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Be playful
It makes you happy and drives competitors crazy

Presidential candidate Herman Cain says we’re wound too tight. We need to relax. It’s as central to Cain’s message as his 9-9-9 tax program. He is blissfully unconventional and unruffled by criticisms from homogenized traditionalists. He gives them fits.

Maybe that’s why his campaign tossed up this gem. As it sailed over their heads, all the tightly wound saw was a man smoking on TV (the horrors) and Cain’s so-called “creepy smile.” Watch it a couple of times. Do you get it?
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Forever among the crazy ones

Why does Steve Jobs’ death matter to so many people who never met him? For the same reason some ads explode on impact while others whisper off unnoticed. Steve Jobs was relevant. Not in some abstract way, but in ways intimately personal to each of us.

He revolutionized our relationship with music. He gave us phones that were truly smart. He changed how we interact with computers (no matter what those Microsoft weasels say) with the Mac. (Sorry.) Then, in his final masterstroke, Jobs ushered in the post-pc era.
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Be aware
Observe and reflect your market

Advertising around an event as emotionally charged as 9/11’s 10th anniversary is risky. While many companies played it safe, taking a somber approach, State Farm chose a different tone that steps past the sadness so easily associated with 9/11, reminding us of the promise in a new day.

Spike Lee’s approach to this message provides an example of number six in Ten Be’s of Better Branding: observing and reflecting the market. By infusing State Farm’s message with a positive voice, Lee captures the spirit of a city and a nation that emerged from the dust and smoke more connected to the values that make us who we are. Continue Reading

Do you buy advertising like you buy gum?

Samantha: It was an impulse purchase!
Carrie: Gum is an impulse purchase… this is more than gum!

Samantha trying to justify her cosmetic chemical peel decision
as an impulse purchase she has on Sex and The City.

Carrie has perfectly expressed the reasonable expectation of an “impulse purchase.” Much the same can be said about impulse purchases with your business’s marketing – they should be strictly reserved for stands in grocery shopping lines.

There are many scams, tricks, sneaky tactics, dodgy offers, (you get it…), out there – victims often being new businesses. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is”.

The issue you face when making an impulse purchase is that you aren’t efficiently thinking about the resulting consequences of this decision, resulting in actions that aren’t working towards the needs of your business as well as wasting a huge amount of money… You need to ask yourself every time, “Is this the highest and best use of my money?”Continue Reading

Grooveyard of posts past