[Posted by Tamara Barber]

As a prelude to our Wave on full service MROC vendors, we recently released results  from a survey on market researchers’ use of communities. The findings highlight the fact that this is still a nascent methodology but one that researchers are no doubt interested in. Based on my view of the current vendor landscape, here is where my head’s at after mulling over the survey results:

It’s sometimes difficult to recall, with recent press coverage focusing on boardroom strife and funding shortages, how pioneering the UK’s Channel 4 has been since launching in 1982. So today’s news that it is the first broadcaster globally to offer full-length TV programmes via YouTube is welcome confirmation that innovation remains part of its corporate DNA.

Under the terms of the three-year deal Channel 4 will make recent shows - and 3,000 hours of archive content – available free of charge  to UK consumers, and will share the ad revenues with YouTube. Though the details of the revenue split have yet to be revealed, it might be assumed that YouTube are more pragmatic now than they were even a year ago, when their hard-nosed dealmaking was rebuffed by other broadcasters.

By offering its content on YouTube as well as on its own website, Channel 4 has extended the notion of blended distribution. Indeed, the nature of the non-exclusive deal, combined with the fact that Channel 4 does no own the rights to its hit shows, means that in future UK internet users will be able to access the same legal long-form TV shows via a number of sites, including MSN, Blinkbox, and Arqiva’s SeeSaw, not to mention the two shadows looming over this space - Hulu (whose link-up with ITV has been widely rumoured) and Project Canvas, backed by BBC, ITV, BT and Lovefilm.

[Posted by Reineke Reitsma]

I'd like to draw your attention to a recent post of my colleague Lisa Bradner at our Marketing Leadership Blog. Her new report, Adaptive Brand Marketing helps companies re-think their approach to brand management in a world where brand messages are no longer a one-way push, but in fact are shaped by consumers as they interact with and react to brands. Advertising Age has a lengthy write-up that focuses on one element of the report: what Adaptive Brand Marketing means for the future of the brand manager.

[Posted by Neil Strother]

Chances are you work with IT people on a fairly regular basis. And sometimes you face challenges. You might struggle to be on the same page, or have to work around conflicting team priorities. If this happens to you, then our latest report can help. It's now up on our site, and is available in full to clients: "How To Work With IT To Get (Most) Of What You Want."

We found from our survey of interactive marketing professionals that half work with IT on a regular basis, and that they expect this level of collaboration to increase. Marketers who work successfully with IT make sure they have aligned goals, and they carefully document the project scope to avoid the urge to do too much. Those are just the starting points.

What's your situation when it comes to working with IT? How do you make the process works so you reach your goals? Post a comment blow.