Roastbrief’s Post

We wouldn't know the first place to start when discussing the Super Bowl other than: run fast, ball over line, tackle others. What we can talk about though is engagement, marketing, and communications. This article is exactly what we would recommend to our clients - with and without Super Bowl advertising budgets: integrate, sweat your assets, target, and have a bit of fun. If you want help having more fun - drop us a line, because we like having fun! #communications #publicrelations #marketing

A whopping seven marketing agencies and two PR agencies for the latest EE brand & campaign refresh. I would have liked to be a fly on the wall to understand how they all married together for a central outcome & and strategy. Looks fresh. I wonder how much of the mix is performance-based... #adagency #ee #advertisingnews

This is a fabulous article about April Fools pranks/jokes played by major brands over the last several decades. I laughed my head off! 🤣 Enjoy. #marketing #pr #aprilfools #pragency #brands #pranks #jokes #retail #advertising #communications #marektingagency

As our Chief Strategy Officer Lou Paskalis is quoted in this article, “I think CEOs would be shocked to learn that their companies were avoiding news advertising outright or throttling back on it so much as to not effectively leverage or support the channel.” It's because "brand safety" practices, as they are currently applied to news, don't make any sense, and they have resulted in most major advertisers losing out on reaching their most valuable audience--news readers. The reach advertisers are missing is staggering. Look, the brand safety industry didn't even exist until about eight years ago. The first major incident that sparked the brand safety frenzy was ads showing up on YouTube next to a horrific terrorist video in 2017. Folks saw a need for scalable technology to screen out violent, sexually explicit, and other disturbing user generated content (UGC--the stuff on YouTube and social media). Existing ad tech vendors and new startups rushed to fill that need with products, most of which are "scalable" but imprecise, like keyword blocking to stop ads from showing up next to recipes for drugs and bombs and articles with racial slurs. But that industry quickly got overzealous in pursuit of market share and started applying keyword and similarly crude tools like "contextual analysis" (i.e., generalizing what the content is about) and--truly the dumbest kind--sentiment analysis (telling people how sad or happy the content is) 🙄 to BLOCK anything on the internet that might be remotely unpleasant. Which had the effect of blocking almost all news content. You can't look at brand safety in news this keyword/context/sentiment way. News is different, and here's why: 1) Reputable news publishers have already, for many decades, maintained a practice that if some truly horrible mass casualty event dominates the front page, they suspend any advertising nearby for at least 24 hours. Your ad wasn't going to show up next to a mass shooting or bus crash, and you didn't need a brand safety vendor for this. 2) Nearly all significant backlash to brands around news in the last eight years has been due to ad adjacencies next to POLITICALLY EXTREME content. Samantha Bee. Hannity. Breitbart. People don't even get mad about fake news unless it's expressly partisan. The thing to avoid is EXTREME BIAS. 3) Almost zero brand backlash has been related to adjacencies next to true, real, quality news, no matter what the topic. In news, if the content is RELIABLE and the level of BIAS IS REASONABLE, it's safe. Its readers love it and no one is going to get mad at your brand about it. And you can get back to reaching those audiences. It's not hard to target these sources and their audiences. We have segments of high-quality news outlets targetable in DSPs right now. Shed that dumb blocklist and test a campaign on high-quality publishers and articles. https://lnkd.in/gKd55kEg

Excellent lesson. Advertising isn’t in the entertainment or art business. We’re in the sales and persuasion business. While I can’t believe the madness in using a Super Bowl spot to drive sales, it’s a cautionary tale in mistaking ambition for reality. You can be fun or clever, but you damn sure better sell something or you and your agency (or CMO, or CEO) will get walked.

🏈 As the Super Bowl approaches, brands gear up for the ultimate marketing battleground. Some will achieve unparalleled success, while others may falter. Having witnessed advertising evolution since the Washington Commanders era, we've seen the impact of well-executed campaigns with a $7 million, 30-second spotlight. Explore this year’s campaigns, extracting strategic lessons applicable across industries. The Super Bowl, a microcosm of storytelling and audience connection, offers insights to elevate your brand's narrative. Ready to decode the nuances and enhance your brand

Friendly reminder from David Ogilvy - "It's not creative unless it sells." This can be what happens when you chase clout or "culture" and don't approach creative from a strategic point of view. Solo Stove has one of the most viral campaigns of the year. Result? Their CEO has been fired for, well, wasting money on Snoop Dogg ads that didn't convert to purchase. According to the brand's interim CFO: "“While our unique marketing campaigns raised brand awareness of Solo Stove to an expanded and new audience of consumers, it did not lead to the sales lift that we had planned, which, combined with the increased marketing investments, negatively impacted our EBITDA.” My guess is Snoop is not an aspirational figure for most Solo Stove consumers, and that on the flip side most diehard Snoop fans simply don't prioritize the need for a smokeless outdoor fire pit thing, especially during the holidays and with inflation at 3.1%. Another note - from the ad itself it's difficult to tell WHAT Solo Stove even is. A grill? A firepit? What do I DO with it? Why do I need it? Solo Stove you've got great traction now. Call us if you want some advice. https://lnkd.in/ggg3zCHJ

As we head into another year of unpredictability and maybe tighter budgets, check out this Marketing Dive article that talks about the importance of staying the course with brand-building - and also, not jumping on a social justice bandwagon - for short-term gain. According to strategists, the pressure for CMOs to tie work to short-term results is making “brands’ positioning less defined and resilient against misfires.” It warns that focusing on the lower funnel for too long costs customers in the end. Furthermore, transactional tactics also don’t do much, if anything, to help stave off controversy when things go sideways. Simply put, it's all about a strategic mix. #brandbuilding #storytelling #PR #earnedmedia #contentstrategy

While companies need to take stances on what they believe in, it is also imperative that they recognize how hard it is to market to a politically divided country. Brands have to be willing to look 5 steps down the road before they can tackle certain issues, while also considering how quickly information is disseminated. There is nothing wrong with taking a stance, it is just about how you do it. #Advertising #Marketing

Advertising agencies are 🌟creating buzzworthy campaigns for brands, but often, contracts or endless approval processes stop them from showcasing their work. 😔 Fear not! Even if you can't shout about your client projects, there are plenty of avenues to promote your agency. Check out my recent piece on Fast Company for five savvy strategies. #Advertising #Marketing #AgencyLife #Promotion #FastCompany #PR #PublicRelations