I was 26 years old and living in Toledo, Ohio. I had just landed my first big job, running two of the biggest accounts at an interactive agency. I was on my first business trip to visit one of these clients in North Carolina (a strategic planning session for an overhaul of its website), and…
Sponsorships, discounts and donations. What has historically been a safe ground to build goodwill for your brand has suddenly turned into a reputational minefield. The social, political, environmental and economic events of the last year have shattered the rules of the game for how brands connect with the world around them. Gone are the days…
The last nine days of March sounded two alarms on the agency selection process. First, several agencies contending for the BMW business learned they’d lost from a press alert. Then came the news of yet another Pizza Hut breakup, initiating the chain’s fifth review in six years. What a waste! The arduous, extended auditions we…
Location data is powering ad targeting, customer insights, user engagement and campaign measurement and has established equal footing with traditional assets like purchase histories, digital interactions and email response rates. Marketers need to keenly focus on leveraging location data or miss out on crucial opportunities to engage customers and acquire new ones. For instance, during…
As an industry, we are at an important inflection point. We’ve lost trust in the technologies that promised to improve the way we communicate with each other. We took mottos like Google’s “Don’t Be Evil” at face value and blindly followed the hype–and frankly, the dollars–to the point we’re at today. And now we must…
With ever-increasing scales of data collection and analytical capacity, we have some of the most powerful tools in history at our disposal–tools that can influence massive numbers of people and shift public opinion faster than ever before. If the promise of these tools seems limitless, then so is their potential for abuse. Every day brings…
Today marks 50 years since the debut of Stanley Kubrick’s iconic film 2001: A Space Odyssey, which depicts supercomputer HAL 9000 communicating using words humans use, but to a negative end. Half a century later, the film is notable for its prediction of today’s “potentially dystopian impact of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies.” Indeed, HAL embodies…
As a discipline, design has an identity challenge. To begin with, there’s quite a bit of confusion about what design actually is and what it can accomplish. In the most elemental sense, design is about creating outcomes. It’s no longer just about how things look and feel; it’s about how things work. Take the world…
It’s no secret that the traditional department store experience has fallen out of favor. Consumers no longer see value in the large product selections that traditional mass merchants are known for. With the ability to open multiple browser tabs, shoppers today have zero tolerance for high markups and experiences that haven’t been updated in decades….
More than half of all digital video consumption occurred on smartphones last year, and, per NPD Group, streaming video takes up a whopping 83 percent of total mobile data consumed. This sea change in user consumption patterns represents a huge opportunity for business-to-business brands to score points in the social media feeds of their customers…
If you put a bunch of advertisers in a room and asked them what they thought of traditional radio, they’d probably say it’s “old school,” “difficult to buy” and/or “on its way out.” Although it is true that advertising has seen a massive digital transformation in the last decade and audio innovation hasn’t entirely kept…
Web browsers and mobile apps have been able to collect data for years–the proof is in the custom ads that pop out from the sidebars and banners, advertising everything from cheap flights to the trendiest shoes. Internet companies do this by gathering your browsing and search histories, which are then compiled and profiled into behavioral…
Mobile advertising offers marketers a wealth of opportunities, but transparency is still causing a headache for the digital marketing industry. Just last month, Unilever, one of the biggest brand advertisers, threatened to pull its ads from Facebook and Google. Brands aren’t just worried about safe environments to advertise in. They’re also concerned if their massive…
My leadership philosophy came from a rather unexpected source, one that is not traditionally associated with innovation and creative thinking: the military. In 2001, I did something I never anticipated I would do: I left my agency career to join the Army. Compelled to action by the events of September 11, 2001, I enlisted with…
With the 2018 event season in full swing, many marketers are in full sprint mode as they face the challenge of implementing the best strategies, campaigns and tactics they designed to turbo boost results at their global events. Events can be a double-edged sword as they are an invaluable opportunity to connect with customers, prospects…
At its peak in 2004, Blockbuster had over 9,000 stores in total. In 2011, the last store was bought by Dish Network, putting the neighborhood video rental company out of business. Redbox and, finally, Netflix won the market. Blockbuster wanted customer growth as much as any other business. So why did Redbox and Netflix send…
Generally speaking, business values the opinions of experts. The marketing and advertising community is not immune to this as we witness the latest round of prognostications and expert advice about blockchain, GDPR and the death of Facebook. But time after time, experts miss the mark by a long shot. There is an inherent challenge in…
What is a holding company, and where did they come from in the advertising space? I saw the development of holding companies firsthand as a young advertising executive working for Dancer Fitzgerald Sample (DFS) in New York in the mid-1980s. At that time, DFS was New York’s largest agency and one of the most prestigious…
Let’s start with a couple definitions. Blockchain is a technology that enables an anonymous, decentralized record of transactions. Imagine a public chain of information in which each link is a single transaction, viewable by all but impossible to change once it has been formed. And keep in mind, Blockchain is not Bitcoin. Bitcoin is built…
Given its antiquated meaning, being vulnerable is seen as a sign of weakness. And yet, as I’ve worked closely with female brands through the past year, I’ve found myself being inspired by their unapologetic authenticity. It’s time we embrace why so many girl brands do it better: They’re not afraid to be vulnerable. We’re at…
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.
