Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

A common myth is that the development of creative marketing content happens in a smooth linear fashion, thanks to the toil and ingenuity of an inspired designer, writer, illustrator, or other such right-brain maker. That idea is especially appealing to project managers and heads of marketing who'd like to oversee that ostensibly straightforward process with their spreadsheets and GANTT charts.

But the reality is less GANTT chart and more goat rodeo.

Ideas, drafts, and iterations are tossed around almost at random. Feedback and approvals go back and forth—and sometimes sideways. Unanticipated obstacles knock progress off course, and too often great ideas are thrown onto the dirt and trampled into dust. Inevitably, the goat wins.

It isn't easy to find a balance between the two extremes of super-efficiency and chaos....

In the near future, the way businesses interact, engage, and sell to customers will be entirely different. The ground rules and the new ways of communicating with individuals will take the best of the best that exists today, learn from the failures, and make both sides happier along the way.

At Social Media Week Chicago, 1871’s CEO, Howard Tullman, presented 10 cultural trends and technological innovations that will impact businesses around the globe next year....

...Yes, everyone now carries a full production studio in their pocket, new networks are popping up every day (anyone looked at Ello yet?), and your customers can complain or praise at any hour of the day -- but these all require new skills and resources to be successful. And CMOs are worried. In that same IBM survey, 2/3 of CMOs report they’re not ready to cope with the demands of social media.

To weather it all, we need to collectively start sharing the truth instead of glossing over it. The truth that it can sometimes take more time to properly strategize a campaign than it can to execute it....

While browsing the company website I came upon a page that shares the standards and philosophies that Skooba lives by. The list is the company’s variation on a mission statement and is made up of ten core values. As I read through the list I kept hearing a single word echoing through my head; though it doesn’t itself appear as an entry I feel that a struggle to promote integrity is central to the company’s principles.

This includes integrity in terms of product quality, brand identity as well as customer satisfaction. This article will provide an overview of Skooba Design’s online marketing strategy; in particular how Skooba articulates it’s brand’s identity to its customers as well as what the company does well and what other businesses can learn from them....

How do colors affect us when we buy things? The latest research reveals the science of colors in marketing and how to use it for your advantage: Why is Facebook blue? According to The New Yorker, the reason is simple. It’s because Mark Zuckerberg is red-green colorblind. This means that blue is the color Mark can see the best. In his own words Zuck says: “Blue is the richest color for me I can see all of blue.” Not highly scientific right? Well, although in the case of Facebook, that isn’t the case, there are some amazing examples of how colors actually affect our purchasing decisions. After all, the visual sense is the strongest developed one in most human beings. It’s only natural that 90% of an assessment for trying out a product is made by color alone. So how do colors really affect us and what is the science of colors in marketing really? Let’s dig into some of the latest, most interesting research on it....