Advertising

A collection of 54 posts

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A Google-dominated World

Google remains the undisputed leader in search. Despite the efforts of competitors like Microsoft’s Bing and lesser known engines, Google continues to dominate the market. As of 2025, it controls over 90% of global search traffic, shaping how people access information and how businesses reach customers. Google’s ranking

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Advertising Words

Certain words convey certain emotions. But not all words are created equal; some combinations of words work better than others to convey certain emotions or themes. An advertiser might lure shoppers to a big sale by saying, “Hurry! This is a limited time offer!” It would not be as effective

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The Busyness of New Age Marketing

A recent article titled "The Busy Trap" by New York Times columnist Tim Kreider got me thinking about the busyness in my own life and the current state of what I call "new age marketing." This is a powerful article and it sadly describes my own

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Why We Trust Certain Brands

Many brands come and go, and a few even stand the test of time. An even smaller number are among those that customers truly consider to be trustworthy. Why do we trust certain brands, and distrust others? It boils down to whether we perceive the company acts in our best

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Dogs, People, and Business

A trip to a typical pet supply store like Petsmart or Petco can be overwhelming. Usually in a warehouse-style building, these stores stock a seemingly endless supply of products for dogs, cats, birds, and more. A simple trip to pick up some kibble can turn into multiple impulse buys ranging

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Marketing to Women Online

If your business isn’t actively marketing to women, you’re missing out. Women tend to make more of the spending decisions in the average household and also spend more time online. Some companies have caught on, but choose to market to women in very stereotypical ways that prove ineffective.

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Living to 90 Years and Beyond

More and more Americans are living well into their 90s and some even past 100. That’s amazing, but it also changes how we live, work, and plan for the future. The Numbers Today * The median age in the U.S. is now about 39 years old, up from 35

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Be Grateful and Get Happy

At Thanksgiving, we often go around the table and discuss what we are thankful for. But don’t stop there. Expressing gratitude is an exercise that can dramatically improve your life if practiced regularly. It is all too easy to dwell on the problems in our lives, and far too

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The Brand is Not a Hero

It is cliché in classical consumer marketing that the brand is always the hero. The brand (think Coca-Cola) is always the fix or the problem solver. Have a Coke and you will be happy. Buy our product and life will be better. This is certainly the messaging that you see

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Gender Stereotypes

Boys like blue and girls like pink.  Men like football and women like romance novels.  Gender is pretty straightforward, right? It’s actually much more complicated. For example, what would we find if we were to look across time and space to discover what it means to be a man?

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Candy is King

The global candy market is a fascinating world, with large candy corporations often competing with regional candy favorites. Because of its low-cost and “comfort food” status, candy sales remain a powerful industry in an otherwise shaky economic climate. Candy is popular worldwide.  According to a new Global Industry Analysis, the

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Paraprosdokians: Unexpected Endings

“I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening, but this wasn’t it.” – Groucho Marx No, this is not a blog about ancient dinosaur species or prokaryotic cells.  It is about, however, the wonderful world of paraprosdokians.  A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech where a sentence or phrase ends unexpectedly,

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Brand Narratives Tell Stories

We are exposed to brand narratives every day.  From L’Oreal cosmetics and shampoo commercials that tell us “we’re worth it,” to TOMS Shoes which donates a pair of shoes to someone in need for each pair you buy – we are bombarded by brand narratives.  A successful brand narrative

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Beautiful People Sell More Products

Even if you don’t spend inordinate amounts of time on the internet or watching television (and there are plenty who do), you have undoubtedly seen thousands and thousands of beautiful faces used to advertise products and services.  From perfume, tennis shoes, and power tools, to airline tickets, car washes,

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QR Codes: The Next Mobile Wave

"Quick response" codes or “QR codes” as they are more commonly known, are little bar-codes which can be read and scanned by your smartphone. The codes can be stored with no typing required. URLs are the most commonly scanned QR codes and the typical message is to visit

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Direct-to-Door Advertising

Consumers are flooded with advertising messages. It is estimated that the average American sees over 3,000 advertising messages a day. These messages come in all forms: e-mail, newspaper, direct mail, web advertising, radio, TV, and others. Increasingly these traditional advertising methods are loosing effectiveness. Yet, direct-to-door advertising seems to

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Nurturing Relationships With Social Media

Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter have replaced the water cooler as the customer hangout. Business owners need to understand that social networks have quickly become the preferred way to communicate for many people. This means that many of the conventional ways to promote and sell products and serices

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Cord Cutting: Land Lines, Cell Phones, and Television

American use of land line phones and television is significantly down from previous years. According to Pew Research Center, only 74% of U.S. households have a land line phone in 2009, down from over 97% in 2001. This contrasts to 82% of Americans who now carry cell phones, which

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Global Mobile Device Growth Explodes

Research indicates that mobile devices are being adopted at a rate of 3-4 times that of PCs globally. What’s the big deal you ask? In a nutshell, we are witnessing a disruptive technology on a global scale. An edge that developed countries have held for the past decade (or

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People Trust Social Media More Than Advertising

Paul Gillin, author of The New Influencers,  wrote about the impact of social media. One of his key points was that 78% of consumers trust each other more than they trust advertising – which is why they hang out at Facebook, read blogs, and seek out recommendation sites. For all intents

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Advertising Goes Mobile

Advertising has struggled during the last decade with the traditional delivery formats all in decline: newspaper, magazine, network TV, and radio. Yet, all is not lost since the giant advertising industry looks like it has found a new savior in the tiny cell phone. More specifically, the Smartphone is a

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Who Do You Trust?

According to a study by Millward Brown, Amazon.com is the top performing brand in the U.S. based on "trust" and "recommendation". The study uses a  "TrustR" standard to judge different companies, which it arrives at by  asking consumers two questions - "

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Magazine Print Advertising in Free Fall

“Print advertising spending in U.S. consumer magazines is set to decline again in 2010, 2011, and 2012. After losing 21% of their print ad revenue in 2009, U.S. consumer magazines should expect print ad revenues to decrease 7% this year, 3.5% next year, and 1.1% in

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Déjà Vu

Have you ever had the feeling that you have experienced a sales and marketing challenge before, but were uncertain about what to do next?  Have the conventional tools become less effective for you? You tried direct mail, networking, print advertising, and cold calling. Nothing seems to work anymore. Welcome to

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Beautiful People Have an Advantage

Ever catch yourself staring at a beautiful person or the image of one? I know it sounds a little creepy, but it is like you can’t help yourself from staring at them. Don't feel weird, as it turns out humans may be hardwired to do this. There