Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Dec 13, 2009, 7:51 pm
“…Make His Logo Twice The Size” was good advice from David Ogilvy.* But some marketers act as if it’s the only advice he ever gave. Imagine your organization is facing declining volume and re...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Dec 8, 2009, 4:18 pm
Far be it from us to kick a guy when he is down, but we never miss the opportunity to create a topical battle of wits competition. While watching the latest SNL Tiger Woods sketch, we figured we could...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Dec 8, 2009, 3:39 pm
If you have to leverage a tiny budget to market a parity product, you may think your job is tough. Think again. Things could be worse. What if your customers learned your product had failed again, eve...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Dec 5, 2009, 7:46 pm
You’d think that a retail marketer with 36,000+ stores would know how to turn online promotion for a low-ticket product into sales action in the store. And that a high tech marketer would be more li...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Dec 2, 2009, 9:22 pm
The recent repositioning of Miracle Whip as the hip, revolutionary mover and shaker of the condiment world ends up pointing out the limits of dialogue marketing, the two-way conversation with customer...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Dec 2, 2009, 2:05 pm
As regular readers of the RandM blog can tell you, Robinson & Maites art director Ashley Bradarich won the Miss Illinois USA 2010 pageant the weekend of November 21st. In a year when Chicago saw an al...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Nov 24, 2009, 1:03 pm
I’ve been reading Richard Feynman lately - Nobel Prize physicist, artist, drummer, safecracker, decoder of the Mayan Codex, samba band musician, troublemaker at the Challenger disaster hearings, a p...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Nov 22, 2009, 9:14 pm
Ashley Braderich, an R&M Art Director, and a darn good one, wins Miss Illinois 2010. Way to go Ashley!
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Nov 11, 2009, 10:30 pm
TO:      Hizzoner, Da Mare. FROM:     Da Marketing Agency. RE:          Sexy Chicago campaign – work in progress “Marketing is like sex. Everyone thinks they’re good at it.” ...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Nov 8, 2009, 8:18 pm
“Think out of the box!” may be good advice for creative marketers. But it’s been said so often that it’s become a meaningless catch phrase. “Think off of the page (or the screen)!” is bet...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Nov 8, 2009, 4:34 pm
Today was one of those increasingly rare mornings when the first scan of the email inbox brought a pleasant surprise. No, I did not discover that I am the sole remaining heir of a wealthy doctor from ...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Nov 3, 2009, 1:52 pm
The current Walmart vs. Amazon.com battle of the bestseller books points out one of the oldest marketing problems of all: Confusing the package with the product, the medium with the message, the benef...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Oct 26, 2009, 3:40 pm
“Sex sells.” It’s a well-known marketing maxim that seems to have worked against Chicago, when the IOC chose Rio de Janeiro to host the 2016 Olympics. Why wouldn’t they? After all, everyone k...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Oct 22, 2009, 1:50 pm
Now I’m really confused. I was sitting there sipping my morning coffee, searching through the “usual suspects” websites - Ad Age, Wall Street Journal, Promo, Brandweek and others - looking for ...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Oct 20, 2009, 5:33 pm
Maybe marketing doesn’t have to be dumbed down to be successful. That’s the implication of a recent Stanford University study on literacy. Clive Thompson of Wired quotes Stanford Professor Andrea...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Oct 16, 2009, 12:31 pm
If you pay more, is it automatically worth more? That’s what many marketers seem to think, as reported by Bob Bly, Advertising Age and others. According to a recent survey by the American Associati...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Oct 12, 2009, 9:07 am
Suddenly, thanks to the Levi’s Go Forth campaign, I feel like I could go back in time to my college years. Like many an English major, I wished for a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, a recor...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Oct 6, 2009, 1:18 pm
Within minutes of the announcement that Chicago had been eliminated after the first round of host city voting by the International Olympic Committee, the postmortems and second-guessing began about wh...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Oct 5, 2009, 6:54 pm
Here’s how to make a million dollars in your spare time: Enter the Netflix Prize contest and increase the accuracy of their Cinematch® movie recommendation system’s predictions by 10%. Anyone ca...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Oct 2, 2009, 11:31 am
“If it doesn’t work at the store, it’s no longer a good marketing idea for Procter & Gamble Co.” So sayeth P&G’s Global Brand-Building Officer, Marc Pritchard as quoted by Advertising Age. ...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Oct 1, 2009, 5:23 pm
As you may have heard, our fair city is one of the leading contenders to host the 2016 Olympic Games. And Chicago is putting on a full court press.  The biggest star on the planet is in Copenhagen he...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Sep 29, 2009, 9:17 pm
To answer our own question from the other day – Which Ad Is Worse? - the ad that’s worse is the one that doesn’t work. And the one that’s a lot less likely to work is the Cloudveil apology. W...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Sep 27, 2009, 9:36 pm
In the face of a deep economic downturn it’s nice to find a reason to smile. For that alone I should probably give a Recession Survivor Award to the Hotel Helix in DC. But by all accounts their ...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Sep 27, 2009, 9:35 pm
Compare these two very different ads, then leave a comment and tell us which one you wouldn’t run, if you had to choose. Is it this familiar eye-dazzling local car dealer ad? This one’s from Wisc...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Sep 19, 2009, 9:12 am
What’s going on here? These promotions don’t seem to make sense. •    The headlined prize in this summer’s MasterCard “Break In Your Jeans” sweepstakes was a pair of “priceless” je...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Sep 14, 2009, 3:20 pm
As the father of two teens, I’ve learned to live with “but she started it!” bickering.  I can deal with it, because I know they’re growing up fast. Dealing with the art vs. business bickerin...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Sep 10, 2009, 9:52 pm
Heaven? Or the hot place? We’re anxiously waiting to fill in the blank for the big agency/small business local marketing initiative reported in the August 31 Advertising Age. It’s directly relevan...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Sep 7, 2009, 4:03 pm
There’s one very successful web-based company that breaks every rule in the business school textbook. Reading about them can make you think “Uh oh! What if everything I think I know is wrong?” ...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Sep 1, 2009, 8:58 pm
A recent AP story highlights the not unexpected trend away from ‘mass’ direct mail.  With marketers realizing that indiscriminate mailing is proving costly as consumers tighten belts, it&...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Sep 1, 2009, 3:01 pm
The current Going Google campaign’s aim is off. It seems to be talking to technology-obsessed geeks.  But the real target market is corporate IT managers – they’re grownups, professional busine...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Aug 30, 2009, 4:16 pm
I recently came across a business in Naples, Florida promoting ‘Wild Wednesdays’, with great deals and offers.  Problem was:  it wasn’t a bar like Hooters, offering draft specials ...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Aug 28, 2009, 9:47 pm
We’re all hearing everyday, from clients and prospects, how important it is to have a superior customer relationship.  “We must communicate one to one, engage customers, be more customer ...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Aug 26, 2009, 6:18 pm
Nice to see that the government is taking a not so invisible hand in stimulating the economy, moving beyond cash for cars into cash for old refrigerators and freezers.  Stimulate sales of many new Ke...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Aug 25, 2009, 2:01 pm
Hot on the heels of the 1st Thriver Award given to Panera Bread, another standout performer needs to be recognized … Jos. A. Bank Clothiers. If bets were placed at the start of the current reces...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Aug 24, 2009, 10:54 am
Rest In Peace, Cash for Clunkers. Your time has come at last, but we’ll be forever grateful for the way you’ve revived retail auto sales. Now we can all look forward to a brighter future. Or mayb...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Aug 18, 2009, 3:54 pm
Having come to believe that the light up ahead is the end of the recession tunnel and not a train coming towards us, I believe it is time to start selecting the winners and losers in terms of business...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Aug 18, 2009, 11:37 am
Eh. Ho hum. Yawn. How many times have your eyes glazed over, reading guarantees like this? “Friendly service, clean rooms, comfortable surroundings, every time. If you’re not satisfied, we don’...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Aug 12, 2009, 10:33 pm
Turn failure into success. Make lemonade out of lemons. Turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. Snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. That’s what the business gurus say we’re supposed to do. A...
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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Aug 9, 2009, 3:48 pm

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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Aug 6, 2009, 12:35 pm

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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Jul 31, 2009, 5:06 am

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Alan Maites posted an article on RandM - Jul 26, 2009, 5:08 pm

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