As the election nears and the political attack ads and social media goes into overdrive I can’t help but think about our country’s brand.
Brand equity has two parts:

Brand identity, which builds value from who the brand is.
Brand utility, which builds from what the brand provides.

Being in marketing and focusing on how to market our client’s products and services, I wanted to take a deeper look at what we expect and need as people. Read More

Cranberry Radio host Maria Reitan spoke with our president, Robin Donovan, and CEO, Kim Mickelsen. The trio touched on a variety of subjects, including creative communications, our history as a certified women-owned business, and the age-old question, “Can’t we all just call marketing to women simply marketing?”
Listen in:

 
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With so many social media platforms at our immediate disposal, it’s important for brands to thoughtfully choose the best fit for them. Taking the Instagram leap is worth the risk. Read More

For all that has changed over three decades of the South by Southwest Music Festival (SXSW), one thing remains a constant: “Band” and “Brand” is still a single letter apart.  Read More

As marketers, our ability to understand how people think is critical. It always has been. The jargon we sometimes employ to describe these varying thoughts is not. Read More

With one word Campbell’s Soup’s new chicken soup commercial supports lesbians. One woman asks another woman if she wants some soup, but she ends her sentence with “babe.” That’s it. The offer of soup is politely declined because of a pre-existing salad, but the soup and the salad eater silently trade soup bowl for salad plate in an intimate food-sharing move right at the end. Read More

Everyone in the office knows. They are okay with it.  And they didn’t tell me.  Read More

The Advertising Age article, One Marketing Metric to Rule Them All? Group Believes It Has One is if not the latest, one of many recent pieces published about some of the wonders new technology and media can offer: increasingly precise and real-time measurements of the impact of marketing and advertising initiatives. Read More

In the business of communicating, perception vs. reality is a daunting concept. Sometimes we strive to make perception and reality align, and sometimes that alignment is not optimal. Regardless of which works best, we are fully aware that our ability to control perception is a lot like catching the wind. At best we can influence in an impactful way.
We talk about perception vs. reality a lot. I’m sure there are folks that think: is it really that big of a deal? Read More

A year or so ago I was asked – through my blog on menopause – to participate in helping to “name” a new product offering by Kimberly-Clark. They wanted a cute/clever name for the pairing of toilet paper and wipes for women 50+. I was aghast!
What were they thinking? More to the point, what were they implying? That women 50+ leak waste? Read More