commerce realm.
If you need some convincing with your boss, download the “Top 5 Reasons to Attend.”
They go like this:
1. You get to network with Turbo.
2. You get to hang at the hotel bar with Turbo.
Oh, wait. That was a different list.
Anyway, once you preview the sessions with your boss you won’t have to do much convincing.
Here’s a couple of session titles that jumped right out at me: “Beyond Dashboards: Driving Marketing Returns With Digital Analytics.”
Or how about this one: “Tag Management Zen: Using Tags To Drive Innovation.”
Or even this: “Social Media & Mobile Marketing: Moving From Siloed to Intertwined.”
They’re going to have to drag me away kicking and screaming.
Here’s the bottom line page: Register here.
Before April 1, you only have to pay 895 Euros, at which point it goes up to 1195 Euros.
In the meantime, keep an eye out here on the Turbo blog, as I expect I’ll be passing along some travel tips (including restaurant and sightseeing recommendations) for Madrid.
IBM To Acquire Marketing Software Firm Unica
IBM Software’s business development team has had a busy week.
IBM today announced they have entered into a definitive agreement for IBM to acquire Unica in a cash transaction at a price of $21 per share, or at a net price of approximately $480 million, after adjusting for cash.
A publicly held company in Waltham, Mass., Unica will expand IBM’s ability to help organizations analyze and predict customer preferences and develop more targeted marketing campaigns.
The acquisition, which is subject to Unica shareholder approval, applicable regulatory clearances and other customary closing conditions, is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2010.
Unica’s comprehensive approach to interactive marketing enables more than 1,500 organizations worldwide to understand what makes their customers tick and leverage that understanding to engage buyers in highly relevant, interactive dialogs across digital, social, and traditional marketing channels.
Leading-edge companies place a high value on a consistent and relevant customer experience. They must continuously focus on enhancing their brand by responding quickly to marketplace changes and differentiating themselves through more targeted, personalized marketing campaigns (including we marketers at IBM).
In order to achieve this, marketing professionals are increasingly investing in technology to automate and manage marketing planning and execution to help them better analyze customer preferences and trends and in turn, predict buying needs and drive relevant campaigns.
To meet this demand, IBM is assembling transformational capabilities to help clients create this consistent and relevant cross-channel brand experience to promote customer loyalty and satisfaction.
With sophisticated analytics and marketing process improvement, the combination of IBM and Unica will help clients streamline and integrate key processes including relationship marketing, online marketing and marketing operations.
Building on this extensive industry expertise, Unica has more than 1,500 global customers across a wide range of industries including financial services, insurance, retail telecommunications, travel and hospitality. Customers include Best Buy, eBay, ING, Monster, Starwood and US Cellular.
Today’s news expands IBM’s growing portfolio of industry software solutions designed to help companies automate, manage, and accelerate core business processes across marketing, demand generation, sales, order processing and fulfillment.
This acquisition along with IBM’s recent acquisitions of Sterling Commerce and Coremetrics will enhance IBM’s ability to support customers increasing demands in this growing market.
Unica’s 500 employees will be integrated into IBM’s Software Solutions Group, which includes a range of industry-focused offerings. Unica software will complement the capabilities of IBM’s Business Analytics and Optimization Consulting organization – a team of 5,000 consultants and a network of analytics solution centers, backed by an overall investment of more than $11 billion in acquisitions in the last five years.