With brands always searching for a big moment, how do they respond when that big moment is served up on national television, albeit in a playfully pejorative context? Chance the Rapper’s opening monologue on Saturday Night Live presented brands with a taste of the spotlight, to which brands responded to in different ways–or not all….
The advertising blacklist isn’t a new trend. But as digital ads become more important sources of revenue for news organizations, these blacklists are taking an unintended toll on journalism–and our democracy. Advertising blacklists are primarily used by brands to dictate where they don’t want their ads to run, usually next to articles with controversial terms…
Our world has never sounded better. The synchronous mass adoption of digital assistants, podcasts and streaming music services has put audio in an omnipresent consumer engagement role, bringing a new challenge to creative agencies that will be compelled to develop sonic branding of the same breadth, rigor and detail that has been historically reserved for…
In the past few months, agency leaders across the country have noticed something critical. A wave of boomerang clients that left in pursuit of in-housing trends are returning in search of hybrid relationships between in-house and agency teams. What happened? In-housing trends reflected the changing needs of clients for more localized and on-demand work. But…
When you think of implicit bias, you probably associate it more with workplace culture than with social media and internet culture. But it isn’t something we turn off when we leave the office. Surprise–it’s also there when we go on that 30-minute Instagram binge. Just take a look at some of the hottest PR influencer…
Through trial and error, digital marketers have figured out that consumers are now looking for more of an authentic message when it comes to marketing. They want to know that you are being real with your advertisements and not just spewing lies in order to produce sales. It’s morals over money, even though a lot…
In the never-ending drive to connect marketers to consumers, agencies are seeking to resonate with brands’ audiences by helping their partners create memorable experiences. “Today, experience is the battleground for brands to win,” Accenture Interactive’s Brian Whipple recently told MediaPost. For a brand’s consumers, a set of experiences amount to a new world that embodies…
There’s more original web video content being produced than ever before. The audiences are huge, and the quality is better than ever. So why does it sometimes feel like the medium is nowhere on its quest to capture legitimate TV ad spend? You may recall that there was a popular argument being made a few…
The marketing guru mantra is that your brand must be consistent. “Consistency” is the buzzword you’ll find in every branding book. These manuals recommend repeating your brand message as much as possible to make people remember you. Why aren’t you driving sales? Why are people confused on your website? Is your customer journey a roller…
It’s 10:32 a.m. on day six of my new job as svp, talent and organizational development at Dentsu Aegis Network. I’m crouched in a conference room in lower Manhattan, blue Bic pen in hand, writing my diagnosis on a little yellow Post-It: breast cancer. I’m healthy. I’m young. I have a two-year-old daughter and three-year-old…
Your first job as a marketer is to connect with the audience on an emotional level. Many companies revert to salesy, aggressive, buy-now behavior, but that doesn’t work often. Creating meaningful, authentic content such as high-quality podcasts, animations and videos are imperative because it allows you to make the connection and build upon it over…
Veganism needs good PR. Netflix has done a lot for vegans, with documentaries explaining the health benefits of pursuing a plant-based diet and the buzz around companies like Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat making the vegan dream of a world free of animal-based protein almost a reality. Slowly but surely, more people are becoming genuinely…
There are two basic camps in the world of marketing: numbers camp and pretty pictures camp. I live in both camps, and you should, too. If you live in the numbers camp, I’m going to confirm what you already know. And if you live in the pretty pictures camp, buckle your seatbelt because this is…
Preconception is misconception. That’s why today more than ever marketers need to treat consumers as a “segment of one.” The further we can get away from sweeping, ill-informed stereotypes, the closer we will get to consumers’ thoughts, feelings and, ultimately, the hard-earned dollars in their virtual wallets. I’ll spare you the lecture on social and…
If recent headlines about the great podcasting craze of 2019 feel a little familiar, there’s a good reason why. Remember 2017’s great pivot to video? You certainly do if you’re a journalist. Publishers from Mic to MTV laid off large portions of their newsrooms to accommodate video-first content strategies, with many brands following suit. It…
Impeachment is essentially the only constitutional remedy for a president that might represent an existential threat to the country. And it can play out in any number of scenarios. Although it has been a relatively short time since the whistleblower charges, to a large extent we already know that we’re in for a mind-numbing, omnichannel…
In an age guided by engagement metrics, clicks, likes and follows, I find myself returning to a lesson that I learned early on in my career. As a marketer, your job is to listen to your consumers, and above all else, understand their needs, wants and motivations. Our world is dominated by performance marketing like…
As programmatic advertising has increasingly become the norm for brands, both SSPs and DSPs have added more tools for helping marketers price bids. Recently, bid shading has become a popular method for helping marketers save money by setting bid prices in first-price auctions. What bid shading does is use an algorithm to automatically tweak the…
Online marketing has gone through three distinct phases so far, where innovation and economic upheaval have more or less systematically brought about the end of one era and a shift toward the next. Some think that the age of having everything move entirely online in marketing is already upon us, but I actually beg to…
No brand is an island. Brands are built to resonate with the needs and hopes of customers, which evolve with culture. For better or worse, brands reflect the color and character of their times. And the times, they are political. In fact, about 57% of consumers say a company’s stance on social or political issues…
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
