As a traditional part of the Lunar New Year celebration, the Spring Festival Gala on Mainland China’s Central Television (CCTV) is China’s version of the Super Bowl. It isn’t a sports event, but both shows are long-running TV events with enormous audiences. This year’s Spring Festival Gala celebrated its 30th anniversary and attracted around 770 [...]
Vitamin IMC staff and graduate students in Northwestern University’s Medill IMC program reviewed and voted on the best and worst ads from Super Bowl XLVI. Here is a rundown on our top choices. Let us know what you think? Did we get it right? The Best These top ads ran away with the votes, and [...]
Vitamin IMC staff encourage friends of the blog to live tweet Super Bowl XLVI. Let us know what you think of the ads or chat with us about which ads left an impression. Simply tag your tweets with #vimcbowlads and join the conversation with @vitaminimc. We will start tweeting when the game begins at 6 [...]
Frankly, I’m tired of talking and reading about social media marketing and its ROI, or lack thereof. After spending a year and a half in the IMC graduate program at Medill and working with various clients on sponsored projects, I think the key to becoming a successful marketer lies in understanding digital marketing and shopper [...]
I wouldn’t describe myself as an Apple “fangirl” (although I do love my iPhone and plan to make an iPad one of my first post-grad purchases) but news of Steve Jobs’ death tonight has me feeling a bit emotional. I’m giving away my age here, but when I heard the news (via my iPhone no [...]
As marketers, we’ve seen many examples of companies and people that have been built extraordinarily successful and active Facebook pages—for example, Zappos and Justin Bieber. However, the success of these pages are not exactly surprising. After all, fashionistas can have endless discussions on the Zappos page, and if you’re a teenage girl who is not [...]
Dating and marketing have more in common than you might think. Think back to some of your best and worst dating experiences and you’ll see why the art of navigating through a relationship is so relevant to marketers today. Here are a few reasons why it’s a good idea to follow the rules of dating [...]
Guest blogger Tom Collinger is chair of Medill’s Integrated Marketing Communications program. I recently had the pleasure of moderating a panel discussion with Medill alumni Terry Davenport, senior vice president of marketing at Starbucks, and Jonathan Blum, chief public affairs officer at Yum! Brands. The format was interview-style in nature, and the questions revolved around [...]
Customers have communicated with companies in various formats: a visit/phone call to customer service, a written letter, and more recently, a post to their social media site. In the early 2000’s, I submitted a letter to GUESS about a GUESS purse whose strap kept falling off. I quickly received an identical replacement purse and an [...]
When we slip on a Burberry trench or carry a Louis Vuitton bag, men fall at our feet, our conversation sparkles, and people ask, “Who’s that?” as we sashay past. Well, maybe not, but in our heads, we are transformed—and as a result we walk a little taller and even project more confidence. A Harvard [...]
