This morning I mentioned to my wife Janet that I was writing a post for our blog. She said, “You know, today is the summer solstice, a beautiful, long summer day. Time to kick back and enjoy the peak of the season. Take a break, relax… put an umbrella in your drink! You should write […]
To truly stand out in today’s marketplace, you must do more than offer a product or service. You must create an experience, one that will resonate with customers. Don’t just serve, impress. Don’t just deliver, elevate. Make their time interacting with you something they cannot forget. What can your brand do to craft an experience […]
We’re excited to announce the creation of a sister agency that will focus exclusively on branding. We’re calling this new group Bonfire5. Essentially, we’re taking everything that clients loved about our proprietary BrandQuest process and serving it up to companies outside of our usual direct marketing and catalog sandbox. This specialty branding group will be […]
There’s a conspiracy underway in the catalog business. It’s happening right under our noses. You know what I’m talking about, copy kidnappers! Someone has been rounding up copywriters and turning them into CONTENT EDITORS! “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” comes to mind. You know, the “snatched people” attend to their daily tasks, but they really […]
I often get asked if there is ONE thing that a company can do to improve their brand, what would it be? That’s easy. Improve your culture. I’ve had the opportunity to walk into hundreds of companies over the years, peek behind the curtain and see what makes them tick. What I notice right away […]
Ecommerce has been changing at digital speed since it showed up in the marketing world 25 years ago. Print marketing has taken 100 years to evolve from the early days of newspaper to magazines, then to direct mail and finally catalogs. Catalog circulation is the sturdy bedrock art of targeting what records to mail, when […]
Not too long ago, catalog was king. We’d toss our e-commerce creative team the bones of our catalog feast to make their meal. But we’re past that, right? We need to give our websites the same love our catalogs get; they’re completely co-dependent sharing the same audience. That’s right, it’s ONE CHANNEL! Think of it […]
(No, not you. Your catalog!) If you haven’t heard, the United States Postal Service has increased the piece rate weight limit for catalog mailings. As of January 22, 2017, your catalog can qualify for the Flat-Size Marketing Mail postal piece rate if it weighs 4.0 ounces or less (up from the long-reigning 3.3 ounces). With […]
By Chris Hayes, EVP Brand Strategy This 18th Century quote from my high school lit class got me thinking about a conversation I had with a marketing director from a well-known cross-channel brand a few weeks ago. He mentioned his company would like to do comparison research on their catalog covers to determine which ones […]
