Keeping a campaign fresh and vibrant—and maintaining its breakaway status—is a major challenge. The competitive landscape is turbulent and consumer perceptions are constantly shifting. It takes courage and perseverance to sustain a breakaway campaign over decades. more

You might have the greatest show on Earth, but if no one knows about it, nobody will see it. For marketing many kinds of entertainment — from video games to live theater — here's what works best. more

Chris Maher is president of Fosforus, a business-to-business marketing, media, and interactive design firm based in Austin, Texas. Those of you who have read his writing on MarketingProfs know that Chris is a little different from your average agency guy. He beats a drum about real connections (not just marketing) ... more

Imagine a world where video, photography, text and music are all available from any device that can connect to the Internet at any time. Whether you're using your computer, iPod, television or mobile phone, you will have the information you need and the diversion you want. Such a fantasy world ... more

In his new book, According to Kotler, Phil Kotler gives a summary of the key principles of marketing and how they relate to current events such as corporate accounting scandals, outsourcing, globalization, warehouse shopping and online marketing. Here is an excerpt of it, based on the thousands of questions ... more

Successfully launching new products gets tougher every year. In the past decade, the number of new consumer products hitting the shelves has skyrocketed by 59 percent, making it much more difficult for new products to win consumer attention. If you've built a better mousetrap and plan to introduce it into ... more

Most people's concept of advertising is limited to the (sometimes woeful) ads they see on TV, or the billboards they drive past. Seeing these, they automatically assume that effective advertising is out of their reach. This couldn't be farther from the truth. Pound for pound, Google AdWords offers everyone, from ... more

This week, our regularly featured "SWOT Team" column gets a new name as it becomes the weekly "Marketing Challenge" column. In it, a reader asks: How do I create a big splash on little cash? Readers respond with four excellent approaches. Also this week, suggest your own answers to ... more

In search engine pay-per-click advertising, the unscrupulous use of a competitor's trademarked terms is a murky business and contentious topic. With a seemingly anonymous perpetrator, it's a relatively easy offense—and sets off a torrent of trademark-infringement concerns for many companies. more

Marketers everywhere are tasked with finding out about causation: "Is this advertising causing people to buy more of our lemonade?" "Is our new viral marketing effort causing our brand awareness to increase?" "Would having blonde hair cause me to have more fun?" It's virtually impossible to answer questions about causality ... more

This week, add your own two cents to the following dilemma: How do you go about promoting a product on a global scale? Also this week, read your answers to a previous week's question: What do you do when an initial marketing campaign isn't flying? more

Recently, search engine revenues have rocketed, with pay-per-click advertising providing much of the fuel for growth. The other side of the coin: advertisers have been using PPC keyword advertising to meet their marketing objectives. But even with such heightened competition, there may be untapped, hidden opportunities for online marketers interested ... more

Online communities have been around for years, but we now have more tools for building them. The options include Weblogs (blogs), wikis, forums (bulletin boards), email discussions and online chats. Each has its strengths and weaknesses. Which one best suits your needs? Also this week, read your suggestions for the previous ... more

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