Author: bgoldman

The official name for the demographic cohort born roughly between 1945 and 1957 is the Baby Boomers, but perhaps a better description would be the Python Generation. Because from a demographic and particularly a marketing standpoint their progress through America’s culture and economy resembles nothing more closely than the progress of a pig, dog or…

In case you missed the item in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, CarMax, based in Goochland County, just hired New York agency Amalgamated to do its creative. That’s interesting, but what’s more interesting is something an “expert” source was quoted as saying about Amalgamated’s approach. According to the article, Peyton Rowe, who teaches advertising at the VCU…

Richmond’s back-to-school sales tax holiday weekend has come and gone, and Labor Day (which the start of school must come after, according to Virginia law) is still to come. So let’s take a look at what, if anything, the barrage of tax holiday advertising for back-to-school merchandise accomplished. (more…)

Although 76 of the 100 Leading National Advertisers (LNA) cut their spending for 2009, that doesn’t mean they did less advertising. A new, previously unheard-of, phenomenon called media deflation has helped many do more for less. One cause is that mass media are hemorrhaging audiences left and right. With newspapers, that’s old news, but as…

Some 80 years ago, when William Wrigley, Jr., was on a business trip on a DC-3, another passenger asked him why he spent so much on advertising when his chewing gum business was doing so well. “How fast are we flying?” asked Wrigley. “Oh, about 150-200 miles an hour,” said the passenger. “Then since we’re…