Don’t be known for having a short temper and being unprofessional.

The Internet has made it easy to complain about anything at the drop of a hat. Whether or not the complaints are justified, it’s important to know how to handle them without offending the complainer or the rest of your customer base. So here’s what not to do:

1. Make the person feel like an idiot.

I recently participated in a company’s event that was very poorly run. After hearing several complaints, a friend of mine sent the organizer an email relaying the group’s frustration. The organizer responded by posting the message on the company’s Facebook page and picking it apart line by line. He essentially tore my friend a new one. What a great way to alienate a paying customer and anyone with similar opinions.Read full post...

If you missed Part I, get caught up before you read any further. 

Dawn guessed that whoever was haunting the first floor might have been alive during the 1930s. She began to play a ’30s hymn on the piano in an attempt to rile up the spirit. No response. Perhaps the ghost was more of a Belieber.

Downingtown Area Paranormal Investigators examine Craig Brown’s office.

The team then moved into the office of a former employee who had brought in an Episcopalian priest to bless the building because of its history. Dawn dangled a necklace between her fingers and encouraged one of the spirits to move it. To everyone’s surprise, the necklace began to swing in circles but stopped after only a few minutes.

We ascended to the second floor where Courtney Rossi, our Human Resources and Traffic Manager, had an eerie encounter one morning two and a half years ago. Courtney was the first one in to work. She headed to her office, and spotted a very tall man standing in a doorway about 20 feet down the hall. Well over six feet tall, the man stood with his head down, wearing a wide-brimmed hat that covered most of his face. He was also wearing a dark, horse-riding cloak and large, filthy boots. Courtney couldn’t make out any facial features. When she took a step forward to get a better look, the phantom backed into the office and disappeared.Read full post...

Plenty of people have had otherworldly encounters at 819 N. Washington.

Aloysius Butler & Clark has a full house these days. We’ve been steadily adding new clients, which means we’ve been taking on additional employees to handle our ever-increasing workload. So it’s time to kick out a wall or two — we want to keep everyone happy, right? And by everyone, we mean the living and the dead.

Why are we concerned about those who have crossed over? Let’s just say our building has a rich and eerie history. Constructed in 1904, it was originally the Yeatman Funeral Home. On the first floor, coffins were displayed and viewings took place; John and Lynda Yeatman lived on the second floor; and the third floor, which housed Goldey-Beacom college dormitories for a brief period, wound up as apartments. After the funeral home closed in 1990, the building was abandoned until 1998, when AB&C purchased it. And as we learned even before we moved in, the joint is jumpin’ with ghostly apparitions, unexplainable phenomena and mysterious noises.Read full post...

The Highlights

• Combo of Venison sausage and steak tips
• Sauté onions celery & peppers in bacon fat
• 3 types of peppers
• Cocoa powder and a bit of cinnamonRead full post...

The Ingredients

• 85/15 Ground Beef
• 1 can petite tomatoes
• 1 can diced chilies
• 1 can light red kidney beans
• 1 cup salsa
• sautéd diced white onion and green pepper
• chili powder
• cayan red pepper
• ground cumin
• salt and pepper
• crushed red chili pepper flakes
• 1 package taco seasoning
• Hot sauce
• Triple X habanero sauce
• And a dose of TLCRead full post...

Think of social media as a piece of the brand engagement puzzle. To be effective, it needs to fit into a strategy aimed at the right audience.

Well, you can — if you don’t mind it ending or taking on an entirely different tone when the next semester starts.

Social media has become the latest stepchild in the world of digital marketing campaigns. At least it has good company. When Quark and Pagemaker came out in the ’90s, everyone was an instant print designer. With the dot-com bubble, everyone’s nephew was a web developer. Digital cameras turned the world into professional photographers. Now, interns can manage social media campaigns. Why not? They spend their whole day on those sites anyway.

It’s easy to think of social communities as the realm of kids hanging out with their friends and boomers sharing cat videos. In reality, the social networks are one piece of what has become the omni-channel. Read full post...

Serves 8-12 (party size)

• 1 lb. dried navy beans
• 2 large white onions, chopped
• 3 tbs garlic, chopped
• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 cups chicken broth
• 4 cups half-and-half
• 2 teaspoons Tabasco, or to taste
• 1 tbs chili powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cumin
• 2 tablespoons salt
• 1 teaspoon white pepper
• 2 teaspoons Mexican oregano
• 1 teaspoon aniseed
• 4  4-ounce cans mild green chilies, drained and chopped
• 4 skinless chicken breasts cooked and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
• 2 cups grated Monterrey Jack
• 1 cup sour creamRead full post...

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...