I may have been the most popular girl in town the other Friday night. It was a sticky 96 degrees, and I was standing downtown handing out free jars of ice-cold lemonade.
No, it wasn’t because I felt bad for those red and sweaty faces. It was to promote designated driving for MADD, Mothers Against Drunk Driving. That ice-cold lemonade was a strategy to wrangle […]
Posts Categorized: Life
Copywriting: A straight line between two points isn’t always the best journey
How often do you see marketing copy like: “We’re passionate about selling cornflakes!” Really? First off, I don’t believe it. Second, I don’t care.
What if you tell a story instead? People like stories. A story is a journey. And the best thing about a journey is the unexpected. Mind you, a story doesn’t have to be long – just long enough to have a beginning, a middle and and end. Here’s one I noticed not long ago while making a mojito:
Let’s call this ‘Smokey and the Brand-it’
Jackson Whole Grocer was putting the finishing touches on a much-expanded new store – as well as a new brand – and the opening date was closing in like Buford T. Justice.
You remember Buford T. Justice? He’s the lawman played by Jackie Gleason in that cinematic classic “Smokey and the Bandit”. In fact, I can’t get the theme song out of my […]
Be brief, and have a beer
Beer. That’s the reason newspapers don’t use the “Oxford comma,” a journalism professor once told me.
Consider the sentence, “CAWOOD does websites, PR, advertising, and branding.”
That last comma before the “and” is the “Oxford comma.” Editors have fought to the death over the Oxford comma, whether it’s necessary or not.
Newspapers side with “not.”
Proposed heading for the template we use to […]
KL Wells delivers strategic networking tips at UO marketing mixer
Although I enjoy networking, I’m always looking for ways to be more effective at it. When I received an invitation to a marketing mixer hosted by
University of Oregon American Marketing Association, I thought it would be a good opportunity to do just that, while also reconnecting with some colleagues from my business school days. My co-worker, Lindsey Kate, and I […]
Why asking questions is important
We’d just finished a planning meeting on a positive high, when someone asked a challenging question during the wrap-up. My immediate reaction was that the question was negative and detracted from the good work we’d just done. I was wrong.
The question would end up opening a dialog that we wouldn’t otherwise have had. And that dialog has had many ramifications – mostly good. I also realized that questions aren’t good or bad, positive or […]
Eugene’s mural ‘Tuscany’ invites viewers to interact
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What is “brand journalism” and why does it matter?
When I first heard the term “brand journalism,” I wasn’t buying it. I spent 20 years as a newspaper journalist, and I admit I still suffer from hopeless idealism about that field’s higher purpose.
Brand journalism is a form of marketing, after all. A company publishes “journalistic” content intended to draw people to its brand.
I’m still not fond of the term, but having come to better understand what it’s about, I think it offers intriguing marketing possibilities.
But it needs to be […]
5 steps to a social media strategy
I was reviewing a potential client’s social media campaigns last week and was struck by the wide range of post topics. Many had nothing to do with the business, its services, it’s people or its target audience’s interests. It appeared that the goal was to use social sites to attract an audience – any audience. There was no rhyme or reason to the type of content or the social networks used. Most importantly, no real dialogue was happening.
If you’re in […]
Your business tagline is not about you, it’s about your audience
A good tagline is a magical thing. And as with magic, effective taglines sometimes defy explanation. (“Got milk?” Why does that work?)
But here’s one thing many good ones have in common: They are not about what you do or even who you are. Rather, they’re about why you matter, why anyone should care about you.
Put another way, they are actually […]