Author: Patricia Uhrich

Who do you follow for inspiration?

Ideas and advice can come from anywhere outside of your own brain. The challenging part in our age of information overload is separating the wheat from the chaff as the old expression goes (and as expressions go, that’s one of the oldest with roots in the Bible).   We’ve filtered out a lot of noise and distilled our list of experts down to a comfortable number of sources to follow. Whether you’re in a creative rut and need some inspiration, looking for latest marketing trends, or simply want to spend your screen time reading something that will enrich your career/business, this is for you.   Mostly Creative:   Design Taxi: Since 2003, we’ve been gaining inspiration from brilliant ad campaigns and new product designs featured on their website. It’s no surprise that they have over 400,000 followers. If you crave new ideas or fear missing out on the innovative campaign everyone is talking about, tune in. Twitter   Creative...

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Top Fictional Movies and Series with an Advertising Spin

Among the many professions that are overly used among TV and movie characters, advertising professional is right up there with architect, lawyer, and doctor. Maybe it has to with so many copywriters making their way to Hollywood as screenwriters or perhaps it’s just a sexy occupation (on the surface and among those NOT in the biz).   Check out our top picks for movies and series with a marketing and advertising focus. We’ve excluded documentaries from this list for the simple reason that we wanted to provide you with some light-hearted summer fun. Here’s our countdown to #1 (which we hope you’ve already predicted).   8. What Women Want (film 2000) stars Mel Gibson as a chauvinistic advertising executive who gains the ability to hear women's thoughts and uses this newfound power to his advantage. At its heart, the film is a timeless and star-studded (Gibson, Helen Hunt, Marisa Tomei, Alan Alda) romantic fantasy...

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SUMMER MARKETING SURVIVAL TIPS

Keep your momentum with distracted consumers School’s out and vacation is in! While the airports and airbnbs are busy, many other businesses may experience a slowdown. Add to that a layer of recession fears for the second half of 2023, and you have good reasons to try and build momentum among your customers and prospects. Here are some easy-to-implement tips:   1) Tie your product or service to the season. Get creative with sales events or simple language that engages your audience. While marketers are sure to latch onto Independence Day, consider some lesser events that tie to brand like July’s National Freezer Pop Day or National Hotdog Day. Here’s a fun idea from a local animal hospital in Missouri: 2) Give your socials a summer spin. Maximizing social is an easy choice for any business given the options of free, organic posts in addition to paid ads to engage your audience. Sometimes all it...

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DCI Digital Campaigns Bring Home Two Awards

Last Thursday, May 18th, President and CEO Nick Lanzi had the pleasure of attending our region’s premier direct marketing awards show. Held at Manayunk’s unique Platform Thirty, The Philly DMA’s Benny Awards treated local direct marketers to another delightful evening of comradery and celebration of success. Speaking of celebrating, DCI was the proud recipient of two awards for our digital work over the past year.   Our “Playbook”educational e-Book for ArmadaCare was a winner in the Digital Sales Enablement category. Developed to help ArmadaCare elevate the value of supplemental benefits to HR professionals, the Recruiting & Retention Playbook beat the control in terms of open rate, clickthrough rate and response rate. We attribute its success to the value of the content, including compelling statistics from our client, which was wrapped in a theme that clearly resonated with the needs of HR departments.   In the Digital Social Media category, our “YES Plan” campaign took...

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As Gen Z’s income rises, will your marketing ride the wave?

The latest generation to enter the workforce has long been pursued by youth-oriented brands. And now that Gen Z is growing up, it’s time that everyone from insurance marketers to carmakers pay more attention to this demographic’s preferences.   First, a quick refresh on Gen Z:   Currently 11 to 26 years old   68.6 million live in the U.S. (20% of population)   Grew up with multiple screens, always connected   Experienced a global pandemic during their most formative years   Represent about 20% of the U.S. workforce       Being the first generation to grow up with multiple screens connected with web, Gen Z very much prefers the feeling of being in control – even when it’s the plot of something they’re streaming. What does this mean for marketers?  We need to create more interactive content where the user is in the driver’s seat. Even if you already think you know them based on gobs of data, ask...

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Maximizing Marketing ROI. It’s not just for recessions.

Given consumer spending at the start of 2023, it may seem like the media are crying wolf when it comes to recession fears. The problem is, although consumer spending and corporate profits seem strong, all of those reports are based on trailing data. It shows us what happened last month or last quarter. The Consumer Confidence Survey®, on the other hand, is meant to reflect prevailing business conditions and likely developments for the months ahead – and confidence is down for the past 2 months.   Regardless of the indicators, ROI-driven marketing is always the safest/best place for your marketing spend. Being an agency that specializes in direct marketing, we have some ideas on this topic.   Recognize which channels drive the most ROI.  For prospecting, the 2022 Association of National Advertisers (ANA) Response Rate Report shows direct mail in the lead. Direct mail’s advantage over digital is that our mailboxes are far less saturated with...

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5 reasons why Super Bowl LVII marketing was like no other

With most of the Super Bowl ads hype in the rear-view mirror, we decided to take a dive into what made this year’s marketing push different. Even if you didn’t find the ads themselves to be creatively unique or powerful, there are trends and tactics in here that have something to say about how our culture and our marketing landscape is changing.   #1 The appearance of Jesus: This year, the sea of alcohol and crass consumerism parted to make way for a brand re-fresh of Christianity. What does is say about our culture? The post-game banter says that we are as curious and skeptical as ever because we immediately wanted to know WHO was behind it. According to Christianity Today, the ads are partly funded by the family that owns Hobby Lobby, plus other evangelical groups.   #2 The end of Anheuser-Bush InBev’s 33-year+ alcohol exclusive: While we may miss the Clydesdales and the likes...

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2023 Direct Marketing: Top Trends and Predictions

With the unexpectedly rapid recovery of 2021 and 2022 in the rear-view mirror, and inflation slowing as we entered 2023, we are left with a big question mark on where the economy is headed. Will inflation plus rising interest rates trigger a recession, or will the Federal Reserve’s policies deliver the “soft landing” everyone desires? In either scenario, businesses are likely to spend more conservatively and look for highly measurable marketing tactics that have the largest impact on the bottom line — i.e., exactly what direct marketers aim to do regardless of economic conditions.   Here are some of the top ways we expect businesses to benefit from direct marketing in 2023:   Increased emphasis on B-to-B marketing: According to the White House, over the last two years, Americans have applied to start 10.5 million new businesses, the strongest two years on record. Layer onto that the fact that B-to-B markets have higher-value purchases...

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5 Tips for Maximizing the 2022 Holiday Shopping Season

Despite the evidence of inflation all around us, consumers seem unfazed when it comes to their shopping habits. According to National Retail Federation President and CEO, “October retail sales data confirms that consumers continue to stretch their dollars on household priorities, including gifts for family and loved ones this holiday season.” In other words, consumers are still spending and they’re spending early on holiday gifts. The question is, what can you do to win your share of today’s  holiday shoppers? We have some tips.   Appeal to the Hybrid Shopper   The intermixing of digital and physical shopping is becoming more dominant with more than half of consumers reporting they shop both ways. Clients of Aptos commerce solutions saw a 75% increase in e-commerce sales fulfilled from their physical stores during the 2021 holiday season. That means more of your customers will expect that they can purchase online and pick up the...

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Insurance Ads Gone Wild – A Brief History

Pure genius. That was the phrase that came to mind when we clicked on the YouTube page for Liberty Mutual’s Young People commercial. It has 1.4 million plus views, half of which are probably from marketers who saw it on broadcast and then had to see it again. Have a look.   Kudos to the agency, Goodby Silverstein & Partners and the client for having a laugh at themselves. Insurance companies have been trying so hard to make ads that people want to watch, that it’s become a competition.   1999: GEICO Gecko Debuts We can thank GEICO for breaking away from stuffy, artless ads with the advent of the GEICO Gecko which first aired in 1999. Originally targeting government employees, Government Employee Insurance Company (GEICO) had an image problem as they entered the broader market. Obviously they succeeded, because according to Ad Age, 98% of people recognize the GEICO Gecko.   With a running start, GEICO...

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Had a fun and informative time at the @BCAPhilly Hospitality Breakfast last Friday. Speaker @TarynSouthern gave a thought-provoking presentation focused on how AI is changing our world. #ai #aimarketing #bcaphilly ...

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Proud to report that Direct Choice picked up 2 Benny Awards last night in the digital/social media marketing categories - Congrats to All!! #pdma #bennyawards #socialmediamarketing #digitalmarketing ...

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This holiday season, we’re continuing to support @philabundance to help them end hunger in our local communities. Happy Holidays from Direct Choice Inc! #philabundance #happyholidays ...

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Kudos for Direct Choice at the PDMA Benny Awards last night. DCI won the top award in 3 categories PLUS WON BEST IN SHOW! Congrats to ALL #PDMA #bennyawards ...

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Here`s something many of us can relate to in the era of virtual meetings - enjoy a good laugh and Happy Holidays from the DCI team! #virtualbloopers #Happyholidays #happyholidays2021 ...

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Way to go Reem, our resident @Peloton aficionado, for recently completing 500 RIDES!! #peloton ...

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