Training Backed By Research

��������� training is unique because of its data-backed approach. The ��������� Competency Model Framework identifies the most impactful skills marketers need to advance their careers. It’s based on our research with more than 1,000 marketing professionals and academic leaders.

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Are you an ��������� Professional Certified Marketer®️? This training is worth 3 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) to maintain your PCM®️ certification.

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Who Should Attend?

Heads/Directors of Content or SEO, Brand/Comms Leads, PR/Media Relations Managers, Product Marketing Managers, Founders at growth-stage companies. Recommended Intermediate–Advanced (3–15+ years) experience as well as cross-functional marketers who influence brand messaging, content, and distribution.

Are you an ��������� Professional Certified Marketer®️? This training is worth 2 Continuing Education Units (CEUs) to maintain your PCM®️ certification.

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Not only do members get discounts on training like this, but they also receive exclusive content, downloadable tools, unlimited access to ��������� Journals, membership in networking communities and more.

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Training Backed By Research

��������� training is unique because of its data-backed approach. The ��������� Competency Model Framework identifies the most impactful skills marketers need to advance their careers. It’s based on our research with more than 1,000 marketing professionals and academic leaders.

Learn More

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By Joe Razza, Chief Product Officer, YouGov

For decades, marketers have tracked the cola wars, from awareness and buzz to loyalty and value. Despite the rivalry’s cultural noise, the numbers have largely told a consistent story: Coke has held a clear lead, punctuated only by brief moments of brand turbulence. Yet one question has stubbornly resisted clean measurement: why do some people choose Pepsi over Coke?

When Americans explain their preference, they don’t speak in marketing metrics. They describe Pepsi as “smoother.” “Sweeter, but not too sweet.” “Less harsh.” Nostalgia surfaces frequently; childhood memories, family habits, something that simply feels familiar. Price matters, but often as a trigger for switching rather than a foundation for loyalty. None of that nuance is obvious when looking at a brand health trend line.

This tension between digestible data and real nuance sits at the heart of modern brand tracking. We can see what is happening in near real time. What we have historically struggled to see, at scale, is the reasoning, emotion and language behind it.

AI-powered conversational research is beginning to close that gap, layering structured dialogue directly onto ongoing brand metrics. illustrates how scale, speed and depth no longer need to exist in trade-off.

> For a full briefing and demo of YouGov BrandIndex Voices, join the on March 18 at 2pm EST.

Putting the “why” into brand tracking

BrandIndex Voices engages real people in exploratory conversations, delivering qualitative richness at quantitative scale. It holds detailed, AI-enabled conversations with thousands of people, building on our brand perception surveys and encouraging consumers to express underlying opinions.

After an opening question, the interaction adapts dynamically, allowing respondents to go deeper in their own words. This approach gives marketers sight into the narratives, hesitations and emotional nuances that truly shape brand perceptions – turning abstract metrics into indicators of real human experience.

Responses are analyzed by AI into themes along with sentiment and engagement measures. For instance, in the Pepsi case study, Americans told us that “Taste and flavor profile” and “Nostalgia and traditional” impact their beverage consideration more than price and promotions.

Through this approach, marketers hear individual voices and understand personal reasoning, while also seeing collective patterns take shape across large audiences.

To be clear, YouGov’s approach is to use AI to amplify the human voice – not to replace it. In doing so, we’re helping brands to capture, connect and understand the why behind their metrics in a way that hasn’t previously been possible.

The foundation must be authentic voices

As AI becomes more powerful and more ubiquitous, one thing remains constant: real human insights come from real people expressing real emotion. Synthetic panels – aggregated best guesses rather than authentic perspectives – cannot deliver them.

BrandIndex Voices is built on YouGov’s proprietary consumer research panel – consistently recruited, verified and engaged real people, not rented samples. High engagement means people actually participate in meaningful ways. An owned panel means we know who we’re talking to, and we can ensure integrity at every step.

Technology’s role is in service of human understanding. AI technology enables people to be heard more clearly and helps marketers identify the narratives that emerge across thousands of different conversations. Basically, people provide insights – everything else is infrastructure.

Why authentic voices matter

Many voice-of-the-consumer programs amplify extremes: the loudest, most emotional reactions in the moment. Those signals matter, but they’re incomplete. Brands are shaped just as much by the quiet majority, whose perspectives often go unheard.

BrandIndex Voices uncovers the full reality. It brings customers, non-users and competitors’ customers into one framework, creating an accurate, balanced picture of how brands exist in people’s minds.

The value in this method of research grows exponentially as brand metrics move. When impression, reputation, or buzz shifts, BrandIndex Voices shows what changed – grounded in real consumer language. For campaign measurement, asking people where they encountered marketing links metric movement to specific channels and the associated creative.

YouGov BrandIndex Voices goes beyond brand tracking, helping you fully understand why your consumers think, act and feel as they do. It gives you a new vantage point that reveals what was always there but never fully visible.

Ready to start a conversation with YouGov to hear your consumers’ voices? Learn more about .

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Digital marketing strategies can shift overnight. New platforms, evolving customer behaviors, and rapid advances in AI continue to reshape how organizations connect with their audiences. For marketers, staying effective increasingly requires current, applied skills that connect strategy, analytics and execution.

The Digital Marketing Accelerator is a new intensive weekend program created for marketers who want to stay current in this constantly changing environment — without stepping away from their day-to-day responsibilities.

On the program page, an on-demand information session features Mark Krolick, Academic Director and Adjunct Professor of Executive Education, who introduces the program’s structure, audience, and learning focus. The session offers a practical overview of what participants will explore during the two-day, in-person experience.

The program integrates marketing, analytics and finance to strengthen digital decision-making. Participants examine how to translate business goals into actionable digital strategies, apply AI to enhance content and engagement, and evaluate performance using bidding methods and ROI frameworks. Sessions emphasize practical application, supported by interactive discussions and real-world examples.

A distinguishing feature of the program is its emphasis on cross-functional communication. Participants explore how to discuss digital priorities with finance leaders, senior executives and boards — an increasingly critical capability as digital investment continues to grow.

The weekend also includes a CFO panel discussion focused on how financial leaders evaluate digital marketing investments, offering perspective on measurement, accountability and decision-making at the enterprise level.

The Digital Marketing Accelerator is well-suited for practicing digital marketers, brand marketers transitioning into digital roles, and mid-to-senior-level professionals seeking a structured, current approach to digital strategy and measurement.

“Digital marketing today requires marketers to think strategically, analytically, and cross-functionally—all at once.”
— Mark Krolick, Academic Director

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This trend is part of the enrichment economy, which is based on goods that can be used to preserve and increase one’s capital. Enrichment goods gain in standing, monetary value, and desirability long after they are originally purchased. Some of the most enduring examples of enrichment goods are artworks, antiques, and select luxury goods such as watches and handbags.

In a , we explain how the enrichment economy works. We focus on the luxury watch market, where the enrichment economy has been soaring for years.

We find that the enrichment economy follows a logic distinct from conventional markets. Accessing enrichment goods is a form of privilege. We call it “enrichment privilege” and define it as the opportunity to purchase enrichment goods from the source to resell later at a premium.

How Privilege Shapes the Market

Enrichment privilege shapes the enrichment market through four key market processes:

1. Curating the enrichment privilege: Brands curate access to enrichment goods on the primary market. They grant the privilege of acquiring enrichment goods to a small and well-vetted group of consumers who are incentivized not to resell their watches right away. In doing so, brands constrain the circulation of enrichment goods, which props up their resale value.
2. Assetizing the enrichment privilege: Second-hand market platforms highlight the worth of enrichment goods as assets and foster market transparency and liquidity. This allows watch enthusiasts to make massive financial gains long after the original purchase.
3. Securing the enrichment privilege: Consumers secure their enrichment privileges by strategically courting the brands. This includes giving gifts and building personal connections with managers and salespeople. In addition, consumers lavish the brands by spending huge sums on goods with limited financial gains.
4. Monetizing the enrichment privilege: The few consumers who manage to secure enrichment privileges can expect a multitude of personal gains. They can get access to an exclusive club of high-net-worth watch enthusiasts. They can pass the watches on as inheritance. They can make quick financial gains by flipping the watches.
   
   

The Challenge for Brands—and Potential Solutions

The enrichment economy poses a challenge for brands: How does a brand manage enrichment opportunities while preserving its revenues and desirability? We encourage practitioners to consider egalitarianism, transparency, and democratization when implementing an enrichment strategy.

• Egalitarianism: Waitlisting and allocation should be binding and clear. The goal is to avoid situations where consumers, having joined a waiting list, remain uninformed for prolonged periods, leading some of them to desperately spend money to increase their standing in the brand’s eyes. Also, brands should track how many enrichment goods are purchased by each client, which will help prevent retailers and boutiques from favoring a select few clients at the expense of a broader community.
• Transparency: Brands should eliminate personal biases from their allocation and waitlisting processes to ensure fair and transparent access to enrichment goods. They should allow customers to log into their accounts to see their position and receive regular updates on their expected wait times. New customers should be able to see which lists are open and a free spot on the waiting or allocation list should guarantee a fair opportunity to join it.
• Democratization: We advise brands that deal in enrichment goods to rethink their consumer profiling programs. These programs are susceptible to discrimination on dimensions such as race, economic status, or simply not fitting into the “brand aura.” Brands can make enrichment markets more democratic by rethinking how consumers present their interest to the brand.

Our analysis highlights the danger of unethical retailing practices in the enrichment economy. For instance, Rolex has been fined $100 million by the French Competition Authority for preventing its authorized dealers from trading certain watch models freely.

A note of caution for marketers: Second-hand platforms create massive enrichment opportunities. This prompts consumers to invest into the primary market in search of goods to resell. The vicious cycle continues as consumers keep reinvesting their earnings and creates a “dark side” of the economy. We urge practitioners and academics to consider both the “light” and the “dark” sides of the enrichment economy in future applications and studies.

Source: Delphine Dion, Roman Pavlyuchenko, and Sonja Prokopec, “,” Journal of Marketing.

Go to the Journal of Marketing

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A massively scaled and interoperable network of real-time-rendered 3D virtual worlds where people can synchronously and persistently socialize, share, and cocreate unique experiences (Hollensen, Kotler, and Opresnik 2022), the metaverse has already grasped enormous interest and capital investments all over the world, generating an industry that is expected to reach $678.8 billion by 2030 (Grand View Research Inc. 2022).

Encompassing and supported by technological components like artificial intelligence, the blockchain, and immersive technologies like augmented and virtual reality—which have already proved capable of massively affecting and reconfiguring brands and brand-related constructs (Puntoni et al. 2021)—the metaverse has the potential to revolutionize branding strategies and brand management as we know them today. As a matter of fact, global leader brands like Nike, Dolce & Gabbana, Nvidia, Hyundai, and Coca-Cola have already begun to experiment in the metaverse by, for example, minting nonfungible tokens (NFTs), setting up immersive Roblox-based showrooms, and creating digital realms to extend remote working. 

Scholars have started to conceptualize and define the metaverse and understand how it can transform marketing and business activities. In addition, they have also proposed a research agenda for marketing and brand scholars related to intelligence (hyperdata availability), innovation (virtualization and hypergathering), communication (hyperconnectedness), experience (virtual and physical blending), consumer behavior (identity “reembodiment”), and policy formulation (ownership, privacy and societal challenges). Accordingly, the role of brands in the metaverse and the effects and implications that branding can exert in this novel context are still to be determined. With the overarching goal of exploring this terra incognita, and to contribute to the further development of the brand management discipline, this call for papers aspires to promote and attract the best work on the topic to provide answers to the following urgent research questions.

1. How and to what extent can traditional theoretical lenses and approaches usually adopted to investigate brand-related phenomena (e.g., social identity theory, service dominant logic, actor–network theory, consumer culture theory, signaling theory) be adapted to make sense of branding in the immersive context of the metaverse?
2. From the perspective of the metaverse as a new medium, what aspects of branding and brand engagements will be enhanced or will be at risk? Why and how?
3. Which innovative methodological designs and analytical protocols are best suited to measure brand performances in the innovative context of the metaverse? Are traditional brand metrics still effective, or are new brand-related metrics needed to meet the unique features of the metaverse? 
4. How does the metaverse influence or challenge the current debate in understanding online brand communities and brand co-creation (Hsieh and Chang 2016)?
5. How does brand management practice evolve in the metaverse? How does it affect brand equity? 
6. What are the innovative brand stimuli that organizations can deploy in the metaverse? What are the drivers of key brand-related outcomes, such as consumer–brand engagement, brand experience, brand trust, brand commitment, and positive and negative consumer–brand relationships in the metaverse?
7. What are the types and formats of brand presence available in the metaverse? What are the advantages and disadvantages of different types and formats of brand presence in the metaverse in terms of consumers’ cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses? 
8. How will digital customer engagement initiatives change in the metaverse? What will be the role of textual and visual brand-generated content in fostering purchases, choices, and forms of brand loyalty, such as repurchase and word of mouth, within the metaverse compared with the nonmetaverse online channels?
9. How will omnichannel brand experiences change in face of the interoperability between the metaverse and the real world?
10. How will novel digital assets like NFTs change the brand value chain? How will they affect consumer-brand relationships?
11. What are the cross-cultural aspects of metaverse advertising and marketing?
12. What are the ethical, privacy, and security issues faced when conducting branding and advertising activities in the metaverse?

We invite original empirical research using experimental, secondary data etc. and in-depth conceptual papers addressing the above questions and challenges.

Editorial Timeline

Manuscript submission: April 15, 2023 through May 31, 2024

During the Global Brand Conference on Branding in the Metaverse (May 3–5, 2023) that takes place in Bergamo, Italy, more than 80 papers focused on branding in the metaverse will be discussed and addressed to the aforementioned research questions. This will be an opportunity to share, debate, and improve the impacts of the research with the most engaged brand scholars on the topic. However, presenting at the conference is not a requirement to submit a manuscript to the special issue.

Planned publication: May 2025

Details

All the submissions will receive double-anonymized peer review by prominent scholars and must be submitted via the journal’s . Author guidelines can be found here. If you need specific information, please contact daniela.andreini@unibg.it or the other special issue editors.

Special Issue Editors

Vanitha Swaminathan is Thomas Marshall Professor of Marketing at the University of Pittsburgh and the Director of the Katz Center for Branding at Pitt Business. Professor Swaminathan has published extensively in various leading marketing and management journals and currently serving as a Coeditor of Journal of Marketing and on the Board of Directors of the ���������. 

Daniela Andreini is Professor of Marketing and Prorector for Innovation and Digitalization at the University of Bergamo (Italy). She is a member of the scientific committee of the Academy of Marketing’s Brand, Corporate Identity and Reputation Special Interest Group. She is on the editorial boards of leading brand journals.

Joana César Machado is Associate Dean for Global Education at Católica Porto Business School, Universidade Católica Portuguesa, in Porto. She is chair of the scientific committee of the Academy of Marketing’s Brand, Corporate Identity and Reputation Special Interest Group. She is on the editorial boards of leading brand journals.

Stuart Roper is Professor of Marketing and Associate Dean of Research Innovation and Knowledge Exchange at Huddersfield Business School and Member of the Behavioural Research Centre. He is a member of the scientific committee of the Academy of Marketing’s Brand, Corporate Identity and Reputation Special Interest Group. His works have appeared in leading brand journals.

Zoe Lee is Associate Professor in Marketing and Program Director for MSc Strategic Marketing at Cardiff Business School at Cardiff University. She is a member of the scientific committee of the Academy of Marketing’s Brand, Corporate Identity and Reputation Special Interest Group. She is on the editorial board of leading brand journals.

References

Grand View Research Inc. (2022), “Metaverse Market Size Worth $678.8 Billion by 2030: Grand View Research, Inc.,” Bloomberg (March 9), .

Hsieh, Sara H. and Aihwa Chang (2016), “The Psychological Mechanism of Brand Co-Creation Engagement,” Journal of Interactive Marketing, 33 (1), 13–26.

Hollensen, Svend, Philip Kotler, and Marc Oliver Opresnik (2022), “Metaverse – The New Marketing Universe,” Journal of Business Strategy (published online March 17), https://doi.org/10.1108/JBS-01-2022-0014.

Kim, Jooyoung (2021), “Advertising in the Metaverse: Research Agenda,” Journal of Interactive Advertising, 21 (3), 141–44.

Puntoni, Stefano, Rebecca Walker Reczek, Markus Giesler, and Simona Botti (2021), “Consumers and Artificial Intelligence: An Experiential Perspective,” Journal of Marketing, 85 (1), 131–51.

Go to the Journal of Interactive Marketing

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The need for brands to connect with consumers through culture is an established concept. However, the manner and the speed now required to do so successfully —and in a way that drives bottom-line impact— has evolved faster than the latest fling on “Love Island.” With brands hustling to react to the latest meme, trending TikTok dance or societal crisis, it can be difficult to quantify how these efforts impact cultural relevance, cement customer loyalty and drive brand love.

But how do you measure cultural relevance? A brand video hitting viral status or basking in the afterglow of soaring sales following the launch of a new program are certainly markers, but that’s not a holistic view. If only culture had a crystal ball… has entered the chat.

Determined to untangle all the elements that make up a truly culturally relevant brand, Allison+Partners Consumer Brands team built a first-of-its-kind, proprietary tool to measure how brands rank within culture at any given time. While some may think this sounds like the Upside Down, we call it, “” (BGIQ).

And don’t worry consumer marketers, BGIQ won’t take your job, but it will help you do it better – we pinky swear. Created by combining our consumer brand prowess with best-in-class performance and intelligence chops, BGIQ produces a comprehensive and real-time score that details how culturally relevant a brand is at any moment in time.

Brands measured through BGIQ receive a score from 1-100 that assesses how well they perform against five indicators: Plugged into Pop Culture, Disrupting the Norm, Living with Purpose, Always Inclusive, and Modern and On-Trend. We started by scoring 50 of America’s favorite brands from up-and-coming to iconic and everything in between, which can be seen by visiting .

So, who cracked the cultural nut? Brands that performed well across the performance indicators include:

• Liquid Death – Love it or hate it, this canned water company is putting “death to plastic” in everything it does and gives sustainability a new kind of edge.
• MAC Cosmetics – Not only does the brand smash gender norms in the makeup space, it also brings to life its inclusive messaging across platforms. MAC is even tapped into the tech space with a recently announced partnership with Launchmetrics and Microsoft for a beauty-focused hackathon.
• Calm – The mental health app never misses a beat when it comes to tapping into topical conversations. From its 30 second commercial spot of rain to help consumers feel the Calm during a stressful election season to partnering with Harry Styles to read app subscribers a bedtime story. 

BGIQ also allows brands to see how they measure up against their top competitors to give teams an unfair advantage. Once scored, brands can work with Allison+Partners to use their BGIQ results to find whitespace, inform campaign planning, and develop marketing and PR programming to achieve greater cultural relevance.

The new scoring tool is the latest culture-focused product to come out of Allison+Partners’ award-winning Consumer Brands Practice and a natural evolution of the agency’s culture engagement offering that turns trends into actionable brand moments.

To see if your brand was scored in the first 50 or to make an inquiry, please visit: or email BGIQ@allisonpr.com.

is a creative instigator who believes brands must live at the intersection of culture and commerce. Currently she is Partner + President of Consumer Brands at Allison+Partners. She has spent her career developing award-winning campaigns for major consumer brands and has launched every shaving innovation for Gillette from Sensor to Fusion ProGlide, helped M&M’s put the color purple in the bag, was the creative force behind Driscoll’s Rosé berries and drove Budweiser’s success at Super Bowl LV. A noted industry leader, Lisa is often quoted on brand and marketing trends and has served on numerous award juries, including Cannes Lions, The Clios, Brand Film Festival, Sabre Awards, Silver Anvils, Snackable Content and PRWeek Awards, among others. She has been recognized by PRovoke Media as an Innovator 25, by PRWeek as a Hall of Femme and a Champion of PR and has won more than 65 awards on behalf of her clients.

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1. Develop your brand voice.

Some of the most successful brands and influencers on social media might not be who you think they are. Brands like Wendy’s and the midwestern gas station chain Kwik Trip, for instance, probably don’t sound like they’d have loyal followings on social media.

In reality, these companies have developed a unique and funny voice that keep followers returning to their pages to see what they’ll post next. While a humorous approach may not make sense for every brand on every platform, it is still important to develop a brand voice.

As social media has been around for over 20 years now, most users see right through the run-of-the-mill corporate jargon and brand speak. They will not give the time of day to accounts that post the same self-promotions but in different words day after day. Consumers want to be entertained, feel understood, and find value in your content. 

The rise of influencer culture has also pushed brands to be more “relatable” in their social media strategy. While brands like Wendy’s and Kwik Trip use social media to post memes and jokes, others develop their “voice” by having honest interactions with followers and featuring interesting content.

The key is to be human, not a robot. Your posts should sound like an actual person is writing them, not like they have been copied and pasted from a corporate document. 

2. Research the social platforms your audience uses and which they don’t. 

Marketers know there are many social media platforms out there. Most people think of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Instagram as the primary channels to promote their brand, but today, there’s also Snapchat, TikTok, Pinterest, Tumblr, Reddit, and others. 

There is a misconception that social media managers need to be on every social media platform to stay relevant and grow their audience. This simply isn’t true nor manageable. Take time to learn your target audience, identify which platforms they use most frequently, and focus on nailing those first. 

TikTok, for instance, is a newer social platform and one of the better ones for growing organically. This is a great tool for many businesses, especially those aimed at a younger audience. However, if your target audience consists of people primarily in their 40s and 50s, it may be worth your time to invest in other platforms before you start creating trendy TikTok videos.

A great tool for researching your audience is , which can be used to identify which social platforms your audience uses most. You’ll find which podcasts they listen to, websites they visit, hashtags they use most frequently, and even which political affiliation they lean towards. You can use this information to evaluate advertising opportunities and to refine your brand voice. 

One tip that has helped in our own social media marketing strategy is to identify the top three to five platforms where your audience spends the most time and develop a unique “mission statement” for each of those platforms. The key is to work smarter and not harder when it comes to your posts.  

For instance, your TikTok’s primary purpose may be to entertain, while your Facebook is used for company culture posts and your Twitter for customer service and community management. Not every brand will use every platform in the same way, so it’s important to find out what works best for you. 

3. Share more than just your own content. 

Is your business’s social media profile filled with nothing but self-promotion posts? If so, it’s time for a change. In these situations, you run the risk of coming across as too “sales-y” and self-serving. Plus, your followers’ social feeds are probably filled with enough advertisements already. 

Instead, make your page more appealing by sharing content from other brands and influencers alongside your own original posts. If you see something you think would be helpful or intriguing to your audience, share it! Add value by including your own insight, asking a question, or highlighting a useful quote when you share.

A key tip when it comes to sharing content on social media, especially something like a podcast or blog post, is to make sure the post itself is helpful without requiring a click-through. You want your posts to get shares, and people tend to prefer sharable content that is useful at face value.

For instance, you could create a thread of useful online resources that would be helpful to your potential prospects. You could also turn a popular blog post into a short Twitter thread highlighting the key points of the blog, and then link to the blog post in the final tweet of the thread for more details. This will perform better than linking to the blog right off the bat and expecting people to click through. You need to build trust first. 

Don’t forget to tag the influencer or brand that originally posted the content so they will see that you enjoyed their post. Not only will this strategy help you build relationships within your industry, but it could also inspire opportunities for cross-promotions or guest blogging in the future, both of which can and grow your audience massively. 

4. Start an industry-specific Facebook group. 

The Facebook algorithm has gone through some major changes in the past few years, and it is now incredibly unlikely that organic posts from your business page will be seen by your followers. Facebook instead prioritizes family and friend content, paid advertisements, and group content in its users’ newsfeeds. 

Facebook groups are at their peak in popularity, so try creating one to take advantage of organic growth opportunities. Make it a fun, casual space for your fans, followers, and potential prospects to interact with each other. Try not to make the group topic directly related to your business unless your brand is already well known and adored. 

Instead, think of a fun topic or a problem that pertains to your industry or business. For instance, if you work for a wedding planning company, try creating a group with a fun name (like “Wedding Wins” or “Wedding Ideas I Wish I Had Thought Of”) that encourages brides and grooms to share photos of their big day and advice with others who are planning their wedding. 

As the group admin, you can add comments and posts about your own products and services, but only when appropriate and applicable. You can also make the group private and add qualifying questions for new members to make sure your group participants are legitimate and interested in the topic.

5. Promote your content through paid advertising. 

Once you have created awesome, relatable social media content on the right channels for your audience, it’s time to make sure people see what you’re posting. Like we mentioned, algorithm changes have made it increasingly difficult for content to be seen organically. This means finding promotional opportunities is key to increasing your reach and, by proxy, your web traffic and revenue. 

Leveraging paid social ads is key, as all social media platforms prioritize ads over organic posts. Most platforms have the option to create advertisements once you have a business profile. We suggest creating a Facebook and/or Instagram ad since they have the most user-friendly interface. Target your page’s followers with a simple product or service advertisement to see how it goes. 

When you can, try out a few retargeting strategies. Make sure your website is set up with a “” so you can target those who have visited a specific page of your website with a relevant ad. While the “Rule of Seven” (which states someone needs to hear a brand message seven times before they take an action) is old, it still applies today. Make sure your prospects are seeing your message multiple times, and you’ll have a much higher chance of them converting. 

Paid social ads aren’t the only promotional opportunity out there. Influencer marketing has also been a massive trend in recent years. Identify key influencers in your space and find out how you can collaborate with them in a mutually beneficial relationship.  

Consider sending them free products in exchange for an honest review in a TikTok video or an Instagram story. Include a specific offer code for them to promote, and in return, they’ll get a portion of the revenue generated using the code. Ensure contracts and terms are defined ahead of time. 

A Final Tip on Successful Social Media

The Internet contains a goldmine of useful tips, tricks, and tools to help you take full advantage of the crazy world of social media marketing. While there’s no “right” or “wrong” way to handle your organization’s social accounts, the greatest advice we can give is to not be afraid to do something different. 

Your social profiles don’t have to look like all your competitors. In fact, it’s probably best if they don’t! While there is no magical formula for going viral, prioritize trying new things and helping your audience feel more connected to your brand. Remember, building a successful social media strategy takes time. 

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By Jaime Klein Daley, VP of strategy, CBX

This is a tale of two Goldfish.

The first story starts with a marketing challenge. Back in the 1960s, Goldfish crackers were introduced in America as a snack brand for all ages. But over time, Pepperidge Farm’s cheesy cracker snack became inextricably linked with toddlers. Social listening revealed a consumer request for “riskier” flavors, which would appeal to teens and adults. A need to expand beyond the crowded and restrictive “kid snack” category, plus a consumer push for newness, led Pepperidge Farm to develop a Goldfish.

The second story begins with a consumer truth. As marketers know, millennials are feeling nostalgic and as they’re getting older, looking to connect back to their “simpler” childhoods. So Goldfish decided to up the ante as it relates to spiciness, and develop a line of jalapeño flavored snacks. How? By partnering with, embroidering the pack design into the fabric, and creating a PR frenzy. 

Which Goldfish initiative is “better”? I’d argue that they’re both successful, but they operate on different terms. The marketers behind Goldfish took two different approaches to collaborations—one brand partnering with another, driven by a strategy to broaden its audience, appeal or ability to grab attention with consumers.

What Pepperidge Farm did makes sense when you think of brands as living, breathing things, with a DNA and an essential nature. Brands, like people, fall into habits, and as such often develop reputations over time. The brand “codes” get predictable and their behaviors are step-and-repeat.

Any great collaboration is both a strategic exercise and an executional challenge.

Conversely, brand marketing teams are charged with innovating. But innovation is risky. So to gain relevance, brands look across their proverbial lanes to find partners who’ll help them stretch beyond their brand comfort zones. The effect is something like dating the cool kid in school: added exposure, borrowed interest and renewed appeal.

Or, as cultural anthropologist and “Business of Aspiration” author, “Collaborations are basically a constant brand re-contextualization: They take (a brand) from one context and put it into another one. In that sense, there isn’t a ‘bad’ collaboration: Collaborations are calculated cultural and business tests … the strategy of brand awareness, market expansion and its fountain of youth.”

For brands in need of that fountain of youth, collaborations are easy ways to gain some notoriety, or at least a second glance from consumers. And for those consumers, purchasing a brand engaged in collaboration is about taking a safe risk—giving you the same thing you’re used to, but with a bit of a twist. 

So that’s why the Frank’s Red Hot collab makes so much sense for Pepperidge Farm. The partnership borrows equity and credibility from both parties. For food brands, flavor is an easy way to approach collaborations. Just look at the collaborations between Old El Paso and Takis tortilla chips, Betty Crocker and Hershey’s on baking mixes, and Outshine frozen mango bars and Tajin seasonings.

On the other hand, the JNCO jeans and Goldfish collaboration feels less genuine, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a successful marketing tactic. This collaboration relies on borrowed interest and nostalgia felt by millennials for their teenage years, as evident in the return of Y2K fashion and lunchbox treats. (Dunkaroos, anyone?) The somewhat incongruent partnership between Goldfish crackers and JNCO jeans then operates at a degree of separation from the product itself. But we love it—for a fleeting moment, consumers (and, as you read this, marketers!) have a reason to talk about Goldfish, and maybe even bring the decades-old cracker brand to the front of our minds when shopping. If done for the right reasons—cultural cachet, for one—that incongruity is what drives the collaboration. Or as, “Good collaborations are art, great collaborations are kitsch.”

Of course, the ultimate goal for many classic CPG brands is to achieve some combination of the first and second strategies. 

Where we see this type of success most clearly is among the “classics”—brands with very clearly defined visual codes or iconic positioning such as Cheetos snacks, AriZona tea and Dunkin’ Donuts. The products themselves serve as vessels for creativity and inspiration. They are so familiar to consumers that any “twist” on their expression becomes noteworthy. In fact, ColourPop has built its cosmetics business through collaboration. The company develops color palettes based on partnership with iconic brand characters, having found recent color inspiration from Peeps, Hello Kitty and Sailor Moon.

I’m calling this the “blank canvas” model, in which a brand actively makes room for, and develops strategies based on, these remixes with other brands. And the partnerships it develops are based on a deep understanding of its consumers, its role in culture and where it has an authentic reason to show up.

So when Oreo develops pink icing in partnership with Lady Gaga, the delight and sense of newness is bringing incremental growth as it reinforces Oreo’s core business. According to the, “in the time that sales were up 12 percent for novelty flavors, sales of the classic were up almost 22 percent, according to Nielsen.” Justin Parnell, senior director of the Oreo brand, is quoted as saying, “When we do it well, it drives our classic Oreo cookie as well as the sales of the limited edition.”

Collaborations are particularly thrilling in the world of fashion. Gucci’s recent collaboration with Adidas—bringing the trefoil and three stripes to its sleek tailoring and lush fabrics—is both a commitment to the Gucci DNA and original brand promise, as well as a sign of openness and willingness to re-contextualize.

For this reason, any great collaboration is both a strategic exercise and an executional challenge.

So, you’ve decided you’d like to dip your brand toes into collaboration. You should first ask yourself what a potential collaboration could look like. What brand equities do you borrow? What codes do you combine? Which brand partner “leads” the conversation?

We advise our agency’s clients to establish a consistent brand identity. Once “unpacked,” the brand’s equities often reveal new opportunities for expression, rooted in the fundamentals such as purpose, positioning and values. If your brand has been refreshed in the last few years, chances are that it currently contains a number of these building blocks, which can be re-articulated in fresh ways. It’s from the matching up of these building blocks that brilliant collaborations are born.

For brands in need of that fountain of youth, collaborations are easy ways to gain some notoriety, or at least a second glance from consumers.

The next step is to take a look at your brand assets, with an eye to those that are fixed (consistent, unchanging) versus those that are flexible (open to being changed, added to or rethought)—and deciding which ones to stretch across the collaboration. 

If you’ve developed that brand to thrive in the digital world, chances are that the identity itself has been designed to flex and adapt to its environment—whether that be as simple as containing a holding shape (a la the original MTV icon or the LA 2028 logo), or as complex as changing to suit different environments (whether via screen or package). The goal is to start with the ultimate iconic expression of both your brand and your collaborator. 

The consumer (and retailer) demand for newness will continue, and the need for innovation will remain central to a marketer’s remit. The good news about collaborations is that they provide an opportunity for your brands to take measured risks and innovate creatively while reinforcing your brands’ core equities. Success requires smart decision-making from both a strategic and executional perspective. But when cross-brand collabs are done right, brands have everything to gain and little to lose.

Jaime Klein Daley is VP of strategy for brand design agency CBX.

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While bringing your brand to life may sound difficult, it is easier than you might think. Keep the following five tips in mind to create a more successful brand activation on any budget. Then, download your free eBook filled with at the end. 

What is Brand Activation? 

“Brand activation” is an immersive marketing strategy that utilizes events, campaigns, and activities to generate brand awareness, boost customer loyalty, and build lasting connections with target audiences. Most brand activations are in-person experiences with hands-on, branded activities for people to participate in.  

The biggest goal of hosting an activation is to elevate your brand. Fostering engagement through immersive experiences is one of the smartest ways to make your brand more meaningful, recognizable, and trustworthy to your target audience. 

Brand Activation Examples and Ideas 

Done right, brand activations can nurture business opportunities and build long-term customer loyalty. Types of activations include the following: 

• Experiential Marketing: Strategies that foster brand engagement through immersive experiences.  include fun challenges, social media contests, interactive booths, and memorable displays. 

• Experiential Events: Social gatherings that allow organizations to promote their brand, products, and services in interactive ways.  include auctions, ceremonies, community events, conferences, festivals, fundraisers, lunch-and-learns, networking events, open houses, pop-up shops, and retreats. 

• Games and Activities: Playful experiences that actively engage prospects and customers. Examples include raffles, claw machines, photo booths, spin-to-win games, arcade-style games, and other sponsored activities. Read a full list of  here. 
  
• Samples and Free Trials: Free giveaways that delight prospects and give them the confidence to pay full price for your item. Samples are highly effective as they put your product or service directly in the hands of people who are likely to use them. Pair your sampling strategy with a useful demonstration or feedback survey. 

Remember, the best activations help bring your brand to life. Use them to draw the attention of new audiences and reengage existing ones. You will find that memorable event experiences leave people wanting to interact with your brand in the future (which, in turn, will boost event ROI).

Brand Activation Strategy Tips to Make You Stand Out 

1. Meet your target audience where they’re at.  

Knowing your audience, their challenges, and their passions can help take a “good” marketing activation to a “great” one. That’s why it’s a good idea to do research ahead of time and position yourself where your customers already spend their time.  

Reach out to popular events in your area that draw in your target customer base. Then, find ways to engage with the audience using an experience they’ll enjoy. For instance, an audience of social media enthusiasts will love a photo-worthy backdrop or interactive photo booth experience for them to use.  

2. Use marketing activation to solve customer challenges. 

What are the top challenges that your customers experience? Create a list, then find interactive activities that can prove to them that your offerings can help. For instance, if your brand sells athletic gear, set up a “misting station” at the end of a marathon, then give out branded water bottles to runners.  

Not only will you hydrate them after the race, but you’ll also provide a gift that helps prospects recall your brand long after the event is over. Highlighting the need for a product through a creative brand experience is both strategic and effective. Your mission is to help people realize they need your products or services without being overly “salesy.” 

3. Use social media marketing to improve brand recognition. 

is your best friend! Amp up your social presence at events by pairing your brand activation with trending social media concepts to expand your brand’s reach. For example, while exhibiting at a trade show, create a custom Snapchat geofilter or lens for your booth. Encourage visitors to post their photo to social media using the event’s official hashtag.  

The size of the area that your geofilter covers as well as the duration of your geofilter will impact how much you’ll pay. Costs start as low as $5 per day. In addition to your filter, create an on-site TikTok video of people participating in your brand activation. Don’t forget to use trending hashtags to help circulate the video to new viewers. 

4. Delight customers with an unexpected activity or theme. 

Don’t be afraid to do something weird, silly, or completely unexpected when designing brand activations. Consumers are more likely to remember an odd yet satisfying experience than a “run-of-the-mill” event experience. Draw attendees’ eyes to your booth and intrigue them enough to participate. 

The best activities will surprise, delight, and grab your audience’s attention. For example, instead of handing out food or beverage samples at a table, try setting up a makeshift “food truck” display or a picnic-themed booth. Play into your theme with a photo spot and social media hashtag. 

5. Use brand activation campaigns to promote your brand’s values. 

Consumers love brands that take a stand on their beliefs and values. If your organization is passionate about a cause, use brand activations to highlight what matters to you most. For instance, if your organization values sustainability, provide reusable stainless steel straw sets, recycled cotton tote bags, or other eco-friendly gifts to those who book a demo or make a purchase.  

Not only will this gesture create awareness for the environment, but it will also highlight your brand’s dedication to hosting or participating in No matter your organization’s values, provide that tie into your mission. 

Our Free eBook on Marketing Tactics: Download Yours 

While brand activations are exciting, they are just one piece of the marketing strategy puzzle. Our free eBook on covers a variety of useful topics, including how to formulate buyer personas, build brand loyalty, boost web traffic, generate sales leads, and strengthen your marketing strategy.  

Create an Unforgettable Event Experience 

At pc/nametag, we believe meaningful connections are forged through shared experiences. We are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to create a more connected and inclusive world through socially conscious products and services.    From high-quality identification items like name badges, lanyards and ribbons to our unrivaled printing and assembly services, we go above and beyond to become an extension of your team and help deliver delightful experiences to your audience and attendees. Visit to learn more today.

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