The Big Fat Marketing Blog

Here’s my annual list of what to expect, marketing-wise, in the upcoming 12 months. Time will tell how accurate these are, although my 2009 list was fairly spot-on:

#10) Mobile advertising will still NOT flourish in North America in 2010. However, if the Google mobile phone becomes a hit it could make a late-year run and enter 2011 with great momentum.

#9) The web will continue to grow and play an even more important role in great, measurable marketing. Websites that create relevance, with smart use of microsites, and also help develop a dialog, will reign supreme. One-way websites will be viewed as antiquated and ineffective; YouTube will grow in its importance for traditional TV-based advertisers (:30 second commercials will decline greatly). Google Analytics will continue to gain users and importance.

#8) Wal-Mart’s attempt to compete with Amazon will prove more

If I look back at articles I wrote in 2009, “Twitter Better for Nonsense than Business Sense” may have to be my favorite. It wasn’t just because it was a hot topic - one that may define the year in marketing - but because of the comments it received.

Simply put, everyone seemed to be an expert on social media (and you could sense that in some of the comments), and at the same time have no clue how to use social media. Twitter, like many other social media channels that because household names in 2009, was treated like the great unknown. And as a result many so-called gurus threw the fundamental elements of marketing out the window and overtweeted to death. more

Long before Catalog Choice, long before the DMA’s initiative to cut mailbox clutter, comedian Andrew Kennedy’s father had this whole whole junk mail removal thing all figured out.

Here’s a clip from Kennedy’s Comedy Central special (scroll down, the coding is a little funky!). Not sure if this worked, but the idea was brilliant, and I’m sure the postman in New Canaan, CT was a little confused.

By the way, Kennedy in in Comedy Central’s Stand-up Showdown. You can vote for his video here and see his entire special on Jan. 31.

It used to be that your local radio station would make an announcement on Christmas Eve that Santa Claus was spotted in the area that used to send children into delirium. more

Here they are, according to Inc Magazine.

Note the number that are driven by direct response marketing!

Who said that we direct response pros are staid and un-inventive?

It’s beginning to look a lot like….the time to panic because you got snowed in over the weekend and have three days to finish your Christmas shopping.

Yep, I was out with the hordes yesterday, making a few last minute purchases. And, as always, all the salespeople were merry and bright.

No, really. Seriously. For the most part, they actually were.

more