This week, the SWOT Team asks: What holiday marketing programs have worked for you? Are some holidays better than others to reach customers and prospects? Join the conversation! Also this week, read your answers to: Is a blog is right for your business? more

Although we cannot completely trust the psychology that underlies our advertising decision making, we can work to make it more reliable by lowering stress, institutionalizing skepticism, living in the moment, and training and preparing for friction. more

Advertisers spend much effort psychoanalyzing consumers, trying to understand why consumers make the decision they do. It is rare that they turn those same analytical tools on themselves—to understand why they make their own decisions, especially when those decisions have led to trouble. more

With more and more companies wanting to integrate their products into the lives of celebrities, now seems like a good time to take a closer look at celebrity product placement. Here are three common approaches and a description of what steps you can take to encourage results. more

If you have clients (or bosses) who want you to write about who they are, you probably witness them thrusting a list of attributes in your face. On the list, you'll find the usual suspects: quality, commitment to service, out-of-the-box this and proactive that. But such vague attributes have little ... more

This week, add your two pesos to the dilemma: What makes for an effective media kit? What works and what doesn't? Also this week, read your answers to last week's query: How do you prevent email newsletters from being perceived by filters as Spam? more

With our focus on bold, blunt, "write-as-people-speak" prose in business, we no longer have any fancy phrases to lurk behind. We're on our own. Why has business writing become so much more direct in the comparatively short period of two generations or so? more

Building and maintaining a trusting relationship with your agency is key to project success. Many relationships with agencies fail because clients treat them like vendors instead of partners. They don't value agency advice when they really need to get a fresh perspective in solving a communication challenge. You can learn ... more

Chances are that when engineers propose a new car model, they don't fail to include an engine in their designs. Unfortunately, that's not true of many B2B marketers and their direct marketing strategies. Too many creative briefs have a great chassis—terrific messaging hooks, keen insight into audience desire—without the engine ... more

This week: What approaches or steps do newsletter publishers need to follow to ensure the newsletter makes it all the way to recipients' inboxes? Join the conversation! Also this week, read your answers to the previous dilemma: How can a business cash in on year-end purchasing? more

Endorsements can prove to be excellent ways to create a genial relationship between your product and the person or team being endorsed. Just be wary of capitalizing too quickly on a media event that may not be advantageous for the brand! more

The act of branding has 10 different meanings, which translate into 10 different ways to create instrumentality or usefulness beyond the tangible benefits of a product/service. Following those 10 approaches will make the difference between masterful creations of brands and amateur imitation. more

At the heart of branding resides a paradox. This article unravels that paradox and examines its intricacies. more

Branding, as you might imagine, is not typically what direct response agencies do. But some direct response agencies strongly believe in the power of branding. And smart direct marketers build their strategies squarely on the brand. more

We've all heard the jokes about embarrassing translations in the marcom arena. But if you were were responsible for a hefty international marketing or ad budget, such gaffes would wipe the smile right off your face. There are some important lessons to learn about writing branding and ad copy ... more

Advertisers, including Paramount Pictures, The Wall Street Journal, and the Gap, are successfully reaching niche audiences for a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising. As a result, a handful of bloggers are earning six-figure incomes from their blogs. Why aren't more advertisers and bloggers getting together? Three reasons: fear, ... more

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Some ad industry leaders have complained that recent college graduates are ill prepared for today's competitive environment. Why? Because ivory tower professors, they say, are out of touch with the "real world." So maybe it's time for advertising people to give something back, for the sake of our industry's future. ... more

Direct marketers insist, "If it doesn't sell, it isn't creative." To which awareness advertisers hurl back, "If it isn't creative, it won't sell." more

What's missing in any discussion of advertising's future is a deeper analysis of the forces at work. more

Well into the age of the soundbite, we're still hard-pressed to summon the elusive 60-second description of what it is we do, what our brand provides to those we serve and why it matters. more

The traditional advertising agency is now facing competition on all fronts. more