The Story of Online Advertising Agency Morpheus Media

Founded in 2001 by Shenan Reed, winner of a 2005 Stevie® Award in the Stevie Awards for Women Entrepreneurs, Morpheus Media is an online advertising agency with fifteen full-time staff and an impressive roster of corporate clients.

After the 2001 Dotcom depression, most traditional advertising agencies dropped their online divisions. Reed and her partners Jamie Driver and Alex Golimbu saw this as an opportunity. They created Morpheus Media as a flattened hierarchy in which staff were recruited at intern level and trained as account managers through private seminars and programs such as Google Advertising Professionals.  Morpheus Media took this one step further by also educating its clients and publishers and directly working with them to enable the development of websites that worked with standardized media content.

Big Change in Four Years
Says Reed: “Nearly four years ago, I got together with a group of industry peers from other agencies at a round table hosted by Washington Post/Newsweek
Interactive.  The main challenge we all came back to consistently was how to convince clients to devote any percentage of their overall marketing budgets towards online advertising.”

“At this year's summit (more than twice the size of the first one) we realized that online marketing is now getting the first, and often largest, slice of the pie. The accountability of online marketing has significantly increased its visibility as our advertisers have come to expect that these efforts will result in the best ROI out of all of their marketing options”

By acting as an extension of its clients’ marketing teams, Morpheus Media provides direct marketing results by running online advertising campaigns based on a system designed for this purpose, rather than applying principles used in traditional offline advertising. In so doing, they have become the leading online advertising agency in the luxury goods space, as well as one of MediaPost Publications’ Top 50 Interactive Agencies.  

Increasing Online Subscriptions
The New York Times entrusted Morpheus Media to increase online subscription volume while lowering acquisition costs. Morpheus Media’s campaign infiltrated the fragmented online media space by localizing designated market areas using Google Site Targeting.  They partnered with cutting-edge technologies such as RSS (Really Simple Syndication, a technology standard for publishing regular updates to Web-based content) to drive awareness to niche politics and New York-centric sites.  They then placed eighteen targeted campaigns across fifty websites, running twenty different ads, including text, image, and Flash.  The New York Times’ subscription revenue was dramatically increased as a result. 

Tracking Results
During the same period, The New York Times’ acquisition costs dropped thanks to Morpheus Media’s Cost Per Lead, Cost Per Click, and Cost Per Sale relationships with its publishers. Leverage was gained by the high volume of users (530k/week—each viewing an ad three times).  Overall, the online campaigns created by Morpheus Media for The New York Times increased sales orders per month by 2,400%, while the cost-per-online subscription dropped by over 99%. Four years ago it would not have been possible to run such a targeted marketing campaign, nor would it have been possible to track the results and measure changes in net sales and ROI against advertising costs by market.

Morpheus Media now represents twenty-two national and global brands—most through referrals—that rely on its reach and targeting ability.  These include Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, Chef’s Catalog, A&E Television Network, David Yurman, Salvatore Ferragamo, and Horchow.  Morpheus Media offers tailored interactive strategies that drive ROI and net sales using online media placement, search engine marketing, creative consulting, and e-Commerce/eCRM consulting.
To view some of Morpheus Media's fixed placements, go to:
The New York Times – New York Metro [http://www.nymetro.com]
The New York Times – ABC News [http://abcnews.go.com/]
Neiman Marcus Fashion- Style News & Trends [http://www.style.com/trends]
Neiman Marcus Fashion- Luxury Link [http://www.luxurylink.com]
Neiman Marcus Fashion- inStyle [http://www.instyle.com/instyle/trends/hotfinds]
Neiman Marcus Fashion- NYMagazine [http://nymetro.com]

About Shenan Reed:
Born at Shenandoah Acres in Albion, New York, Shenan has lived in New York City since 1994. Shenan worked in advertising for Bristol Myers-Squibb, Spectra Marketing, and Mass Transit Interactive until 2001 when she launched Morpheus Media with $5000. As Morpheus Media’s managing director, Reed was one of only five hundred C-level executives invited to the Google Zeitgeist Summit, and was one of only fifty top partner agents invited to the Washington Post Decision Makers Summit.  Until the birth of her son in 2003, she was also the Executive Director of the Miss New York City Scholarship Organization.  Currently she serves as a member of the Advertising Club of New York and in her spare time guest lectures on Internet Marketing in the Communications Department at Iona College.  

About Morpheus Media:
Morpheus Media (www.morpheusmedia.com) is a leading interactive agency focusing on results-driven interactive marketing to deliver the best possible results for its clients’ online advertising programs.  It offers an integrated solution including web advertising, search engine optimization, website and creative development, affiliate marketing, email list management and loyalty programs, strategic portal relationships and advanced customer tracking and analytical services. Founded in 2001, Morpheus Media has quickly earned a reputation for exceptional client services and unparalleled results.  Morpheus continues to use its diligence and expertise to produce successful campaigns for it growing list of clients. For additional information visit the Morpheus Media Website: http://www.morpheusmedia.com.

Jim Norman is the founder and Creative Director of The Norman Agency in Toronto, Canada. The Norman Agency specializes in creating and producing radio advertising, and received the International Stevie Award for Best Radio Ad Spot in both the 2005 and 2006 International Business Awards.

We recently spoke with Jim about the origins of The Norman Agency, the challenges presented by changes in the radio industry, and how to create and produce effective radio spots. Hear Jim's conversation with Stevies president Michael Gallagher in this month's Stevie Awards Podcast.

		Listen to Stevie Awards Podcasts

By Anna Murray and Christos Moschovitis of
tmg-e*media, inc.

Do you have a high-tech headache? Feel as if you’re the only one driven out of your mind by technology problems? Technology field consultants—with thousands of hours of experience with small businesses—can attest: You are not alone. Here are the top five misstepss that small businesses make when it comes to technology.

1. Installation: The Home Depot Syndrome
These days, more and more people want to “Do It Yourself.” You can go to the local Home Depot and get a kit to install anything from sinks to lighting. Technology is plagued by small businesses convinced you can also “Do I.T. Yourself.”

This syndrome is often found in people who have a technology-savvy brother-in-law, niece, or son who claims he or she can install a network, configure desktop machines, or build a website. In circumstance after circumstance, these “Do I.T. Yourself” projects result in calls to consultants who have to spend more time undoing and redoing a job than if the expert had been called in the first place.

If you feel compelled to tackle I.T. tasks on your own, first ask yourself…

   * Will I, or my brother-in-law, focus on the task, or do it in our spare time?
   * Am I, or my brother-in-law, trained and up to date in the latest equipment, security software, releases, and warnings?
   * How much of my business am I willing to put at risk by doing it myself?

2. Maintenance: Energizer Bunny® Dysfunction
These days, you don’t even have to worry about the oil in your car. A light comes on to tell you to change it. Many people have an erroneous belief that their computers and networks, once installed, will take care of themselves, running on and on like the Energizer Bunny.

That assumption is false. Many small businesses don’t do the minimum maintenance required.

    * System patches and updates are not performed.
    * Machines are never upgraded. New software is purchased and suddenly the old machines can’t run it.
    * Backups are never done. Really. This happens ALL the time.
    * Software is not documented. There is no inventory. No one knows where to find the system CDs or the CD keys.

How does your organization shape up?

3. Security: Wonder Woman Delusion
Remember how Wonder Woman could walk through a rain of bullets and emerge unscathed, deflecting all harm with her magic bracelets? Well that seems to be the belief of many small businesses when it comes to security.

    * Passwords are posted on monitors with sticky notes or are easy to guess. Seriously, people DO know your dog’s and children’s names.
    * Anti-virus software has expired definitions for viruses. No regular scans are scheduled.
    * No policies exist for installing software. People have everything running from Instant Messenger to I-Tunes. All kinds of weatherbugs and spyware pollute computers.  At a minimum, they hurt performance.  At worst, they put the entire network at risk.

If you also suffer from a lack of regular backups, acting like Wonder Woman when it comes to security truly puts your business at risk. Your data. Your clients’ data. Everything.

 4. Education: I-Wasn’t-In-Class-That-Day Disorder
None of us (above a certain age, that is) actually took classes in the kinds of technology that firms currently use. People know how to run one or two software applications, but know virtually nothing about the computer itself.  If you ask such a person which operating system is running, the response is likely to be: “Microsoft Word.” And no one ever defrags a drive or empties temporary internet files.
 
Training is essential to every small business. Some forward-thinking employers require all employees to read “Windows for Dummies” and similar books.  And there are great online services such as BrainBench (http://www.brainbench.com/) where you can test your employees’ knowledge.

5. Email: Inbox STD
Strong language, we know. But through your inbox you come into contact with hundreds, perhaps thousands, of other people’s inboxes. Are you sure they are clean? Are you sure YOU are clean? A few practices borrowed from safe sex would go a long way for most businesses when it comes to email. Here are some things to watch out for:

    * Long cc lists: It’s the email equivalent of multiple partners. Copying more than a dozen people when sending email is a bad practice. It can get you blacklisted as a spammer. Then no one will get your email.
    * Using DSL or your cable modem ISP to send email rather than your own mail server. ElegantFlowers@comcast.net, for example. This looks amateurish and cheesy—like a bad suit on a first date.
    * Forgetting confidentiality and privacy. You thought he/she would never tell anyone? You were wrong. People assume that the contents of their emails are confidential and private. A big mistake. Emails get passed on like, well, STDs. If it’s in an email, it can be passed along!
 
Christos Moschovitis, CEO
Anna Murray, President
tmg-e*media, inc., a technology-consulting and interactive-media firm.
www.tmg-emedia.com

Blogs, or web logs, are all the rage these days. Each month in this space we'll point you to several blogs that we think might be of interest to you.

Brand Autopsy : John Moore shares business and marketing advice with companies aspiring to become the next Whole Foods or Starbucks.
I Want Media : Focuses on diversified media news and resources. Edited by an adjunct professor of journalism at NYU (http://journalism.nyu.edu/faculty/phillips.html), it provides quick access to media news and industry data, updated throughout the day.
I Have An Idea : Serving the advertising industry as a mechanism for communication, self-analysis and intellectual growth.
Designers Who Blog : Naturally enough about blogging designers.is about blogging designers. Also includes illustrators, photographers, those in advertising and marketing, etc.