Nothing marks the return of fall quite like the return of the Pumpkin Spice Latte (PSL) from Starbucks. Introduced in 2003, the PSL has become the coffee giant’s most popular seasonal drink, selling roughly 424 million worldwide.
Insights
Whether you’re an Instagram novice or a guru, there’s no denying the rise of this intensely visual social media app in recent years. Instagram has seen massive growth in use and engagement since its introduction in 2010. Recent numbers indicate 1400% growth in just the last 5 years. The young, tech-savvy audience that popularized Instagram is demanding authentic interaction and high-quality content. And they know when you’re trying to sell them something. Research shows that Gen Y & Z seek originality and emotional connection from their peers, influencers, and brands.
It’s long been said that one of the most effective words you can use in an ad is “free.” The idea is that people love getting stuff for free, so offering them something for free will get a big response. It’s a rule a lot of companies still follow. How many TV ads do see that say “buy one, get one free” or offer something like a “free credit report”? How many online ads say “download our free white paper” or “get your free sample” just for giving them your email? And that’s the problem – these days it seems like virtually everyone is offering something for free, so “free” isn’t considered as powerful as it once was.
Written by Kit Falvey
If you engage in content marketing, i.e., creating and sharing content, you’ve likely noticed the increased effect that technology plays in your marketing strategy—from PR and social media to advertising. If not, you will. Technology is driving content marketing and will continue to do so as we increase our consumption of content on mobile devices, and as improvements in reporting tools and personalization, mobile optimization, and virtual reality continue. Here are a few developments that we think are interesting that were recently discussed in a Forbes article.
Written by Amanda Marshall
A large, comprehensive marketing campaign is a bit like a three-ring circus – there are a lot of pieces and parts to manage, and they’re usually all going on at the same time. For that reason, the idea of launching a large, complex campaign may be overwhelming and cause a business owner to just not do it. Instead, they stick with the one or two types of marketing they’re comfortable doing. But these days customers get information from too many channels for business owners to simply rely on one or two types of communication. An effective campaign has to reach people using many different types of communication. The key is to organize your campaign so it’s manageable, even if you have minimal marketing staff. Over the years I’ve relied on a few tips to help keep large campaigns organized and on track, and they can help you do the same.
If you want to start a rowdy debate among writers, proofreaders or a bunch of English professors, bring up the Oxford comma. The Oxford comma is the comma that appears after the last item in a list, such as:
Harvey brought hot dogs, buns, chips, dip, and drinks to the party.
The whole point of advertising is to get noticed. If your ads don’t get noticed, then no one gets your message, so what’s the point? But how do you get noticed? One surefire way is to be controversial. The thing is, if you court controversy, you must be prepared to deal with the consequences. Let’s look at two examples of small businesses that ran controversial ads, one on purpose and one by mistake, and what happened as a result.
Written by Meg McDonald
I worked in the TV news industry for almost 11 years, and covered just about every subject out there—from twisted murders that were worthy of a “Dateline” special, to weather damage where families lost everything they had, to historic job announcements, to (my personal favorite) feel-good stories that left you with a full heart.
While all of them were different, they had one thing in common: they made folks stop and watch, because those viewers felt the stories affected them in some small way.
Guest Author – Tim Snider, Deja View Media
At Deja View Media, we’ve been helping clients produce promotional videos and commercials for nearly two decades now. Along the way, we’ve worked with a lot of different brands– each, with their own unique product or service to showcase. The one thing that differentiates successful TV spots from others is that they’ve incorporated the following best practices.
This is the fourth follow-up to my original post Trick question: Are you a marketing planner or a marketing doer?, which touched on the basic requirements of a strategic marketing plan:
- Establishing objectives and goals
- Defining audiences
- Creating strategies and tactics
- Setting priorities
- Establishing how success will be measured