Advertising and Marketing Insights

  • Marketing Fails VII: Dawn of the Rise of the Planet of the Fails

    [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…

  • 3 Marketing Fails: Socially Inept

    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…

  • Our Top 5 Holiday Ads for 2016

    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.

  • Marketing Fails III: Kickin’ Ads and Taking Blame

    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…

  • 6 More Marketing Fails (and What They Can Teach Us)

    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…