On Monday, Facebook announced it was acquiring mobile photo application Instagram for $1 billion. You read that right. $1 billion.
Facebook’s interest in Instagram isn’t too surprising. After all, Facebook has a history of acquiring digital startups like group texting service Beluga, location-based social network Gowalla, and mobile application platform Snaptu. Also, considering Facebook’s impending [...]
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Thursday, April 12th, 2012
Each February, Chicago is the proud host of North America’s largest auto show. As intrepid autonauts and CRM specialists for some big name auto brands, the men and women of Plan B always make it a point to visit the Chicago Auto Show to glean new ideas for marketing tactics as well as check out [...]
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Tuesday, February 21st, 2012
A new year means new predictions from 16th century French seer, Nostradamus, splashed across supermarket tabloid front pages all over the country.
Of course, these predictions always leave us with a few questions: How are tabloids scooping more reputable news sources on these prophecies? How can someone who has been dead for more than 500 [...]
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Tuesday, January 10th, 2012
We get it.
We know that forgetfulness is a common symptom of getting swept up in the holiday shopping hubbub. Your gift list is probably seven or eight feet long, what with all the friends, relatives, and people who expect to be treated as friends or relatives. Not to mention the assorted pets and [...]
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Monday, December 19th, 2011
Whether you’re dragging a Douglas Fir down the highway behind your four-door sedan or getting sloshed on eggnog in front of your girlfriend’s extended family, the holiday season is all about traditions.
In the world of advertising, this is best exemplified through the annual agency holiday card. But, like hanging over-sized socks above the fireplace in [...]
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Monday, November 28th, 2011
The butterflies in your stomach. That perfect outfit. Those well-rehearsed icebreakers. The trendiest restaurant in town. Candles. Flowers. The ambulance ride home…
No, we’re not describing a first date, although it’s pretty close. Actually, we’re talking about a new business pitch–a production that, like dating, will send you through an emotional roller coaster of highs, lows, [...]
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Monday, November 7th, 2011
On Nov. 4th, the Occupy Wall Street movement will spawn a separate movement, one targeting another famous street in Manhattan: Madison Avenue. The workers of the American advertising industry will convene at 295 Madison Ave. to protest, among other things, job security, stagnant wages, and, of course, “stupid copy changes.” Or, at least it’ll only [...]
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Monday, October 24th, 2011
As the scope of advertising has evolved over the years, so too have the responsibilities and job descriptions of those who work in the industry. The rise of digital marketing necessitated a whole new creative perspective, one that looked beyond traditional means of communication and instead focused on trailblazing new media channels.
In this new [...]
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Friday, October 14th, 2011
Old Spice’s The Man Your Man Could Smell Like? So last year. Burger King’s Subservient Chicken? What is this, 2001? Making a large banner ad buy on MySpace? Wake up!
Indeed, it seems a tweet sent 20 minutes ago is already old news in today’s frenzied media cycle. In these rapidly changing times, how can any [...]
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Friday, October 7th, 2011
Call us old fashioned, but we think your marketing budget would be better spent on things like, well, MARKETING your business. Yet when you look at how some of these big agency folks are living it up in their downtown digs, you have to wonder.
We don’t wonder. We came up in that world. And [...]
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Friday, September 30th, 2011
Let’s not kid ourselves – times are still tough. And while the primo parking spots are definitely filling up faster in the morning, few of us are ready to declare the economy fully recovered. That means marketing money remains tight, as purchasers are challenged to do more with less yet again.
Enter Plan B.
From the [...]
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Friday, September 23rd, 2011
Far more than a trendy new channel to add to your marketing mix, social media is the evolution of something remarkable. It takes the oldest communication channel in the world — Word Of Mouth — and supercharges it with Internet speed, unprecedented and mass-individualized reach, and a world of third-party endorsement credibility.
That’s why it’s important [...]
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Friday, September 16th, 2011
For over a decade, Plan B has happily called Chicago its home base. There’s just something about living in a big city with Midwest charm that makes it impossible to imagine moving our agency’s headquarters anywhere else, and our near north side address in the River North neighborhood is the perfect bridge between the [...]
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Friday, August 19th, 2011
Last weekend Plan B headed north to Wisconsin’s Fox Lake for our annual summer outing. How much fun did we have? Well, let’s just say we’re all more than eager for a return sometime in the near future. (Now? Please?)
During our outing, we were reminded of a blog post we made a while back titled [...]
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Friday, August 5th, 2011
We get a lot of clients coming to us for SEO services (SEO being organic search engine optimization, or the process of getting a website to rank highly for popular relevant keywords). A lot of times, they’ve been burned by shady SEO companies in the past, or have been fed a bunch of misinformation about [...]
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Friday, August 26th, 2011