Author: Martin Communications

“The media is the most powerful entity on Earth.” Malcom X summarizes April best, from big-time final season premieres airing, to comeback championships and more competitive streaming services, our industry continues to rule.

The Final Season is Here

Game of Thrones (GOT), aired on HBO, has become a top-tier television show. Their eighth and final season premiered earlier this month, and the ratings were record-breaking. A total of 17.4 million viewers tuned in to the season premiere alone. To compare how popular the show has become, their first season overall had roughly 9.3 million viewers per episode.

HBO told news sources that their April 14^th premiere was the biggest streaming night in HBO history. Even if you missed the premiere, social media users didn’t stay silent. Live tweeting and other social media posts poured onto every platform’s news feeds.

As the season continues to air each week, the number of viewers will continue to rise. An estimated 22 million people are expected to watch the series finale. Will you be watching?

Same Dream

Golfers across the world dream of winning a professional golfing tournament. Many dream of winning the Masters; they dream of putting on the symbolic green jacket in front of millions. Tiger Woods won his fifth Masters tournament in mid-April, totaling at fifteen professional golfing championships. Tiger’s past scandals have been on the radar since the first mishap in 2009. Since then, almost all his endorsements dropped him as a client, but one always stuck around; Nike.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kx9fadoL9oU

Moments following Tiger’s win, Nike, released a new video to their “Crazy Dream” campaign, titled “Same Dream” featuring the professional golfer in his past and present. Through his ups and downs, Nike stuck by Tiger’s side. Not only was Nike able to promote a campaign, sources believe that because of Tiger’s championship rebound, golf ratings will grow as the season continues.

Disney Enters the Streaming Business

Disney previously announced their new creation, Disney+, a streaming service that will have all Disney affiliated movies and television shows including Marvel and Star Wars. At this month’s Investor Day event, Disney announced the official Disney+ release date will be premiering this November.

Netflix and Hulu are two of the largest streaming services with a history of raising monthly costs, but Disney+ plans to “keep the price substantially below where services are.” Disney+ will cost a monthly fee of $6.99 or a yearly fee of $69.99, and be available on Roku, Amazon Firestick, AppleTV, and more.

As of now, Disney affiliated programs will still be available for streaming on Hulu and Netflix. Netflix will run until their current contract until it ends, unless they come up with a renewal agreement with Disney. On the other hand, Hulu is working with Disney to potentially create Marvel spin-off shows.

Sources: Ad Age, Toms Guide, CNN

The advertising and marketing world had a chaotic start to the new year. From Snapchat giving a check to big-name users, beer companies suing for advertisements, and another proposed idea to shorten baseball games, March’s creative industries weren’t silent.

Snapchat Becomes a New Source of Income

Among Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, Snapchat has become one of the leading social media platforms for Generation Z’ers and Millennials. With over 170 million users, verified accounts for creators and businesses, and fun ways to interact with each other, Snapchat decided online creators could earn money from the app just as they do on YouTube.

The first Snapchat creator to be paid was Cyrene Quicamco, a media influencer, sponsored by McDonald’s to promote the fast food chain’s new donut sticks. A quick seven second video and a few photos of the donut sticks earned her money in a quick, interactive way.

Some Snap users don’t seem to like this idea, but I don’t think Snapchat is worried about losing users. In fact, I think it’s going to gain more revenue and buzz for the business and might get other platforms talking.

As 2019 continues, I’ll be keeping an eye out for business Snapchat stories to see how many creators are being offered and taking advantage of this new pay opportunity.

Battle of the Brews

It’s no secret that Anheuser-Busch (AB) reinvented the average beer commercial. Their 2018 debut mid-evil Super Bowl commercial ads aired and the term “Dilly! Dilly!” begun chanting at football games and bars across the nation. This year, AB might not be shouting as loudly. Their 2019 Super Bowl commercials targeted their competitors, Miller Lite and Coors Light, by stating their competitor’s beer is brewed with corn syrup, while AB’s Bud Light is sweetened with rice. Because of this, Miller/Coors is suing AB for giving misleading information about their product and “plotting an extensive and persuasive advertising scheme”.  

The corn-syrup controversy has made its way onto social media. Miller/Coors has been tweeting to defend their beers, reiterating that they in fact, do not use high-fructose corn syrup in the ingredients. But this hasn’t stopped Bud Light’s official Twitter account from replying and creating even more buzz to the issue. What started as fun and games has turned into a media frenzy.

Is all this drama necessary? I don’t think so, and honestly, I’d rather drink a Yuengling.

MLB Wants to Strike Out Commercial Times

The Major League Baseball association (MLB) announced they are looking to increase the pace of baseball games by decreasing the time of middle inning and between inning commercial breaks. In summary, this would decrease commercial breaks from 2:25 to 2:00. This idea comes from the help of MLB Commissioner, Rob Manfred, who believes decreasing commercial breaks will create shorter baseball games and make them more enticing to watch. Though the MLB is pushing the idea, it must get approval from Fox and ESPN networks, as it will take a financial toll on each with a loss of ad revenue.

It’s no secret that baseball’s slower pace is causing a decline in engagement from some younger audiences. Baseball viewing has decreased within the past five years, specifically by younger ages. The average age of baseball viewers is 53, NFL is 47, and NBA is 37. It’s safe to say that younger people need to be more heavily involved with baseball again, or sports overall, but I don’t think cutting down television commercials is what will bring them back.

Shortening the length of baseball games was introduced before the 2018 season, and if unapproved this year, it makes me question whether MLB will continue to push for shorter commercial breaks for the 2020 season or investigate more ways of shortening games.

Sources: Ad Age, The Verge, CNN

Last year, the MC team let me have a run at our lovely blog to talk about how sometimes, despite the best intentions of the teams behind campaigns, ads fall flat on their faces. Sometimes they are irrelevant, sometimes they just fizzle off, and sometimes they fail so spectacularly, you can’t help but wonder what they heck the person who approved the ad was on. Luckily for us, the latter are very fun to talk about. Back for 2017, it’s more Marketing Fails and What They Can Teach Us.

Here are 4 ads that will make you cringe harder than that time I chewed on a frozen lemon while simultaneously running all of my fingernails down a chalkboard.

Continue reading “Marketing Fails IV: The Fail and the Furious”

Last year, I wrapped up my first year on the Martin blog by taking a break from making fun of bad ads to highlight some of my favorite Christmas ads from the year. The winner for me, and still one of my favorite Christmas ads of all time was Allegro’s English. This year, as I built my list, I got to thinking about that spot. The ad, from a Polish company, didn’t air in the US, but everyone I shared it with loved it.

Continue reading “Our Top 5 Favorite Christmas Ads from Around the World – 2017”

[Intense trailer guy voice] In a world…

Where everyone and everything is scrutinized under the magnifying glass of the internet…

One man will lead a marketing agency team to the brink of the failspace…

All to bring entertainment and joy to the readers of a blog.

This is that man. This is his story.

We’re back, with more marketing fails, and what they can teach us!

Crispy Criminals

Continue reading “Marketing Fails VII: Dawn of the Rise of the Planet of the Fails”

Social media is a fickle friend. One day, it can be the boon of your brand, and the next, it’s bust. This is the internet. Everything is forever, and once you blast your message out there, you lose all control over it. Sure, you can pull a Tweet or edit a Facebook post, but you can bet your bitcoin that somebody out there was smart enough to grab a screenshot.

I’m on a social kick right now, so this time, we’re focusing on three recent social media blunders and the lessons they can teach us.

Continue reading “3 Marketing Fails: Socially Inept”

The past few times I visited the Martin Communications blog, I encouraged all of you lovely readers to join me in gently poking fun at Scott Hoy and other bad ads, so that together, we could learn from their mistakes. As we wrap the year up, however, I wanted to do something a little different.

Continue reading “Our Top 5 Holiday Ads for 2016”

Marketing is hard. Just ask Scott Hoy. With increasingly short attention spans and an increasing number of ads affecting people each day, having your message heard among the noise is a challenge. In order to make their messages stand out from the crowd, some advertisers have taken HUGE risks. Some have paid off. Others have gotten the individuals and ad agencies who created them in hot water. These are the latter.

Continue reading “Marketing Fails III: Kickin’ Ads and Taking Blame”

A few months ago, Martin Communications was kind enough to let me take over the company blog for a day to extol the virtues of “Teaching off the Awful.” This approach to learning sees us taking valuable lessons away from terrible, terrible execution. In the end, you understand the concept or idea more clearly, because you’ve seen someone completely miss the mark.

Continue reading “6 More Marketing Fails (and What They Can Teach Us)”

Once a Marine always a Marine, as it’s said. I enlisted some time ago; from Jan 1985 to August 1989; it seems like yesterday. The duration was a total of four-and-a-half-years on active duty and during those years the possibility of being sent anywhere was inevitable. The military provided me the opportunity to see areas of the world that I wouldn’t have seen, but of all those travels, none have landed me on any soil of war or conflict.

Continue reading “Memorial Day 2016”