Craig, Jenn and Paul of AB&C with Anita Moos of Newark Natural Foods. (Photo credit the Delaware Business Journal.)

If you scour our website and blog, you’ll see the words “brand” and “branding” popping up all over the place. It’s at the very core of what we do, so naturally we like to talk about it. What makes our jobs more fun is when our clients adopt that same love and appreciation for branding that we have. And we are fortunate enough to work with many clients who have done exactly that.

Delaware Business Times wrote an article spotlighting Newark Natural Food’s recent brand makeover. (Side note: it’s fairly obvious that posing for pictures doesn’t come quite as naturally to us [or at least to me] as branding does.)Read full post...

While business owners keep the doors open, change agents do that and more. They constantly challenge the status quo and find new ways to achieve greater success—and then work tirelessly to ensure that success.

These driven people share four traits:Read full post...

I happen to be an early millennial (1986), and my brothers came around at the end (2000 & 2002) And the three of us consume content very differently, and much differently than mom and dad.

If you’re not a millennial, you probably have a mental image of how we behave—we can’t put our phones down, we can’t pay attention to anything for more than a few seconds, we aren’t following the traditional 9–5 workday and we can be kind of difficult.

It’s all true.

But we’re also an important demographic—and we’re changing the way marketers do their job.Read full post...

Whether you have separate teams dedicated to marketing and new business development, or you have one person responsible for both, you need to start an inbound marketing program. What makes inbound so important?

Let’s start with something everyone (especially our b2b clients) realizes: The buyer’s journey has changed. There’s now this Zero Moment of Truth—the moment when a person identifies a problem and then heads to Google to research a solution. If you don’t come up on that first page, chances are your competitors do, and they will snag that lead and eventually that paying customer.Read full post...

Four ways to see if a media vendor and their services are right for your campaign.

When I first started as a media intern here at AB&C, one of my most frequent tasks was analyzing different media vendors for plans. This included vendors servicing print and digital magazines, websites, outdoor media ventures, out of home media, social media vendors — you name it. I would research and analyze different organizations to determine whether they’re the right vendor to accomplish our clients’ goals and reach the target audience for media plans.Read full post...

Whether you’re the old pro bringing in a new client or you’re the newbie at your agency, you quickly realize how important relationships are. How do you build trust quickly? And how do you sustain and strengthen the client/agency relationship? Who better to ask than AB&C’s CEO John Hawkins and Director of Client Services Mike Gallagher? John and Mike have been working in the wonderful world of advertising for more than 60 years combined. Together they prescribed four simple steps to build strong, long-lasting client relationships:Read full post...

The budget tango – the precious dance clients and agencies do around the marketing budget.

Budgets.

There, I said it. I’ve never been a fan of surprises.

There’s a silly little dance that takes place in most client-agency relationships around the subject of budgets. I call it the budget tango.Read full post...

Motivation is like a muscle, it won’t grow on its own! You need to push it!

I finally hit my one-year anniversary at AB&C — and every day I still wake up as excited as I was on my first day of work here. I know, sounds totally cheesy — but whatever. I refuse to get into a rut. Because once things get stagnant, I quit pushing myself to become better. Like at the gym. Doing the same old routine gets old real fast and, before you know it, going just seems boring and skipping becomes a lot more appealing. But if you keep your routine new and exciting, you’ll always be looking forward to going.Read full post...

You can prevent and adapt to scope creep with these five steps!

Great — now that I have your attention, it’s time for the ol’ bait-and-switch. Instead of offering 10 ways to stop scope creep, I’ll describe the five things you need to prevent and adapt to scope creep. If you’re a project or account manager who has worked in an agency, you’re very familiar with scope creep, whether you have six months or 20 years of experience. If you’re lucky enough to have no idea what I’m talking about, scope creep happens when a project deviates from the original direction outlined in the project plan. It’s simply a part of the business — and the sooner we accept that, the sooner we can adjust, adapt and produce the best work under the circumstances.

Here are the five things I promised:Read full post...

Working with a full-service agency brings a lot of benefits to clients.

The advertising industry has evolved since the days of the Mad Men. Full-service agencies have given way to specialty shops. These shops usually focus on one marketing tactic — PR, SEO, website design or maybe inbound marketing. And they tend to concentrate on only one or two industries.

I heard this line over and over at a recent conference:Read full post...

Garfield knows.

This has always been a pet peeve of mine. When someone utters this phrase, I think, “You should try harder.”

I could care less vs. I couldn’t care less

The point of the statement is that the speaker doesn’t care at all. But to say s/he could care less literally means that there is potential to care at least a little less than s/he does right now.Read full post...

Photo Credit: Boston.com

I’m writing this blog post on Monday, April 21 — Boston Marathon Monday. Last year, the marathon was held on my birthday. As a runner who couldn’t be there, I took that as a kind of consolation prize. But that particular birthday — April 15, 2013 — will be etched in my heart and mind for years to come. I watched the news clips in horror as the oldest and most prestigious marathon in the country was turned into chaos. Three innocent people were killed; several more suffered life-altering injuries. We were all scarred in some way by the events of that day.

But Americans are resilient. We rallied. We showed solidarity with the city of Boston. And we created a brand. Actually, two seniors at Emerson College — who wanted to do something to help — say they came up with the phrase “Boston Strong” within hours of the attacks, creating a simple blue-and-yellow T-shirt with the two words. They started selling the shirts for $20, with $15 going to charity.  Read full post...

Despite its extinction, the diplodocus prefers the active voice.

We write stuff to give information or opinions or feelings or whatever to someone else. We need that someone to understand what we’re putting out. So it’s important to be clear.Read full post...

Baby naming is a competitive endeavor.

My wife and I are expecting our third child in about a month and the pressure is on to pick a name for “baby girl.” When we tell people we don’t have a name yet, some of them think we’re just trying to keep it a secret so no one else picks the name. If you’ve looked for inspiration or ideas for baby names recently, you’ve no doubt realized that a full-blown industry has grown up around the subject. There are baby name consultants, dozens of websites and the official records kept by the Social Security office.

The top three boy names in the United States are:Read full post...

Bowl of Irish stew with soda bread

When it comes to St. Patrick’s Day, I’m somewhat out of the loop (mostly by heritage). But I was curious: Why do so many people love to participate in this celebration?

Ask anyone, “What’s the first thing that comes to your mind about St. Patrick’s Day?” and you get a lot of different answers. Some mention religious aspects; some refer to the mythical leprechauns; others wax poetic about corned beef, Irish Potato candies and green beer. But who was St. Patrick?Read full post...