It seems as if marketers move further and further away from direct buys and fall more into the world of programmatic buying. An article on Ad Exchanger by Sarah Sluis states that 87% of brands and agencies plan to spend 50% more on programmatic ad buys. Advertising Age is projecting that $9.8 billion will be…
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Food for Your Brain.
Latest Trends and Best Practices from our Thought Leaders and Industry Experts.
7 Reasons Why You Want to Add Mobile Targeting to Your Marketing Campaign
Every marketer encounters the battle of deciding where to put his or her digital marketing dollars. Do you choose to run a desktop-only campaign? Is mobile and tablet-specific targeting really worth it? Here are seven simple reasons why mobile marketing can increase your brand’s ROI.
Read MoreChad Robley & Mike Hodges Awarded American Advertising Federation Silver Medal Award
San Diego, CA – October 24, 2014 – Mindgruve Cofounder and CEO, Chad Robley, and U-T San Diego President and COO, Mike Hodges, were awarded the American Advertising Federation Silver Medal Award at the Brand Diego Award ceremony on October 23. The AAF Silver Medal Award Program recognizes men and women who have made outstanding contributions…
Read MoreMindgruve Wins Gold W3 Award
“Welcome to Beverly Hills.” Or so it says on the homepage of our award-winning site for the Beverly Hills CVB, LoveBeverlyHills.com! That’s right. Mindgruve has been honored with a Gold W3 Award in the General Website – Tourism category. The responsive design allows users to seamlessly check out upcoming events, local restaurants, shops, and places…
Read MoreThe Sweet Spot: How to Avoid Being “Too Salesy” on Social Media
Lately, we’ve been tasked to think of ways to market a product via social media without making the tweet or post sound “too salesy.” Sound familiar? After all, with nearly 60% of Facebook and Instagram users and 46% of Twitter users logging on every day, your brand better speak to the masses in the most…
Read MoreMindgruve Wins Ad Age Healthcare Award
Modern Healthcare & Advertising Age honored Mindgruve with a Silver Healthcare Marketing IMPACT Award! Competing against a wide variety of quality entries from nationally recognized healthcare brands, our efforts in MDVIP’s “National Doctors’ Day” digital marketing campaign won silver in the Digital Category. The award recognizes healthcare’s best advertising, marketing, promotion, and communication campaigns on…
Read MoreMindgruve Nominated for Brand Diego’s Agency of the Year Award
SDX’s Brand Diego Awards has nominated Mindgruve in its Agency of the Year category! Agencies will be evaluated on innovation, skill, leadership, and commitment to the San Diego community, among other qualities. In addition, our very own Michael Bowen, Director of Performance Marketing, has been nominated for Agency Professional of the Year! Running for its…
Read MoreMobile Email Marketing: Avoiding the ‘Unsubscribe’
To put it simply, we’re living in the age of screens. Screens of all sizes, of different operating systems, and all have their own set of rules for mobile content. According to a study done by Business Insider, the global smart phone penetration exploded from 5% in 2009 to 22% by the end of 2013….
Read MoreWhat You Need To Know About Millennials
Being a Millennial isn’t as easy as it looks. For those of us born after 1981, we have to live with crushing student loan debt, being labeled as lazy or entitled and people waiting in line to tell us just what’s wrong with our generation. Not to mention, our childhood heroes are constantly being unceremoniously…
Read MoreSlowing Down The Internet.
Earlier this week, Apple unveiled the new iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch in a live-streamed event marred by a bevy of technical issues. And, the Internet promptly erupted with people taking to Twitter to voice their frustration. Just one day later, the Internet slowed to a halt. No, it wasn’t your router…
Read MoreWhat Makes A Successful Brand Tagline?
Working with brands to establish or reinvent their identities, we’ve heard a lot of talk about brand taglines lately. What brands have the most memorable taglines? Which ones have the worst? Are brand taglines even necessary today? Even if it never sees the light of day, going through the exercise of creating a concise slogan…
Read More[INFOGRAPHIC] Post, Pin, & Tweet: The Best Time to Outreach
As a person slightly addicted to social media and a professional social media consultant, I tend to be browsing through my networks every other waking hour (I wish this were an exaggeration). My supervisor kindly refers to me as a “power user.” However, I’m not the general population of social media users. Most tend to…
Read More4 Better Ways to Spend Your Marketing Budget Than at Comic-Con
There’s no doubt. Brands LOVE Comic-Con and so do we. But, as the main exhibit hall gets more crowded each year, it’s becoming obvious that grabbing the attention of attendees is extremely difficult unless you’re spending a ton to promote the next summer blockbuster. Don’t have millions to spend? Here’s a couple ways that brands…
Read MoreTNT’s Integrated Marketing Campaign for Comic-Con
Author’s note: Warning! This article contains some Game of Thrones spoilers. Brace yourselves, San Diego. Comic-Con is coming. Whether you’re a visitor to our beautiful city or a local dreading the imminent Gaslamp traffic, you probably noticed that San Diego’s Gaslamp district is slowly transforming into a media planner’s dream. Storefronts will begin transforming into…
Read MoreWho Are Brands Overlooking at Comic-Con?
What comes to mind when you picture a San Diego Comic-Con attendee? Is it a comic book “geek” with a poster tube slung across his shoulder? A film buff in a movie t-shirt and cargo shorts? Or is it an avid gamer with a Mountain Dew in hand? Every year, Comic-Con grows exponentially with 130,000…
Read MoreObserving a (fantastic) Twitter trend: #TrueDetectiveSeason2
If you subscribe to HBO (or are lucky enough to have a friend or family member who is more than willing to lend you their HBO Go login information), you may be a fan of the crime drama, True Detective, created and written by Nic Pizzolatto and directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga. Though its first…
Read MoreBack to Basics: Focusing on Metrics that Matter
While I fell into marketing on accident, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed applying a scientific approach to improve marketing KPIs, from email open rates to paid search cost-per-click or e-commerce conversion rates and everything in between. In today’s ever-changing world of new tactics and emerging channels, marketers are expected to track and report on dozens of metrics…
Read MoreThe Evolving Brand Tagline
“Melts in your mouth, not in your hand.” “The ultimate driving machine.” “Just do it.” “I’m lovin’ it.” The common denominator of all these taglines is that they are all trying to sell their products to hungry consumers. And arguably, a great brand tagline is a memorable one. As you were reading the list above,…
Read MoreLessons From IDSD 2014: Attention Economy, Brands & Creative Storytelling
David Shing (@Shingy), AOL’s “Digital Prophet” gave one of the most inspiring keynote speeches at Interactive Day San Diego (IDSD 2014) on May 16th of this year. As he walked onto the main stage with his zebra pants and blown up hair, we all knew we were in for something great. Why? His talk about…
Read MoreSocial Media Marketing World 2014: “Let’s Get Social”
I had the opportunity to attend Social Media Marketing World 2014 from March 27th to March 28th to learn from some of the world’s most influential thought leaders in the social media and digital marketing world. During my time there, I’ve acquired a vast amount of invaluable information and education about social media and the…
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