Advertising & Marketing

For the second year in a row, Google is the best company to work for in America according to the 2013 FORTUNE list of the “100 Best Companies to Work For.” Google also “earned higher marks from marketers and ad agencies than any other media company last year, according to the latest annual Advertiser Perceptions Continue Reading →

American Express is upgrading its Sync program with Twitter to let cardholders buy stuff by using a hashtag. Starting Monday, AmEx customers who sync their cards can buy items if they use the right hashtag. The first such item is a $25 AmEx gift card, which will go for $15 if you tweet #BuyAmexGiftCard25. Other Continue Reading →

If anything, the blackout during the Super Bowl confused things even more regarding where companies should target their communications to customers. A multi-modal approach still seems to be the answer. Okay, so the blackout— The lights went out in the Superdome in New Orleans during last Sunday’s game. Because it takes a while for stadium Continue Reading →

I have alluded to the fact that I have been working on a start-up idea over the past few months. In the coming days, I will be in launch mode (scary). As I have been preparing, I have been thinking about the reasons why I am doing this. Trust me: this process is not for Continue Reading →

The big winner of the Super Bowl may have been Twitter. Not only was this the most tweeted Super Bowl ever with more than 24 million tweets about the game, but Twitter as a company was also mentioned in far more ads than any of its social media competitors. Twitter was mentioned in about half Continue Reading →

Here’s a few things I need to tell you about BlackBerry’s Z10. You cannot launch a Soyuz rocket from it. You cannot use it to make scrambled eggs with truffle oil. You cannot cut your hair with it. You cannot milk a cow with it. Nor can you milk a rhinoceros with it. You cannot Continue Reading →

The teams for the Super Bowl are now set. Callers to sports radio shows and pundits on cable TV will debate who has the better chance to win and why. At the same time, marketing pundits are gearing up to assess who will get the most bang for the $4 million being invested for each 30 second Continue Reading →

This time last year, I described how a Super Bowl ad’s word of mouth volume could be demonstrated to be dependent upon both the creative message and certain critical media factors. This year, I repeated the study by probing two years of combined data to see if a macro-trend would emerge. The short answer: Yes, Continue Reading →

Technology that blocks or skips TV ads is becoming ever more controversial and more widely known. And with the recent launch of a Chrome extension, it got personal. No Hulu Ads, which is free, isn’t the first browser extension to black out TV commercials for your viewing pleasure. It isn’t the first to offer notifications Continue Reading →

On Feb. 3, big brands and their agencies will line up to compete for what they hope will be remembered as the best TV commercial for Super Bowl XLVII, spending tens of millions of dollars in the process. One major retailer, Target, will be sitting on the sidelines, having developed a more modest (and budget-friendly) Continue Reading →