YuMe, the video advertising technology company, has been selected by Hearst Magazines Digital Media to help drive a new source of revenue using Hearst’s engaging video content. YuMe will provide in-stream advertising across Hearst’s extensive portfolio of websites, including Cosmopolitan.com, GoodHousekeeping.com, RealBeauty.com and HarpersBazaar.com.  Hearst Magazines Digital Media will use YuMe’s video advertising technology to ensure that video ad impressions from big name advertisers are paired against the most profitable and relevant premium content. With YuMe’s ability to deliver high-impact ad units and advanced targeting capabilities, Hearst will maximize revenue generated by its video content. Through the partnership, YuMe will also expand the premium video content available in its women-focused audience channel.  “As the popularity and consumption of streaming video content continues to thrive, the digital team at Hearst is focused on helping its loyal advertisers take advantage of this engaging and dynamic communications medium,” said Chuck Cordray, SVP and general manager of Hearst Magazines Digital Media. “With the help of YuMe’s video ad technology, we’re able to ensure that our visitors are presented with the most relevant advertising messages and that we realize maximum revenue opportunities across all of our online media properties.”

“Hearst is one of the world’s most established media companies with an extensive portfolio of some of the web’s most respected sites,” said Michael Mathieu, CEO of YuMe. “Advertisers want an effective way to take advantage of that audience and content, and YuMe is uniquely positioned to connect the two parties in a beneficial way.”  YuMe recently announced partnerships with Ooyala, Autotrader.com and MSNBC.com.

DSW Shoe Warehouse and The Miss America Organization have entered into a long-term partnership. Under this agreement, DSW will become the official provider of shoes for the Miss America pageant and a national sponsor for The Miss America Organization. The two companies will also work together to develop a unique brand of footwear, which will be a first for The Miss America Organization.  “We are truly excited to enter into this partnership with DSW Shoe Warehouse,” said Sam Haskell, III, chairman of the board of The Miss America Organization. “DSW’s style fits with our message that Miss America is contemporary, hip and a style icon, and we’re anxious to help promote a wonderful company that shares the same strong connection to women we do.”

“DSW is proud to be associated with The Miss America Organization,” said Mike MacDonald, president and CEO of DSW Shoe Warehouse. “We look forward to sponsoring their important role as the world’s leading provider of scholarships for young women.”  Miss America will partner with DSW Shoe Warehouse as she travels 20,000 miles every month on her national media tour. Miss America 2010 will be crowned on Saturday, January 30, live on TLC from Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas. In addition to stepping out in footwear provided by DSW, the 53 Miss America contestants will help support important social causes throughout the year, while strengthening the efforts of vibrant young women across America.

2009 M2W® Associate Sponsor SheSpeaks has hired Josh McKay as SVP, strategic development, effective immediately. McKay will manage SheSpeaks’ financial operations and sales functions, as well as relationships with investors and growth strategies. He will also leverage his enterprise technology expertise, overseeing member and client platforms, social media offerings and partnerships with the technology community. McKay will be based in the company’s New York headquarters and will report directly to SheSpeaks founder and CEO Aliza Freud.  “As our client base, capabilities and membership continue to grow, Josh will be pivotal in advancing our mission to provide innovative branding, social media and word-of-mouth solutions through online communities of influential consumers,” said Freud. “Josh brings a client-side perspective, an entrepreneurial spirit, and the financial and technology experience to expand our solutions for brands. He is a welcome addition to our team.”  McKay most recently held the position of senior vice president in the Growth Ventures group at Citi, where he developed and executed new business strategies. In this role, he worked with a range of partners, including enterprise technology vendors, mobile technologists, start-ups, and leading innovation and design firms. He previously held Internet technology and strategy roles at American Express, including project management for americanexpress.com, financial planning and strategy for company-wide Internet investments, and strategic venture investing in start-ups.

“I’m thrilled to be coming on board at a key time and to be spearheading the company’s growth,” said McKay. “We will continue to offer marketers more comprehensive brand solutions that capitalize on the success of the SheSpeaks model and its ongoing evolution as a social media platform.”

ForbesWoman recently ran an article regarding the thirty women entrepreneurs you should be following on Twitter.  It’s a great list of “business-savvy tweeters” who can help you grow your business and may also give you some insight into what is working with today’s female consumers.  Some of our favorites that made the list include:  @KairaRouda (former M2W® speaker), @MarketLikeAChik, @sheconomy, @SmartWoman, @startupprincess and @WomenWhoTech.  Click here to see the entire list.

Who are some of your “must follow tweeters” when it comes to marketing to women?  We’ve heard from some of you and the list includes @MicheleMiller and former M2W® speakers @JustAskaWoman, @AndreaLearned, @MartiBarletta, @KickSkirt… just to name a few. Who else?

Popular M2W(R) and M2W(R)-HC(TM) speaker Mary Dean, founder and chief creative officer for KickSkirt, has a great Letter to the Editor in the current issue of Fast Company.  Regarding Fast Company’s recent article on Masters of Design, Mary says:  ”Consider this:  As you pointed out, women make 80% of all consumer purchase decisions, yet 70% of women feel marketers ‘don’t get them’ and 35% are actually offended by the advertising that seeks to entice them.  Why is most advertising failing so miserably with the world’s most powerful consumer?  Could it have something to do with the fact that only 3% of the creative directors at ad agencies are women?”  Read her entire letter here (it’s halfway down the page):  http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/141/feedback.html

Think men dominate online gaming? Think again.  Millions of girls and women of all ages go online regularly to play a variety of genres of computer games. Which is why Verizon has unveiled a new online gaming community for its Verizon FiOS Internet and Verizon High Speed Internet subscribers – “She’s Got Verizon Games” — that’s designed with female gamers in mind.  ”Research shows that today there are nearly as many female gamers as there are male gamers,” said Susan Retta, vice president of consumer products and services at Verizon. “Our new casual gaming portal gives women and girls a new place online to enjoy games, interact with other players, win prizes, identify themselves by games they love to play, challenge and stretch their minds, and just have a lot of fun.” The library of games includes popular titles such as “Bejeweled 2”, “Women’s Murder Club 3” and “Top Chef:  The Game” and players can use their hard-earned prize points at the virtual marketplace where they can personalize their avatars and add items to their game lounges.    A series of Free Ladies’ Nights — the first night was Nov. 24 from 7 p.m. Eastern time to 7 a.m. Nov. 25 — during which any Verizon broadband subscriber can access and play all games in the Verizon Games catalog for free.  In addition, the new community is hosting a monthly sweepstakes through February and will award prizes to new members who become eligible once they have downloaded and played their first game within the month. Members can also win big by dressing up their avatar and submitting it for judging by the community in a popular vote.

The AVEENO® brand continues to make strides towards sustainability with the announcement of exciting new eco-conscious efforts and an alliance that educates consumers on the importance of reducing waste and helping the environment, all building off a foundation set more than three years ago with the brand’s AVEENO® Inspires campaign.  In an effort to educate consumers on how they can personally make sustainable strides in their local communities after they have purchased and used AVEENO® products, the brand kicks off a partnership this month with TerraCycle. This unique partnership offers communities a chance to make sustainable strides; AVEENO® Beauty Brigades are currently being formed across the country to collect empty AVEENO® product tubes (all of the elongated tubes from sun care, facial care, baby and body care products). For each tube received by TerraCycle, the AVEENO® brand will pay two cents to the non-profit organization or school of one’s choice or to the featured charity, The Skin Cancer Foundation. “We are incredibly proud of the progress the AVEENO® brand has made in terms of sustainability,” said Michael Marquis, AVEENO® brand group product director. “We continue to look for ways to improve our eco-conscious practices, from how we source ingredients and packaging materials, to reducing waste and resources needed for product transport. It’s through our collaboration with partners like TerraCycle that makes it possible for us to expand our commitment to sustainability, giving back to the community and improving our environment.”

Just in time for the holiday shopping season, SHOP.COM has announced the launch of its social shopping hub called SHOP Community, which integrates all of SHOP.COM’s social networking applications, including Twitter, Facebook, The Shopping Vine, and a range of valuable new features for the busy holiday shopper. With these innovations, SHOP.COM also introduced its new SHOPstar Beta Networking Program, an easy way for shoppers to get paid when someone clicks on special SHOP.COM links sent to individual networks.  SHOP Community provides visitors with multiple social networking channels to discover, share and shop the latest trends and great deals. The social shopping network features the newly created “My Lists,” which allows shoppers to create any type of shopping list, keep track of the desired items until the time of purchase and share lists with friends and family. Shoppers who create a list in time for the holiday season can also enter SHOP.COM’s Win your Holiday Wishlist contest, where contestants can win the items on their wishlist, totaling up to $200.  SHOP.COM’s customers can also earn some extra cash through the SHOPstar networking program, simply by sharing their SHOP.COM experience with friends and family via social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, MySpace or blogs. Registered customers of the site who are members of the SHOPstar program and post a unique URL from SHOP.COM, including product, editorial and contest pages, on any of their networks are paid a portion of the revenue each time a visitor is directed to SHOP.COM from the posting.  “With SHOP.COM’s new community enhancements and the SHOPstar program, we hope to harness the power of social media and help shoppers with their purchasing decisions in a relevant way,” said Mondy Beller, senior vice president of marketing for SHOP.COM. “The site’s latest offerings, combined with functional tools to save time and money, and opportunities to be delighted by contests and giveaways, shape a very compelling experience on SHOP.COM.”

While the recession is testing this generation of Boomer women’s beliefs, they are more than up to the challenge with nearly 8 out of 10 reporting that “the older I get, the more resilient I become.”   This insight is one of the many garnered from a new resilience survey conducted by VibrantNation.com, “Boomer women are in fact growing more resilient during hard times and their coping strategies and belief systems are reaching new levels of effectiveness in the face of challenge and change,” said Stephen Reily, Vibrant Nation Founder and CEO. “This influential and fast-growing demographic, who we’ve termed ’Vibrant Women,’ value their own spirituality and ability to adapt when times get tough despite their eroding trust in resources they say they can no longer count on, such as financial advisors, Social Security, religious institutions and pop psychology.”  On a spiritual level, Boomer women are finding their own paths to allow spirituality to support them during the recession and are accepting that they can’t control everything that happens.

• Only 4% of those surveyed report that they are spending less time and/or placing less importance on spirituality now than before the recession.
• Twice as many respondents (60%) believe that while they might influence the things that happen to and for them, the ultimate outcome is in God’s hands. Only 26% believe they create their reality and that if they think positively, they will get what they’re asking for.
• While 68% report that they are less optimistic in regards to their expectations about the future than they used to be, more than half of this subset “accept” this.
• 44% find inspiration in the beliefs and philosophies learned from books, speakers, coaches, workshops or other sources outside of organized religion while only 23% find inspiration from their current religious communities and only 8% find inspiration from the religious communities in which they were raised.
• 50% of the respondents turn to personal prayer and meditation to keep their spirits up, with only family (61%) cited as a larger factor when it comes to influences that help them keep their spirits up during these challenging times.

On a financial level, Boomer women share increasing concern about their own financial and health benefits, and distrust of those who advise them on financial issues.

• 62% are increasingly worried that they will not receive the same level of Social Security and Medicare benefits that their parents did.
• 67% either trust their financial advisors and institutions less than before the recession or never trusted them in the first place.

Survey results came from more than 500 smart, successful women aged 50-70 who are VibrantNation.com members, e-newsletter subscribers, Facebook fans and Twitter followers.

A trusted name to young girls and women since its launch in 1987, the Caboodles brand has a fresh, new look and website this holiday season. In addition, they have added a new product to their fun, fashionable and functional line of organizers, aptly named In My Case™. In My Case, the first custom molded design released in over ten years, launched at Ulta in September 2009 and Target in October 2009.  To promote the launch of In My Case, the company created “Caboodle-isms” – statements that were designed to promote the importance of individuality. “Branded phrases like: In My Case…I’m open to possibilities’ or ‘In My Case…beauty starts on the inside’ or ‘In My Case my looks are never overlooked’ can be practical or emotional or in the best case, both. It’s a way for us to illustrate the uniqueness of the product and our customers on a more personal level,” said Jesse Simpkins, Vice President of Marketing. Caboodles will be rolling out a social media campaign surrounding the new In My Case product and Caboodle-isms, and has secured partnerships with two teen-focused organizations – the Step Up Women’s Network “Spoken Word” program in Chicago and the Young Tykeoons program at James Jordan Boys & Girls Club and Family Life Center. “Since 1987 Caboodles has been inspiring young women to be proud of who they are,” says Kathy Hurt, Director of Marketing and Product Development. “We like to think of ourselves as their fun, quirky friend that’s been with them from their first lip gloss to their first college application.”