Your brand is the aggregate of what you say it is and what regular people on the street, or probably more correctly, the internet, say it is. In fact, there has never been a time when consumers had more power over what a brand “means” than right now. Consumers scrutinize and comment on everything about a company and its brands these days. Beyond a product’s execution against its functional claims or qualities, everything from supply chain ethics to senior-management retreat activities to the diverse hiring practices of your company is public and affects your brand’s image. In today’s Plain Talk article, we’ll discuss your increased brand exposure and why brand honesty is more important than ever.

Over the past year, the hype around the metaverse has accelerated at a dizzying pace. With all the talk, speculation ran wild about what this means for various industries. In this article, we will look at what it means for the financial services industry. In today’s edition of Compound Interest, we will review what’s happening in the metaverse now and what’s to come for the industry. We’ll also look at some of the more practical applications in metaverse banking that banks and credit unions can build a strategy around sooner rather than later.

We’re on the phone, trying to check the weather, prepping for the workday, and getting kids off to school and all the while being hammered with ads on TV, the car radio, the cellphone and the laptop. And it’s not our imagination either. The latest statistics show that in addition to being over scheduled, the average adult is exposed to between 4,000 and 10,000 advertisements each day. Attention is a valuable commodity, and sometimes there isn’t enough to go around. In today’s Plain Talk, we’ll pay attention (get it?) to just how to catch attention in advertising and make sure your ads can break through.

It’s a question that we as consumers get asked several times a day: “Would you like to sign up for our rewards program?” In fact, it’s become a key part of the customer checkout experience. Rewards and loyalty programs have long been a way for companies to connect with their customers in a unique and engaging way while generating compelling reasons to buy more or more often. These types of programs have evolved over the years to address proposed customer needs and wants, but companies are now looking for ways to predict what their customers will want and/or expect next in this ever-evolving, immediate-satisfaction business world. In today’s edition of Plain Talk, we’ll noodle the current state and future of customer loyalty programs and how your business can adapt.

We learn about our world from the stories we read, hear, and watch, and historically, storytelling has been a foundational element in cultures across the globe. In marketing, it’s been scientifically shown to be extremely effective in helping people remember and engage with our brands; in some cases, it’s as much as 22 times more likely to remember. In today’s edition of Plain Talk, we’ll give the humble story its due and talk through the value of B2B storytelling in marketing, specifically to your customers.

While we are still having trouble unseeing the awkward “hero” chip bags in the Lay’s and Doritos ads, Frito-Lay brands nailed their diversity efforts. Sam’s Club, InBev’s AB brands, Unilever’s Hellman’s, GM, Vroom, and others did as well. Additionally, it was no shock to see the metaverse make a debut of sorts in big-dollar ads by Meta, Crypto.com (with Matt Damon), and Bud Light NEXT. However, it was what we heard that really got our attention in this year’s Super Bowl ads. In this special Super Bowl LVI edition of Plain Talk, we’ll foot-tap our way through our thoughts on the growth of music nostalgia in advertising. We’ll explore how it supercharged big game commercials and what this could mean for you.

Let’s be honest. The last two years have been brutal. The COVID-19 pandemic continues, a lot of us haven’t seen a majority of our co-workers in person since 2020, and many businesses continue to cut back, not by choice but as a result of the hard hit they’ve taken to their bottom line. What, if anything, can save the day or even morale during a time like this? The power of public relations. In today’s Plain Talk article, we look at how you can once again get your organization back on track by using brand awareness for recruitment and retention.

By the end of 2021 we had witnessed a decade of digital engagement innovation, crammed into just two years. A revolution of necessity. And for the most part, people seem to love it. So what changes to customer engagement will continue to play an important role in 2022? In this edition of Plain Talk, we will list our top five picks for effective consumer engagement tools you should consider this year.

At the end of 2021, Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a rebranding of Facebook into Meta, its new parent company focused on a concept called the metaverse. The CEO’s speech was over an hour long and filled with concepts that may change not only how we experience social media but also how we interact with everyone in the future, at work and play. At first glance, the metaverse sounds a lot like that virtual reality game you tried, but is there more to it than these 3D games played in middle-class living rooms across the world? In today’s edition of Plain Talk, we’ll look at brands and the metaverse—and the possible impact on your marketing plan.

WCAG 3.0 is coming, but it’s still years away from becoming official. The next major version of web accessibility standards will replace the pass/fail model with graduated scoring and expand coverage to emerging technologies. WCAG 2.2 AA remains the standard your business needs to meet today. Read more about what’s changing and how to stay ahead of the curve.