Summer is here and everyone gets excited about a road trip! This had us thinking, how does the road trip compare to your customer journey? Whether you’re driving across the country, or just to warmer weather – there’s always an attraction or scenic overlook along the way to capture the perfect road trip selfie. These pit stops add to the memories and the journey along the way. As marketers, we like to add to the journey (even the pit stop selfie) to make a brand impression, conversion or create a loyal follower.

I recently spoke at the WPEngine summit on creating a digital experience platform and making the most of your digital presence. Much like a road trip, your customers make stops along the way before they reach their destination! With new tools and technologies emerging every day, I’ve rounded up 4 of my favorite tools to use to enhance your customer’s experience and learn from their journeys:

Have another tool or tip that adds to the journey? Drop us a line, we’d love to hear about it! Did we mention that Yalo offers FullStory for digital experience intelligence that leads to deeper engagement and conversion? We just did!

In today’s frenetic, fast-paced B2B sales environment, it can be hard to ensure that your sales team is having the right conversations with their prospects to deliver value and drive deals forward. The biggest impediment seems easy, but in reality is a complex problem to solve: equipping sales with the right content based on their unique prospects and specific selling situation.

Odds are, your organization already has some form of sales enablement in place, as 80% of organizations with sales teams bigger than ten people currently use sales enablement tools and practices, according to research from Highspot. But are you getting the best results from your efforts?

Here are 5 ways to shore up your sales enablement:

1. Reduce the Time Sales Spends on Non-Selling Activities

This seems a little straightforward, but most organizations have multiple portals or tools where sales reps are supposed to go to find what they need, and reps are spending between four to eight hours a week just searching for the right marketing content to send their prospects. The Sales Enablement Lab podcast is a great place to listen and learn how focusing sales on revenue producing activities and allowing marketing to gain better insight into content usage and impact.

2. Map Sales Enablement to the Customer Journey

We operate in industries with long buying cycles, this is just a fact of life. For example, the average lifespan for an ERP system is between 5-10 years and the buying cycle can be 12-18 months long, this timescale will not shorten in the foreseeable future. These solutions come at a great cost to an organization, and when you are making a decision that will affect the company for 5-10 years you will be dealing with highly informed buyers.

By mapping out the sales enablement strategy to mirror the customer journey you can arm your sales representatives with the content they need to match the customer’s current life cycle stage. Using automation you can drip feed information to your awareness stage prospects until they are sales ready, allowing your sales team to focus their efforts on closing decision stage prospects, without letting any leads go cold.

3. Give Your Team Easy Access to Content

The fact is, 90% of content goes unused by sales, according to the American Marketing Association. This is largely because sales simply can’t find it. Is your sales enablement system flexible? Can your content be organized in a meaningful way for your sales team in one centralized library? Flexible content organization and content recommendations based on performance, informed by your marketing automation platform, help keep conversations on point and accelerate conversions. 

4. Integrate Sales Enablement Across the Company

Sales enablement requires input from multiple teams, not just the sales department. Throughout the entirety of your customer’s life cycle, it is inevitable that they will come in contact with many departments, much more than just the sales and marketing teams. This means that in order to create long-lasting relationships with happy customers and to secure repeat purchase it becomes essential to deliver a consistent customer experience across all contact points.

By implementing a consistent sales enablement program business wide you can ensure that everyone in the organization has been empowered to support the core sales team with the ability to align the right resources to the right prospect. Each department understands their role in ensuring the right information, tools and subject matter can be delivered in a way which is relevant to each selling situation.

When sales and marketing teams work together harmoniously, companies typically see 36% higher customer retention and 38% higher close rates.

5. Use Technology to Accelerate Success

Many sales departments don’t have the time or resources to evaluate and implement new technology. And yet, the right technology solution can help them be more effective in hitting their numbers and closing deals. This is an area where marketing can step in and help. As you’re vetting, deploying, and implementing best-of-breed solutions, consider what applications, features, or solutions can help sales prioritize leads  and work more efficiently and effectively, driving results across the entire organization.

Having a platform in place that enables data-driven analysis of what content, strategies, and processes are most effective in various situations lifts the performance of the entire sales team. This applies to them sharing insights with your marketing team as well. 

Learn more about how you can empower your sales team by contacting Yalo – we have a whole team of technologists, business analysts and salespeople who can help you win more business within which industry you compete.

The great thing about podcasts is that they provide an entertaining alternative to visual media. In fact, studies show that the brain is more active while listening to podcasts than when watching television. Whether you want to learn about entertainment, history, applied sciences, money, or any number of other topics, there’s a podcast out there to teach you.

You can find and download top podcasts from such places as iTunes and Stitcher, as well as in apps like Downcast and Pocket Casts.

Here are 10 great podcasts to get you started:

Here are some of the current statistics for podcasting in 2021:

• Over 55% of the US population have listened to a podcast
• In 2020 over 155 million people listen to a podcast every week
• Around 24% of the US population (68 million) listen to multiple podcasts weekly
• Podcast listeners consume an average of seven different shows per week
• There are over 700,000 active podcasts and 29 million podcast episodes available
• The most popular age group for podcasts listeners is 25-44 which make up 49% of total listeners

source

As the podcast trend continues to grow each year, one thing is clear: human beings love to listen to each other talk.

Ready to grow your audience online? Yalo offers many creative Design & Development services for 21st century eyes and ears. Let us help.

To usher in your post-pandemic normal, the Yalo Tribe has released its yearly Summer Reading List. Whether you’ll be traveling or lounging at home, summer is a great time to catch up on your reading and gain some expertise. Be it fiction, biography, self-help, or thought leadership any genre of book can give you a more well-rounded point of view. Here are the books that are piquing our interest this summer:

We hope you have a wonderful kick off to Summer 2021!

If you’re curious, meet the readerly Yalo team of creatives, developers and designers who put this list together on Our Tribe page. And although they’re not literature, biography or essay per se, we think our Marketing Communications services are letter-perfect and a great way to deliver brand messaging for our valued clients.

It was an unforgettable year. A sentiment lost on no one, especially those in the financial services industry. So when Credigy, a global specialty finance company, tapped us to help with the end-of-year mailer for their partners, we knew it had to balance the tumultuous year of COVID-19 without focusing on the past. People, our clients included, were looking forward to a fresh start. 

Not only did the gift in our mailer need to be unique and engaging, but we faced logistical issues of longer lead times for product and shipping, as well as recipients who were working remotely. As Credigy worked to track down home addresses, Yalo worked with them to cycle through ideas, lock in the appropriate gift and design a customized mailer around it. 

We started early—real early. Ideation began in September with final designs and product and packaging orders being placed mid-October. We landed, pun intended, on a smart-controlled remote paper airplane. It was light-hearted and unique, but also reinforced the message of Credigy going alongside its partners during their journey.

A socially-distanced packing party was conducted the week after Thanksgiving. Each box also contained a hand-written card from an individual on the Credigy Investment team. All 80 mailers shipped the first week of December across 40+ cities coast-to-coast with some as far as Canada. 

Not only did these mailers arrive well before the holiday crunch, but they received high praise for such a creative and memorable gift that could be used by adults—and their kids. Positive reaction and increased inbound traffic has rolled well into 2021 as a result of these mailers. 

From atmospheric Marketing Communications to jet-streamed creative designs and out-of-the-box concepts, Yalo delivers for our customers time and again. How can we help your next effort to be the success it deserves to be? Let’s talk!

You are pretty much guaranteed to impress your audience when you immerse them into a 360° panoramic video experience. But if you are putting forth the effort to produce one of these wow-factor video presentations, you want it to be a home-run with bases loaded and not just a base hit, right?

Here’s a few small things that you should be doing that will make a huge impact on your audience’s overall video experience. Let’s knock it out of the ballpark!

1.    Add Background Music

If your video doesn’t include natural sounds or narration (we will get to that in a second), then we highly recommend that you at least add some sort of instrumental background music or maybe a song that ties in with your brand or message.  Watching videos with no audio are much more boring and you are more likely to lose the interest of your viewer much quicker.

2.    Voiceover/Narration

Videos which include a professionally recorded voiceover that goes along with what the viewer is actually seeing has a much greater impact. Don’t just show people, get as many of the senses involved as possible – tell them what they are looking at too! But give them just enough information to convince them to come to your doorstep for the full in-person experience.

3.    Lights, Camera, ACTION!

There’s such a huge difference in watching a video of an empty space versus one buzzing with activity!  Sometimes, an empty space makes more sense but for the most part – showing people what an area looks like with action is much more captivating and makes it easier for them to envision themselves within your space which is the ultimate goal – to get them there.  So, don’t show them a boring version of your area – show them with action.

4.  The Talent

And it’s not a bad idea to “stage” the video shoot with people who are great at following direction, natural on camera and are very animated (yet not over the top). If you can hire “extras” for the day to be your “talent” – this is the best way to go to get the most out of your production. Professionals make it more professional, it’s that simple.

5.    Smooth Operator

If you have a camera operator who isn’t steady with your camera with smooth and fluid movement through a space, it is not going to be nearly as impressive as one that does. Watching videos that are not professionally produced can even make you a bit dizzy. Of course, at times a more raw feel to the shooting style makes sense for an authentic experience, for example in extreme sports. But overall, a smooth camera operator can up the production value and overall the end user experience exponentially.

At Digital Yalo, we specialize in creating compelling 360° video panoramic experiences. Contact us today to strategize with our team for your own dynamic project. Let us help you bring a larger audience to your doorstep!

Is Your Social Media Messaging Good Enough?

Does it make a difference what and how you post on social media? Don’t you just need to maintain a presence? Or if you do not have a presence, then how do you know the right message is getting out there to your target audience? In reality, it’s all about emotion, quantity and speed. Your company’s social messages Do make a difference, because business social media is exploding.

The Social Media Explosion

How fast are social networks growing?

• Percentage of users ages 16-64 who are increasing social media use – 43%
• Annual growth in total number of social media users – 10.5% =376 million

Across age groups, where are the commercial uses for social networks:

• Discovering brands/products via ads on social – 27%
• Discovering brands/products via recommendations on social – 24%
• Researching products online via social – 43%

Simultaneous to audience growth, information being added to the Internet will grow from 4.4 billion GB per day in 2016 to 463 billion GB per day in 2025 (IDC estimate). With exploding users and content projected to grow a 100-fold per day, how do you differentiate your messaging to gain, maintain and grow followers, engagement and sales? How do you make sure your content influences and accelerates through the Internet, so you get your “share of eyeballs?”

Social Media Diffusion

Information diffusion is how fast data is moving through a network. It has been studied extensively in social, physical and computational sciences. Research in word of mouth and viral marketing has been documented in business literature. With the emergence of social media, new communication techniques have been explored such as: SMS, weblogs, picture-sharing portals and online communities. The following research considers the variables that effect the diffusion on information on social networks.

Sentiment and Social Media Quantity and Speed

Steiglitz and Xuan conducted research on the effect of emotion on political tweets. This research analyzed 64,432 tweets posted one week before two German state parliament elections. They proved the following hypotheses:

• The larger the total amount of sentiment (positive or negative) a political Twitter message exhibits, the more often it is retweeted.
• The larger the total amount of sentiment (positive or negative) a political Twitter message exhibits, the shorter is the time lag to the first retweet.

Using supervised learning (regression) the study considered: 

Dependent variables

• Number of times the tweet has been retweeted
•  Time lag between the tweet and the first retweet

Independent variables

• Total amount of sentiment
• Number of hashtags
• URL inclusion
• # of user’s followers
• Number of tweets posted during the sample period activity.

The regression models’ coefficients indicated that for every unit increase in negative words there was a 6% increase in retweets(pg. 238). Likewise, for every unit increase in positive words there was a 4% increase in retweets. An important hypothesis they were not able to prove:

• The association between sentiment and retweet time lag is stronger for tweets with negative sentiment than those with positive sentiment.

Sentiment and Social Media Predictability

Ashan and Kumari researched 20,000 tweets on the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The analysis considered the impact of sentiment along with the following environmental factors in predicting information diffusion:

• URL’s
• Hashtags
• Number of followers
• Account age
• Tweet age
• # User created tweets

Using two different regression approaches, analysis was completed determining the independent variables that provided the best model predictability. As seen below, in each model sentiment content was included and provided a significant increase in predictability.

Including the sentiment content significantly improves the predictability of social media performance and is enhanced with the ability to consider hashtags.

Sentiment and Positivity

Ferrara and Yang conducted a study of 19 million tweets with the following distribution:

Their findings indicated that positive tweets reach a larger audience and are shared more often. As tweet score becomes more positive, the number of retweets, favorites and seconds to first retweet increases at an accelerated rate.

Just how much of a difference does positivity make:

• Positive tweets are favorited 5 times the rate of negative tweets.
• Positive tweets are retweeted 2.5 time faster than neutral or negative tweets.

So What? – Words Make a Difference

These are the key findings on sentiment content:

• Sentiment content increases the quantity of social media traffic and its speed through social media channels
• Sentiment contentm, used in addition to environmental factors, improves the predictability of social media diffusion
• Increased positive sentiment content increases social media acceptance and diffusion (spread and shares)

At Yalo, we feel that your words really make a difference. There are many environmental factors that also need to be considered. With these environmental factors we have varied levels of control; however it comes to how we share content we have complete control. Control of what we share and also how we share it! Sentiment analysis from Yalo is the tool to tune content delivery for influencing followers and customers, as well as for analyzing social media traffic that reflects and responds to brand image.

Interested in this fascinating new Yalo marketing-communications and analytics service? Curious how it could be applied towards your business goals? Let’s have a conversation for nuanced understanding.

Taco Bell toilet Paper? Printing money from your phone? We love a great April Fool’s joke. 

But we love April Fool’s Day even more when companies strike the right tone and execution in delivery of a hoax to put a smile on our faces, rather than making us look like a fool. When done right, April Fool’s Day is a perfect opportunity for brands to increase consumer engagement and deepen reach. 

No fooling, here are five of our favorite, well-thought-out brand activations to celebrate the day created to add some levity into the world and poke-fun at ourselves.  

Party In The Sky WestJet #FlyreFestival

Out of the ashes of Fyre Festival came WestJet’s Flyre Festival. Offering the world’s first premium in-flight music festival. The cheese sandwiches are on you though.

Out-Of-This-World Whiskey 

Taking the trend of aged whiskey to new heights, Jameson introduced triple-distilled whiskey – matured in Ireland and finished in outer space. The brand was so dedicated to pulling-the-wool over our eyes, they actually sent a bottle 110,000 feet above earth. 

Tinder Height Verification Badge

No one likes to get burned by misleading dating app profiles, so Tinder fooled us all in thinking it had created a solution to the biggest lie told on its app – height! Tinder trolled users by announcing plans to introduce a height verification badge. “Simply input your true, accurate height with a screenshot of you standing next to any commercial building. We’ll do some state-of-the-art verifying and you’ll receive your badge directly on your profile”.

The Rosetta Stone – Learn to Speak Klingon

Many a Star Trek fan has marveled at their friends who seem to speak Klingon as fluently as they speak English, German, Italian, or French. Now with this complete Klingon software package you will be able to express your thoughts safely and effectively in Klingon and master the conversational skills required to conduct negotiations, request medical assistance and partake in the rich Klingon culture. 

Money on Your Phone

Who wouldn’t love to print money from your phone? In the UK, PayPal tricked us all by announcing a new feature to turn your phone into a mobile ATM. Got us? We were fooled. 

Do you have any brand antics up your sleeve this year? Or perhaps you’d like to pull-off a similar stunt to one of these you’ve just read and you need assistance devising a concept? Making people laugh is one of our core competencies – let’s brainstorm some clever content and get your team laughing all the way to the bank! Contact us here to get started.

Being consistent for brands has never been more rewarded than in our current, challenging and changing world. But consistency doesn’t and shouldn’t equal boring. 

Companies and brands have a significant opportunity to drive deeper consumer action, loyalty, and advocacy to create a foolproof brand to stay relevant and increase reach no matter what happens in the world. 

Here are five tips to be consistent and create bolder, deeper and foolproof brand engagements:

Color Me Brand: Take the time for a mini brand visual and verbal refresh. Update your color palette for this Spring and Summer to use across social media and advertising. Feature bold, vibrant colors to welcome spring and wake up your feed. Bold colors visually announce a new beginning and are a subtle way to re-energize your visual assets to re-engage your customers. 

Can We Talk? Spend some time asking your customers what’s on their mind. Listen. Respond with smart, deliberate content that lets them know you hear them. Foolproof brands realize it isn’t about them, but about their customers. Start including a quick survey in your social media strategy to direct your content. Don’t be afraid to address the issues that matter to you and your customers. 

Entertain Me: A joke. A good playlist. A virtual cocktail party. Smart brands create a mix of ongoing engagement opportunities to bring their brand personality to life and entertain their customers.   

Surprise Surprise! Nothing drives stronger engagement than an unexpected surprise. Make it a practice to surprise customers in big and small ways. Go beyond liking a post of user-generated-content and ask the creator to collaborate with your brand instead. Go old-school and send a snail mail, well thought-out, curated, box of branded goodness. 

Socially Acceptable: Foolproof brands know that you must continuously evolve to engage with your customers. TikTok and Clubhouse are two social platforms bold brands need to be a part of and have an active presence. Partner with emerging artists and musicians to stay current and always evolve your brand engagements. 

If you are ready to take bold action, our creative team is at the ready…no foolin’.

See examples of our bold branding finesse for clients on this page. Connect with us today and let’s get your brand boosted and blooming like nobody’s business.

March Madness is making a return! According to the NCAA, fans will be present for every round of the men’s tournament. Though, only later rounds of the women’s tournament will have spectators, starting with the Sweet 16. 

Teams and fans usually travel around the country. Yet, for the first time, all games will be held primarily in one city.  The men’s tournament will take place in Indiana and the women will play in San Antonio.  Arenas will be at as much as 25 percent capacity for the men’s games and 17 percent for the women’s, with masks, social distancing and testing in place for entry.

When the announcement was made that the men’s tournament would take place in Indiana, a poll was done by a local Indiana outlet, IndyStar. IndyStar sports ran a 24-hour Twitter poll asking: “If the NCAA were to allow fans for the tournament, would you feel comfortable — COVID-19-wise — going?”

Nearly half of more than 500 respondents, 48%, answered “absolutely.” Another 29% said it “depends on the rules/capacity.” And 23% replied “no way.”  In a similar Facebook poll, 54.3% said “absolutely,” 38.2% answered “no way,” and 7.5% said it depends on rules and capacity.

Capacity will include all participants, essential staff, up to six family members of each participating team’s athletes and coaches. The number of fans will also be reduced. All fans must wear face coverings and physically distance during the event. Thorough cleaning, disinfecting and safety measures will be a priority in all venues.

For players, before arriving in Indianapolis, everyone must have seven consecutive negative COVID-19 tests. If any of the tests yield a positive result, the person will not be allowed to attend the tournament until he has completed a period of self-isolation.

Although the setup and precautions look promising, only time will tell if this ends up being a successful strategy. This is a good but bold move by the NCAA.  Coming off the cancellation of the tournament in 2020, the NCAA had to adjust their approach to regain the excitement for its biggest event.  With the tournament rapidly approaching, we recently completed a website to help a client drive brand awareness during the tournament. Need help with your brand awareness? Pass us the ball and we’ll take a shot!

Sonic branding (also sometimes called audio branding, or sound branding) is the strategic use of sounds and music to reinforce brand identities, just as you would with certain colors or words.

In an age of information overload, consumers are demanding a break from screens. A recent report into Gen Z and millennials by Spotify found that 56% believe that audio can serve as a welcome break from too much visual stimulation. We can see this in the explosion of podcasting, audiobooks and voice assistants. You can simply look at the meteoric rise of Clubhouse to see how audio is making an impact.

Adding sound or music to your brand brings another dimension to your brand experience as it produces additional layers of emotional response that images cannot reproduce. It breaks through the rational part of your brain and resonates on a more emotional level.

Startups and small businesses with limited resources are often overshadowed by competition from big companies with larger financial resources. These businesses are now incorporating affordable yet effective sound marketing solutions such as jingles, tones, music on hold, background music, podcasts, and announcements to promote brand awareness, communications, and customer satisfaction.

Just like any other form of marketing, sound branding needs to be unique. As audio becomes a more crucial part of marketing, a personalized brand voice is incredibly valuable to your business. Before anything, think about the kind of sound that best represents your company because, beyond your visual logo, a consistent tone of voice is what helps to drive familiarity with your customers.

Hear them here: Top 10 Most Recognizable Brand Audio Logos. 

1. Nationwide
2. Farmers Insurance
3. Intel
4. Green Giant
5. Hot Pockets
6. McDonalds
7. Chevy
8. Folgers
9. Statefarm
10. T-Mobile

Developing an audio logo may be the next logical step for companies looking to take their brand to the next level. Doesn’t this sound like a great idea? According to DesignRush, Yalo is one of the Top Atlanta Digital Marketing Agencies. So, let Yalo turn up the volume on your brand.

So, let Yalo turn up the volume on your brand. Make some noise in our direction and we’ll get right back to you.

“Got a Rizla?” You might not have heard of it. I had not until I came across the company in a recent edition of the Economist. What really grabbed my attention was how the article compared Rizla to enduring brands like Coca-Cola, Google, Jacuzzi, or Tupperware, whose name defines the product. 

History, design, values, consistent quality – characteristics marketers look at that make brands truly unique. Let’s explore how a cigarette rolling paper company exploits these characteristics to dominate their industry and maintain a tribe-like loyalty in a business that comes with certain baggage.

Don’t have an illustrious origin story? Make one up! “The original…since 1796”. You can find that on the underside of their packaging still. Folklore and generational history have tied the Napoleon era forever to the Rizla history. They remind you of it every time you see the product and the brand. These origin stories: real, imagined—or a bit of both—are powerful plays to help establish and make your brand stand out.

Give people a sneak peek of your secret sauce. Another example is the heavily guarded and super-secret formula of Coca-Cola for over 125 years. They have taken this origin story to another level letting you get as close as you can to the formula in the vault at the World of Coca-Cola experience.

Create unique connections with your brand. The Rizla design is iconic and mysterious. With nods back to original material used to make the rolling papers – rice, and the ode to the founder Peter LaCroix. The logo has been used in a variety of creative formats at the various music festivals and racing events they sponsor. If you want an iconic brand, have a great story and make sure your brand emotes a certain set of values that your customers and fans connect with on a deeper level.

Get to know your customer’s likes and obsessions. Rizla’s customer base is obsessed over attention to detail and a certain sense of irreverence. Their base also shares similar language, looks, and taste that make it a great way to reach them. Really understanding your customer base, why they choose you, and what makes them tick are distinct and personal sets of information that are critical to building the brand and ultimately turning your customer base into ambassadors of your brand. Maybe that software company with the fruit logo or the coffee company near them come to mind. Yes they are juggernauts but they have applied these principles almost religiously to get where they are.

Ultimately what you sell or provide has to be good. “Keep rolling with the World’s #1” has to have some merit or your brand will be a “paper tiger.” (Pun intended)

A crafty story. An authentic design. Customer intimacy. A good product. Nice little checklist to make your brand standout. Give us a shout! We would love to Rock-n-ROLL with your brand!

We are always thinking about your customer journey. Creating the marketing plays to gain brand awareness yards with your customers and the ones you are trying to reach. Using a football field as a tangible visual, we tie each customer journey to the downs we complete as we move towards the end zone. The “touchdown” becomes increased awareness and engagement of your brand, your products and your people.

Outlining the journey visually is critical. It helps keep your team focused on goals. It can be created for personas, campaigns and channels to track impact and reach of each marketing tactic. I personally like to map the journey to find inspiration in testing new tactics or reaching a new segment.

Think of your journey map as an exercise to document the various ways your customers find you—high engagement, targeted, digital, segment or persona-based. Follow along as we outline the field zones and what to consider in building your customer journey.

Coming Out: Traffic

Generating traffic is the first step in the customer journey. Attracting your target customers—or fans—to your brand. These tactics can start simple and build over time to foster awareness. The first zone should focus on market targets, geographies and demographics to reach customers who are ready to start the journey with you.

Recommended Plays: Display Ads, Value Add Content, Press, Social

Open Field: Interest

Generating interest as a marketer is the best place on the field to learn from your potential customers. As your customers make the journey down the field, you execute tactics to reach them at the right time and place. The marketplace is noisy but placing the right content at the right time is fun. There are multiple touchpoints happening through the open field zone. Make sure your analytics are in place to measure and report what plays are working, and which ones might be out of practice. 

Recommended Plays: Retargeting Ads, Personalized Content, A/B Testing

Take a Shot: Action

At this point on the field, your customer is aware, interested and taking action. You will have an idea of the customer type and now it’s time to switch from marketing to a sales conversion focus. Your messaging and content should be specific to the persona highlighting the benefits and solutions you offer.

Recommended Plays: Personalized Content, Meetings & Zoom (B2B), Promotions (B2C)

Red Zone: Active Selling

You’ve made it to the red zone, arguably the most exciting zone of the game! Now is the chance to shine and focus on converting to a touchdown. All tactics at this point should be focused on personalization and user experience. Whether you’re B2B or B2C, your customer journey should map the lead experience, your MVP, to point of sale.

Recommended Plays: Great Product, Customer Service, Easy User Experience

If your customer journeys have grown weary in a more traditional format, test out our football field for mapping your next customer journey! It’s a strategic, yet simple document for current state–tying activities together for visibility and inspiration for future goal state. Drop our team a line if you want to chat further on mapping your customer journey, but we’re also open to have a few beers and chat football too.

The evolution of the Super Bowl commercial has been one of the most interesting things to watch in pop culture since the mid-1980s.

Movie stars and cultural references have always been around. But ever since Apple debuted its 1984 Super Bowl commercial, ads have trended in the direction of Hollywood storytelling.

One explanation for this new trend is that people are growing tired of the ‘hard-sell.’

Marketers have moved away from continuously blasting the product name, and its attributes. Instead, they’ve turned to cinematic ads that focus on the viewing experience, and the cultural connection movies generate between seller and buyer.

The following cinematic ads feature vivid imagery, interesting story-lines and encourage viewers to turn up the volume rather than intuitively hitting mute.

Dundee – Tourism Australia

In the weeks leading up to the 2018 Super Bowl, fans of Crocodile Dundee were surprised to find IMDb pages popping up online. Unexpected trailers dropped for what appeared to be a reboot of the film with a stellar cast comprised of Danny McBride, Chris Hemsworth, Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Margot Robbie, and Isla Fisher. In reality, there was no movie. Viewers were actually watching a campaign from Droga5 for Tourism Australia.

Nacho Fries Movie Themed Series – Taco Bell

Taco Bell released a series of movie-themed spots as part of their Nacho Fries Campaign. Their most recent one is a horror-style ad called “The Craving.” Stranger Things actor Joe Kerry’s fry-obsessed character leaves his love interest, Sarah Hyland, behind as he goes on a quest.

The first movie-themed spot called “Web of Fries” came out in 2018 and was a two-part campaign that starred Josh Duhamel. The first spot came out in January and the second one later that year in June.  In January 2019, James Marsden took over in a space odyssey, “Nacho Fries: Retrieval.” The following June, Darren Criss was featured in a riff on music biopics called “Chasing Gold.” Then in February 2020, the Nacho Fries campaign did a spoof on a buddy action flick called “Supply & Demand”.

Connecting Flights – Sears Appliances

In this 2013 movie-trailer commercial, Connecting Flights shows how sometimes you fall in love. Sometimes you run into it. What looks to be a fun and quirky romantic comedy about two bloggers, Eddie and Shannon, turns out to be a Christmas campaign for Sears Appliances.

Opening Title Sequences – NFL

To celebrate the NFL being one of the biggest and longest-running pieces of entertainment in American history, NFL Films partnered with Cam Miller in 2017 for their “Let The Show Begin” Campaign. During the campaign, they released two movie-trailer title sequences that would elevate NFL football from sport to prestige entertainment. This first title sequence was themed around the hope that surrounds each NFL team at the beginning of the season and features NFL stars such as Von Miller, Dak Prescott, Earl Thomas, and more. The second spot in the campaign was about the unpredictable nature of the early part of the NFL season. It features Demarco Murray, Jay Ajayi, Michael Thomas, and Myles Garrett. As the season progressed, additional title sequences were released and accompanied by social teasers and posters.

Three Little Pigs – The Guardian

In this 2012 award winning ad, The Guardian reimagines the classic fable of The Three Little Pigs by vividly illustrating the harsh realities of today’s media environment.

As a part of their “The Whole Picture” campaign, the ad provides a framework for exploring the nature of news today and spotlights how their open journalism approach enables coverage from every angle and every platform. They also demonstrate the rapid speed at which stories can change with 24/7 coverage and the increasingly interactive nature of news today. Readers can reflect their opinions right back through social media sites like Twitter and Facebook.

Legend of Cambria – Cambria

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While the previous cinematic-style ads mentioned above were simply spoofs of real movie trailers, the American-made natural quartz countertops brand, Cambria, went even further. They made a real, feature length movie!

Inspired by the breathtaking, legendary landscapes of Wales and the Celtic region, Legend of Cambria, tells the story of their beautiful countertop designs in a seven-part, one-of-a-kind epic fantasy film. The campaign brings the brand to life through a memorable and distinctive story.

As we head into this Super Bowl weekend, we’ll be watching for innovative ways brands use movie tactics and storytelling commercials to reach their targets. We’ll update you post game with our favorites!

The new year is an opportunity to take a new perspective on who you want to be in 2021. Your career path, your personal life, and how you want to spend the next 12 months. We pulled some of our go-to tools and tips together to give you a running start.

Calendar Club & Coaching

If you are ready to get things done, one of our recs is The Big A## Calendar Club. Whether you are C-suite or just getting started, a weekend warrior, or a seasoned adventurer, this program preps you to dominate the next 365 days. The 12-month journey of personal and professional growth covers best practices in business, parenting, and wellness.

Content Scheduling Tools

We all know how vital it is to have a presence on social media. But it can be challenging to keep up appearances without dedicating a sizeable percentage of your time and attention. Planning is key and scheduling is critical. With a social media scheduling tool, you can operate your accounts efficiently and effectively with these five resources.

• Planoly

A visual planning and marketing solution for brands and influencers on Instagram, it allows you to create a cohesive Instagram feed and manage multiple social accounts simultaneously. Through a calendar and grid system, you can quickly see where you are getting the most uptake and interaction for your posts, which images are and aren’t working, and even optimal days/times for your audience.

• Sprout Social

We’re all about one-stop shopping. This all-in-one tool allows you to schedule and post across multiple networks. You can also set up varying user-level permissions for different members of your team. Marketing managers, writers and everyone in between can contribute and collaborate in real-time to your social media calendar.

• Hootsuite

Hootsuite supports a wide range of platforms, including personal accounts, business pages, and other types of social activity. You can create posts yourself for current publishing or select existing posts to post in the future.

• Buffer

Customization is key in marketing, but making users feel like you created content just for them doesn’t have to be time consuming. Buffer allows you to customize messages for each social network. Their mobile app and web browser extension make it easy to add links, titles, and images quickly to your scheduled social posts.

• Later

Later lets you post to a variety of social networks, but its main emphasis is on Instagram. Unlike many other posting and scheduling tools, you begin a post with an image, rather than its text. Once the image is uploaded you can create the accompanying caption.

Clarity

Leaders today have a vision for tomorrow. That vision is clear, achievable, motivating, and exciting.

People can be genuinely inspired if their organization has a compelling vision and a clear, worthwhile mission. These can come to life in well-crafted mission and vision statements.

The following are our resourcing picks to help clarify your mission and vision for 2021.

How To Develop Your Personal Mission Statement

This hard-hitting read helps you set and lead your life according to your deepest priorities. It helps focus your long-term vision, so you don’t get lost in the short-term fires of the day. For those who work with creative teams, it provides insight into influencing good in others.

Start with Why

Any parent of small children has gone through the “why” stage.  But good news, it’s actually a leadership trait! START WITH WHY shows that the leaders who’ve had the greatest influence in the world all think, act, and communicate the same way. This book provides a framework for how organizations can be built, movements can be led, and people can be inspired. And it all starts with WHY.

Vivid Vision

We don’t use the word “revolutionary” lightly, but that’s how one team member described this book. It helps owners, CEOs, and senior managers create inspirational, detailed, and actionable three-year mission statements for their companies. It’s easy-to-follow from brainstorming to sharing the ideas to using the document to drive progress in the years to come.

We don’t need a survey to tell us that everyone reading this blog is ready for a fresh start. Success takes vision and planning—but the tools make it easy. We wish you much success mapping out your next 12 months with adventure, goals and experiences. Let us know how you are doing and be sure to share those incredible milestones along the way on your favorite social media platform as well as individually with the people in your life whom you can encourage! As an experiential marketing agency, we have found that transformative experiences are all around us and that your peers and audience can be moved just like you by the adventures and accomplishments in your life.

Want to talk shop with Yalo? We’re all ears. Contact us here.

The holidays are finally upon us and with that comes some much needed downtime and relaxation. While there is value in unwinding from work, catching up on sleep, and watching mindlessly cheesy Christmas movies (Yes, I’m looking at you Hallmark), your next Netflix binge session could actually be educating you on the latest and greatest skills.

There are a number of entertaining shows and movies on Netflix that are packed with marketing insights. So, while you have the downtime over the next few days turn on the fireplace, grab a blanket and some hot chocolate, and settle in for a compelling and binge worthy experience.

Documentary Series

The Mind: Explained

Explore the inner workings of your brain in this docuseries narrated by Emma Stone. From dreaming to anxiety, this docuseries broadens your sense of neuromarketing – the blending of marketing and psychology together to better understand consumers – so you can step inside the minds of your core audience members. 

Broken

This Netflix marketing documentary will not only make you a smarter consumer, but also a smarter business owner. The lesson is clear—deceptive marketing and business practices never win in the long run. It’s all about maintaining high-quality products or services from the get-go. 

This Netflix documentary empowers you to understand the forces of globalism, branding, mass production, and marketing. All elements that impact any business, big or small.

Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates

Get inside the mind of a genius in this docuseries about Bill Gates as he opens up about his childhood, education, growing Microsoft, his family life, and his charitable foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Gates is passionate, intelligent, and savvy—all essential qualities of any small business marketer or owner. After viewing the series, you’ll feel clearer and more motivated to tackle your business’ growth in 2021.

TV Shows

Black Mirror

This immersive series demonstrates the myriad ways technology alters our behavior. An idea that is absolutely central to content marketing. Each story focuses on a different element of emerging technology, envisioning ominous (and ominously plausible) places where they could take our society.

Its scenarios are often dystopic and utterly twisted. But the portrayals of the future in Black Mirror are also creative, clever, and thought-provoking. They challenge us as viewers to reflect on our own technological fixations and ponder how our behaviors are (perhaps subconsciously) affected.

It also asks the key question – How far is too far? At what point does integrating comms into the consumer’s life stop being frictionless and helpful and start being annoying, overpowering, or even frightening? When does technology become intrusive?

The Queen’s Gambit

Discover the beauty and strategy of chess with this phenomenal show set in the 1950s and ’60s about chess prodigy Beth Harmon. While not an obvious marketing show pick, Beth inspires us to improvise, trust our instincts, and take new approaches. As marketers it’s always good to have a formalized plan and a list of goals to achieve but at the same time, it’s essential to know when to improvise. Our insights and experience can provide us an inside track that no one else has, which can make all the difference when it comes to marketing a product, service or experience.

The show also beautifully demonstrates that success isn’t final and failure isn’t fatal. We should learn from our failures, but continue to believe in ourselves, and we might just make believers of our doubters when the dust has settled.

Documentaries

The Social Dilemma

Examines the various ways that social media impacts and manipulates our human psychology in this documentary-drama. Learn how algorithms are attempting to control our minute-by-minute attention — all in order to serve advertisers looking to attract eyeballs — with dangerous consequences.

Touching on how impactful and detrimental it can be in propagating hate speech, electoral meddling, or the spread of fake news, this eye-opening documentary requires marketers to consider the ethical implications of using these platforms to reach out to customers and potential clients.

FYRE: The Greatest Party That Never Happened

A cautionary tale to professionals across the board, this documentary follows a cocky and reckless entrepreneur who marketed the Fyre Festival as a luxury music festival hosted on a private island. In reality they were massively unprepared to deliver on the promises they made.

While the protagonist’s actions are a classic case of ‘what not to do,’ there are elements of marketing genius in their use of influencer marketing. While outrageously expensive and ultimately unsuccessful, the campaign’s unique tactic to blanket social networks, spark curiosity, and inspire FOMO is certainly praise-worthy.

Movies

The Social Network

Get an inside look at what inspired the creation of Facebook, the founders’ thought processes when they built it, the steps they took to develop it, and all the ups and downs Facebook experienced as it evolved into the social media giant it is today. From its humble yet promising beginnings to its rapid growth, this movie shows you that Facebook’s rise to tech stardom wasn’t void of any obstacles.

Moneyball

Follow this true story about how a baseball team without much money uses math and data, to change their strategy on buying players. Similar to inbound marketing, it is the analysis and data-driven action that eventually brings them success.

The movie is a great example of how your marketing can bring a significant return on your investment, even if you don’t have the biggest budget. Analyze the key data and you can beat the competition.

The Founder

Watch and learn how Ray Kroc, a struggling salesman from Illinois, met Mac and Dick McDonald, who were running a burger operation in 1950s Southern California and went on to establish a multi-billion-dollar empire and one of the most popular fast-food restaurants in the world.

While Kroc is certainly an antihero, marketers can take away the fact that with a consistent and prolific brand, exponential growth is possible. The key is maintaining a consistent look and feel and delivering the same expected customer experience each time.

Halloween is over. And while some of us cringe seeing Christmas trees when we walk into a Target on the 1^st of November, as marketers, our holiday planning is well underway.

This year, with COVID cramping production times and product availability, if you haven’t mapped out a holiday gift campaign for your favorite customers consider this your friendly reminder.

Below are some ideas to kick start the process:

What the heck do we say? We understand this year has been kind of a hot mess. Everyone does. So when it comes to messaging, let’s not remind people. It’s ok to be playful. Steer clear of the doom and gloom, and choose to see the glass—and the opportunity to help your customers see it—as half full. Whether your tone is about partnership or a simple thank you, just be sure you stay true to the core of your brand. 

Pick items with staying power. Welp, that probably rules out booze and all the other comfort foods we’ve been indulging in for the last six months. Cheetos, wine and chocolate-covered popcorn are out. Branded tumblers and tactical items are in. LEGO, the work-from-home snuggie and binoculars for “looking ahead to the future” are just a few light-hearted ideas.

Create a connection. If your messaging and branded gifts are practical and unique, your customers will want to share them. Encourage them to do this socially by creating your own hashtag. People are more open to sharing content from the wild during the holidays. Guards are down and spirits are up.

Don’t break the budget. Keep cost in perspective. The beauty of everyone being remote is the uptick of time we are spending in front of a screen. If a clever message is just about all that fits what’s left in the 2020 bank, then create a digital or virtual touchpoint. (We know just the elves to help with that.)

Be considerate of timing. Businesses have pretty full plates right now. And some of it is stuff you really don’t want to be on there. So if you haven’t started mapping out a holiday campaign, there is always the option to send something in the New Year. Because let’s be honest, we are all ready for a fresh start.

Whatever hits your mailbox, we hope this hit list helps bring you—and your customers—comfort and joy.

So, for most of the world, it has been 6 months now of this work from home (WFH) stuff. And if you are an owner/CEO, maybe now after 6 months, you might be considering, “Hey this isn’t so bad. For one thing, we could be saving a ton on rent/real estate.” Depending on which industry you are in (especially professional services & consulting), few would argue with you. Alas, there can be a silver lining here, but first, you need to make sure, as a leader, that you’ve adapted your mindset and adopted some key best practices to successfully transition to a WFH model.

Well for Yalo, it has been 8 years of a very flexible work program that has been predominantly WFH. I often have joked over the years that I can “hear the eyes roll” when I request that we all meet in the office for a brainstorming session or client meeting. Before Covid-19, for many of our staff, it would not be uncommon or unusual for them to not see the office for up to 6 months at a time. For Yalo, the day before shelter in place began was no different for us as the day after. We continued to steam ahead supporting our clients, doing great work, and havingfun…together as 1 team, 1 tribe. So, I do feel that we’ve gotten very good at this WFH thing.

As a CEO, I wanted to share with other leaders some of our key tips and thoughts that have helped Yalo succeed with WFH.

• First and foremost, trust is at the center of it. As a leader, you have to put your faith and trust in your team that they share a similar vision and business code for success. This will empower your team while freeing up some of your time to focus on growth plans or operational improvements versus over-managing or micro-managing your team.

• Make sure you have the right technology in place. Tools such as Asana, Zoom, DropBox, and Viber, gives us the technology needed to keep the team tethered together and delivering as a team for our clients. Having these types of tools in place will keep your people honest, connected, and accountable. On our team chat (we use Viber), we have a team-wide channel that we partially use to inform about work or business things, but we equally use it for fun and relaxed banter, funny things, birthdays, etc. We have also created a Fantasy Football league amongst the team where we trash talk via Viber.

• Schedule social breaks for the team. As the leader, it is a required part of your job to get the team out of their day-to-day routine at home. Take people to lunch. Grab coffee together. Create reasons to meet up.

• Focus on culture and invent ways to bring the team together. Schedule team outings to have fun, like bowling, an arcade, a sporting event, a foodie tour, and things like that.

• Schedule quarterly or bi-annual team offsites. Meet somewhere that can be fun but also productive at the same time. For example, we have met in New Orleans and in Nashville the last 2 years. My wife thinks these are boondoggles, but in reality, they are very productive, and we cover a lot of ground together. For example, in Nashville, we covered 120 slides over nearly 2 days of meetings while we ate well and cut loose at night. We even did a field trip during the day to Third Man Records (Jack White of the White Stripes record shop).

• Stay connected with your team. As the leader, you need to be connecting with the individuals on your team on a consistent basis. Schedule 1:1 calls have quick IM chats, set catchups, and give kudos. This is essential for you to be doing daily and weekly to stay plugged in with your team, but also so they know that you care and are interested in their work efforts.

• Maintain a bi-weekly team call with your team. Every 2 weeks, a different person is in charge of leading the call. The leader typically selects a fun topic for the team to comment on or contribute to such as summer reading lists, favorite songs, craziest thing you’ve done, and things like that. The call is also for updates on various projects, sales, our own marketing, and communications plans, and operations. We cover a lot of ground in 1 hour. We’ve also attached virtual concerts to these calls as well where the team swigs a few brews while we watch and listen to great indie bands/artists that we know. Some of our recent virtual concerts include Yawpers, the Smokey Brights, Joe Pug, Jared & the Mill, and Low Cut Connie.

• Track your operations data. Be sure to have reports that give you insight into each person’s level of effort and hours being put forward each week and each month. This will help you balance the workload between and across team members.

• Keep each team member’s plates full or as I like to say, fill their dance card. What I mean by that is to give them additional work to continuously work on when there is downtime on client work. This includes internal tasks like blog writing, social media contribution, market research, technology research, etc.

There are numerous benefits to making WFH work for you and your employees. To name a few: greater work productivity, less wasted time in traffic, less money spent on going out to lunch or on gas, a happier team, seeing your kids more often, much lower rent, and the list goes on. As you can see, these benefits are both monetary as well as intangible benefits for your team’s mental state. Hopefully, this blog gives you, as a leader, a few new ideas on your path to a successful and rewardingWFH model while reaping all the benefits that come with it.

You can follow Yalo on Facebook and Instagram to see our WFH culture in real time.

From hilarious to heartfelt, to a brand thanking customers for not using their services, COVID commercials have hit home. Literally. 

Like most people, we stream our shows. To be honest, it’s been a while since anyone has seen an actual commercial. But watching live news updates during quarantine has created a captive audience for ads. Many not only hold our attention, but make us (ugly) cry.

So the tribe gathered their favorites and shared why these spots resonated with them.

Walmart: Lean on Me

In the agency world so often what we see is staged, overproduced, edited and–bottom line–not real. This piece, however, delivers Walmart’s message of positivity and support so authentically with real people and employees contributing content. –Rachel S.

Dove | Courage is Beautiful

Very raw and real, it shows nurses and doctors working on the front lines and how courageous they truly are. The visuals really make me grateful for those men and women fighting this disease. –Maggie

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A St. Patrick’s Day Message From Guinness

I’m not Irish, but something about the Irish culture of music and sentiments always touches me. I hear bagpipes and instant tears. This piece acknowledges that time is different with smart, yet subtle nods to their brand like “raise a glass of Guinness on St. Patty’s day.” But Guinness reinforces that what matters most is being with people you care about at home. –Rachel G.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IBfLlC9En3Q&feature=youtu.be

Zillow: The Real Value of Home

Music is what grabs me right out of the gate. Their music choice for this spot is powerful. It’s one of those commercials you hear before you see. –Lance

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Smirnoff: Hang out from Home

Simple, to the point with a twist of patriotism. –Eric

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https://youtu.be/jOhhsN_Le3E

Netflix’s Spoiler Billboard

A funny approach to punishing those who decide to ignore the potential damage they can cause by continuing to gather in groups. – Max

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Uber: Thank You For Not Riding

They do an excellent job of capturing the new normal while capturing our hearts. Their commercial also thanks us for not using them which is a selfless act for a brand to do in these times. – Denise

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YN6T6XePyJw

Popeyes: We are NOLA Strong

Being from Louisiana, this one put a smile on my face. Eating a bunch of fried chicken to help support a wonderful cause seems like a win-win to me. Well done, Popeyes! –Scott

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Coor’s Light: Sports Re-runs

This is a great use of an existing commercial and introduces some levity about watching sports re-runs. – Jon

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https://youtu.be/nmVRFui61U4

Jack Daniels – With Love, Jack

The Jack Daniels commercial really strikes at the heart of the world situation right now. It shows how people are all coping with social distancing and making due in their own ways to stay connected with family, friends and humanity. Delivering the point of view from within these individuals’ daily lives and homes makes it very real. Lastly, having the commercial wrapped in a classic 80’s song done on piano by just a regular guy connecting with someone he loves, that really is excellent packaging. – Arnold

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Dunkin Heroes – We’ve Got Your Back

Dunkin. Quick, easy to understand message while keeping brand in focus. – Kevin

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Tylenol Stay Home

This commercial is touching, hopeful and shows gratitude for healthcare workers. I also like that it’s not the same “we’re in this together” message that is being overly used and sometimes seems insincere. – Kate

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https://youtu.be/IsQ7Wto0FJg

Burger King Stay Home of the Whopper

I’ll admit, I’m a sucker for the touching commercials of late always featuring somber piano music and heartfelt images of all of us staying connected through this time. This commercial is not that. It’s just Burger King being Burger King – purposely silly and a little bit dumb – which is great for a couple of reasons. For one, it feels way more authentic and beyond that – what’s more comforting than a little return to normalcy right now? I’m ready to live in a world with ridiculous commercials that make me laugh again. – Tim

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Ohio Department of Health Mouse Traps

Reason: Because Science. I like how this commercial attempts to explain the biology of how fast viruses like SARS-COV-2 can spread in a simple, yet powerful analogy. – Brian

NFL Stay Home Stay Strong PSA

The NFL encourages their fans to stay strong and remain home until we overcome this pandemic as they emphasize the importance of spending time with family. – Cline

Budweiser One Team

Very clever use of sports team names to relate to our everyday heroes, and of course it gets you right in the feels. – Chris M

Grubhub Restaurants Are Our Family

This is the best one I’ve seen. I don’t watch much tv but this pops up on YouTube all the time and with a newborn, we definitely appreciate restaurants right now. – Brandon

Ford Built to Lend a Hand

Ford Lends a Hand is my favorite, because it reminds us that there have been challenges before. Now, this is our test and our time to shine. – Rich

Apple Creativity Goes On

Instead of just surviving the pandemic, Apple hits home with this spot and inspires us to not just live but thrive through this time with the help of creativity, human connection, and, of course, their products. – Drew

Tokyo Olympics NBC 2020 Date Change

Moving the Olympics was a huge change and the announcement of the change kept the athletes in focus, with a message of hope and a really smart use of font to change 2020 to 202ONE. – Annie

Bulleit Bourbon New Drinking Buddies

Fun and creative ad with a catchy beat playing; Being able to see faces in everyday objects shows that a kids imagination never leaves you. – Chris D

If you like how we think collectively as a branding agency in Atlanta & Cleveland, why not give us a chance to show you the kinds of branding strategies we can create for your company’s needs? Conversation is free – let’s have a chat!

 

“Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at. Make it FUN to read.” – Leo Burnett

With the constant demand for more quality content and the growing need for effective copywriting – one to attract visitors, the other to convert them to leads and customers – consistently producing powerful, high-quality copy is tough. As writers and content marketers, we are constantly looking for inspiration which is why we keep a swipe file. A swipe file is a collection of emails, ads, and other copy or content that you find memorable or performed well. 

Swipe right for our favorite fun and memorable copywriting examples to add to your file:

Get the cluck out of here! KFC UK’s mea culpa for its 2018 chicken shortage was a simple, genius three letters: FCK

L’Oreal Paris’ print campaign focused on workplace gender equality. The result: Copy that reads, “This is an ad for men. Hire more women in leadership roles. We’re all worth it.”

It’s all downhill from here. Snowbird Ski Resort curated negative reviews and turned them into clever advertisements. Challenge accepted!

Ricola ran a series of ads with examples of how a misplaced cough could ruin the meaning of a sentence (and coughing in public now could ruin your life). Funny and slightly edgy yet simple and relatable.

Fast cars love quick wit. Aspirational and humorous. At first glance, you read it and then you kinda sing it. Corvette is right… they don’t write songs about Volvos.

Hey Rulebreakers… here are 3 rules for creating clear convertible copy:

1. Clarity & Cleverness. First and foremost, you want your audience to understand your copy. It’s fun to be funny, but first, you need to:

• Make people understand 
• Make people curious
• Make people engage

2. Use conventional language. Writing that sounds like a person— especially when you use your customers’ voice — it’s easier to understand and believe.

3. Solve a problem. You can’t offer a solution if you don’t know the problem. Target your customers’ pain points and ease their pain.

• Pain: Clearly lay out your customer’s pain point
• Agitation: Shake it up by making it more emotional
• Solution: Finally introduce the antidote to your customers’ pain

Follow these rules, keep a stacked swipe file, and you’ll be well on your way to creating clever, catchy, and concise copy. And if you hit writers block.. we are just a click away.

See more of what we can do with language and verbiage through Content Marketing. Read stories of our past successes with strategic communications that are far from a tall tale.