Technology Yin and Yang at Austin City Limits Music Festival

SXSW fan stays connected
By Renee DeLaune   |   October 21, 2014

Have you ever noticed how technology can connect you to your cyber life while disconnecting you from your real life? It’s the yin and yang of technology, as I see it.

We love the ease of access of “plugging in”. But, we are left feeling “unplugged” from the world around us.

I recently saw these opposing forces at work when I had the pleasure of attending weekend two of the 2014 Austin City Limits Music Festival in October.

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State-wide Advertising Campaign Reaches Out to New Audience

TV spot for Texas Affordable Bachlor's Degree
By Sara Rider   |   October 15, 2014

It takes a combination of media to reach busy, working adults.  And if you’re trying to encourage them to reach a goal many of them have given up on, you need to find a way to talk to your audience so that you motivate them and give them hope.

At DeLaune and Associates, we’ve just finished a new state-wide campaign to encourage adults to go back and complete their college degrees. 

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From late-night phone calls to buckets of ice: Social media has potential

Jake from State Farm ad
By Allison Mabry   |   October 2, 2014

There’s a commercial my family stops to watch on the DVR every single time it comes on. It’s the “It’s Jake, from State Farm” commercial, which actually started running way back in 2011! There’s just something hilarious about the wife catching her husband making a 3 a.m. call to his insurance agent and mistakenly saying, “She sounds hideous”—prompting his deadpan response, “Well, she’s a guy.” The misunderstanding feels just so universal.

Anyway,

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Writing Rituals

Woman writing
By Amy Valentine   |   September 15, 2014

At DeLaune and Associates, we spend many hours each day writing. Staff members write technical copy, retail collateral, and healthcare articles. So, it was particularly interesting when one of our staff ran across a blog on interesting rituals of successful writers. This prompted an informal in-house discussion on what our particular writing rituals were compared to those of some famous writers.

Well-known authors such as George Orwell, Mark Twain, Edith Wharton,

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Customer Service Trumps Clever and Cute

The customer's perception is your reality
By Sara Rider   |   August 5, 2014

This is hard for someone in advertising to say:  it doesn’t matter how great the ad is or how thoroughly researched the media buy if the customer’s experience with the company is really bad.  But in our internet/social media driven world, businesses who do remember the importance of customer service sometimes forget that customer service in today’s marketplace is delivered through a variety of channels.

A recent column by Micah Solomon on Forbes online served as a good reminder of how excellence is in the details—and how those details extend beyond the physical place where you do business.

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Keeping up with the World Wide Web

Reading news on tablets and cell phones
By Renee DeLaune   |   July 18, 2014

Building a separate mobile version of a website for the world wide web is becoming a thing of the past. Now, a single website designed with responsive technology is your best bet. It allows your website to scale appropriately between desktop and mobile browsers. It’s like an all-in-one tool. I’m sure we’ve all tried to view websites from our mobile phones that just don’t work as well as if you were viewing them from a desktop.

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Technology and toys, two of the places creativity comes from

Elvis on an etch a sketch
By Ernie Wood   |   July 8, 2014

You’ll sometimes hear a poorly functioning tablet computer criticized as nothing more than a “glorified Etch A Sketch.” But that does a disservice to the classic toy. With more than 100 million of the silver-screen drawing devices sold since its introduction in 1960, it must be doing something right. I owned an Etch A Sketch as a child, and if I were to pick one up right now, I’d happily resume exactly where I left off— with a lot of hilarious squiggles and an occasional shape that sort of looks like something.

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The race goes better when partners pull together

Teamwork building in marketing and public relations
By Renee DeLaune   |   June 18, 2014

Partner marketing can yield impressive results. Put one company that has great products together with another that has close client relationships and you’ve got the elements of a winning team. But as with any team, you need coordination. Think of rowing. Everyone has to be aiming for the same goal. And everyone has to pull together.

Reaching the finishing line can be even more difficult when the winds of change are blowing.  Think about technology. 

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How safe is your watering hole? Inside the jargon of cyber-security threat

IT guy for x-force
By Allison Mabry   |   June 11, 2014

Here at DeLaune and Associates, we are constantly writing about the steady rise of cyber-security threats. Our ears perk up when a major online retailer warns its users to change their passwords, or the local news says to refrain from using a specific browser. In our recent work with the IBM X-Force research and development team, we even learned that spam threats are alive and well—and that March 2014 marked the return of the highest levels of spam measured during the past two and half years.

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A Changing America Challenges Business

By Sara Rider   |   June 6, 2014

America is in the midst of two major changes that will dramatically affect the services companies offer and how they promote those services or business.  A lot has been said about the graying of America as baby boomers age.  But America isn’t just becoming gray—it’s becoming a rainbow.  And companies will need to decide how both their advertising and their products are going to appeal to that rainbow.

The PewResearchCenter has released a new book that explores these changes,

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