What matters in an ad? Sometimes the end viewer of the marketing campaign will never know the true strategy.

To be honest, I gave up on watching the Super Bowl for the commercials. By a certain point, I get overwhelmed by the effort and expense and completely underwhelmed by the result.

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.

I'm a purist: a sports fan who enjoys sports, but tolerates company brands and ads in appropriate places like the stadium wall, on TV commercials during a break in the action, and on the shoes worn by my athletic heroes.

I hate errands so much that I buy anything and everything I can online. With that said, any day that includes a trip to Target is a red letter one. Why? How?

When a city approaches you for a re-brand you take a slightly different approach than if a company is seeking a re-brand. Most marketers are familiar with B2B or B2C marketing but what about branding an entire city?

In October I attended a talk by Tug McTighe entitled Being Purposefully Purposeful About Your Purpose. It was profound, inspiring and gut wrenching - all the things a good talk should be.

In 1999 money was pouring into e-commerce sites that didn’t yet exist. The ‘burn rate’ of the investment in programming and marketing was how the market was judging these almost-startups.

Recognize this guy? Believe it or not, that’s two-time Academy Award-Nominee Mark Wahlberg back when he was known as rapper Marky Mark. 

We’ve told you many times before that a brand is not a logo or a tagline. Rather, it’s a promise you make to your customers. If you agree with that line of thinking (and we hope that you do) this blog will explain how your brand position can and should guide decisions at your company.

Ad fatigue. No, it’s not a winded billboard. It’s the result of a tired, worn-out creative campaign. It occurs when a campaign is irrelevant, ineffective and no longer memorable to the consumer. Often, ad fatigue derives from ad blindness. When a person is exposed to the same creative over and over and over again, they begin to mentally tune out. The ad becomes white noise. They may register it, but they don’t see it.

Have you ever built a house without a blueprint or better yet without a foundation? I wouldn’t recommend it. Yet, as an art director, I often feel like that is the task at hand when I don’t have a clear idea of what my client’s brand is.