Recipients Honored At Forrester's Consumer Forum In Chicago
CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 12, 2007--Outstanding applications
of social technologies by companies such as Dell, Nike, Chevrolet, and
Schwab were honored last night at the Forrester Research, Inc.
(Nasdaq: FORR) Consumer Forum in Chicago. The Forrester Groundswell
Awards are the first awards to recognize excellence in business uses
of social technologies.
Winners were chosen across seven categories that comprise the main
goals Forrester recommends companies consider as reasons to use social
technologies to interact with customers: listening, talking,
energizing, supporting, embracing, managing, and social impact. For
demonstrating their business effectiveness and value in these
categories, the winners are:
-- Listening: Schwab's Money and More Private Community of Gen
Xers empowered by Communispace
-- Talking: Chevy Aveo Livin' Large Campus Challenge by Chevrolet
and Weber Shandwick
-- Energizing: NetShops Social Merchandising featuring
PowerReviews
-- Supporting: Nike's Jordan Brand Breakfast Club by Blast Radius
-- Embracing: Salesforce.com IdeaExchange at ideas.salesforce.com
-- Managing: Avenue A / Razorfish Wiki
-- Social Impact: Brickfish "Design Your Portion of the Border
Fence"
In addition, a special award was designated to capture the
powerful changes happening across all functions of one particular
organization. Dell Social Media and Community Initiatives were
recognized for excellence in Transformation.
The Forrester Groundswell Awards are an outgrowth of the book
Groundswell, to be published in 2008 by Harvard Business School Press.
Written by two of the most respected and well-known Forrester
analysts, Josh Bernoff and Charlene Li, Groundswell will focus on
effective business strategies in a world transformed by social
technologies and will feature the types of case studies recognized by
the Forrester Groundswell Awards. More information about the Forrester
Groundswell Awards is available at www.forrester.com/groundswell.
"The winners of this year's Forrester Groundswell Awards
illustrate how companies can succeed in a world transformed by social
technology and media, and show distinct measurable results for their
efforts," said Forrester Research Vice President and Research Director
Christine Spivey Overby. "By making customer input and engagement a
cornerstone of their marketing and selling processes, forward-thinking
organizations will not only deepen current customers' loyalty but also
spur product innovation and increase brand equity among new
constituencies."
Forrester's Consumer Forum Presents Strategies For Social
Computing Success
More than 800 professionals gathered in Chicago this week for
Forrester's Consumer Forum 2007 to discuss the impact that social
technologies have on consumer behavior and how companies must embrace
brand participation in order to remain relevant and competitive in the
new world created by the social media phenomenon. The Forum's keynotes
and panel discussions offered insights for several key roles. For
example:
-- Marketing professionals learned tactics for socializing their
brands.
-- eBusiness, channel, & product management professionals
discussed how to use social technologies to boost sales.
-- Customer experience professionals were offered tips for
designing great social experiences for customers and
prospects.
-- Market research professionals focused on methods for measuring
Social Computing's effect on purchase dynamics and brand.
Industry leaders who spoke at the Consumer Forum included:
-- Kevin H. Johnson, Digital Organization Leader, Services
Division, Acxiom Digital
-- Philip J. Kaplan, Founder and President, Products, AdBrite
-- Jeremy Allaire, Founder and CEO, Brightcove
-- Richard Edelman, President and CEO, Edelman
-- Robert J. Bach, President, Entertainment and Devices Division,
Microsoft
-- Henry Jenkins, Co-Director, MIT Comparative Media Studies, MIT
-- Christina Norman, President, MTV
-- Christie Hefner, Chairman and CEO, Playboy Enterprises
-- Ze Frank, Founder, ZeFrank.com
In addition, participants gained information on how to stimulate
loyalty with social technologies through more than 225 one-on-one
sessions with Forrester analysts, peer networking, and a technology
showcase where 29 sponsors shared their solutions, including platinum
sponsor Acxiom and gold sponsors Leo Burnett Worldwide, Blast Radius,
Critical Mass, and WHITTMANHART.
One hundred and ten members of Forrester Leadership Boards'
marketing groups also met at the Consumer Forum. They attended
exclusive sessions hosted by The CMO Group, the Interactive Marketing
Council, and the Direct Marketing Council. CMO Group members examined
approaches to building effective relationships with customers and
peers such as the CIO and CFO to achieve personal and professional
results. The Interactive Marketing Council focused on how to
positively impact their brands online; the Direct Marketing Council
discussed how to focus teams around a single view of the customer
across various channels. More information on Forrester Leadership
Boards is available at: www.forrester.com/LeadershipBoards.
For more information about future Forrester Events, visit:
www.forrester.com/events.
About Forrester Research
Forrester Research, Inc. (Nasdaq: FORR) is an independent
technology and market research company that provides pragmatic and
forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology.
For more than 24 years, Forrester has been making leaders successful
every day through its proprietary research, consulting, events, and
peer-to-peer executive programs. For more information, visit
www.forrester.com .
(C) 2007, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Forrester
is a trademark of Forrester Research, Inc.
CONTACT: Forrester Research, Inc.
Tracy Sullivan, 617-613-6023
Senior Public Relations Specialist
press@forrester.com
SOURCE: Forrester Research, Inc.
