In 2020, the home bar cart has taken on special significance because shrinking out-of-home social opportunities have created a boost in at-home consumption. This on-premise apocalypse we talked about in an earlier article means that brands need to find new and significant opportunities to drive off-premise volume. But the bar cart isn’t just ANY off-premise sale. It’s a place of honor in consumer homes but for the right brands, a lucrative one. In today’s Plain Talk article, we’ll talk about a few ways you can earn a coveted place on the millennial bar cart with the right beverage packaging design.

Today, dropping technology costs and faster production methods mean that video and CGI production is no longer reserved just for Super Bowl ads for many—even small businesses. Video consumption in the U.S. has skyrocketed thanks to COVID-19, so cheaper production costs may be worth considering. In today’s Plain Talk article, we’ll talk about why you may want to consider how CGI advertising fits into your digital marketing strategy and whether it’s a viable option for your e-commerce, B2C, or B2B content production needs.

In 2020, typical communications strategies took a back seat amid the global COVID-19 pandemic. Many businesses quickly pulled all marketing efforts during the start of COVID-19, evaluating how to best handle this crisis and still get key messaging to the public without appearing tone-deaf to what was happening in the world around us. But while marketing efforts may have temporarily slowed down for some, public relations (PR) professionals were busier than ever. From local nonprofits to Fortune 500 companies, most businesses quickly saw just how important PR would be to their 2020 marketing strategies. PR became a critical and cost-effective part of most plans. Here, we’ll explore the effectiveness of public relations while answering the question, “What does public relations do?”

This year put many public relations professionals to the test, seeing just how quickly they can think on their feet and react. While we weren’t prepared for this scenario, this year has reiterated to many companies the importance of a crisis communications plan. You can’t plan for every potential scenario, but having an overall plan is important. It helps your business handle an emergency situation effectively. Here are some insights and examples of successful crisis communication planning.

We are surrounded by photographs pretty much every waking minute that we are using any type of communication device these days. In the realm of social media, photographs, and video content rule the platforms. Let’s dive a bit further into the subject of taking photos for social media. (Well, I’m not sure that I would be considered a photography legend, but I certainly have had and I am having a wonderful career in this visual world that we live in.) I am the Managing Director of the Content Creation Studio at PriceWeber. I work in photography, advertising, and social media pretty much every day of my life. I am going to share five tips for taking great photographs for social media.

A casual reader looking at spirit sales numbers for 2020 might think it’s a pretty good year. After all, in July, Nielsen indicated a 52-week rolling sales increase of 5.1%. But those numbers do not tell the whole story. Overrepresentation in sales increases by the larger, high-awareness brands and well-known value brands, and stocking up (or hoarding) has potentially skewed the figures for months to come. Of greater concern is that off-premise stock-ups and at-home consumption may lead to spirit brands feeling more like commodities than before. Another concern is that the worst on-premise closures since Prohibition are straining the sales and brand value of many spirit brands. In today’s Plain Talk article, we’ll look at four strategies brands can use for their spirits marketing and how to overcome the effect of critical on-premise losses.

Podcast advertising has recently become a hot topic among brands and media planners. In today’s Plain Talk, we’ll discuss why the medium is growing. We’ll share some reasons it might be time to consider adding podcasts to your media strategy. Finally, we’ll touch on some of the best practices for podcast advertising if you do.

While most of the world is in quarantine and practicing social distancing, one social media platform has continued to maintain a rapid growth in downloads, especially in the U.S. According to Sensor Tower’s report, 2019’s second most downloaded app worldwide, TikTok, saw an 18% increase in downloads, tallying the number to 2 million between March 16 and 22, compared to the previous week at 1.7 million.

In this edition of our Plain Talk series, we’ll examine brand trust and corporate social responsibility and discuss how the two are interacting during the current COVID-19 global crisis. We’re exploring the ways smart brands continue to communicate and build trust with consumers from a physical distance.

As marketing professionals with years of experience, we’ve all learned to trust, to some degree, that little voice inside our heads that tells us when we may have stumbled across an idea that could be genius. Intuition. Inspiration. The gap in time and space where the magic happens. Creatives in our industry thrive on honing their intuition to drive new ideas and break new creative ground. But in today’s highly fragmented and diverse customer universe, many brands find out the hard way that real insight must guide intuition. In today’s Plain Talk article, we’ll noodle some cautionary instances where a well-written research and insight development plan could have saved brands a lot of money and heartache on controversial ads and promotions.