Artificial intelligence, or AI, is the hottest technology in marketing. But do you need artificial intelligence to develop good creative for a smart marketing strategy? Or do you just need a talented, insightful creative team? Cleveland marketing consultant Jean Gianfagna shares some perspective....
View MoreDo you market to college students and teens? There are valuable insights for your smart marketing strategy in the annual Beloit College Mindset list, just released this week. Here are just a few of the interesting observations from this year’s list for today’s 18-year-olds, who were born in 2000 and are the college class of 2022....
View MoreWhy the things people say about your business matter far more than what you say about yourself in your advertising -- no matter how much you spend on marketing. ...
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If you sell products or services to millennials – the 70 million Americans born between 1982 and 1999 – understanding the core values and experiences they share as a generation is crucial to success. Chuck Underwood, who helped develop and popularize the field of generational study, recently offered fascinating insights on generational marketing in a presentation to the American Advertising Federation in Cleveland. Here’s why viewing your marketing and advertising through a generational values lens -- especially if your target market is millennials – is so important to a smart marketing strategy. America’s...
View MoreEven if you have the budget to execute marketing projects and a marketing agency standing by to help, there’s another factor that can impact your success: Your internal marketing bandwidth. Someone on your team has to make all that marketing happen -- and it's easy to get in over your head. Here’s how to prevent this problem in your smart marketing strategy....
View MoreCustomer and prospect data drives direct mail marketing. Data that’s outdated, inaccurate, or poorly processed can turn a good direct mail campaign into a wasted opportunity. Here are two examples of excellent mailings that failed because smart marketers that are usually highly skilled users of the channel relied on the wrong data....
View More“Can you hear me now?” Without thinking, you can probably picture the person speaking and know the reason why. It’s the spokesman from Verizon’s old advertising campaign demonstrating via countless ads in many different locations the power of Verizon’s vast nationwide network. It’s a tribute to Verizon’s marketing team and agency that this phrase became iconic for Verizon’s network reliability. Which makes it even more impactful from a marketing standpoint that Mr. Can-You-Hear Me-Now himself, Paul Marcarelli, has switched to Verizon competitor Sprint. In the new Sprint campaign, Marcarelli quickly dismisses Verizon’s position as...
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An identity change is a major undertaking with enormous marketing implications for any business. Where do you start? How do you do it? And how do you avoid mistakes? Here are the steps of planning a name change and selecting a new name for your organization....
View MoreIs the Walgreens nude beach ad the worst ad on TV? Here's why this cringe-worthy campaign is a creative failure and how to avoid similar mistakes in your smart marketing strategy....
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The annual Beloit College Mindset List profiles how incoming college freshmen view the world, offering fascinating insights for marketers into the next generation of consumers. Here are 10 key takeaways for marketers from this year’s list for the Class of 2019....
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