Year in Review: VI's Marketing Trend Predictions for 2016

This past January, we prognosticated about the marketing trends that would shape the year for most marketers. We correctly predicted all five, and we even hit the bonus question - here’s a quick summary.
Posted Dec 15, 2016

4 Ways to Tame the Content Marketing Beast

When talking with clients and other agency partners about Content Marketing it seems that there is always a heavy sigh that goes along side it…

Posted Dec 14, 2016

Employee Spotlight: Digital Media Strategist Grace Abblitt

For as long as she can remember, Grace Abblitt wouldn’t order off the kid’s menu, which as it turned out, didn’t bother her parents at all. Instead they let young Grace explore the varied and exciting great southern cuisine that Atlanta had to offer.

Posted Dec 9, 2016

Carne Diem Gives Meat to VI Marketing and Branding’s Brand

Carne Diem is a behemoth. Having just completed its 14th edition with over 800 people, and raising $8000, Carne Diem has become: downtown Oklahoma City’s biggest annual fall event; a major fundraiser for United Way; an incredible team-building exercise and source of pride inside VI walls; an iconic branding initiative; and perhaps, most importantly – a heck of a lot of fun.

Posted Dec 7, 2016

5 Crucial Questions to Ask Before Developing Your App

People get excited about the idea of building mobile apps. But there are also a lot of really important questions that a business must ask to determine whether or not an app is the best route.

Posted Dec 6, 2016

VIth Sense: Unconventional Lives of Millennials and Chick-fil-A

By now, we are all aware of the criticisms of the millennial generation: They can't focus, aren't present, overly entitled, too good to care about anything that doesn't concern themselves. It's a pretty long list that makes them difficult to relate to, and especially to manage.

Posted Nov 30, 2016

Opinion Leaders Choose Influencer Marketing

Do you remember junior high and class elections? They were more of a popularity contest than an election, and ‘campaigns’ consisted of a few posters and buttons, which didn’t really garner any votes.  What could influence the outcome of a school election? An influencer. An opinion leader. Usually someone with a lot of friends (and perhaps a big mouth) that didn’t mind telling the whole world who they should vote for. And it worked well enough to win the campaign every time.

Posted Nov 10, 2016

Winner of 2016's Political Advertising Spend? Digital Media.

If you’re like most of America, November 8th can’t get here fast enough. With the nearly 3 years of political campaigning, news coverage and forwarded emails from my grandmother, I have a special bottle of bubbly to celebrate the end of the current round of elections.

Posted Nov 7, 2016

The Science Behind Creative Writing

Amazing new technologies have come along in recent years that enhance or improve almost every job in the advertising field — except writing. So far, no new program, gadget or other modern convenience has come along to help a writer write a great headline, clever copy or improve a bad idea. Since the beginning of advertising, a writer has had to resort to his or her wits, intelligence and reasoning to come up with great ideas and the words to express them.

Posted Nov 4, 2016

The Win-Win-Win Scenario for Digital Advertising vs. Ad Blockers

My name is Steve and I’m a news junkie. But I’ve grown increasingly frustrated with the distracting and destructive advertising I’ve seen on news websites lately. And I’m not the only one.

Posted Nov 3, 2016

Employee Spotlight: Senior Media Strategy Buyer Jennifer Manning

When Jen Manning took up a family tradition with her mother as an undergrad in college, she never dreamed of the joy she’d bring to hundreds and hundreds of people with her heartfelt creations. She does now, because that joy flows back to her tenfold.

Posted Nov 2, 2016

VIth Sense: Burger King's Disruptive Marketing Generating More Than Publicity

We are living in an age of disruption. Uber. Netflix. Amazon. Tesla. Blue Apron. These brands are literally changing how we shop, travel, cook—really how we live our lives. And as these brands prosper, other ‘traditional’ brands suffer. 

Posted Nov 1, 2016