Sometimes I’m utterly amazed at how some large businesses are unable to fix bad customer experiences. I’m sharing this story, not to browbeat my cell phone company, but to talk about the root problem. (more…)
Do you love numbers and statistics? Do you enjoy finding the proverbial needle in the haystack when looking at a mound of data? Are you a creative thinker who excels at writing and researching too?
If you answered yes to all, you’re in luck because an opportunity awaits encompassing all of these aspects and more. (more…)
This year, the small business online marketing eBook written by Ric Dragon & published in November through McGraw Hill, “The DragonSearch Online Marketing Manual” has been nominated for the business book awards! (more…)
I think this ad found at Bored Panda is hilarious. I wonder what this man would have done if his wife HAD burned the beer! Again we see a beer ad where a woman is being subjugated to a cook/bartender. He looks professional with his black suit and tie and she looks like his happy servant. There is certainly an element of sexist advertising here and it seems many vintage beer ads play on this. It’s as if the marketers are expecting men to drink beer and then act like jerks to their wives. Or is it the other way around? Were men so out of line in this era that marketers targeting their sexism?
(more…)
The following is a guest post from Freda L. Thomas, MBA
It’s a jungle out there, with every widget and doodad being sold throughout the internet. The approach you take when connecting with your online community should clearly describe the difference between your company and the competition and the reason why a customer should choose your product or service instead of another. (more…)
Vintage ads always surprise us when they elevate terribly unhealthy products to levels of importance on par with the best things in life. When I first took a look at this vintage cigarette ad from L&M, my first impression was that the baby was going to be subjected to second hand smoke and in those days the public didn’t realize that it was dangerous to your health. Other tobacco advertisements even used endorsements from physicians! But when I read the copy on the ad “When a cigarette means a lot…” it seemed pretentious of L&M to compare smoking a cigarette to as much meaning as taking a family portrait of mother and child that will be a lasting memory for as long as they live. (more…)
In part I of Reaching On-Page Optimization Nirvana, I argued how simple keyword stuffing regularly fails to generate positive results when optimizing a web page, and in fact often causes the overall quality of the content to suffer. Instead of naive keyword research that is focused around query volume, I argued for an approach that takes into account the broader goals of a company’s web-presence and integrates those goals into the website’s overall design. In this post, I’ll discuss further ways of exploring these ‘lexical neighborhoods’ to deliver the most effective keyword research. (more…)
With most of the vintage ads we have written about, we have disagreed with what the ad is saying, or trying to portray. I’ve always been one to go against popular opinion and this ad about television and children from Motorola is no exception. Being practically raised by television, I completely agree with Motorola that television can benefit your children. Besides, who doesn’t want the best? This ad says that when you own a Motorola, “you know you own the best.” (more…)
Tonight I’ll be speaking with the Poughkeepsie Chapter of the Association For Computing Machinery. I’ve spoken at one of their meetings before, and thoroughly enjoyed it. You probably won’t find a room full of more powerful brains in the Hudson Valley. I’m taking the opportunity to discuss one of my favorite topics, the history of engineering and marketing. Here in the Hudson Valley, we’re in the historic stomping grounds – or at least the vicinity of a great deal of the history of the American Industrial Revolution. (more…)
It’s 2012. The President of the United States is of Kenyan descent. Theoretically, race should no longer be a hot-ticket conversation in the U.S. and other westernized countries, right? Wrong. Even in marketing, racism (though toned down) is still prevalent. Back in 2008, L’Oreal created an outrage with an advertisement that portrayed a much lighter-skinned Beyoncé. In the advertisement, not only does Beyoncé have blonde hair, her skin tone is clearly photoshopped to appear much lighter than her natural complexion. (more…)
Blog Posts by claudia
January 19th, 2012
An Inside Look at What the Newsweek Mad Men Advertising Issue Means
Ad Age wrote this week about how Newsweek is reviving its 1960s design for a special ‘Mad Men’ issue. At DragonSearch, we have been working on a whole introspective on old vintage advertisements in, oddly enough, our own “Mad Men” theme which has been running for quite a while. Now I have to admit that while I don’t watch Mad Men, I do have a good appreciation for most things retro and this one article (that basically advertises for ads in an upcoming issue of styled advertisements based on a TV show about advertisers – ha! say that ten times fast) says a whole lot about advertisement and marketing. What’s even more interesting is that while the article is about retro advertisements and Newsweek, this Ad Age piece says much more about marketing today. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Mad Men, Newsweek, Social Media, Vintage Advertising
Posted in Integrated Marketing, Mad Men - The Lost Episodes |
January 12th, 2012
This is part two of Social Media Integrations of 2012 where I discussed the hopeful future use of QR codes in advertising and beyond. Now I will discuss the integrations I would like to see made at Facebook.
The Most Needed Facebook Update Ever: Facebook Integration of Events, Places, Pages, and Communities
The third item on my integration wish list is for Facebook to merge their data sources. Right now information comes from far too many places:
Facebook Place Pages are fed into the Facebook database via Localeze. These are pumped in automatically and often are duplicates of a business or brand page on Facebook. While Facebook does have an internally mechanism to claim a Place page, having duplicate pages does dilute the activity and invites confusion to users . This also seems to confuse business owners, as I don’t often see place pages claimed by businesses! Granted one can claim a place page and then have it combined to their actual Brand page, but it’s not all that simple. Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Facebook, Future of Social Media, Social Media
Posted in Integrated Marketing, Social Media Marketing/Optimization Related, Social Networking Media |
January 6th, 2012
QR Codes in Advertising, Facebook and Beyond
It is pretty safe to say that I have integrated social media into my life. Social media permeates my work, my home, my family, and my social interactions. Even if I decide to take time offline, I still know the ways that I could be incorporating social media marketing into everything I do.
Being that I spend my days using social networking for business and personally, then reading about new technology and tools, I have put together a little list of things I would like to see. It’s not a case of full on social media predictions or a report of how Gary Vaynerchuck, Chris Brogan and Others think social media will change in 2012, but rather, improvements that IMHO, are really needed (AKA make my life a whole lot easier!). Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: Future of Social Media, QR codes, Social Media
Posted in Integrated Marketing, Social Media Marketing/Optimization Related, Social Networking Media |
December 28th, 2011
Once upon a time, it was considered perfectly acceptable for men to spank women, especially if the woman being spanked was that man’s wife.
This Chase and Sanborn Coffee ad is really advertising their form of a stay fresh lid that will keep their coffee ever so fresh. Rather than speak of the benefits of having fresher coffee, they threaten “woe be unto you” and visually show how perfectly coifed wives will be spanked by their husbands if their coffee is “flat or stale.” No matter how much one might adore their cup of joe, we do now wonder how the threat of bodily harm would inspire a person to choose one coffee brand over another. This vintage ad demonstrates the level of acceptance that society felt overall towards men who spank their wives and of spousal abuse in general, not so very long ago. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Integrated Marketing, Mad Men - The Lost Episodes |
November 23rd, 2011
The Subtle, Yet Emotional Dance Between Business Partners
Yes, it’s business and no, it’s not personal; but there really should be an emotional connection between a marketer and client. When I say emotional connection, I don’t mean that you have to get all over each other’s personal life and do dinner; but it’s a relationship and like all relationships, to be healthy, there needs to be a strong foundation. Relationships are between people – not between institutions – the companies might have the contract, but the people involved need to make it work.
Every relationship starts from a mutual demand or need for something. It’s not as cold and clear cut as your marketing company wants your business (and the money it brings in) and you need the marketing services (and the money it brings in). While a personal relationship, whether friendship or romantic might have very different needs than a professional relationship between internet marketers and a brand, the needs, such as more website traffic, or better search engine rankings or a more engaged social presences, should be clearly defined as a goal that both parties are actively working towards. Without that goal, the parties involved might very well be working towards opposite ends.
Read the rest of this entry »
Tags: business partnership, business relationship, relationship needs
Posted in About DragonSearch Related, Social Media Marketing/Optimization Related |
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