I was asked to present during a session called “Understanding Key Consumer Trends Driving Sustainable Business Practices,” which fits very well into our wheelhouse here at Mercury. We work hard to understand the Geotraveler better than anyone else in the business, and so I had a lot to say.
In a world where it seems we're never more than three LinkedIn connections away from anyone, I'd venture to say there's no form of marketing more effective than having happy people work for you.
And this is coming from the owner of an ad agency, mind you.
We are in the business of creating marketing ideas that help our clients sell more products. Yet running a good campaign is not the solution to ...
"I saw on Facebook that you won an award," began the email from my sister-in-law. "And you actually showed up in New York to receive it so it must be a big deal. Congratulations!"
So it has been, winning our first Effie award. The type of work we do, the clients we work with, the people who work here, and the place we live are all so different from the big corporate agency world that dominates not only advertising awards ...
Will Rogers once joked, "If you can build a business up big enough, it's respectable." It's a good joke because the average person knows instinctively that size alone cannot determine the quality of a business.
In fact, I have written before on how a good idea can come from anywhere, and I like to see this idea peek through the fog of business discussion from time to time. My most recent vindication came at the welcome reception for ...
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) has been big news around these parts recently. The organization held a conference at Big Sky Resort and a few Mercurians attended to soak up the international business vibe.
One of the events was held at Bozeman pet product manufacturer West Paw Design. West Paw makes dog beds, chew toys, and such, largely from recycled and recyclable materials. West Paw President Spencer Williams (pictured at the podium) talked there about a pretty innovative program called ...
I like the Super Bowl. I really do. I didn’t watch a complete NFL game all year, but I haven’t missed a Super Bowl in years. Maybe ever.
It is so over the top, such a uniquely American entertainment spectacle, it encapsulates so much about this country that I can’t help but watch it. And what other TV program can you still have a water cooler conversation about the next day? I miss those.
Holidays have taken on their own traditions here at MercuryCSC. We've done everything from a 24-hour sled-a-thon to raise awareness for land conservation to hanging on the side of our building to raise money for homelessness. This year, we decided to conduct an experiment about the foods we eat around Christmas-time. It's based on Michael Pollan's premise to "eat only foods that will eventually rot". Follow us through the Christmas season as we have a little fun ...
Apparently, we now live in such an artificial world that sugar has become a positive. Or so goes the theory behind throwback Pepsi…"made with REAL sugar!"
With marketing trends clearly headed towards honesty, simplicity and transparency—Pepsi’s throwback would seem to be a nod in that direction. Sugar is better than artificial sweeteners, right?
Of course, transparency only goes so far when you divulge the amount of sugar actually in the can via the metric system—a system ...
How do we make the travel industry focus on sustainability?
A couple weeks ago I made the case on this blog that the adventure travel industry needed to "manage up" to harness the power of the larger tourism industry in order to advance its goals of preserving places and cultures.
A day or two after that post went up, this headline from the Las Vegas Sun popped up on my monitor:
"Travel Expert: Environmental policies loom as tourism threat."
It seems to me that the more zeros you add to a number, the harder it is to understand. Which is too bad because in today's world, numbers matter. Numbers help us keep score. And like it or not, keeping score is what the world does.
I just returned from the Adventure Travel World Summit in Aviemore, Scotland. Lots of good haggis, good scotch and good people doing some really interesting things. But what I didn't see was ...
The photo above was taken at a bar in Scotland during a recent conference that attracted people from all over the world. On the right, a pack of smokes purchased in the United Kingdom. On the left, a pack from Costa Rica. Though not pictured here, America’s warning on the hazards of smoking falls somewhere in between.
There is obviously some correlation between the size of the warning and how developed a country is and how it views personal ...
“Small can be an advantage” I heard recently in Butte, Montana.
No kidding. Where else—who else—in the world gets to hear four of the top CEOs in the world all before lunch?!
But that’s what we got in little old Butte, Montana on Monday morning when Steve Ballmer of Microsoft, Warren Buffett of Berkshire Hathaway, Jeff Immelt of GE and Barry Diller of Expedia took the stage. Okay, Buffett was via satellite, but let’s not nitpick ...
Count us among the many fans of the clothing brand Patagonia — though as marketing people, perhaps more so for the way they manage their brand than the clothes themselves. Regardless, like most fans, we’re keen to spend a few moments paging through the latest catalogue to see what cool photos they’ve found and what the wizards of Ventura are up to.
So it was our pleasure to see a piece of work we had created turn up in ...
The warning sign as you walk in the Headwaters Heritage Museum, Three Forks, Mont.
What is the point of not allowing photography in an era of social media? Unless it's the Mona Lisa, it would seem that photos can be shared and help promote the place… especially a place in need of promoting like Three Forks.
Meggan breaking the rules upstairs with the coolest part of the museum — a display of 700 different types of barbed wire.
Here’s another post from the old website archives…this one a little more than a year old. Nice to see how much progress we’ve made in building our business model as the world’s first and only marketing communications agency to focus on Geotravel.
You know how people talk about something being so September 10? I had that feeling reading this old post while cleaning out our old website press archive. April, 2008 seems like a different era and it was just two years ago. Though I must say, I wish I’d have listened to what I was actually saying and sold short in the stock market. It was a remarkably prescient post!
