September 28th, 2009 by Peter Schankowitz | No Comments

The brand police are knocking at the door. You can run but you can’t hide!
In today’s Ad Age, Jack Neff writes about Good Guide, a consumer brand rating site that has already put their scale of 1-10 on over 75,000 products. While consumer watchdogs have been around a long, long time, this more recent entry [...]
September 23rd, 2009 by Peter Schankowitz | 2 Comments

Hold on to your hat! Are you sitting down? You know the long forgotten “old” people outside the 18-34 demo? The ones who have always been the afterthought when it comes to brand messaging? Guess what, they count. As I noted in several prior posts, the notion that retailers, especially teen and youth product and [...]
September 16th, 2009 by Peter Schankowitz | 2 Comments

Sometimes necessity and a painful wallow in fourth place in a field of four is the mother of invention. Today’s MediaPost features an article by David Goetzl about Jeff Zucker’s recent investor speech. During his presentation, Zucker more than hinted about NBC’s future and the programming changes that will play a major role. A key [...]
July 9th, 2009 by Peter Schankowitz | No Comments

Brand integration in web series? Wait, I thought that was dead. Didn’t every brand get a good clock cleaning earlier this decade by investing in this very same format? Certainly. However, as we have said for some time now, that too has passed. The opportunity for organic and effective branding in web series is here, we’ve learned [...]
June 9th, 2009 by Peter Schankowitz | 1 Comment

While most of us will admit that blogging is at least a tad self-absorbed, rarely have I laughed as hard as I did today when I read Stoney deGeyter’s post boiling bad blogging down to self-flagelance. Come to think of it, he’s right. Blogging is a LOT like sex.
As Stoney points out, the compulsion for [...]
June 5th, 2009 by Zach Jordan | No Comments

Hailing from a garage somewhere in the far East, we caught up with 5 Elements Entertainment to find out more about their recently released iPhone applications: PITCHING WOO and MUD SLINGER. They requested we only use the transcript of the video interview. These guys apparently like to play it close to the Gi and frankly, [...]
June 1st, 2009 by Peter Schankowitz | 2 Comments

One of the key components of our company’s branding mantra is the need for personal engagement through authentic messaging. Our formula always stresses (1) specific and personal = loyal and (2) keep it real. In other words, no brand is going to earn consumer attention and loyalty without delivering something of real value (content) that [...]
May 18th, 2009 by Peter Schankowitz | No Comments
There is an excellent article in TechCrunch today by Robin Wauters in which the author takes a well-reasoned swat at the concept of micropayments as the savior of the print world. “Paying for quality” in this fashion, as a way out of this crash in demand for the printed word, is, according to the author, [...]
May 15th, 2009 by Peter Schankowitz | No Comments
When we are trying to explain our approach to branding and digital marketing. We always start with our equation GREAT CONTENT + STRATEGIC DISTRIBUTION = LOYAL PARTICIPANTS WHO LIVE YOUR BRAND. Of course, there are many sub-components here. Great Content starts it all. One of the key elements of great content is that it must [...]
May 14th, 2009 by Peter Schankowitz | 2 Comments

In a prior post, I discussed the budget slashing reaction most brands had to the economic calamity. I queried how long brands could stay in crisis mode and refuse to spend on branding and marketing despite that being a mainstay of their business. I guess things are starting to turn and brands are coming out [...]