Category: <span>Digital</span>

Nathan Allebach Creative Director
The Steak-umm Twitter Guy
Adweek Top 100 Creative

Across the landscape of social media platforms there seems to be an endless set of tools to utilize for your content creation. Emoji’s, memes, Vine-style videos, long-form videos, branded photography, text joke formats, leetspeak, the list goes on. One tool that users have been all over the past few years has been GIFs. The GIF file was invented by Steve Wilhite in 1987 and they’ve been around since the beginning of Internet culture in one form or another. The “dancing baby” and “hamster dance” were classics from the late 1990s. Countless GIFs were shared across Myspace in its heyday and many more are created every day on platforms like Twitter or Reddit.
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Nathan Allebach Creative Director
The Steak-umm Twitter Guy
Adweek Top 100 Creative

A new fusion of advertising, smart technology, and online culture is integrating more into our lives every day. As we integrate, advertising does the same. Read more…

Nathan Allebach Creative Director
The Steak-umm Twitter Guy
Adweek Top 100 Creative

A quick Google search can get you all the latest trends, algorithms, or strategies to reach whatever social media goal you want, right? Self-appointed influencers and other social “experts” know exactly how to make your brand successful, right? Everyone thinks they have the answers on social media. Most of them are probably wrong. But we’re in the wild west, so really anything goes.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

I wrote an article about 5 years ago about how “Likes” are good, “Comments” are great, but “Sharing” is GOLD! Although social media has radically changed over the past few years, some of this thought process still remains relevant. Yes, engagement has changed, but it’s still key to success.
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Rick Wiener Media Director

In today’s cluttered environment, it is becoming more and more difficult for a small CPG brand to make an impact in the marketplace. However, if these small and upcoming brands follow a few basic marketing and advertising strategies, there is a way to cut through and make a name for themselves.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

Appetite appeal rules the day for food and beverage CPG brands. And one of the best social media platforms to showcase your brand is Instagram. There are many tasty reasons why food and beverage is such a popular visual on Instagram. Let’s be honest: we all love a mouth-watering food shot — well-lit, crisp, close-up, cool context, it just makes us hungry or thirsty!

Christian Betlyon Director of Strategy & Digital Services

Marketing is more complicated than it ever has been. We have unbelievable access to data and so much of it that we can use to improve our marketing and increase results. This can be overwhelming for marketers and brand managers because there are so many questions to ask:
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Christian Betlyon Director of Strategy & Digital Services

Every day there are countless pieces of content seeking our attention in social newsfeeds, on digital radio stations, podcasts, YouTube channels – you name it. We pay attention to the content that interests us, adds value to our lives or taps into a current emotional state.Read more…

Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

It’s everywhere. On the streets, in our office, and in every retail and food store I’ve visited the past 2 weeks. Pokémon took over my life back when I was a kid and is doing so again now with the revolutionary virtual reality game, Pokémon Go.Read more…

Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

Facebook Live has a story to tell – what’s yours?
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

With new technologies constantly evolving each day, people have become mostly un-phased by some of the recent leaps in media. Take for example, drones: At one point, the idea was a joke, then it became a topic of fear, then ever so slowly, they became integrated into every day life to the point where hardly anyone thinks twice about them. That’s exactly how artificial intelligence (AI) is – and no other new tech is changing the media world quite like it. AI is changing our use of smartphones, social media, and many other aspects of the marketplace.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

Email—it’s simply one of the most effective digital marketing tactics today, and with good reason. Despite the insurgence of social media as a form of communication, email still rules! Here’s why:
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

You may have heard that programmatic advertising is revolutionizing the media landscape, or that it’s changing the face of online ad buying…but what is it? Is this just another shiny new toy?
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

Well, it’s official — YouTube is now a legitimate challenger as the entertainment channel of choice for the youth demographic. Need proof? Look no further than Forbes.com’s just-breaking list of 2015’s ten highest-paid YouTube stars.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

For some time now, Pinterest has been in the enviable position of being the #1 social platform that consumers go to when planning long-term purchases. Of course, being #1 and having the ability to monetize it are two entirely different things.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

As an avid pinner and marketing professional, I find the interest in Pinterest (yes, I can rhyme any time) as a long-term brand relationship builder fascinating, as well as personally vindicating. Years ago, I suggested a client of ours should begin posting images on home improvement boards to show aspiring homeowners the family rooms and kitchens their home equity loans had been — or could be — used for. Sadly, it went nowhere… but the seed had been planted.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

Believe it or not, simply being active and engaged in social media is the baseline entry point these days. You’re no longer on the social frontline anymore just by having your brand on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, Facebook, etc. The new bar is now having content that’s worth sharing.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

Social media has changed the shopping experience for everyone—brands, retailers, and consumers. Social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, Vine, Snapchat, Tumblr, and others are now a constant and significant influence on what, where, and how often consumers buy.
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Scott Cooter Creative Director / Senior Copywriter

Real-Time targeting capabilities push Pandora to the top of the charts.
There’s a good reason traditional broadcast radio is a valued part of most media plans year after year. It offers high reach, good targetability, and extraordinarily low costs compared to TV.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

Consumer food brands often wrestle with effectively bridging the gap between online and in-store shoppers–most of the time over complicating the marketing process. It’s simple; most consumers discover your brand online, and then activate in-store.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

It’s official: YouTube is now second to only Google itself in terms of search queries. Which only makes sense — when we want information about something, we Google it, but when we want to know how to use something or cook it properly, we visit YouTube to watch a video on the right way to do it.
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Nancy Landis Account Coordinator

“Mobile is too big of an opportunity for retailers to not properly seize.” says Adam Lavine, CEO of FunMobility. Mobile presents many strategic advantages for retailers to differentiate their brand, strengthen customer relationships and loyalty, and ultimately drive revenue. While nearly 83% of the top retailers already provide a mobile offering, there are only one-in-three who actually provide all three platforms – mobile web, iOS and Android.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

As a brand, your digital presence is incredibly important. It should be a given that brands regularly post new content on their website and across all social media platforms. It keeps consumers informed, provides access to up-to-date information on your products and helps keep your presence on the web relevant (from a search engine standpoint and to the consumer). Nothing is worse than going to a website to look up information and finding something incorrect or outdated, or going to a brand’s Facebook or Twitter page and seeing their last post was from 6 months ago.
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Joey Piazza Digital Director

On Monday of this week, Google announced that it would be ending the RSS service “Google Reader” which was a content aggregator that is still widely used by a very core group of enthusiasts. So if the audience is there and the service is being used then why would they go out of their way to upset a very loyal and vocal readership? In order to answer this I think we have to look at what RSS provides and what recent developments in technology have meant for the service.
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Jennifer Scheel Account Executive

I just came across a very interesting article on eMarketer.com that I thought worthy of sharing: Brands Leverage Influencers’ Reach on Blogs, Social.

In summary, this article explains the value of blogger outreach campaigns:
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Nancy Landis Account Coordinator

I recently read an article, “Chiquita Goes Mobile with Little League Baseball” , that immediately had me cheering: “Way to think outside of the box Chiquita!” “ Great idea!” “Perfect target!”. Chiquita bananas have been a long-standing favorite of mine; the perfect fruit, with its own wrapper, sweet, not messy, great grab-n-go snack. With four active kids, it was often a fruit I picked up as the snack mom providing something nourishing for the team. When I read that Chiquita Brands had leveraged a three-year partnership with Little League Baseball, I was excited! They have stepped into the perfect fit – Mom’s shopping for healthy choices for their family, parents providing snacks for sports teams, kids wanting a grab-n-go, fun snack.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

Just about a year ago Dole began their “366 Ways to Go Bananas” or “A Banana a Day” promotion to support their three-year-long “Go Bananas” concept. The overall goal is to encourage Americans to use and incorporate bananas in their diet outside of just breakfast and lunch– which would increase the overall sales of bananas.
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Scott Cooter Creative Director / Senior Copywriter

The holiday shopping season is finally upon us. With Thanksgiving less than a week away, our mailboxes have been packed with Black Friday and Pre-Black Friday mailers and flyers for weeks now. Ditto the Sunday papers: stuffed to the gills with inserts from every retailer you can think of.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

It’s nothing new for a brand to incorporate digital elements to engage and interact with consumers. They have a website, Facebook page, or Twitter account to become more interactive and engage their audiences. In fact, it’s generally expected. Consumers have become accustomed to interacting with their favorite brands and sometimes getting exposed to new brands based on these customer experiences, especially with the viral nature of the consumers sharing their content.
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Joey Piazza Digital Director

The short answer to this question…No..and Yes.
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Scott Cooter Creative Director / Senior Copywriter

How much time does it take to engage an audience? A rodeo bull rider gets it done in 8 seconds: 1,200 horsepower nitro-burning fuel dragsters do it in under 5.
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Jennifer Scheel Account Executive

Too often brands are busy promoting themselves rather than becoming a trusted resource and/or partner. Brands need to earn the right to tell consumers how great they are. I ran across two sites and a blog recently that are doing a great job of becoming a partner/resource.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

Over the past few years we have seen the implementation or QR codes increase. We have seen this on the shelves in stores, on product packaging, print ads, posters and business cards. They are being used everywhere.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

Fact: The majority of people prefer to watch instead of read.

Don’t believe it?Read more…

Jennifer Scheel Account Executive

You’ve heard about Pinterest and that it’s the new “big marketing idea,” but you may be wondering just how to really make it actionable. There are many companies out there giving it a try: Country Outfitters, Wilton, and Naturalizer, just to name a few.
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Scott Cooter Creative Director / Senior Copywriter

How food manufacturers can reach their audience via Pinterest

Ever heard of the social media site Pinterest? If not, you’d better read up on it quickly. Most of today’s savvy marketing managers use it already — and those who don’t are scurrying to catch up.
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Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

On April 17, 2009, Oprah sent out her first tweet on Twitter.com. For interested parties the Tweet said: “HI TWITTERS. THANK YOU FOR A WARM WELCOME. FEELING REALLY 21st CENTURY.” My first thought, as a marketer, was that the tipping point was just televised. Even better, if I required concrete confirmation it came a day later in numbers: Twitter saw a whopping 37% increase in visits to the Twitter.com homepage. All new visitors. Each one signing up for a Twitter account.Read more…

Jamie Allebach Chief Executive & Creative Officer

If you aren’t familiar with Facebook – as of January 2009 the social networking site is 175 million members strong and growing at the rate of 5 million per week – and the site’s addictive, randomly generated newsfeed that is the site’s homepage, informing members of their friends status updates and fan groups their individual friends have joined, then perhaps you need to come out of the cave you call home. After all, it’s a Facebook nation – and as marketers, small and large, we need to harness the word-of-mouth, viral power that drives this beyond popular site.Read more…