Blogs

Back during my early grunt days in advertising, I worked at McCann-Erickson with a young intern named Lisa Amorosa. Lisa's father was a guy named Eugene Amoroso, who, at the time, was president of Coca-Cola Foods. He had given his daughter a book as she was beginning her career which she, in turn, gave to me. Due in large part to Mr.

They say every cloud has its silver lining and that familiar old adage appears to apply to the current economic downturn, too. We came across an online article at the Wall Street Journal's website that deals with a growing trend in street-side food service:  Gourmet lunch trucks that deliver high-end fare at a more low-end price, directly to the man (or woman) on the street.  Given the state of the economy, the timing couldn't be more perfect.

All those rumors that creativity is dead are wildly exaggerated. Especially in the world of media placement. Thanks to the current economy and it's negative impact on real estate, mobile marketing, the latest new advertising vehicle, is now taking a back seat to something that we consider even more innovative. Brilliant, actually. It's the recent rise of vacant-storefront marketing.

As marketing professionals, we all do a lot of talking, whether it's during meetings, while giving presentations, or during business negotiations. So it makes sense that we should know the principles of effective speaking.  And I'm not just talking proper grammar, inflection, and delivery here.  The actual physical act of how you project air from your lungs past your vocal chords and finally to your audience, can make all the difference in how effectively you present your thoughts.  It's all about breathing.  And breathing correctly.

Are you getting through to your customers? Well, after recently watching Conan O'Brian, who had an amazing comedian on talking about how spoiled our youngest generation is, it got me to thinking. You probably spend millions trying to break through to your prospects and customers each day, and the reality is, the space in their collective heads you are fighting for, probably isn't even worth it. In fact, I will go out on a limb and tell you it isn't worth a dime!

We regularly receive newsletters, articles, and online updates from marketing-industry consultants that offer a variety of different types of professional tips and advice. One recent item we've received came from the blog at a marketing-resource center called Go-To-Market Strategies. It recommends several useful web-based tools they've found for helping direct marketers maximize their lead-generation efforts.  Given the state of the current economy, and the fact that everyone is open to finding new or improved ways of maximizing lead-gen, we thought it was good intel to share.

We found a great article by James Surowiecki at The New Yorker's website that addresses an issue that has long been debated in advertising circles: To spend or not to spend during a recession.  We enjoyed the article so much, we figured you would, too.

Here it is:

Actually, more accurately, we'd like to thank Ad Giants' Education Manager, Heather Beaudoin, for the excellent work that led to us being recognized as a Bronze Award winner at the 2009 Articulate Guru Awards. Heather's entry, our Ad Giants Product Tour video, impressed the judges with its overall clean graphic style and simplicity of design.

We always knew it would happen. We just didn't know precisely when. But now, it appears the time has come.  The much maligned jingle may be making its long-awaited comeback.