Is Vince Vaughn in Your Marketing Collateral?
Marketing materials and advertising campaigns
Crisis Communications: No substitute for preparation
Bad things happen to good people. Bad things also happen to good companies, to well-run companies, and to companies that are less than efficient. To be ready for the bad things, your company must have a strong crisis communications policy.
Without a good crisis communications policy, you and your company can face disastrous fallout when things go wrong: problems with daily operations, investor relations, customer loyalty, and profitability. So if your company or organization doesn’t have a crisis communications policy,
Read more >Trying to Be Cool Can Lead to PR Blunders
In a social media-saturated world, companies sometimes try too hard, think too little, and fall on their faces. Last year saw a wide variety of examples of companies committing PR blunders as they tweeted, hash tagged, and self-promoted their way onto a wall of PR shame. But you can learn from their mistakes, and avoid becoming the punchline of a PR joke in 2015.
Just because it’s trending doesn’t mean you should jump on board.
Read more >Writing while writing: It’s finding time that’s the challenge
Years ago, when I started in this writing game, I heard a story I couldn’t believe. It seems there was a newspaper copy editor who kept two typewriters (years ago, remember?). One, he used for his newspaper work. The other, he placed on the floor by his desk. And when breaks came between editions, he’d push his work to one side, pick his typewriter up from the floor, and pound away at his novel. And it worked!
Read more >Superbowl 2015 Ads
Each year, millions watch the SuperBowl, eagerly anticipating the expensive ads. At $4.5 million for a 30 second spot, did this year’s crop meet expectations? If you’re a 45-year-old mom, the answer is probably “yes” as I propose 2015 to be “The Year of the ‘Mom-Ad’ Superbowl.”
Usually, we see beer and cars advertised heavily, with a healthy dose of beautiful babes, tear-jerking dogs befriending Clydesdales, and with some gut-slapping humor thrown in.
Read more >Funky will still fail if you’re doing it wrong
Any marketing idea—no matter how funky, gimmicky, or just plain weird—will fail if it’s poorly executed.
Here in Austin, we’ve developed an international reputation for keeping things weird. This ethos can even include our marketing. Did you know about the local company that used to ride rollerblades while distributing gig posters for bands?
While the public posting of ads isn’t the kind of marketing campaign we do here at DeLaune,
Read more >Five ways to kick-start your business in 2015
As we enter the new year, you might consider applying the traditional New Year’s resolution process to your business, as setting intelligent goals can have powerful effects.
Being our best selves for the world, including the world of commerce, is a notion ripe with opportunity and anticipation. So as millions set their 2015 personal goals and work to manifest their desires, try using the inspiring “intentioning” approach to take your business to new heights.
Read more >Ad Agency Innovation
Sometimes, it’s a good idea to create an ad that resembles another company’s well-known ad. But only if you use the viewer’s expectations as a way to totally surprise the audience—and create an ad that will be noticed because of its shock value.
Last spring, I wrote about a new promotion by a Swedish pharmacy to promote hair care products. The ad agency Akestam Holst from Stockholm, used a digital billboard in the subway to draw attention to their hair care products.
Read more >Self-Rating Systems: Yelp Yourself?
A nascent marketing trend is companies developing their own systems for rating themselves and their products. The question is whether customers will consider this helpful or self-serving.
Consider what Austin-based Whole Foods Market has recently implemented: a produce rating system of its own design called Responsibly Grown. This caught my attention because businesses don’t usually create systems that rate their own merchandise. The lack of third-party independence makes a “my product is the best because I said so” rating rather unpersuasive.
Read more >Facebook vs. Google Ads
As social media becomes more popular, it can drive marketing plans for even the most conservative of industries. While many retail and high-tech companies have grown quite comfortable with social media marketing, some of the more staid industries have been dragged kicking and screaming into this new medium. Fortunately for all industries, social media marketing can be customized to fit a variety of parameters and is relatively inexpensive compared to traditional advertising.
Two of the big players in social media are Facebook Ads and Google Adwords.
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