Business Strategy & Planning

Is your brand built on a solid, powerful, copy-ready messaging framework?

What do your clients believe about your company or product? How hard is it to develop consistent, impactful marketing content? Is that process confusing and stressful? What about your brand promise or positioning statement? Does everyone at your company know and understand your core message and is it resonating with your target audience? If you […]

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SMEs Are People First, and They Need You to Be Prepared

They’re knowledgeable, but cryptic. They’re busy, but necessary. Of course, I’m talking about subject matter experts. Chances are that if you’re a writer, researcher or on a content-based project, you’re working with one or more of these brilliant professionals, or SMEs. Communication can often seem difficult, or downright impossible. Sometimes it IS their personality, but sometimes it’s you… and

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Aim for the Bullseye, then Try Again

Every marketing and advertising campaign needs associated metric goals and reporting. These key performance indicators (KPIs) help you tailor the future of your marketing team [or allocation if you wear multiple hats]. When asked “Is your marketing successful?” 43% of CoSchedule’s surveyed group answered neutral or lower. If almost half are undecisive or unsatisfied, that’s a

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Stimulate Your Creative Process

Before customer data was so readily available and the number of mediums became countless, advertising was simpler. Still a challenge, but simpler. I think of Mad Men, particularly when they come up with the idea for lipsticks in season 1. What we watched was a focus group of their target audience (young women of the

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Your campaign worked… but how do you know which part?

You’ve done the research, the legwork and maybe even some focus studies before your last campaign, and the results were actually strong enough to reach your goals. That’s great! But what made it different from the others that had less success? It can be hard to tell without the right tools or information. What is

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Interview with Randy Skattum, Celanese – Global Marketing Communications Director

I find that most people have a path or at least a pattern to their careers that are, of course, easier to see when looking back on it or from an outside vantage point. I enjoy interviewing people for this blog on careers and how they got where they are and what they do. I

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Fighting the battle against mediocrity

Complacency is the greatest danger to an advertising agency and its clients It happens to everyone and everything, everywhere. Monkeys in the forests of South America get complacent about their jumps between trees in the jungle and fall to their deaths. (Check it out, it is a real thing.) The New York Yankees get tired

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About Snapchat – It’s Not Just Sexting Anymore

At this point, who hasn’t heard of Snapchat? The popular photo-sharing app has become so ubiquitous that it can even advertise itself without saying a word. If you’re over 30, while you’ve heard of it, you probably don’t completely understand it. I’m over 30 too, and I don’t blame you. If you’ve tried to use

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