Let’s Talk About Brand Positioning (jschmid.com)

Phoenix Innovate (PI), a leading marketing communications firm headquartered in Troy, Mich., has acquired Carmel, Ind.-based UN Communications Group, Inc. The leadership and staff at UN will remain on and are thrilled to integrate the strengths of both companies with a focus toward creating a new standard for effective marketing solutions. “Our ability to serve our clients' brand awareness and marketing supply chain needs got a big boost today,” said Denise Purvis, President of UN. “The addition of strategic marketing, application development and data analytics expertise Phoenix Innovate provides will help our clients achieve a new level of integration, automation and increased ROI. The combination of our talented team members will continue to create game-changing marketing solutions for our clients.”

Why do brands spend so much time and money on photoshoots? Because images matter a lot in marketing. The brain processes pictures first. But words matter, too. Alongside those great photos and great design is the copy on the page or screen. And this copy must be interesting, thoughtful and relevant. Most importantly, it must be engaging – driving your reader to take a very specific action (shop, donate, learn more, you get the idea). Sounds time-consuming to come up with just the right words, doesn’t it? It is. But like the fabulous photos your brand captures, engaging copy is another investment that’s well worth it. Because action from your reader means dolla dolla bills for your brand. Here are five tips to help you create copy that truly engages. go to: https://www.jschmid.com/blog/breakthrough-creative-gimme-5/

What’s that sound you hear? It’s marketers gritting their teeth as they’re being asked to give up their precious advertising dollars to help insulate their brands from the looming recession. Or you may have heard the marketers or agencies say “Let’s only focus on hardworking media,” which typically means lower-funnel, digital-only, highly targeted, easily measurable, promotional campaigns designed to boost short-term sales and eliminate “waste.” They’re all part of the marketer’s recession playbook. But should they be? In reality, we should all consider a different path forward: Now is an opportune timeto shore up brand awareness and loyalty by increasing media investments with brand-building, mass-reaching, highly creative advertising campaigns.