I recently caught a tantalizing tidbit in a food industry newsletter and followed it to its source. An titled "An herbal drink from Coca Cola?" from the Austin American-Statesman, states that Coca Cola is up to something big. Really "For months, the Atlanta-based drinks giant has been working quietly to ... more

The early on how much a 30-second ad in the next Super Bowl will cost. TV advertising isn't dead -- although content may be time-shifted via DVR, internet video, and mobile downloads, some programs just aren't any good when they're not A weekly sitcom or drama is like a can ... more

Starting up a social network to support any business can be a challenge. These days it seems that there are a variety of new social networks popping up all over. To that end I have heard a new acronym YASN (Yet Another Social But to fill this demand many new ... more

This headline, sent to me by a colleague, appeared in a recent issue of the Wall Street "Should You Outsource Your Company Blog?" Like most questions addressed in communications, marketing and other similar fields, the answer is -- Maybe. It 1. If the company doesn't have a communications or a ... more

Just happened to catch an interesting short new infomercial on TV. Anthony Kennedy came on the tube, and as we all know, he hawks quite a few consumer products. But something about this commercial really got my attention. "Did you know that the leading household cleaners consist of up to ... more

In today's is an ad and a few articles referencing our upcoming Digital Marketing , which takes place this October in Scottsdale, Arizona. I'm pretty excited about the event itself, because the content offers a solid grounding in the Big Three of online marketing. Covering Email, Search, and Social Media, ... more

So, I got asked this question on a call today with a fellow social media experts, and I just had to blog about the ensuing In reality if you look at the Latin origins of the word social it would most likely have a definition akin to the free give ... more

This is my first blog post on MarketingProfs Daily Fix. I'm starting a regular series here highlighting marketing by the numbers. Hope you enjoy it and I'm looking forward to the discussion. the number of advertising messages an average American consumer sees every About a year ago, I was having ... more

Are men the "next big thing" for marketers? According to an AdWeek , it would seem so. Does this mean we should throw our women's market knowledge out the window and shift attention completely toward I'd say not. Instead, the research and experts cited in that piece seem to suggest ... more

When a journalist takes on a company, brand, individual or other entity -- they are protected by the big media companies that employ them. Bloggers, not so much. Leslie Richards is learning this lesson the hard She runs a small organic clothing store, Oko , and writes a blog that ... more

Behavioral targeting has caught the attention of the US congressional leaders, as privacy advocates grow concerned with the tremendous amount of web data collected by internet businesses such as ISPs and search engines. Consumers, lawyers, congressional leaders, and businesses are now opining regarding necessary disclosures and the appropriateness of targeting ... more

Any teacher can tell you that students have three basic learning channels: auditory (written and spoken words); visual (pictures and graphics); and kinesthetic (hands-on activities). If you had to choose your preferred channel for online communication, you'd probably pick verbal communication. But, says Rick Sloboda of Webcopyplus, only 20 percent ... more

A recent NPR profiled an intriguing artist and entrepreneur named Justin Gignac. In that story, titled "Treasure or Trash? Artist Says It's in the Packaging," Gignac puts forth a persuasive While an intern at MTV, Gignac relates that he engaged in a discussion with his fellow workers. One of them ... more

For years, classic brand strategy has always been about the creation of a single message that can be used with all of your constituents; investors, employees, senior management and customers about who you are and what value your company provides. Brand managers tend to write it up and paste it ... more

I'm attending the Inbound Marketing September 8th in Cambridge, MA, listening to the likes of Seth , David Meerman , Greg , Chris , Christopher S. , Mike , and many others. And, as it happens, there may be something in it for My friends at are offering TWO extra ... more

Why is it that so many Webinars are bad? The technology makes it easy, but that doesn't mean that the presenter is good, the content valuable, or the topic of interest. I signed up for an association Webinar on marketing communications this week. I bugged out early. Want to know ... more

A Pro Membership at MarketingProfs includes access to case studies that examine a new story of marketing success each week. A recent example—written by Kimberly Smith—looks at Tripmela, a site that aggregates and broadcasts travel bargains to India through a weekly "10 Best Deals" newsletter. In the study's Quick Read ... more

Ardath Albee has a word for the marketing copy that loiters at your website without any clear goals or ambition: Unemployed. "[C]ontent, to be of value to anyone, must do something," she says in a post at her Marketing Interactions blog. In other words, it should have a job. According to ... more

The microblogging platform Twitter has had anything but a relaxing summer, plagued as it has been by outages, brownouts, disabilities, and new competition in the form of and others. But still, brands continue to invest time and energy building connections and communities Take a look at this impressive list of ... more

There's been a whole lot written about why calling an online video "viral" doesn't make it Scott did an excellent take on it a few weeks back. But what I wanted to point out here is that those videos that do go "viral" often aren't what the ad industry's narrow ... more

Why are some Buzz Marketing programs better than others? What makes one program more Buzz worthy than These questions and more are why I interviewed Jim Calhoun the CEO of Popular for his advice on how to really make your Buzz Marketing programs So what's Jim's advice on how to ... more

A recent points out that "Nutraceuticals May Be Near Tipping Point in the U.S." While the average American is spending $90 per year on functional health ) foods and beverages to the tune of a whopping $27 billion last year, the Center for Culinary Development and Packaged Facts claim that ... more

File Sharing is very binary .... either you share a file online or you don't. Well not anymore! .... enter Drop.io allows consumers to create their own private online spaces where they can easily and privately share photos, videos, documents, and other types of media with others. By default, drops ... more

Beyond key words, beyond placement tactics, there is one unchangeable Golden Rule of SEO for content, according to Ray "Catfish" Comstock: Once you create online content, don't move it. "I used to think that this was obvious," Comstock says. "… But I found that there are many clients that still do ... more

Truvia. Remember that name. It's a natural, no-calorie sweetener derived from compounds found in the leaves of an herb called stevia. Agribusiness giant Cargill is about to roll out Truvia, which is being positioned as a natural alternative to artificial sweeteners. D'Agostino markets in Manhattan will debut the product shortly. ... more