Cielo Lutino

Cielo Lutino is a writer and producer for Econsultancy and other organizations. Her writing has been featured in Los Angeles Review, Portland Monthly, Artcards, and the L and Brooklyn magazines, among other publications. She has literary nonfiction forthcoming from Cold Mountain Review and was recently awarded writing residencies from Mustarinda and Signal Fire. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.

How social media is changing the patient-physician relationship

You’re in the doctor’s office as she tells you that she’s very sorry, but you have lymphoma. Later, before you walk out of her chilly exam room and into your changed life, when you ask how you can find out more about your disease, she says, “Whatever you do, don’t go looking on the Internet.”

Yet that’s precisely what you will do because guess what: Looking for health information is the third most popular activity online, according to a Pew report released last year.

That “human capacity to be online? That’s the most powerful tool any organization has,” said Dr. Farris Timimi, a cardiologist at the Mayo Clinic and keynote speaker at the annual Social Communications and Healthcare conference organized by the Business Development Institute in New York City last week.

Timimi has made his name in digital circles praising the benefit of social media for healthcare and, more importantly, for science.

by Cielo Lutino 23 July 2012 16:19pm 6 comments

A sea change for insurance marketing

Despite the Supreme Court’s ruling over the Affordable Care Act last week, the future of healthcare in America remains uncertain in this election year when a Romney victory could mean the act’s repeal.

Healthcare insurers aren’t waiting to see which way the wind blows, though. Some major players having already begun consumer-focused campaigns that signal a sea change for insurers who traditionally targeted their marketing to wholesale business accounts, not individuals.

by Cielo Lutino 03 July 2012 14:51pm 2 comments

Music and marketing: five tips for being heard in a noisy space

The other day I eavesdropped as a pretty girl faced the teenage boy seated across from her and sang, “Tonight / We are young / So let’s set the world on fire”.

Frustrated by his blank stare, she said, “Don’t you know the song? It’s from that Chevy commercial”.

If that example doesn’t convince you of the power of music and marketing, nothing will.

by Cielo Lutino 22 May 2012 15:57pm 2 comments

Because one size doesn't fit all: A Redken case study

At OMMA’s one-day summit for mobile marketing, Sarah Liang Kress, director of interactive marketing for L’Oreal USA, had the chutzpah to tell the crowd:

Technology, for us, comes very much last. It’s not about the shiny object. We look at the audience, and we look at our objectives and then come up with the right solution and the right execution.

She said this as a keynote speaker for the event, which took place on Monday as part of Internet Week NY, and anyone doubting Kress’s claim had only to follow the tidy case study she presented to know she meant business.

So, if L’Oreal is downplaying technology, what’s fueling the global company’s mobile marketing?

by Cielo Lutino 17 May 2012 15:29pm 3 comments

The decade of the entrepreneur is coming

The release of companies topping the Fortune 500 list proved a bright spot in today's still shaky global economy, but John Sviokla, a principal and US business leader for strategy and innovation at PricewaterhouseCoopers, believes there's much good still to anticipate.

He spoke last week at Guardian's Activate Summit in New York. The summit attracted professionals in the publishing industry and featured such heavy hitters as media giant Arianna Huffington and Jonah Peretti, co-founder of BuzzFeed, perhaps the first true social news organization.

by Cielo Lutino 09 May 2012 16:48pm 4 comments

Beyond 4G: The future of wireless

In a conference room overlooking Manhattan’s Greenwich Village last week, NYU showcased research being conducted by professors from its various branches—its school of medicine, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and Polytechnic Institute—at an event titled “Beyond 4G: The Future of Wireless.”

Nine academics presented their findings on the wireless environment of today and tomorrow.

by Cielo Lutino 03 April 2012 15:45pm 2 comments

Analytics tools for social TV on display at Televisual Expo

Network execs, client-side reps, and ad folks crowded the Televisual Expo organized by the Collaborative Alliance in New York City’s financial district last week.

The small but crowded tradeshow featured 50 vendors of heavyweights, such as DirecTV and Comcast, and newbies such as Tapjoy, which FastCompany featured last month in its list of most innovative firms.

by Cielo Lutino 22 March 2012 18:51pm 2 comments

Five ways to create effective transmedia stories

In his keynote speech at DIY Days in New York earlier this month, self-proclaimed "story architect" Lance Weiler trumpeted transmedia storytelling as an "opportunity to lay story across the real world in a way that's never been possible."

On purely technical terms, he's right: A single story can be told around the world instantaneously in various media. Examples abound: Wieden & Kennedy's Old Spice campaign with its use of online video, TV spots, and social media; the use of games and live events for The Dark Knight; and the sprawling epic that was BMW's The Hire. Weiler himself IDed other tools in the transmedia arsenal: geolocation and the improving technology of near field communications or NFC.

by Cielo Lutino 21 March 2012 21:09pm 1 comment