Spectators have come to expect the quality of advertising at the stadium to equal the quality they see on TV during the Super Bowl.

Sports marketing has been around at least since the 1870s, when a tobacco company started making baseball cards and sticking them in cigarette packs. Any sports fan will tell you that there is a special level of respect for those advertisers that sponsor their favorite team. Nowhere is this respect more evident than within the realm of professional football.Read full post...

Once again, a study has confirmed that there are significantly more risks associated with not vaccinating children than there are with vaccinating them. The study — published on September 30 in Pediatrics — looked at rates of pertussis (whooping cough) in California, and compared them to rates in areas where parents withheld vaccines from their children. The findings? People who weren’t vaccinated were 2½ times more likely than the norm to live in an area with high levels of whooping cough.

Why is this important? Because as the study states in its background, “In 2010, 9120 cases of pertussis were reported in California, more than any year since 1947.” How could this happen in the United States in the 21^st century? Why would parents withhold one of the most effective preventers of communicable diseases in the world?Read full post...

Color Blocks

So, I’m driving along an unfamiliar country road enjoying the scenery when I approach a crossroads with a red octagonal sign but no words. What’s a guy to do? Instinct tells me to take my foot off the gas and come to a stop. This may seem like a no-brainer but there’s a reason for my actions. Is it the sign’s octagonal shape? Maybe. But more than likely it’s the sign’s color. Since prehistoric times, red has been associated with blood and fire. So, naturally, this guy decided to stop.

In marketing

Colors affect each of us in so many ways. Colors can even reveal your personality or mood, and yet most of us are unaware of their influence in our lives — or of the subtle ways we use them. In marketing, for example, it’s valuable to know how colors resonate with your target audience. As a marketing communications designer, I’m constantly involved with color and color decisions: How do we make this poster “edgy”? Can this brochure be more “corporate?” What will make you look at this billboard and grasp its message — all in 2.3 seconds? Just as the red of the unmarked sign alerts us to the possibility of imminent danger, there are other colors that can influence in other ways, even physiologically.Read full post...

We’re proud to be partnering with our friends from MedStar Health and Scripps Health to present an Idea Workshop at SHSMD’s Annual Conference. Our workshop will tackle seven of the most common healthcare marketing challenges faced by our colleagues around the country. We identified these challenges through a brainstorming session with MedStar and Scripps, a poll of all AB&C healthcare partners and a survey of SHSMD Annual Conference attendees. Here’s a quick look at three of the challenges that we’ll be discussing at the conference.

Challenge #1: How do I choose what to market?

Plan, plan and plan some more. Your marketing plan is one element of your organization’s planning cycle, and you should take cues from the other elements: your strategic plan, facilities plan, operating plan, financial plan, business plan and communications plan. From those plans, identify the organization’s priority service lines. Then determine if they’re ready to be marketed:

• Do you have clinical strength in this area?
• Do you have positioning power?
• Is it profitable?
• Is there competitor vulnerability?
• Is there spin-off revenue?
• Is there a product champion?
• Can they deliver on patient experience?

If you plan properly and can answer these questions, you’ll have an easier time prioritizing your marketing efforts.Read full post...

Dr. Jenni Buckley (far right) of the University of Delaware shows off an adapted tricycle designed by her mechanical engineering students.

WILMINGTON, DE — U.S. Paralympic swimmer Mallory Weggemann, who holds 34 American and 15 world records, will headline the second annual Gift of Movement Celebration on October 24 from 5:30 to 9 p.m. at White Clay Creek Country Club. In 2008, complications from an epidural injection left Mallory paralyzed from the waist down. In spite of her disability, Mallory went on to become one of the most decorated American swimmers.

The evening will feature hors d’oeuvres, dinner, a silent auction and an address from Carla Markell, Delaware’s First Lady. The benefit is hosted by Yes U Can USA, an organization for people who are disabled or have limited mobility. The nonprofit identifies and overcomes barriers, then gets people with disabilities moving through exercise and activities.Read full post...

If you’re anything like me, a 30-something year old parent who’s typically in bed by 9:30 most nights, you probably weren’t up to watch this year’s MTV’s VMAs. But like most people today, the first thing we go for when we wake up is our mobile device, so the previous night’s big topics are all over social media.

As I drank my morning coffee, I went on Facebook. Scrolling down the page was post after post about Miley Cyrus’s performance. So where did I turn to next? Google. After a quick search on “Miley Cyrus 2013 VMA”, I landed on MTV’s site. Three and a half minutes later, I felt as if I had just witnessed a car crash in very slow motion. Between the bears, her tongue, hip thrusting and then the foam finger, it was an awkward and uncomfortable performance (as described by many faces in the audience, most notably Will Smith and family).

I put down my iPad, pushed my jaw shut and got ready for work.

On the car ride in, I heard on the radio that Miley’s performance received 306,000 tweets in a minute. Let me repeat this stat, 306,000 tweets in ONE minute. That’s more tweets than the Super Bowl blackout received!Read full post...

I also never leave home without a good copy editor!

With all the modern ways of communicating, it still comes down to good writing. Tweets, blogs, web copy and infographics still require dynamic writing that engages your audience. The rules for good PR writing still apply in the social media era. Some say the demands of sound bites and 140 characters make good writing next to impossible. I say these “restrictions” compel us to hone our skills even more!

Public relations and marketing professionals have to communicate complex messages in less “space” to less attentive audiences. Are you up for the challenge? Here are a few quick tips to improve your writing:Read full post...

About three months ago, I made the commitment and ordered my new “workstyle.”

It’s so easy to fall into certain work habits. Some can help us be very productive, while others merely turn into … well, bad habits.

As a young account executive sitting at metallic desk in a not-so-semi-private cubicle, I aspired to one day have my own office, with a wooden desk and a fine leather chair that rolled smoothly and maybe had a little sophisticated rock to it! Such are the frills that fuel little-boy-like dreams. The important stuff, particularly in my chosen profession — full-service advertising and public relations agency work — is to find yourself working in the best possible agency environment, with smart, interesting people who love what they’re doing and therefore work harder every day to be better! And over the last 35 years, I have been lucky to work with lots of great people — not the least of whom are my 70-some coworkers at AB&C, many of whom I have worked with for more than 20 years. As a friend would say, “all good stuff.”

But let’s not forget about the frills.Read full post...

What is a stronger employment brand really worth?

If you want to recruit and retain top talent, visit our recruitment marketing page. 

An interesting collection of statistics showing the current state of physician recruitment

If you want to recruit and retain top talent, visit our recruitment marketing page. 

The breathtaking action is then followed by a line of microscopic type at the end that states, “Stunt driver on closed course. Do not attempt.” Hey, I’m going to fight the urge!

Every weight-loss TV ad worth its salt has a “results not typical” disclaimer at the end of it. You know what I mean. You see a newly svelte man or woman standing inside a pair of giant jeans that once housed their enormous frames — with the disclaimer, “Results not typical.” If these “results” aren’t typical, why in the world are they showing them? Oh yeah, it’s advertising.

While I’m not an attorney by trade, my copywriting background has made me proficient at crafting disclaimer copy. The disclaimer has been described as those few seconds of legalese at the end of an ad designed to take all the fun and fantasy out of what you’ve just witnessed. (Actually, that was my description. See? I told you I was a writer!)

Some of my favorite TV disclaimers: You’ve seen the fast-paced spot that feature 57 seconds of an exotic sports car wildly careening down a snowy mountainside or racing on two wheels around the rim of an active volcano. Let’s call it glorifying some form of death-cheating behavior. Read full post...

Philadelphia, PA — AB&C, a full-service marketing communications agency, and its client Klein USA were named winners in the online ad category at the Architectural Record 2013 Excellence in Advertising Awards. The winning banner ad was a collaboration of AB&C’s Lou Brandsdorfer (Creative Director), Bruce Waters (Associate Creative Director) and Paul Stecca (Creative Director).

“Architectural Record is the leading print and online media vehicle for construction and architecture,” says John Hawkins, president and CEO of AB&C. “We’re thrilled to receive such prestigious industry recognition for Klein, a world leader in high-quality interior sliding door systems.”Read full post...

Gone are the dartboards and the expensive lunches with reps. We don’t have time for that. We’re too busy analyzing data.

Analyze analyze analyze, buy buy buy — that’s the credo of today’s media department. But it wasn’t always so. When I first started, my first boss told me that the way to “buy” was to look at the rate cards (yes, we had them then), determine which programs had the highest rates and put the plan together using those programs. With deep enough pockets, you could still make that work today. But now a lot of other factors — mainly research — enter into buying, making the job both easier and more challenging.

In the old days, television had two sources of local research, Arbitron and Nielsen; most other information was national. The demographics available were limited. We bought the top stations/programs if the budget allowed. Simple. Now we have only one research source — Nielsen — with a plethora of demographics. And Nielsen is owned by Arbitron. Hmmm.Read full post...

The actors and writers tweet in response to keep the conversation fun.

It’s been a long day. I just want to come home and chill out. After having some dinner and getting everything squared away for the next day, I plop down on my comfy couch for my prime time show of the night that I’ve waited all day to watch. Who cares that I’ve changed into sweatpants or taken my makeup off? I’m shielded from the public while watching the private lives of others — real and fictional. But now I’m watching my shows with millions of other fans, thanks to social media.

No more waiting for the next day’s lunchroom chatter or a text from your best friend during a commercial to find out how others feel about every OMG moment. Social media is a-buzz during airings, and some posts are even crawling across TV screens!

With websites like Hulu and Netflix, watching TV whenever and wherever you want has grown in popularity. Gone are the days of anxiously waiting for the next episode of Grey’s Anatomy.  Even with online binge watching’s growing popularity, live conversation about various shows has brought viewers back to the couch with a modern TV experience.

Read full post...

Despite massive success in 2012, Red Frog Events wanted to keep things fresh when promoting their 2^nd annual Firefly Music Festival in Dover, Delaware.

To reach their core audience, social media was a must. What evolved was one of the most successful Twitter campaigns I’ve seen to date (not counting Oreo’s brilliant moment with a “super” power outage).

They created a virtual scavenger hunt. And the prize was VIP passes to the three-day festival. Here’s how it worked (they can certainly explain it better than I can):Read full post...