Principal-based media buying is when an agency purchases media inventory with its own money, then resells that inventory to clients at a marked-up price. Unlike traditional agency-of-record arrangements where the agency acts as your agent, buying on your behalf and disclosing all costs, principal buying puts the agency on the other side of the transaction….
Nostalgia advertising works because it borrows emotional equity that already exists. Instead of building a feeling from scratch, it connects a brand to memories a consumer already values, creating warmth and trust at a speed that straightforward product messaging rarely achieves. But that borrowed equity comes with conditions. Nostalgia is not a creative shortcut. When…
The advertising landscape in 2023 moved in two directions at once: genuine structural change underneath, and a lot of surface-level noise on top. The brands that performed well were the ones that could tell the difference between a trend worth acting on and a trend worth watching from a safe distance. After two decades managing…
AI is being integrated into media buying and planning at a pace that most marketing teams are not ready for. The platforms have been doing it quietly for years, the holding companies are investing heavily, and a growing number of brands are restructuring how they allocate budget, build forecasts, and make real-time bidding decisions based…
Hispanic advertising done well is one of the highest-return growth opportunities available to brands operating in the US market. Done poorly, it is a waste of budget and, more damagingly, a signal to a 65-million-strong consumer segment that you do not understand them. The gap between those two outcomes is not a creative problem. It…
False advertising claims arise when a brand makes a statement about its product or service that is misleading, unsubstantiated, or demonstrably untrue. They can be brought by regulators, competitors, or consumers, and the consequences range from mandatory retractions and fines to reputational damage that takes years to recover from. Most brands that end up in…
Advertising awards are not a measure of marketing effectiveness. They are a measure of how well an agency can write an entry form. The two things are related far less often than the industry pretends, and after 20 years of running agencies, managing budgets, and sitting on judging panels, I’ve stopped pretending otherwise. That’s not…
The Amazon advertising platform is one of the most commercially potent media environments available to performance and brand marketers today. It sits at the intersection of intent and transaction, where someone is not just searching but actively ready to buy. Used well, it compounds. Used carelessly, it becomes an expensive way to defend market share…
Shock advertising uses deliberately provocative, disturbing, or taboo content to force attention and create memory. At its best, it cuts through a saturated media environment and attaches a brand to a conversation people are already having. At its worst, it generates outrage without meaning, alienates the audience it was trying to reach, and leaves a…
Viral advertising campaigns are ads or branded content that spread rapidly through social sharing, word of mouth, and organic amplification, reaching audiences far beyond the original paid distribution. The best ones do not just generate views, they shift brand perception and create the kind of awareness that compounds over time. The worst ones generate impressions…
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