Have you checked out the new “Marketers’ Constitution” which the Association of National Advertisers (ANA) recently unveiled?
Their goal: Make sure the marketing profession continues to thrive and that it contributes meaninfully to society.
Here are the 10 principles they suggested:
1. Marketing must become increasingly targeted, focused, and personal.
2. Marketing must build real, [...]

I had just about given up on Twitter for the 2nd time. My tweets have been inconsitent and lame (though not inconsistently lame) and I’ve generally found little value. Though I do know the exact travel schedule of many a branding exec. Which is obviously helpful.
Then I came across Lee Clow’s [...]

Been watching a lot of baseball on TV recently, it being the playoffs and all. Been seeing a lot of commercials over and over again, too … it being the playoffs and all. I like that there’s new work out, and some of it is pretty good. I just wish there was more of it [...]

Brevity is de rigueur for PR professionals, especially when it comes to pitching—both traditional journalists and bloggers. And while we’re now using social media to assist with these efforts, these tools have created an entirely new dimension of brevity.
A leader in the PR and social media world, Peter Shankman suggests that brevity is among [...]

Digital has all the evangelists it needs, often seen walking down sidewalks staring at Iphones – i think they call it connecting. We could use the occasional skeptic.
So I was happy to come across Christopher Kimball’s piece in Thursday’s NY Times. Mr. Kimball is the publisher of Cooks Illustrated. The article [...]

Organizations need to give profile pieces more teeth if they want their message to resonate.

On a warm Spring day in 1991, my brother Tim visited Rochester with his first new car – a Saturn S series coupe. We took it out on Kings Highway through Durand Park for a road test. Drove ok. But it looked different and Tim was really proud of it. He [...]

I had the pleasure of attending Mirren’s new business workshop in NY last week. One highlight was the presentation on latest shopping trends from Mintel’s Krista Faron. The prognosis: Encouraging, especially for any products that can be enjoyed at home, and for high-quality, small indulgences.
Glimpses of improvementKrista shared that the Consumer Confidence Index, which is [...]

Hi, I’m Whit, and I’m a comment junkie. I live for comments. Comments are evidence that people are listening. Comments are testimony that you’ve made someone, somewhere think about something enough that they feel compelled to agree or disagree with you. Comments beget more comments. I only post status updates on Facebook when I think [...]

Ok. They don’t uniformally stink. If you want to quickly assess the type of work an agency considers “great”, they can be useful. But visit half a dozen. Right now, I’ll wait here.
Struck by the overwhelming sameness? Like a template was handed out at a 4 A’s conference. Right [...]