Thanksgiving is arguably the holiday most shaped by marketing’s influence. It was first established as a national holiday in 1863 during the Civil War in an attempt to unite the country. The original holiday was held on the last Thursday of the month. But in 1939 during the Great [...]
By the time you get through college, September is permanently imprinted on your brain as “back-to-school time,” especially if you also have school-aged children of your own. Everyone from big-box stores to restaurants uses the excitement (and dread) of August and September as a marketing tool. Even universities themselves [...]
For decades, New Coke has been marketing shorthand for “a really bad marketing idea.” But, with the third season of Netflix’s hit show Stranger Things taking place in 1985, the year of the New Coke debacle, the product and the marketing around it is being reevaluated. An interesting article [...]
Plastic bags have been identified as a major environmental concern. One grocery store in Vancouver, Canada decided to take the situation into their own hands, or bags, as the case may be. In the process, they created both a marketing campaign that received international recognition and a new revenue [...]
Leigh still remembers her first job. It was the summer after eighth grade, and her father hired her in his medical office to help with filing (everything was still on paper back then). Somehow, Leigh didn’t realize there was a difference between “balance due” and “no balance,” and she [...]
UPDATE: The Tulsa Remote experiment appears to be going well for the first group of Tulsa ex-pats. Working from home has become a popular benefit for both workers who want work-life balance and for employers who want to attract top talent. According to Reuters, the number of remote workers [...]
It seems like marketing seasons are getting shorter and shorter. No sooner are the Fourth of July sales over than the Halloween candy starts coming out. Of course, the winter holidays now last from October until January, and then even before all the green of St. Patrick’s Day has [...]
Some of us may remember the days of debating between cream or white-colored paper for our resumes. Tomorrow’s job candidates may debate whether a smiley face or a thumbs up is a more professional response to the latest text from a recruiter. That’s right. As this article details, today’s [...]
Ahh love. Everyone knows that work and romance don’t mix, except that according to one poll, 22% of married couples in the U.S. met at work. Our own informal research (i.e. talking to our friends, colleagues, and clients) tells us that workplace romances are more likely to happen in [...]
Now that we’ve started a new year, let’s go back in time … to last year. Every year there are a few great marketing campaigns and a few truly bizarre ones. But, even the bizarre ones can tell us something about where marketing trends are going. Inc. magazine released [...]