By: developer
I love clever people. I love creative people. I love wit. That is the reason I decided to pursue a career in marketing and advertising after being honorably discharged from the Marine Corps.
Every relationship, whether between friends, between lovers, between families, or between a business and its customers is about communication. The foundation of general communication is an understanding of what makes people tick or in “marketing language”- the human condition. The human condition encompasses the experiences of being human in a social, cultural, and personal context.
One of my favorite things to work on are coming up with advertising campaigns or public service announcements that are going to evoke powerful feelings and tug on your heartstrings. If done properly these can make you laugh, make you cry, or move you to participate in a cause. Here are ten of my favorite campaigns and why I like them…. (more…)
By: alexandra
International Data Corporation predicts that the number of mobile application downloads worldwide will grow from 10.9 billion in 2010 to 76.9 billion in 2014. The market intelligence company also anticipates mobile app revenues will surpass $35 billion in 2014.
Ever since the iPhone introduced the app store into their mobile repertoire, it has opened the floodgates to an entirely new arena for businesses to compete in. Not only are companies figuring out how to engage and inform their targeted clientele through mobile development, they are exploring the financial “app”ortunity from creating a successfully branded app.
“Sure, apps are cool—but where is the financial benefit from it?” This is a continuous battle between companies and their decision of whether to adopt this new technology. In order to shed some light on why the answer for these indecisive corporations is a “HELL YES!,” this is where we are going to emphasize the importance of branded applications…. (more…)
By: David Brim
The latter part of last year I gave two presentations on marketing strategy, social media, search engine optimization and branding. The first was to a group of start up entrepreneur CEO’s at an Excellence in Entrepreuneurship course, and the second was at the Invention to Venture Conference.
I thought that those who couldn’t attend either may find the presentation helpful, so I’ve added it below.
I hope it helps!
Have a wonderful and prosperous 2011…. (more…)
By: alexandra
As I began my morning regimen of getting myself functional, heading to work, flipping open my laptop and getting my daily dose of the world’s ever trekking technology from my usual gadget gurus, I immediately zeroed in on a story featured on Mashable—“Maine Student Laptop Program”. I don’t know what drew me too it; it seems simple enough in today’s society. But somewhere in the first few sentences the words: project, podcast, and virtual tour, were all used to describe a middle school project in one of the education programs in Maine. WHAT? I instantly read on…… (more…)
By: alexandra
Your Social Media Fairytale
Do you hear them…the sound of thousands aspiring actors, singers, performers…all making their way to the city containing their wishful stardom. With nothing but hope and a dream, for decades adolescents have migrated to cities such as Los Angeles, New York, and Memphis in search of their own personal discovery. Modern Cinderella’s (no offense guys), they are all trying to get out of their self proclaimed land of rags to one of riches—they have to go to where the money is. Or is it?… (more…)
By: rich
From one art to another.
Mixing photography and traditional art helped create this self portrait.
By: David Brim
I recently tasked one of our interns, Adam Lang, to write how SEO and social media were intertwined. I thought his response was very well done and am posting his reply in it’s entirety on our blog.
Making the most out of Social Media… The Intertwining of Social Media and SEO
If I told you that a small company trying to rank higher in the SERPS than that of a competitor who is three times the size would be much more difficult, you would probably agree with me. Now what if I told you that the smaller company spent a little more time doing some keyword researching and applying some other on-page search engine optimization techniques to their website, while the much larger company just sat back and only had a basic website? Before you decide, take that a step further and combine the efforts of the on-page SEO with some off-page SEO such as integrating social media tactics and the small company with a few employees now looks as if they were the much larger company…. (more…)
By: David Brim
One of the perks of working in the creative field is that part of our job is to know what new technologies or devices are coming out and how that will effect the market. What will the new Sprint Evo be capable of? Can the Ipad do this? How will the droid change marketing and application development? These are all questions that are fun to throw around and we at Brand Advance believe that keeping up to date with the most current and emerging technologies are of vital importance. My usual delight in walking into a Mac store or Best Buy is enhanced by the fact that what I am purchasing or browsing at is actually my civic duty to our client and part of my job…. (more…)
By: David Brim
In an effort to constantly build my marketing muscles, I try to often go through a set of mental calisthenics. I think about how I would market a particular product or service, and what campaign I would recommend if it were solely my responsibility to craft the strategy.
Many times when going through a discovery with a client to learn about their business we begin the initial dialogue with the client by asking: Who do you want to buy your product or use your service? A very common answer is: “Well, everyone”. Often people forget that in most cases, there is a very targeted customer segment that has the highest propensity to buy. This is the case more often than not…. (more…)
By: David Brim
Did you know there are over 400 million active Facebook users? How about the fact that there are over 50 million tweets every day? When you mix in YouTube, LinkedIn, blogs, Yelp, and hundreds of other social, review or community based sites what does this mean to your business? It means people are talking.
Potential customers as well as existing or past ones are talking about your business and those of your competitors. They are talking about what they like and don’t like, what problems they face and if you listen closely enough…what they are looking for.
Many businesses are aware of social media and have heard stories of the power it has to significantly impact their business for better or for worse. They have heard the buzz about Facebook, Twitter and the power of the blogosphere. But how does one measure the success of a social media initiative?… (more…)
