I had a fleeting conversation yesterday with one of my favorite colleagues (and ex-employees) who is a skillful young media planner and buyer with a fairly big agency serving a lot of very nice clients. Out of curiosity I asked her what she found to be driving most of the client campaigns in her agency these days – the creative or the media.

When it comes to email marketing, there are certainly approaches you should avoid. The example below is a real email marketing campaign that highlights some worst practices. You’ll get the picture rather quickly, but here are a few hints: Do not pester your target audience, and humor isn’t always effective.

One of my great friends and colleagues (let's call him Neil) once told me there are three things he requires from his job: 1. I need to be challenged and learning new things. 2. I need to be paid equitably for working hard.

Pitching and media relations 10 years ago was much easier than today. Why? Because a decade ago editors, reporters and news producers used to answer their phones. Today, however, media professionals are plagued with smaller staffs and the need to report news faster.

I actually love how people talk about Millennials as if it were a real thing. As if everyone between the ages of 15 and 35 fit into some neat, easy-to-manipulate grouping. Of course it has been that way forever. But it really all began (thanks to marketing) with the Baby Boomers and then Gen X and then Gen Y, which is now combined with Gen Z and called Millennials.

Want new customers? Go out and get them… literally. We’ve all been told that if we want something, we have to go out and get it.

[Note to copywriters: Don't hate me.] As a young boy growing up n the 1960s, I was fully immersed in the world of Don Draper. TV commercials, radio commercials, newspaper ads, magazine ads, billboards... even product packaging. The first word I recall recognizing and reading at the tender age of 5 was "Tide", as in the Procter & Gamble detergent.

H&M created a unique campaign on Instagram revealing its 2015 holiday campaign and captivating followers. The brand started revealing snippets of a larger photo hour by hour on Instagram, leaving followers guessing what celebrity was headlining its holiday marketing campaign.

Imagine you are planning a road trip from Boston to Los Angeles and the best your GPS can do is give you some general guidance on how to get there: Head West at the nearest entrance to a highway. Now imagine there is no navigational system at all.

A community of influential consumers can be extremely helpful to a brand in a variety of different ways from securing future and current product feedback to educating consumers on new products, programs, and more. Developing this community online can provide immediate feedback and save costs compared to other research strategies like focus groups for example.