Category Archives: Advertising

BrandingBlog Radio: Test My Marketing with Brian Schmitt

Have you ever poured your time and energy into an ad, or an email, or a blog post, video, phone message, sales pitch, or, or, or….?

Sometimes you are just too close to the issue to realize what may be wrong with your approach, the words you’ve choosen or the the fact that you might be leaving out something critical. TestMyMarketing.com is a place where you can upload your marketing message and have it critiqued by at least 3 marketing professionals who promise not to hold back. If you can take the heat, you’re message will be tempered by fire.

Back in August of 2011, the Awesome Sauce class at Wizard Academy birthed this baby business that was adopted by a couple of students. Brian Schmitt and Matt Lenhart decided that this was an idea that they could get behind and nurse into a full-grown enterprise. Now, more than half-a-year later, they’ve added another partner, changed the name and are in the middle of another launch mode.

I had a chance to catch up with Brian Schmitt last week to discuss how things are going. You’ll like what you hear…or your money back!

 

BrandingBlog Radio: Brett Feinstein – Political Advertising

Brett Feinstein - no doubt going negative

Brett Feinstein is a partner in the political advertising agency Pound & Feinstein.

He’s one of those guys that you have to get to know to understand. He’s loved and admired by those who take the time. If you know Brett Feinstein only superficially through Facebook or another near anonymous web arena, you probably only think you know him. That’s because he treats Facebook as his own psychology lab; questioning, pushing, shocking and provoking to see what kind of reaction he can get. It can be alarming…if you don’t know Brett.

I’ve known him for almost 10 years now and I always enjoy getting together for a meal when I can catch up with him or on Skype for a podcast interview. We talked for almost 4 hours. Most of it after I shut down the recorder.

I still ended up cutting about 30 minutes out of our official podcast interview just to get it close to an hour.

If you’re a student of marketing and advertising, you’re gonna like this one. We compare and contrast the various strategies used by retailers and candidates. I was surprised, enlightened and entertained through the entire conversation and I hope you will be too.

What I left on the cutting room floor was mostly a conversation about Facebook that got a little personal for a few third parties. So, I decided not to share it.

We did cover campaign strategy, messaging, research, direct mail and the life of a political campaign staffer.

 

Soundbites: Super Bowl Reach

NOTE FROM DAVE:  The “SoundBites” podcasts are usually re-written in an article style (via Shortcut Blogging), but this one was such an interactive conversation that I decided to simply use the transcript. Enjoy the game!

So far…in these pre-game days, this is my fave: Beuller? Beuller?

Want to read the transcript? Continue reading