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CHILD’S PLAY — Shaun’s Gaming Helps Children’s Hospital

Shaun Vaughan, ace animation and graphic artist at Farris Marketing is a gamer. And when he wins, so do kids at Akron Children’s Hospital. Shaun and his gamer team, Pixel Damage have just passed the $100,000 milestone over the last decade to benefit their respective, local, Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals. …

Interview With an AI Marketing App

“Simple solutions seldom are.” said philosopher Alfred Whitehead. But that quote hasn’t stopped us from searching for simple solutions to complex problems. Small business owners are especially susceptible to the promise of a simple solution to any of the many problems that strain their limited time, talent and resources. The …

Christmas Miracles? Two Unlikely Comebacks

Is Santa Claus real? Bringing lots of toys to girls and boys certainly is certainly real, even if process is handled by marketers, manufacturers and retailers instead of a guy in a red suit. And two recent comebacks — an long-time marketing tradition and a much-loved retailer — have sparked …

A Dreamer’s Guide to Marketing

The future of marketing provides many choices.

A few decades ago, I was the co-founder of what was called an “advertising agency.” TV was the largest part of media budgets of clients who sold consumer goods and services. The budget was typically divided among three TV networks. (There were only three broadcast networks at the time.) We …

Marketing The Unmentionables: Embrace The Awkward

A few months after I got married, I was in the grocery store, shopping from a list my wife gave me. I saw that sanitary napkins was one of the items on the list. Suddenly I felt anxious. I knew it was silly — I’ve skydived, drag-raced, and done all …

The ABCs (and X’s) of Rebranding

Deciding on whether you should change your brand name should not be as difficult as some businesses make it. If your company or product name (A) no longer appeals to the market you seek or (B) your product line is changing substantially, (C) you should probably change, pivot, realign — …

After Marketing, Will AI Take Over The World?

Not long after I mentioned artificial intelligence in a previous column, I received an email from a reader, “Before I started using AI, I thought it might be dangerous. Now, I just don’t think about it.” I have the same attitude. As Mad Magazine mascot Alfred E Newman says, “What, …

Are Media Moguls Giving Marketers Too Many Choices?

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are modern media moguls— make that social media moguls. Zuckerberg is more of a true social media mogul, whereas Musk is probably more of a tech, space, solar energy, tunnel-drilling, electric car and social media mogul. Musk owns one social media platform — Twitter. Zuckerberg’s Meta …