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Food for Your Brain.
Latest Trends and Best Practices from our Thought Leaders and Industry Experts.

Super Bowl XLVIII Commercials, Commence!

It’s that time of year again, where brands are able to show off their multi-million dollar ads to those who enjoy some competitive American football. As exciting as the Super Bowl XLVIII can be (you’ll get it next year, Chargers!), some of us are more eager to check out what brands have up their sleeves…

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2014 Marketing Trends: Get Your Search, Social & Mobile On

There has been a lot of discussions about the future of search and search marketing over the past 3 years. The industry has been moving toward quality-focused solutions that aim at improving user experience. In laymen terms, content is still king, social media is queen, big data is prince and SEO is the grand vizier….

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SEO in 2014: 5 New Year’s Resolutions You Should Make

Resolution#1: Focus on Quality Content 2013 was a busy year for Google: several additional Panda and Penguin updates targeting low quality content and spam link schemes, as well as the release of the new Hummingbird algorithm which focuses on relevancy and understanding users’ search intents. Topped with the continued rise of not provided keyword data…

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RECAP: Mindgruve Gives Back to the San Diego Center for Children

We’d like to give a huge thank you to everyone who donated to our Mindgruve Gives Back campaign to benefit the San Diego Center for Children. Established in 1887, the San Diego Center for Children is an accredited, non-profit organization that provides behavioral care, therapy and counseling, and special education for children and teens in…

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Video Ads: Intrusive or Worth the Watch?

Video is all the rage. Or so it seems. During its initial testing, Facebook noticed increased engagement and positive results from their auto-play video ads. Now, Facebook is rolling out auto-play video ads to the masses, and you know what, I’m not so bothered by it. Though some users are finding this tactic intrusive, the…

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Ramp Up Your Email Marketing Strategy for 2014

Email marketing saw some big milestones this year. Yahoo announced it would begin recycling  inactive email addresses older than one year. Outlook.com graduated from beta and replaced Hotmail’s web email service. Google brought tabs to millions of inboxes. Litmus hosted the first ever Email Design Conference. And just last week, we learned Google will begin…

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Native Advertising: Coming to a Comment Section Near You

Sponsored story. Branded content. Native advertising. Whatever you name it, it’s advertising. And studies show that readers prefer native advertising to the traditional banner ad, for the most part. According to the IPG Media Lab and Sharethrough study, “consumers looked at native ads 52% more frequently than banner ads.” Those are a lot of potential…

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How To Integrate SEO Into Your Seasonal Marketing Strategy

As customers today expect to find more discounts and deals during the holiday season, it’s imperative that you develop and implement a long standing strategy to stay relevant. Seasonal marketing involves incorporating climate trends into your strategy in order to drive more sales or traffic to your website at specific times of the year. As…

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Google (not provided) and the Future Of SEO

SEO is dead. We’ve all heard so many times over the years. Yet we are still here. Google’s latest strike with the move toward 100% (not provided) is only one more line in a long list. In 2011, Google announced that they decided to move toward secure search to improve their users’ privacies, which meant…

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5 Digital Things We’re Thankful For

It’s Thanksgiving next week and we’re thinking about some things that we’re thankful for this year. In addition to being thankful for the opportunity to be creative on a daily basis and for our supportive friends and family members, we thought about some things that we’re very glad exist in digital.

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[INFOGRAPHIC] Keys to Winning the Content Marketing Marathon

Lately, buzz phrase, “content marketing,” has been circulating around the marketing world. Everyone is hoping to achieve the ideal content marketing strategy, yet some strategists are still trying to figure out the exact formula to achieve the best results. It’s a trial-and-error world out there, but it all begins with a solid foundation to kick-off…

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Chad Robley To Speak At 2013 NAB Futures

With media constantly evolving and multi-screen viewing experiences becoming more common, it’s more important than ever that broadcast media executives assess the digital landscape and optimize for success. There’s no better place to begin this journey than at 2013 NAB Futures: Mapping the Digital Media Landscape, November 4-6, at Montage Laguna Beach.

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8 Scary (Good and Bad) Ads

With Halloween just around the corner, we can’t help but think about some things that spook us. We’ve come across some freakishly good ads that make us jump out of our seats but inspire us to think bigger, and some ads, that well, have our heads scratching on how it passed their PR department.

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What Not to Do On Social: Hijack Users’ Twitter Accounts

Users produce content. It doesn’t necessarily mean you, as a platform, are given free rein over it to use as advertising (according to California law). After losing in court and a cool $20 million settlement later, Facebook has learned its lesson: obtain the user’s consent and clearly state that a user’s shared content will possibly…

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Mindgruve Attends Motion 2013

This past weekend, Mindgruve was pleased to attend the Motion 2013 conference. Considered a very significant conference in the VFX industry, the event unites creative directors, producers, illustrators, writers, motion designers, animators, graphic designers, and VFX artists to share experiences and collaborate. The event takes place annually at the historic KiMo theatre in downtown Albuquerque,…

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Mindgruve Wins Eight W3 Awards for Creative Excellence on the Web

Our team is excited to announce that Mindgruve has been recognized with two gold and six silver W3 Awards for a range of our clients, including our very own website. The W3 Award honors creative excellence on the web and is judged by the International Academy of the Visual Arts. Members of this exclusive body…

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[INFOGRAPHIC] What is Attribution?

There are tons of terms and concepts floating around the digital marketing space – we’re an industry that loves its jargon. But every once in a while, there are some that pop up and make you say, “WTF?” Case in point: Attribution. Now, attribution is something Mindgruve knows well and is all about, but we’re…

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Welcome to Agency X – Can I Take Your Order?

Dunkin Donuts, Jack in the Box, Subway… agency? Franchises aren’t just for food anymore –with chain shops popping up around the US, media outlets are beginning to take interest in this unconventional format. In a recent AdAge article, Alexandra Bruell delves into the franchise model with a focus on ViaMark, an East Coast-based agency that…

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