I don’t smoke. My one and only experience with cigarettes was sneaking some coins into a vending machine when I around 14 to buy a pack of Marlboros. I don’t think I got past the first puff before I concluded coughing wasn’t fun. Still, the professional side of me has paid attention to Juul’s communications …more
Elon Musk kicked up a Twitter storm last week, essentially saying (among other things) that the media unfairly picks on Tesla because Tesla doesn’t advertise. He went on to infer that the makers of gas guzzlers and fossil fuel companies get more favorable media attention because they pump millions of advertising dollars into the media’s …more
It doesn’t matter whether you sell pizza, cars or solid state memory chips, every company grapples with the question: why should the customer buy me over competitors? Few companies try to compete on price, and even those that do are careful in how they play the low-price card. The next time you’re at Costco or …more
If the intended audience doesn’t trust the format of the ad, the actual content has no chance. We know that the rise of digital consumption has brought advertising along for the ride. In fact, projections call for the digital ad spend to surpass TV advertising dollars for the first time this year. So back to …more
I know I said advertising gets narrative but this falls under the extreme category. Cruising through the May 1916 edition of Popular Mechanics, I came across the ad headline: One Hint From These Men May Be the Turning Point in your Life! Lest you feel a “carny” come-on, the copy strives to establish credibility from …more
This headline in BusinessWeek was so good, I decided to borrow it. Writer Patrick Lencioni, head of management consultancy The Table Group, chronicles the Domino’s Pizza ad campaign that takes introspective to a new level. In short, Domino’s falls on its rolling pin, publicly sharing focus group opinions that call out the pizza maker for …more
The Wall Street Journal recently kicked off an advertising campaign. An anchor ad caught my attention, which you can see below (note we took liberties with the typeface to improve legibility of the scan). View a larger version here. Notice anything about the body copy? There’s no mention of the “B” word. Maybe they expect …more
