Earlier in my career I had the opportunities to hone my advertising agency skills at places like Saatchi and Saatchi and McCann-Erickson working on accounts like AT&T, General Motors, Tylenol, Coca-Cola, and Nintendo. Back then, our primary challenge was to make sure our work was memorable, pithy, targeted – all the characteristics that produce successful ad campaigns, increased sales, and happy CEOs.

Identifying the perfect word or words for the right image with the right message and having every component work in harmony, is, after all, why creative people are drawn to advertising and marketing agencies. After working in the industry for more than 25 years, I eventually learned to transform my art into a pseudo-science.

Then along came Search Engine Optimization, and with it, a new dimension of word responsibility.

While effective SEO gives you a whopping bang for the buck on many levels, as an artist, trying to wrap my Madison Avenue brain around key words and phrases, query performance reports, and exact matches, this new process does not necessarily lend itself to free-flowing creative juices. It’s like taking right brain matter and infusing it into the left brain hemisphere, or vice-versa, to come up with a great campaign – one that must utilize the correct “word ratio” of specific phrases that will be “picked up and noticed” while “driving traffic” to where you want it. Exactly.

Admittedly, in the beginning, altering copy to work in key phrases wasn’t easy. Whether it was for a brand marketing development strategy or advertising campaign, the artist in me wasn’t taking it so well. However, when we began getting big hits for our clients, I saw the payoffs, the enhanced visibility, the head-turning results. Now, at our marketing and advertising agency, it’s all about making sure those key phrases – priceless little treasure troves – are cleverly entwined in our clients’ messaging.

In this new era of copywriting, SEO is where MIT and the Museum of Fine Arts collide – where “formulas” have to be worked into creative masterpieces. But when you experience the success of SEO first hand – when your client says the phone is ringing off the hook – there will always be a way to become inspired.

As marketers, we appreciate the need for conducting accurate research whether it’s for an opinion poll about a product or to gauge the mood of voters for a candidate or issue during local and national elections.

A recent U.S. government survey throws a wrench into the usual telephone survey methodology. The study estimates that up to 17 percent of adults have ditched their landline phones, nearly doubling the trend of cell-only users since 2003. Another recent survey by The Pew Research Center reports 23 percent of landline users say they are “very or somewhat likely” to go cell-only.

Both of these studies present considerable challenges for researchers conducting public opinion polls – whether it’s a news organization striving to obtain an accurate snapshot of how people are going to vote, or for thousands of corporations that depend heavily on market research for product development.

With cell-only users significantly less accessible than landline respondents, many in the public opinion research community wonder if the polls conducted this election season are reflecting true voting trends, especially among the 18 to 29 age group, which represents the largest portion of cell-only users.

To address this issue, the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press conducted three major election surveys using cell phone, landline, and “dual user” samples. Each survey resulted in small but not statistically significant differences compared to the polls by major news and research organizations. However, the younger age group – the largest proportion of cell-only users – showed a consistent pattern of more support for Obama. This raises an important question for pollsters about whether or not the difficulty in reaching the younger demographic group will impact their expected results on Election Day.

“Even though the omission of cell phones from election polls does not currently make a large difference in the substantive results, Pew’s surveys this year suggest at least the possibility of a small bias in landline surveys. Such a bias could be consequential in an election that appears to be very competitive right now, especially if significant numbers of young people turn out to vote.” ( http://pewresearch.org/pubs/964/).

The challenge in obtaining information from cell-only users will only increase as more households become wireless. The biggest obstacles facing researchers right now are associated with costs, as federal law prohibits automated dialing to cell phones. Another costly factor is the time involved reaching eligible respondents since many children carry cell phones and random calls will frequently reach those under voting age. Polling organizations may also have to prepare to reimburse respondents to answer questions, as cell phone users pay for airtime and may be reluctant to stay on the line.

Political and market researchers are anticipating how the outcome on Nov. 4 will reflect the polling data and what changes will have to be made in reaching a balanced proportion of Americans for future surveys. We in marketing should all keep a careful eye on the election results tomorrow as they are measured against the polling data, which could very well influence how we move forward with our own market research projects.