Recession? What recession? As retailers and brands attempt to milk every penny they can out of customers, some folks are trying to get people shopping on Thanksgiving Day -- even going so far as to name it "Mobile Thursday." Boston.com has more: To reach its conclusions, Digitas and Harris Interactive conducted an online survey earlier this month of 2,059 adults who own a smartphone or a tablet …
Modern Dog Finds Itself In A Copyright Dogfight
Anyone in a creative business is susceptible to having others take their work, copy parts of it to incorporate into something new, or steal it outright. Seattle design firm, Modern Dog, has found themselves right in the middle of this problem. A design of theirs, featuring illustrations of “Dogs we know” and “Dogs we don’t know,” was imitated and used for T-shirts co-branded by a major entertainment conglomerate …
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Likeable Business Reads Like A “Greatest Hits” For Marketers Seeking Fans
I’ve come across dozens of books that emphasize the popular wisdom regarding building customer relationships, providing excellent service, creating memorable customer experiences, and using social media to connect with people. But if you need a quick overview of the whole shebang, you’d do well to get Dave Kerpen’s new book, Likeable Business: Why Today’s Consumers Demand More And How Leaders Can …
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Do We Need Some Nate Silvers In Advertising?
Political campaigns are marketing campaigns. And while Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight wasn't working for a campaign, he was absolutely on the mark in his projections of the election results this year. Anyone who bet on him, as opposed to pundit predictions on TV, made the right move. Advertising is relying increasingly on data and microtargeting to reach an increasingly divided audience. But so much of it seems …
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I Would Write Anything For Cash, But I Won’t Write That
It's been a long time since Neil Young sang about...well, who he wouldn't sing for: But when it comes to advertising people, most of us have few, if any, clients we wouldn't work on. What does it say about us if we refuse to work on something, or oppose the way a prospective or current client runs its business? It doesn’t make someone an anti-capitalist. As advertising professionals, we’re paid to compete …
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Convincing People They’re Inadequate Isn’t A Hairy Situation In China
Anyone who's studied the history of advertising knows that back in the first half of the 20th century, it was quite common to sell health and beauty products based on people's fear of appearing less attractive or inadequate. Now, as consumerism spreads throughout poorer and third world countries, we're seeing that technique used all over again. Bloomberg BusinessWeek reports on the sale of hair removal products in …
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Marketing Lessons From A Trip Overseas (Part 2)
I shared some random marketing observations from my European trip the other day. A few more here: Creative work there is just as mundane as work here. I was expecting sophisticated advertising like you often see on Ads of the World or in Archive. But there’s just as much ads-as-bland-wallpaper everywhere you go. The brands are different. And the snack flavors are different. I made a point of walking through …
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Marketing Observations From A Trip Overseas (Part 1)
I recently got back from a trip to London, Paris, and Amsterdam. I know we have a lot of readers there, but as an American who'd never been to Europe before, I found some simple takeaways I'd like to share: Mobile saves your ass. When we arrived in Paris, we got a cab to take us to our flat. We ended up with a cabdriver who didn’t speak English, of course, but also needed a magnifying glass to look at his Paris …
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