Tooting Our Own Horn to End 2009

December 31, 2009 in Lessing-Flynn, Online Marketing, Social Media, That's Kinda Cool
Tags: ad agency blog, blog stats, blog success story, bog traffic

The Ad Mavericks blog started year one last January.  We thought we’d share just a few examples of how “practicing what we preach” has paid off for us.  Some stats: Nearly 40,000 blog visitors in 2009 – with our highest traffic coming in December – with over 4,000 visits. 200 blog posts.  At the beginning [...]

The Value of Listening

December 31, 2009 in Public Relations, Social Media
Tags: agencies, bad publicity, clients, comcast, comcast must die, dominoes pizza, facebook fan page, google alert, listening, negative comments, radian 6, Social Media, target, United Airlines, united breaks guitars

The most common social media dilemma I hear: ”I can’t control what’s said about my company so I don’t want to give people a place to talk bad about us.” Guess what?  If someone wants to say something negative about your company, they will, whether you give them the platform to or not. When that negative [...]

Worst of the Year: Burson Marsteller and IDED

December 30, 2009 in Des Moines, Iowa, Public Relations, Worst of the Week
Tags: 2008 presidential campaign, Bret Mills, Burson-Marsteller, chet culver, Chuck Larson, hillary clinton, hillary clinton debt, IDED, IDED Director, Iowa Department of Economic Development, iowa job loss, iowa jobs, iowa public relations, Joe Shannahan, Karen Slifka, Mark Penn, Penn Scheon & Berland, PR, stimulus fraud, stimulus money, The Hill, Tom Vilsack, Worst of the Week, worst of the year

Okay, let’s set the ground rules first. To be considered for Worst of the Year, the marketer had to be chosen as one of our Worst of the Week recipients. Now, on with the award! Back in May, our IDED “Worst of the Week” post received the most traffic ever on our blog … more [...]

Commenter of the Year Announced

December 29, 2009 in Commenter of the Year, Des Moines, Iowa, Lessing-Flynn, Social Media
Tags: Amy Dix, Boesen the Florist, claire celsi, Des Moines, des moines derby dames, desmoinesisnotboring.com, DM Evolve, Housewife Hacks, Iowa, iowa blog contest, jon thompson, justin brady, kayne west, kip dynamite, mark van balle, michael irvin hall of fame, miss america, Pete Jones, public relations princess, rightstuf, roxi copland, test of time design, timberpine

A few weeks back we announced the 2009 AdMavericks commenter of the year contest. The response was just what we hoped for – tons of comments on our blog. Congrats to all the nominees, and keep up the comments as we’ll do this again in 2010. The video tells the whole story. Enjoy! P.S. I [...]

Mothernature + Email = Event Success (???)

December 28, 2009 in Advertising, Agriculture, CRM, Event Marketing, Iowa, Lessing-Flynn, Online Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media
Tags: Advertising, Agriculture, bred heifers, cattle sale, club calves, dunlap sale barn, farming, Online Marketing, roecker cattle

40 mph winds, 21″ of new snow, road advisories all over the Midwest and a cattle sale scheduled on Sunday December 27 is a recipe for disaster and by far a cattlemen’s worst nightmare. Luckily, “you’ve got mail,” e-mail that is to inform you of an event postponement. My husband and I raise, buy and [...]

Ag Leader Technology Kicks off 2010!

December 22, 2009 in Advertising, Agriculture, Event Marketing, Marketing, Public Relations
Tags: Ag Leader, ag leader dealers, ag leader technology, al myers, Event Marketing, matt darr, scott mckain

“Maverick missing in action?” “Where the Held ya been?” “Share some blog love, Jess!” Just a few of the jabs I’ve received the past few weeks from fellow Ad Mavericks.  I have actually had the pleasure and opportunity to work onsite with two clients who have recently hosted year end meetings. 2009 has been an [...]

Walters Leads Agriculture’s Social Media Charge

December 22, 2009 in Agriculture, Des Moines, Iowa, Social Media, That's Kinda Cool
Tags: @AgChat, @AndyVance, @bfreese, @CertAngusBeef, @chrisclaytondtn, @FarmandDairy, @jeffacaldwell, @JennBremer, @ShorthornToday, @Shortliner, @Willie1701A, Agriculture, Bellana Putz, Business Week, farmers, farmers and the internet, health insurance, John Walter, media industry news, people.com, Scott Mortimer, Social Media, social media superstars, successful farming, The Knot, TMZ, Wired.com, yahoo

http://tinyurl.com/yhjqm4h

Here’s a Holla for Dwolla

December 21, 2009 in Iowa, Lessing-Flynn, Public Relations, Social Media, That's Kinda Cool
Tags: Blue Compass Interactive, brand advocates, Catchfire Media, des moines register, des moines social club, DM Evolve, Dwolla, entrepreneurs, Foundry Coworking, greg anfinson, highlight midwest, josh fleming, juice, lava row, Lessing-Flynn, Measured Intentions, Power Surge, Silicon Prairie News, technology association of Iowa, tom flynn

Building brand advocates within the first few weeks of being a live Web site is unheard of. Until now. Let me introduce you to Dwolla. I first heard about Dwolla while I was at Highlight Midwest and ever since then I’ve been impressed by what I’ve seen. The start up company’s business model might be one of [...]

Social Media Marketing: Vail’s Story

December 21, 2009 in Advertising, Marketing, Online Marketing, Public Relations, Social Media
Tags: Ad Age, Advertising Age, Braveheart, online advertising, online video, Rob Katz, SEO marketing, social media marketing, Vail, Vail Ski Resort

Ski resort marketing used to require long lead times due to print advertising schedules.  Not so much anymore.  Rob Katz, CEO of Vail Ski Resorts explains how the economy – and the shorter decision making cycle among their visitors has quickly changed the way they’re marketing.  If you’re not using social media marketing in your [...]

Worst of the Week: Chrysler

December 18, 2009 in Advertising, Worst of the Week
Tags: american ad agencies, armando testa, Aung San Suu Kyi, bail out, bbdo, Burma, car commercial, chrysler, general motor, italian ad agency, lancier, leo burnett, McCann Erickson, ogilvy and mather

America: Hey Chrysler, here’s $7,000,000,000 (billion) from the American taxpayers to bail out you inept monkeys and your mismanagement of what was once a successful company. Chrysler: Thanks, America, we really appreciate it. We’re going to use the money to sell more cars, keep jobs in America and most importantly, stimulate the United States economy. [...]