Category: Our News

[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

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.

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 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.

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.

In college, I took a class in Technical Writing that would forever change my approach to creative projects. In the class, my professor, let’s call her CP, used a unique approach to help us learn the core course concepts. Of course she’d explain the concepts in full and we’d discuss them. But rather than show us stellar examples from various works, CP utilized a technique she referred to as “Teaching off the Awful.” By studying various creative technical writing pieces that completely failed to execute on a core concept, we were solidifying our understanding of the idea at hand while simultaneously ensuring we would never make similar mistakes. It was genius!

Continue reading “5 Marketing Fails (and What They Can Teach Us)”

The infamous LIKE button. Now that it’s been around for 11+ years, what would we do without it, right?

For over 11 years we’ve been obsessed with this iconic little button and its power over human nature. I’m pretty sure the animal kingdom doesn’t really care about the LIKE button, but we humans, oh yeah, we sure do.

When reaching out to find and select the agency or firm who will assist you through your online presence, the question should come up as to which CMS is right for my services or products? Though most understand what a CMS is, there’s possibly a lack of knowledge as to which is right for you.

What is a CMS? Most people have experienced a CMS, maybe not by administering a website, but using social media and apps. Basically a CMS allows an individual to post content through an administration portal of some sort, whether a photo on Instagram, a video on YouTube or the limit of 140 characters on Twitter.

By Barb Henderson

On April 12, 2015, Martin Communications celebrated its 22^nd anniversary. As we noted the occasion within the office, we composed a list of 22 things that some people might not know about us: