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How This Pink Brand Missed Its Target
Today marks the one-month anniversary of Pink Sunday. If you were signed into any social account on April 19th, there’s no way you escaped the countless #LillyFail tweets, Instagram posts, news headlines… you name it. Lilly Pulitzer, the iconic, preppy fashion brand that has become synonymous with upper class socialites, had launched…
A Clean Slate on Consumer Storytelling
From visually pleasing platforms like Instagram to longer audio plays like the Serial podcast, consumers today are experiencing stories through a variety of channels. That’s good news for smart brands looking for new, creative ways to get consumers to extend their story. Adobe recently released a new digital storytelling app specifically for iPads. With…
Did Brands Drop the Ball This Year?
One day a year my friends and family actually treat me like some sort of sage. Super Bowl Sunday is about advertising, not football, for millions of viewers. So, naturally, I get asked what did I think of the ads. My answer this year? In a word: deflated. I was…
Advertisers No Longer Rely on Super Bowl Hail Mary
TV has not died and Super Bowl commercials remain the Holy Grail of advertising. That said, it is impossible to deny that digital has significantly altered the playing field. Brands and their agencies used to do their best to create that single, epic, career-defining, :30 commercial, and keep it under…
Tom Cruise, a Digital Prophet?
I started my advertising career on the traditional side, crafting print, TV and radio campaigns. But then the Internet happened, and I was intrigued by how this new medium could impact the world of marketing. People thought it was a fad and wouldn’t last (no, they really said that). Here we are 15+ years…
Viral Marketing Lessons From #AlexFromTarget
#AlexfromTarget. We’ve probably all heard of Alex LaBeouf by now. He’s the teenaged Target employee, and newly crowned king of the internet, whose silken hair and 32 inch chest sent tween girls reeling when this photo was tweeted on Sunday. (Click the link if you want to feel really old.)…
Communications Rx When Ebola Hits Home
As the CDC, World Health Organization and hospitals from Atlanta to Dallas scramble to deal with Ebola, fear has infected middle America. That means people with colds or seasonal allergies are nervously asking the family doc, ‘Do you think it’s Ebola?” And that presents a communication challenge for urgent care…
The Truth About Millennials
As a millennial, I sometimes feel like a zoo animal. An exotic, mildly dangerous, feared yet coveted zoo animal. (See AdWeek’s latest field notes.) Of course, given my cohort’s $200 billion spending power, marketers’ interest makes sense. Nearly every brand needs to figure out how to relate to millennials if…
Ads I’m Loving This Week
At CTP, we’re kind of obsessed with emotions. Of course, we love the hard stuff: numbers, results and tangibles. But our passion is feelings. Maybe that’s why I feel the need to share advertising that makes me have a rush of them. Here are three ads I’m loving this week….
4 Ways Brands Stand For Something More Than Themselves
Don’t get me wrong, I love HBO’s Last Week Tonight. It’s smart, witty and blessedly moderate. Still, I’m not in complete agreement with Sunday’s episode. In light of several tactless 9/11 tweets and DiGiorno’s #WhyIStayed debacle, John Oliver suggested that companies refrain from participating in controversial, emotionally charged or otherwise…
