Marketing Blog Review : www.themarketingspotblog.com

Jay Ehret is Chief Officer of Awesomeness at The Marketing Spot and author at themarketingspotblog.com, a blog of marketing insights for entrepreneurs.  Jay paid his marketing dues working in radio advertising for 17 years.

Once I saw Jay’s job title I immediately knew CustomerCradle needed a COA!

Online or Offline Focus ?

There is a lot of information on the web about online marketing and advertising.  Blogging, SEO, affiliate programs, branding with your website and the like are covered all over the place.  To counter this trend we at the CustomerCradle blog prefer to focus on offline marketing, the “real-world” stuff such as radio, flyers, signage etc.

It was good to see that themarketingspotblog.com covers both new media/online/web/insert catchy phrase here marketing and also fundamentals that apply to the offline world.

While the trendier topics are covered that are also interesting posts on topics such as employee loyalty, branding basics and naming a business.

Since the blog goes all the way back to 2007 there is a lot of content to browse, not just articles, the blog contains it’s fair share of audio and video content.

Article Quality

Jay has a very direct and informative writing style which is exactly what’s required on a marketing blog.  He doesn’t waffle, hedge his bets or argue both sides of an issue he just lays down his opinion.  Many posts are illustrated with interesting images.

themarketingspotblog.com is a well thought out blog with well thought out articles.  The more i read the more obvious it is that Jay knows his stuff.

Insightful ? Are you going to learn anything ?

Ok, the most important question, are there actually useful marketing insights at themarketingspotblog.com that will help you grow your business ?  Yes!  There certainly are.

The post on naming a business is a good example of sharp clear advice that strikes me as being very useful.  If someone were naming their new product or business I think they would be likely to come up with a better name if they had read the article.  The article provides practical actionable and accurate advice and that’s not something I could say about many marketing articles on the web.

Share
August 11, 2010 | Sam Howley | 1 Comment »

The heart of it all : Art & Copy

Art & Copy is a beautiful documentary that illustrates the explosion in creativity that has been seen in the american advertising industry since the 1960s.

The film consists of interviews with aging advertising gurus. They recount how they got started in the stiff unimaginative 50s and 60s and how they broke free and created an industry where every new campaign deserves a new idea.

Highlights include the story of the making of Apple’s iconic 1984 ad.
Steve Jobs was the dream client declaring “Go do me an ad that doesn’t look like anything anyone has ever done before”.

The Apple board was less impressed with the completed symbolic ad that was to be screened a single time during the Superbowl, declaring

“This is stupid, the whole company is riding on this computer and you’re going to spend all this money on an ad that doesn’t even show it ?”

Acording the documentary Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were prepared to personally fund the ad.

There are many other groundbreaking ad campaigns covered, such as the genesis of Nike ‘Just Do It’,  ’Where’s the beef’ and ‘I want my MTV’.

What did I take away from the film ?

Be brave. At one point George Lois, whose straight talking ways are the star of the film, recounts how he told a young designer called Tommy Hilfiger that he had a choice between running an edgy arrogant ad campaign or spending tens of millions of dollars over decades, the impact would be the same. “I can make Tommy Hilfiger famous and an important brand”, looks at watch, “in a couple of hours”.

Be Big.  At one point an ad man mused that the advertising industry had taught their clients about their products just as much as the other way around.  Referring to a pet food company he said  “We taught them they didn’t have to just feed dogs, they could love dogs”.

Be cocky and committed. It’s somewhat trendy to see advertising as a scourge of modern life.  There was very little doubt or apology in the film, these bright creative people talked about their work with passion and purpose.

Share
August 3, 2010 | Sam Howley | 1 Comment »