ChaCha. Ask Away.

McDonald’s has been experimenting with integrating their Monopoly game into various new engagement channels. This year, they are using Mobile (SMS shortcode 96363) as a participation mechanism — as an optional alternative to the traditional, tangible game board that we’ve used since the game’s inception. Alternatively you can play via a Facebook application or online [...]

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As I was driving the other day, I saw a car window decal that looked a little like this (I was too late in snapping a photo while driving):

Halve the complexity
As a designer, my selective perception tends to dwell on this sort of thing: Why would it need to say “Hoosier Fan” when the singular [...]

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Last week I was watching “Chopped”, a cooking competition show on the Food Network, where contestants are given 3 obscure ingredients and 20 minutes to prepare an incredible dish. It reminded me of those activities in school or at camp where you’re given a bag of random supplies, and instructed to “make something amazing” out [...]

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Generally, I’m not a fan of talking about Creativity because it’s this giant high-level idea, like Beauty… or God, for that matter… and no one could ever realistically expect to do it justice and grasp its entire essence. So, on a whim, as I began trying to capture Creativity in words, at least as it [...]

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It’s no argument that old advertising strategies aren’t working in new contexts. Millennials are really good at tuning out and/or avoiding mass media–TV, newspaper, radio, even online. Advertisers want to be where their
audience is, but their audience has tended to disregard them.
So what’s the new thing to try? Mobile, because everyone always has their phone [...]

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I love White Elephant gift exchanges; they’re always unpredictable. We do them on both sides of my family these days. There’s 36 people in one, 15 in the other.  My family has already gotten together for the 36-person White Elephant, and I got a popcorn bowl this year in it. Fortunately I love popcorn, and [...]

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Sometimes I like to think of Mobile as this giant, gracefully forgiving second chance for marketers. The Wired Web made ads annoying, starting with JavaScript pop-ups. Why do you think people get so excited about 7% or even 3% response rates on Mobile? My answer: Because the Internet set the standard so low.
So now we [...]

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“Conversations” is quite the catch phrase these days. Your customers are talking about/to you. Participate in the conversations. Engage your customers. Be honest and transparent. Communicate. Listen. Get into the conversations. If you don’t, your competitors definitely will.
And Mobile takes this catch phrase to the next level. Because of one super-obvious fact: Phones are [...]

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There’s some conflicting data out there about teen receptiveness to mobile advertising. On one hand, we have those who say all teens want to do is talk to each other and that they basically ignore the media, dictating the ways they’ll let the commercial world act toward them. And on the other hand, there is [...]

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