SkinnygirlThere’s a shining new star spanning both business and pop culture. Her name is Bethenny Frankel. If you don’t know her yet, you soon will.

After a series of false career starts, the celebrity entrepreneur went from being a contestant on Martha Stewart’s spinoff of The Apprentice to the voice of reason on one of the psychotic peepshows that comprise Bravo’s Real Housewives franchise. Currently, she’s the star of her own reality show and is leveraging the exposure to fuel a rapidly burgeoning business empire, which includes the soon-to-be ubiquitous Skinnygirl Margarita , as well as books, supplements, shape wear and more.

And she did it with something that seems like a bit of an oxymoron in the world of reality television. She did it with authenticity.

Frankel says it like it is and gives her fans a seemingly unfiltered peek into her world, warts and all. In a recent profile in Forbes she was described as “disarmingly direct.” Her no-holds-barred approach appeals to her legions of fans. When you share as much as she does, and it’s not all well-rehearsed sunshine and lollipops, you can’t help but believe you’re getting a glimpse of the real Frankel. That makes her someone you can empathize with. Someone you root for. She becomes much more than a character on reality TV. She becomes a trusted friend — and that’s the ultimate brand promise.

Authenticity like this is something every brand should strive for. But it requires effort. Frankel doesn’t just use TV to promote her authenticity. She also does it through active Twitter feeds (@bethenny and @skinnygirlmarg), speaking engagements and her website. She’s all media, all the time. And her commitment to portraying authenticity, regardless of what she’s promoting, never wavers.

Now, I don’t know Frankel personally, so I can’t vouch for whether or not the personality she puts out there is TRULY authentic. But, quite frankly, it doesn’t matter. Because people believe it is. And judging by the enormous success of Frankel’s many product lines (Skinnygirl Margarita was recently sold to Fortune Brands’ Beam Global for $100 million and will likely be seen at every summer gathering you attend), it’s working. She has effectively connected with her customers who are, in turn, fanning the fires of America’s next big success story.

~ Emily

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How many words do you mispronounce or misuse? You might think the answer is zero. Because people will rarely call you on it. It wouldn’t be polite.

But as a person who specializes in communicating, I will.

There are a handful of words in the English language that are continually mispronounced. And while it may seem like a minor thing, it discredits everything about you and your message.

Here are a few to watch out for.

Supposedly. This is a word. Supposebly is not. Try looking it up. You won’t find it in any dictionary. So don’t say it.

Irregardless. This is also a word. But it really shouldn’t be used. Ever. Just think about it. You don’t need the “ir.” Do everyone a favor and strike your character count by two.

Expresso. This is not correct. Sound it out. Ess-press-o. Bingo. Instant credibility.

What words do you commonly hear mispronounced? And what does it make you think about the person saying it? Creating the right perception with your target audience is critical to any successful communication effort. Let’s work together to make sure that perception is a positive one.

~ Emily

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imagescasurmi0In the middle of writing a thought-provoking blog post about why, when it comes to social media, so many clients find tactics easy and strategy hard, something came across my RSS feed that immediately snagged my attention—Krispy Kreme is opening a store in Madison.

You need to understand one thing—I love Krispy Kreme with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns.  I can—and have—eaten an entire box of glazed, sugary, yeast-y donut goodness by myself. In one sitting. (To be fair, I was eating for two at the time.) Turn on the “Hot Now ” sign and my car will turn into the parking lot all by itself.

My obsession with Krispy Kreme goes way back. I grew up within walking distance of a KK store (here’s a picture of it in all its 1970s glory). We kids knew when the “Hot Now” sign was turned on just by the smell wafting through the little woods and fields which separated our neighborhood from the retail and restaurants on Route 1. It was a big treat to stop by on our way home from church on Sunday mornings, and selling Krispy Kreme donuts door-to-door on Saturdays was always our most successful class fundraising event.

Krispy Kreme was a Southeast-only tradition for a long time, certainly during my growing up years. During the 90s, the franchise expanded, opening stores in New York City and California. You could find Krispy Kreme donuts in grocery stores around the country (although they are never as good if they aren’t “Hot Now.”) A quick spin on the company website informs me that Krispy Kreme has expanded internationally, so should I ever choose to travel to Turkey, I can partake in donut-y goodness while browsing in a bazaar.

If you search “brand loyalty in children” or “cradle to grave marketing,” you can find a plethora of articles explaining why companies are so eager to market to children and establish brand awareness and loyalty at the youngest age possible. It’s clear that if nothing else, children have significant influence on their parents’ purchasing decisions. And some studies suggest that we are more likely to be loyal to brands we are exposed to in childhood—for example, using Crest instead of Colgate or eating Raisin Bran instead of Cheerios, because that’s what our moms bought.

That might explain the story one of my coworkers shared: A Krispy Kreme finally opened near her in northern Indiana, but it quickly went out of business.  Apparently, northern Indiana is Dunkin’ Donuts territory—she hears “donuts” and thinks “Dunkin.”

Not me. Even though the new Madison Krispy Kreme is about 30 minutes away from my house, you can be sure I’ll make the drive one Saturday morning, drawn by the siren song of the faint buzzing coming from the “Hot Now” neon sign.

And I’ll bring my kids.

~ Valette

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When it comes to writing about food, the word delicious should be abolished. I simply cannot stand it. It makes me cringe. And here’s why.

  1. When you are marketing a particular food, dish or concept, the fact that it is delicious should be a given. Are you going to try and convince someone to try and buy something that isn’t delicious? Because I don’t know a whole lot of people out there lining up to buy something that’s disgusting.
  2. When you are reviewing food, it’s downright lazy. Seriously, you can’t think of anything more descriptive than delicious? Then you’re not a writer. Try a new career.
  3. People actually use it to describe something that isn’t food. Have you heard this? People will describe inedible things, like shoes or cars, as delicious. “Oh, darling, did you see her dress. It was simply delicious.” Ack. Ack, ack, ack.

Now, I fully admit to using delicious in the past. In one instance, it made a killer rhyme that I just couldn’t let go. And with that rhyme, I was able to create a memorable message. So I can reconcile that with my inner critic. There are, I’m sure, other moments when I used the word, all justified in solid rationale, of course.

But as a general rule, if you work with me, you should be very surprised if you see the word delicious anywhere. And that’s all I have to say about that.

~ Emily

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As I’m sure you’ve heard (because it’s nearly impossible to avoid), there’s been quite a bit of political excitement happening in Wisconsin over the past month. I promise to leave the actual politics out of this post and instead focus on some interesting examples of how local Wisconsin businesses have used social media to listen and communicate with their customers during these events. 

One shining example comes from Ian’s Pizza on State, located downtown Madison. As the number of hungry protestors grew at the capital, they responded with nearly round-the-clock pizza deliveries – at times, suspending normal in-store and delivery operations to focus solely on the protestors.  News of the pizza deliveries spread on the internet and within days the restaurant was receiving orders for pizza deliveries for protestors from around the world – as far away as Egypt, Korea and Denmark, and from nearly all 50 states.

The restaurant used both Twitter and Facebook to communicate with its customers – giving thanks to those sending in orders and keeping local customers up-to-date on current operations. Recently when donations exceeded the need for pizza, Ian’s set up an online poll, allowing customers to respond and vote for where they’d like to see the money donated. And, in one more excellent PR move, the restaurant included “free slice” cards with all local deliveries as a way of saying thank you to their regular customers.  Ian’s said helping with the deliveries has allowed them to stay politically neutral during a heated time in Madison – they just deliver pizza. 

One very different example involves a local Madison café. After a particularly poignant event in the Wisconsin political debate, the owner of the café took to the restaurant’s Twitter profile to share his support of the event, without first considering how his customers might react to his views. Within minutes, his Tweet spread, resulting in some very vocal disapproval from the café’s loyal customer base. The owner was forced to do damage control immediately, deleting the controversial tweet and apologizing to those he offended. This example is just another good reminder to think before you tweet – know your audience and anticipate how your message will be received. 

~ Megan

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I recently spoke at the American Marketing Association Madison Chapter’s Annual Meeting about how to get the most from e-mail marketing.

In our rush to jump on the shiny new social media bandwagon, it’s easy for marketers to forget that email was the one of the first relationship-building tactics, and that it’s still one of the best ways to communicate and engage with your customers and prospects. Here are 10 tips that can help you maximize your return on investment and get the most out of your email marketing efforts:

  1. It’s all about making connections with the right people, the right ways.
  2. Make the most of your first contact and offer alternatives to completely dropping out.
  3. Your list matters. Take the time to scrub, clean and maintain your list.
  4. Build a relationship by offering valuable content.
  5. Your subject line is one of the most important things you can write.
  6. Accessibility plus functionality equals great design.
  7. Provide multiple ways to engage. Your call to action should be clear, visible and compelling.
  8. Stop thinking of this as a print medium; the more you can segment and micro-target, the better your results.
  9. Know your metrics—open rates don’t matter as much as click-throughs, conversion, and lifetime or overall value of a contact.
  10. Data matters. Review by contact, offers, campaigns and more over time. Do more of what works best and less of what doesn’t work.

~ Valette

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So, the big news right now, other than Charlie Sheen’s downward descent, is that the beef you get on that 99 cent drive-thru burrito isn’t entirely beef. It also has other stuff in it. Like fillers. And a bunch of people are suing, claiming Taco Bell’s advertising is misleading.

The fact that it’s news to anyone that there might be something besides straight up beef at Taco Bell still kind of shocks and amazes me. I mean, come on. THEIR BURRITOS ARE 99 CENTS.

Whether or not their ads are misleading could be a long (and expensive) debate. Fact is, their products do have real beef in them. At the same time, they don’t quite seem to meet the USDA’s definition of ground beef.

But I’m going to cast all that aside for now and focus on the rebuttal spot currently running online and on TV. You can take a look at it here. Does it do a good job reversing perceptions?

I don’t know. More importantly, I don’t know that it really matters.

Taco Bell’s target audience (consumers aged 16-24, according to the Wall Street Journal), probably doesn’t really care about the percentage of real ground beef in their food. They just want it to taste good. And to be cheap.

So while these rebuttal spots may help mitigate some bad press, I don’t think any of this – the lawsuit OR the ads – is  going to have any long-term impact on Taco Bell. Because the content doesn’t matter to their customers.

What do you think?

~ Emily

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Adweek recently reported on a new business scam  that took agencies around the country to the tune of $400,000.

Stephan & Brady might have been on that list, except for one thing: We don’t need to pay to play.

Don’t get me wrong. Like many full-service, small-to-mid-sized agencies these days, we’re hungry for new business. Client budgets are tighter than ever. Bigger agencies are swimming in our pond, competing for projects they wouldn’t have considered two years ago. New business is something we take very seriously, indeed.

Which is why when we were approached by someone claiming to have a prime opportunity that could be ours for the taking, we paid attention. It seemed like something right up our alley — a full-service, integrated branding and advertising campaign introducing three new beverage products, a sweet spot for us both in terms of industry and execution.

We did what we usually do — held an informational phone call and put together a capabilities presentation complete with insightful research and information. Nothing over the top, just enough to showcase what makes Stephan & Brady different and demonstrate our level of interest. All seemed to go well, until the kicker: Our contact was really acting as a new business “finder” and wanted to be paid for bringing us this lead.

Here’s what we said in response:

“Maybe it’s our Midwestern roots, but we’re just not comfortable with an upfront ‘pay to play’ approach.  To us, it seems job #1 is finding the right agency partner for what you need to help these programs succeed long term.  Having us ‘invest’ in activities that demonstrate our abilities to help you achieve this success makes sense.  But having the ‘winner’ selected based on who’s willing to pay a finder’s fee commission up front before final papers are signed just doesn’t feel right. Hope you can understand and appreciate our position. Best of luck to you on these initiatives.”

Turns out, S&B made a smart move in turning down the “opportunity.” But at the time, we didn’t know that. What we did know is that we’re a strategic, smart, talented group of people who shouldn’t have to pay for an opportunity — at least not in cash.

Like most agencies, we invest heavily when pursuing new business opportunities that are a good fit for what a potential client needs us to do as their Chief Customer Officer. We research, strategize, and propose. Sometimes, if it makes sense, we provide actual tactical plans or creative concepts—which is really another kind of payment (we avoid beauty contests and off-the-shelf proposal buys like the plague). But investing makes sense when you’re talking about a strategic relationship. Paying cold, hard cash doesn’t.

Bottom line, you should hire us not because we’re smart, strategic, hard working, fun to work with and smell nice, but because you need a Chief Customer Officer and we’ve demonstrated that we’re going to help you move the meter in meaningful ways with your customer. Period.

~ George Whitely, President & CEO

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