We’ve had a busy week of meeting with prospective clients and a couple of trends seemed to emerge…

1. Growing recognition of the decline in relative importance of “traditional” or ATL (Above the Line) advertising. Suppliers are recognizing that, especially with new product introductions, advertising is a pretty blunt instrument, and that targeted, measureable tools are more important.
2. Increasing awarness and interest in BTL (Below the Line)tools, specifically Word of Mouth or Social Media Marketing.
BAT’s developed some special expertise in the Social Media Marketing space including tools to rank and quantify the relative influence of individual bloggers, and new programs that are “win/win” feed bloggers’ needs for content and samples, and brand needs for awareness and links.

Of particular note is the TDN or Thursday Drink Night program developed by Gabriel Szazko of Cocktail Nerd and Rick Stutz of Kaiser Penguin. Check out the coverage of Leblon‘s sponsorship at Mixoloseum.