Category Archives: Marketing

Can Your Company Improve Its Marketing By Giving It Away?

Posted on by
Reply

This is a guest post by Mack Collier, author of Think Like a Rock Star: How to Create Social Media and Marketing Strategies that Turn Customers into Fans

Rock Star MarketingLet’s consider the marketing for two products you have bought. The first is your latest car. How did that automaker market to you? You probably saw TV commercials, newspaper ads, maybe online ads as well. In other words, likely a very ‘traditional’ marketing model was used by this automaker to connect with you and get your attention.

Now recall the marketing that was used to promote the latest CD or song you bought on iTunes. How did that artist promote themselves to you? Did they use commercials? Probably not. Newspaper ads? Nope. Direct mail? Be serious.

Continue reading →

There’s No Such Thing as Bad Publicity… Right?

Posted on by
12

It’s been said that “any publicity is good publicity.” The corollary, “there’s no such thing as bad publicity,” is in good company with other variations. Some TV ads during the Super Bowl stretched that concept, perhaps to the breaking point.

Why the Super Bowl?

Super Bowl TV AdThe Super Bowl is perhaps unique in sports in that many people watching the game on TV don’t even like football. They actually ignore the game and focus on the commercials. Between the football lovers and the ad lovers, there is an enormous audience available to advertisers who are willing to spend an enormous amount of money to make a quick pitch. (This year, enormous money meant nearly $4 Million per ad.)

Continue reading →

Marketing, Technology, and Social Media Predictions for 2013

Posted on by
7

Some things are easy to predict. Some are hard. I’ll try to include some of each kind.

2013Just for the record, I’m not giving myself any credit for things that have already happened or been announced prior to the actual start of 2013. Of course some of those things certainly might give us a bit of a head start of figuring out what’s coming.

Here we go!

Continue reading →

If it Bleeds, It Leads: The Marketing of Trauma

Posted on by
8

Years ago I recognized that TV news had become primarily entertainment.
For decades, editors have said that “If it Bleeds, It Leads,” meaning that the most traumatic story would lead the newscast (even if it wasn’t the most relevant to viewers). That is all the more true in this age of round-the-clock reporting on TV and online.

After seeing all of the media attention toward multiple-victim shootings, I was reminded that the media essentially rewards violence, perhaps to the point of encouraging impressionable people to “just do it”:

Those who don’t believe in an afterlife now have a way to be immortalized in this life. Continue reading →