A colleague recently asked me, “What’s the difference between advertising and public relations?” Isn’t it one and the same? Good question – that must be a pretty smart colleague. Here’s the answer in a nutshell – there is a big difference between the two!  But while they’re different, the bottom line is that they both [...]

That’s a great question, but unfortunately, there’s no simple answer. The best thing you can do to start the process is to do your homework. Talk to colleagues and business contacts to find out who’s doing their work. Determine what type of ad agency you need – full service? Boutique? Large? Small?  National? Regional? As [...]

Do you remember what marketing was like before someone came along in the 70’s and dropped the “B” word? (That’s branding, just in case you were in diapers in the 70’s). It was attributed to some London account planners (Seems that in America we didn’t have Account Planners back in the 70’s!) who came to [...]

Here in our world headquarters in downtown San Francisco, we are sometimes serenaded by the sounds of street singers outside. Now, this may seem like nice atmosphere to you, but this particular group has one rather drastic shortcoming: they know exactly one song. Mind you, the tourists think they are fabulous when they hear them [...]

The meeting happened years ago, in one of those fabulous Silicon Valley office parks around Cupertino. We were going through an exercise with the executives of our client, peppering them with questions, digging into dark corners, and uncovering things they didn’t want us to find. Just a basic game of getting to know you, agency-style. [...]