If you're any sort of advertising or marketing junkie, you’re fully aware New York is in the midst of Creative Week, a five-day event where advertising, design and digital media collide with the arts to bring together the nation's top thought leaders in the creative community.
The folks here at CerconeBrownCompany felt the need to give Creative Week a shout-out because it isn't just for cool events like GE and BBDO's holographic project, "Throttle Up;" it also allows ad geeks to connect and speak with top creative influencers who inspire the future of marketing. Creative Week is a celebration of design, tech and advertising together in one city for one week.
This year’s Creative Week seems to show a shift in the advertising industry. With agencies becoming more and more integrated, the lines between paid advertising and public relations are becoming even more blurred. Creative Directors can be found wearing a number of hats, influencing not just a single department, but the entire agency. "Culture" is slowly replacing the term Human Relations, and you can’t take two steps into an ad agency without hearing “innovation” referring to new ideas.
But are these words becoming overused terms to describe the new face of advertising? At one panel in particular, "Creative Renegades," a top influencer in the field candidly stated creative people are "interesting" but creative departments are "bullshit." Her argument is that creative departments are developing a stifling environment for advertising, especially if they're just "creatively" sugarcoating a product without any added benefits for the consumer or the brand (see previous post about gimmick-free advertising).
This is why Creative Week rocks! These kind of frank conversations about the current state and the future of the industry can only help to strengthen it and keep all agencies accountable for producing authentic, creative work. Do you think Creative Week is a necessary event for the future of creative departments, or do you think it's a waste of time? We would love to hear your thoughts about Creative Week in the comments below!
This year marks CerconeBrownCompany’s seventh annual experiential marketing program; the Summer House. Summer House is a labor of love that has developed into one of the most successful experiential marketing programs in the industry, both on the press side and on the company side. This year 10 companies signed onboard before we even pitched the program and we had already accumulated an extensive media wait list just one week after our editor invite went out.
If there’s one thing that we as a consumer marketing agency can be proud of, it’s our ability to create experiences on behalf of companies that allow the press to truly engage in a brand. In fact, it’s this ability that has made it possible for CerconeBrownCompany to grow beyond Summer House and create customized experiential marketing events for our clients as well. What does that mean exactly? Experiential marketing is the authentic interaction between your brand and your target audience. In terms of the house programs, it is defined by the authentic experience we provide on-site, but for our clients, we have long created experiential marketing events that directly target the consumer.
The feedback we hear on-site consistently confirms that experiential marketing is effective; the press have such an amazing time that they forget it’s work and instead live and breathe these brands. Now, that doesn’t mean they take it any less seriously, it just means they fall in love with a brand in a way that is sustainable. It becomes less about a “one hit” product piece and more about a brand relationship. They forever associate a brand with the tastes, the smells, the sounds of a beautiful setting and a unique experience.
I will often say to the Summer House team, “this is going to be the best house yet…I can feel it.” Sure, I say it every year, but I have yet to be proven wrong. The truth is it DOES get better every year. Each year our caliber of companies and press gets stronger. Each year the reputation builds and the on-site experience becomes richer and more fun.
Summer House has survived up and down economies, a change in traditional press and the ongoing skepticism about the need for public relations in general. Not only the survival but also the continued growth of this unique experiential marketing program is evidence that CerconeBrownCompany created a formula seven years ago that works. What’s more, we have a great time doing it and those who choose to participate - both on the press and company side - can’t get enough of experiential marketing. I am so excited to be on Nantucket and see what this year’s house brings…I promise it will be the best year yet.
Summer House will kick off on Nantucket on June 17th! Stay tuned to our Facebook and Twitter pages for live updates from the island. To learn more about CBC’s experiential marketing expertise go to www.cerconebrown.com
“The Pitch,” a new reality show that pits two advertising agencies against each other in an effort to win new business, premieres this weekend on AMC. As all “Mad Men” fans know, AMC has done a bang up job of glamorizing the advertising industry through the nostalgic lens of “Mad Men,” but will a present-day, reality show about the actual day-to-day live of ad execs capture the same audience interest? Or more importantly, how will a show like this color the viewers’ opinions about those in the advertising industry?
The New York Times wrote an early review, which was peppered with words like, “manipulative,” “drab,” and “laughable” when describing the advertising agencies depicted on the show. In preparation of seeing the premiere episode this weekend, CBC is issuing a challenge to viewers – don’t judge all advertising agencies on “The Pitch.”
Yes, some advertising agencies use gimmicks to win new business. But then there are those advertising agencies, ahem, who start with research to gain insight into the market, and can almost serve as therapists for prospective clients (less mommy issues, more self fulfillment issues). Those select, authentic advertising agencies work with brands who have missions, which the right agency will bring to life through brand experiences that ignite the senses, inspire choices and, often, change the way we live our lives.
While we agree with the Times that a glimpse into the every day workings of an advertising agency “without the sex or drama [of Mad Men]… isn’t very good television,” we do think it makes for an exciting and meaningful way to spend the majority of our days.
So if the advertising agencies on “The Pitch” turn you off, give us a call to find out how we can bring your brand's mission to life. No gimmicks needed.
For years James Bond’s “shaken not stirred” martini has been a staple in the spy film franchise and has become one of the world’s most recognizable movie lines. However in the latest Bond flick “Skyfall,” due out this fall, Bond will be reaching for a Heineken instead.
Why the change in cocktail choice? Well, simply put: Heineken USA has shelled out a reported $45 million for Bond to expand his beverage palette.
Last month, Ad Age confirmed a deal between Heineken USA and the Bond franchise that includes global ads featuring the current Bond, Daniel Craig, special Bond-related packaging for the beer and most importantly, the promise that Bond will swap his trademark martini for a sip of the brew in at least one scene in the upcoming film.
Just last week Craig called the partnership “unfortunate” during an interview with Moviefone.com and went on to explain, “but that’s how it is. We have relationships with a number of companies so that we can make this movie. The simple fact is that, without them, we couldn’t do it.”
Experts point out that while product placements happen all the time in films, this partnership is a game-changer as placements typically do not have any effect on plot changes. In the 007 series, Bond is notorious for driving the best car, having the best technology and surrounding himself with some of the world’s finest luxuries. With Bond now reaching for a Heineken, the film is saying that this is the world’s best beer.
According to Ad Age, Heineken is the second-largest beer import in the U.S. behind Corona but has failed to grow in recent years. With “Skyfall” due in theaters November 9, 2012 Heineken is set to begin its Bond marketing campaign in September. Now we have to ask….
CBC is here to help your company get started with our latest, free ebook, Pinterest 101. This ebook is the first in a series of three to get your brand going on Pinterest. We start with the basics, and will follow in coming weeks with more intense Pinterest training.
Although relatively new in the social media world, Pinterest already has 11.7 million registered users and now drives more referral traffic than Google+, LinkedIn and YouTube combined, according to Shareholic. More than one‐of‐five Facebook‐connected users are on Pinterest daily, which has increased the number of daily users by more than 145% since the start of 2012, according to AppData.
Pinterest 101 will teach you the nitty‐gritty of Pinterest and includes:
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What is Pinterest?
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The demographics of Pinterest
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Reasons why your brand should have a Pinterest presence
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Step‐by‐step account set up
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The unspoken rules of Pinterest
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Easy tips and tricks for getting followers
Download it today. Class dismissed!
It’s no mystery that New Years resolutions come and go almost as fast as Bachelor engagements and the latest technologies. But with more than 45% of Americans making resolutions each year (and only 8% attaining their goal, according to this research), it’s clear that people want to change their habits; the issue seems to be how to keep it up.
According to the Journal of Clinical Psychology, 75% of people who did not maintain their resolution, failed in the first week. Why? Research points to the fact that most people’s goals are too lofty- like “losing 50 pounds” or “paying off credit card debt” within a short time frame.
In my case, Margaret Jackson here, my New Years resolution was to “be healthy”. While my resolution is obviously well intentioned - it’s a bit vague, don’t you think? I mean, the reality is I’m not going to be healthy ALL the time; it’s just not realistic. Even with all of the technologies out there to make eating right and exercising more, easier (dance, dance revolution, anyone?) I’m still bound to slip up every once and awhile. But does that mean I failed?
I recently read this article about how to keep New Years resolutions, and realized I was doing it all wrong. Instead of making big goals (as most of us do), the article says you will be more successful and feel more accomplished if you take your big goal, and break it down into smaller and more manageable goals that you can work on, and feel good about, every day. And lucky for us, there’s a plethora of technology that help us do just that.
Whether it’s tracking your progress, monitoring your spending or telling friends and family how to motivate you, here are our top three picks for technology to keep your resolutions (and mine) on track:
1. Pinterest: This virtual pinboard is taking the world by storm, and it’s the perfect place to keep you motivated. Make a board dedicated to your resolution - and pin items to help you get there. Think healthy recipes (like these), inspirational quotes or just pictures that get you excited to reach your goal. Bonus? Your friends and family can ‘like’ and ‘repin’ for support. Check out CBC’s Pinterest page for motivation as you get started.
2. Mint: We all know the benefits of saving cash. But between having various accounts and sources of incomes, it can be confusing to keep it all together. Mint is a website that solves all of your financial conundrums, with simple, easy to use features that help you budget and track everything from income to vacation plans. Bonus? Mint sends you offers and deals that will help you reach your financial goals.
3. iTunes Aps: Who doesn’t own an ipod or iphone? On itunes you can find everything from applications that help you organize your travel plans (TripIt), track your miles run (Nike), count calories eaten (CalorieTracker) or organize your meals for the week (RealSimple), all with the touch of a button.
Now that Facebook Timeline for brand pages has been introduced, companies’ Facebook marketing strategies will have to change in order to effectively tell their brand story in the new format.
With the new look and feel of Facebook company pages, comes a variety of new features other than the obvious cover photo. These include being able to pin a post to the top of a page for up to seven days at a time and the ability to strategically choose which tabs are displayed in the top navigation – you can find a full list of new features here. The biggest change of all, though, is the ability for companies to tell and express their brand story. Below are 5 tips to help you take advantage of this opportunity:
1. Treat Your Cover Photo Like A Billboard: Your cover photo allows you to create an eye-catching visual of your brand. Treat this differently than your profile image, which represents your brand identity and should be remained fixed – try your logo, for example. Your cover photo image on the other hand should change occasionally in step with campaigns and other happenings your brand is involved in.
2. Develop A Visual Narrative: Now you can express your brand using milestones, stars and pinned posts. This new page platform is much more visually driven, so share your brand’s milestones using photos and videos to tell your story and draw attention to particular posts by “starring” them – this will expand posts across both columns on the page and will always make them visible.
3. Make Your Visitors Believe: Your profile’s “About” section is prime real estate to convince visitors to become fans, now that the “About” section is always on display if you choose to do so. It’s above-the-fold and a space where you can explicitly tell your brand story before your visitors view your posted content and interaction with other fans.
4. Encourage A Post’s “Stickiness”: Pin a strategic post to the top of your page so visitors will consistently see that content. This is a great opportunity for current promotions or to showcase specific tab information by pinning a post about it.
5. Strategize Your Tabs: You only have three tabs you can readily customize, as the "Photos" tab is ever-present. Thus you should strategize and switch up your three customizable tabs according to brand product releases, popularity and current brand objectives. Make sure to assign names to your tabs and choose images that are descriptive!
Companies still have three more weeks to strategize how they will optimize all of the new features Facebook is offering with Timeline. While you can preview your brand’s Timeline at any time and publish it, companies aren’t forced by Facebook to do so until March 30th - thus, you still have time to plan and organize an effective Timeline. Make sure to check out CerconeBrownCompany’s Timeline when it goes live on the 30th!
Even more than winners of the prestigious awards, the Academy Awards have become increasingly focused about the celebrities who attend. Now the focus has strayed even further –to the public’s opinions of celebrities’ fashion choices, antics and of course, the actual award recipients.
It’s not just about how many people tune into the Oscars anymore – it’s about how many people tune in AND talk about it. During this past Sunday’s show there were more than 2 million total Oscar tweets, at one point even spiking to 18,718 tweets generated in one minute (during the Circque de Soleil performance). What’s more, research shows that the majority of people with smartphones or tablets use them while watching TV, so social TV apps such as Viggle, UMami and IntoNow capitalized on the trend of users wanting a more engaging broadcast to cut through the clutter and become consumers’ go-to companion to their television experience.
What do apps like this add to the award show experience?
- Viggle partnered with Bing to offer live Oscar polls, quizzes and trivia questions, where correct answers earned the user points that can be put toward prizes.
- Umami debuted “Freeze Frame for the Oscars” a feature letting users capture images from the show and then share it on Facebook or Twitter – the company describes it as a “Pinterest” for the Oscars. And we all know how hot Pinterest is right now…
The Washington Post even honored the top 10 best tweets of Oscar night, noting it has become as much an annual event for Twitter as it has for the movies.
Even TV networks themselves are altering their Oscar coverage – with outlets like E! Entertainment Television live-streaming the show on their website with a mix of camera feeds, while also incorporating Twitter trends and results from their Facebook page polls.
This year – wardrobe highlights/malfunctions even spawned new Twitter accounts (see @AngiesRightLeg). Angelina’s pose became the new “Tebowing” and it has taken off on social networks Currently, there is even a Tumblr, titled “Angelina Jolieing,” which allows people to post images of themselves recreating the bizarre pose.
With the creation of Facebook memes, Twitter responses (3,339 tweets per minute for Angelina Jolie’s right leg) and interactive real time blogs, the fan engagement level this year increased by 3.5 times what it was last year, as aided by the industry embracing the conversation.
Our takeaway? The involvement of Twitter and real-time conversations makes for genuine fan engagement and a more robust experience for moviegoers everywhere. Take a note from what the media and even the Academy itself did for the Oscars, hop on the engagement bandwagon and make your brand experience an interactive one for the biggest splash.
Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing process filled with research and analysis. If you haven’t given up on this post after reading that sentence, congratulations! For your persistence and courage in the intimidating face of SEO, you get a reward - 4 quick fixes to improve SEO. These don’t replace the need for research and analysis but they are items you can act on right now and they’ll improve your search engine rankings almost as quickly.
1. Judge a Page by its Title: This may be the Holy Grail for quick fixes as it is so easy to fix and is one of the most effective ways to improve SEO. The title tags allow the search engines to see each page as unique content. It’s the “headline” users can click on when using a search engine. Title tags carry a lot of weight in the algorithm search engines use to determine page rankings.
In HTML, your title tag will look a little something like this –
<title>Your page title here...</title>
First, make sure each page has a unique title, using appropriate keywords. Remember, search engines usually only index the first 70 characters, so keep your title tags short, sweet, and full of keywords.
2. Be Descriptive By palling around with your title tags, the description tags further help search engines identify each page’s content as unique, and will give users a more in depth look at what they can expect when they click through.
You’ll find the description tags in HTML because they look like this -
<meta name="description" content="Your description here..." />
All you have to do to optimize your description tag, is describe your page in about 155 characters using all your relevant keyword phrases.
3. First is the Best: All the content in your page’s first paragraph should contain the most important information. The first paragraph is the most important paragraph in the entire web page because it's what search engine crawlers and readers scan to get a summary of the page’s content. Including the most important keywords in the first sentence or two is a no-brainer.
4. SEO GPS: No matter the size of your site, the site map is always important. Although it may not guarantee ranking, indexing or even crawling of your web pages, it does help search engines to easily find all of them, which makes all of those good things more likely. Make sure all your pages are visible and easily accessible to crawlers through appropriate internal links.
Pinterest, the social networking phenom, is underfire in social media circles for its failure to disclose how it profits from users' content.
According to a CNNMoney article published on 2/10, "The site, which allows users to create a virtual
pinboard showcasing items they find around the Web, has quietly been appending affiliate links to some pins — the ones featuring goods for sale online through Amazon, eBay, Target and thousands of other merchants. Those links generate payments for Pinterest from the retailers if someone clicks through and buys a product featured in the pin. "
What's most interesting about this dust up isn't that Pinterest is making money from content (no one is really being mistreated, in our opinion), nor is it that they lacked transparency. The story brewing now is Pinterest's lack of communication.
Pinterest has yet to comment on the issue directly, nor has it communicated with users. Skimlinks, the Oz-like wizard behind the link hijacking curtain, is taking the "hey, we all need to make money" stance. But no one from Pinterest seems to understand that the issue is NOT that they append links. The issue for Pinterest users is that the company wasn't forthcoming with that little piece of information.
As PR professionals, we've seen the lack of transparency reak havoc on companies large and small. One would think Pinterest's lack of spin control will haunt them. But every once in a while, staying out of the fray and letting the dust settle can be the right move.
We'll see with Pinterest. Lack of transparency has become a mortal sin online, but we're not so sure Pinterest will need to beg much for forgiveness. After all, when people post to boards with names like "Products I Love," giving them a link to Target likely isn't like linking a vegan site to McDonald's. This space predicts that with the user lovefest underway with Pinterest, this transgression will not only be forgiven, it will be largely ignored by users.
Would could be wrong. One thing for sure, we're Pinterested to see what happens next.
(Sorry...but you had to see that coming.)