By almost all accounts, 2020 was a devastating year for the ad industry. According to Forrester, ad agencies lost nearly 50,000 jobs globally – that’s more than double what was lost in the 2008 recession. (Source) And while the industry is still working to come out the other side and find “the new normal,” one thing is certain – we must adapt or we die. Read More

Google and several of its fellow Internet conglomerates announced recently that third-party cookies are going away. Privacy advocates cheered. Ad sales reps fretted. But most people were left confused.

What the heck is a cookie? And why should I care if they’re going away?

Cookies are little pieces of data left behind when you visit a website. For those of you with kids, think of your fourth grader hanging out in the living room all day with a box of Oreos. Read More

The Virtual Reality

VR, or Virtual Reality, has come a long way in our notably brief relationship with it over the last few decades. In its infancy, this technology may have rested on your brow as the humble, plastic artifact known as the ‘Viewmaster’, and even that is leagues beyond where it started. Printed film has made way for high-resolution LED screens resting but an inch from our eyes. Only recently has this sophisticated technology entered the hands of consumers, Read More

If you own or work for a B2B company, you’ve most likely experienced some difficulty acquiring new clients and/or cross-selling your current client base. With the absence of trade shows and in-person meetups, reaching your target audience has become more and more complicated. Luckily, in this episode of Marketing Then & Now, we invited our first outside guest, Joey Knecht. Joey is CEO and managing director of Proteus—a sales enablement platform that helps complex B2B sales teams engage with buyers and stakeholders—and we’ve worked with him to take our clients’ B2B strategies to the next level. Read More

“We have changes.”

These are the words no art director or copywriter wants to hear – doesn’t matter who says them. If we were in the office, you’d hear a large groan and maybe see a few eye rolls. Spoiler alert: Creatives always complain about changes. Just ask any account executive.

You see we’ve been caring for this obviously brilliant idea like it’s one of our own kids. We nurture it to its full potential and then anxiously send it out into the world, Read More

Fisher-Price launched a brand refresh effort in December of 2019. The work done by Pentagram, Wieden+Kennedy and Fisher-Price is a masterclass on brand expression. The coordination of different agencies, contrasted brand history, varied expressions across multiple touchpoints for multiple products, and a pitch-perfect execution like this doesn’t happen by accident. You would be forgiven if you thought that with money, size, and ubiquity, a brand refresh effort like this would be relatively common. Not easy, but certainly not a risky endeavor. Read More

With new developments in facial recognition software (hello,
Clearview AI), online hackers becoming more and more sophisticated and privacy concerns growing amid social media users, it’s no wonder the average person is turning inward to reflect on just exactly who they’re sharing their content with. People are starting to opt for Close Friends Stories on Instagram and private Facebook Groups to ensure their content is going to only people they trust. Read More

When I was a kid, I used to love playing grocery store. My siblings and I would tape up old cereal boxes, wash out Tide bottles and anxiously wait until an egg carton was empty so we could collect it. Now, as a 20-year-old intern and a big sister of three little girls under the age of 10, I get to see a whole new generation of children get hooked on playing grocery store. Only this time, Read More

It’s no secret that technology has made huge advancements in the last decade. And those  advancements have moved into the educational landscape with the exploration of technologies for student usage.
Inventions such as the Microsoft HoloLens have allowed students at Washington University in St. Louis and Hamilton College in Clinton, NY, to see crystal structures and anatomic make-ups in hologram form. Read More

Co-authored by Rebecca Weber and Justin Henriksen
We are so excited that Instagram TV has finally launched. One piece of the puzzle that seemingly has been missing from this platform is long-form vertical video. For marketers and businesses, this can build upon the growing need and proven success of sharing consumable content, which will impact your brand and bottom-line revenue. Read More