Looking to advertise? Know your audience and know your search engines
Posted On October 9, 2022
If you follow social media trends, you probably already know that Facebook is not the place to reach millennials and Generation Z. But did you know that Google is not the primary search engine for many of them, as well? Our guest in the latest episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston” was Tim Dozier, CEO of Hummingbird Ideas, a full-service advertising agency in Mobile. Part of his job is getting his clients’ messages in front of the audiences they’re trying to reach. If those audiences are in the younger generations, that’s increasingly in places like TikTok and YouTube. Dozier… Read More
Categories: Advertising, Blog, Generation Y / Millennials, Generations, iGen, Podcast, What's Working with Cam Marston
People are listening. More importantly, they’re acting.
Posted On August 21, 2022
This image may not mean a lot to you but it does to me. This is the web traffic on John Shell’s site TheEagleReef.com. He was my guest on last week’s show discussing his Eagle Scout badge pursuit and I mentioned his site a few times on the show to try to send listeners there to support his very worthy project. You can see it worked. The site visits spiked the day the podcast was released and all the accompanying social media posts were sent out to announce the show. He got 15 – 20 new orders during the week… Read More
Categories: Advertising, What's Working with Cam Marston
Small Dream Comes True – Book Signing at Page & Palette
Posted On July 19, 2022
A small dream came true this past Saturday when I had a book signing at Fairhope’s Page & Palette book store for my new book, What Works. Sales were brisk for only brief moments of time but the event itself was what I was after. Behind me on the table are books by authors I’ve always admired (Rick Bragg, Watt Key, Winston Groome, are but a few) and to be sitting next to them with a book of my own was very special for me. Friends and family came by to check on me, buy a book, and visit for a… Read More
Categories: Advertising, What's Working with Cam Marston
How Dr. David Bronner rebuilt Alabama’s retirement system, and its image
Posted On July 14, 2022
Dr. David Bronner wasn’t the first choice to lead the Retirement Systems of Alabama when the job was last open back in 1973. He wasn’t the second or third choice. He wasn’t even the 100th choice. But he was the right choice. Bronner, who grew up in Minnesota before coming to Alabama for law school, ended up running the state’s retirement system because neither of the two most powerful men in the state at that time – Gov. George Wallace and Paul Hubbert, then head of the Alabama Education Association – knew who he was. And therefore, after about 160… Read More
Categories: Advertising, Blog, Financial Services, Podcast, Real Estate, Succession Planning, What's Working with Cam Marston
What millennials want: Food trends for the largest generation
Posted On December 23, 2019
Want to feed millennials? Here’s what you need to know. Forbes recently published a list of food-related trends for millennials, and if you’re a restauranteur or grocer who wants to stay in business, it’s probably advice worth heeding. Millennials not only represent the largest sector of the workforce now, they represent the largest sector of adults. These are your customers. You’d better know what they want. So what do they want? For starters, less sugar. Many of us, actually – not just millennials — are looking for any and all ways to cut it out of our diets for reasons… Read More
Categories: Advertising, Generation Y / Millennials
Even today, honesty is still the best policy
Posted On September 20, 2018
In this age of instantaneous and global communication, where a lie or a bad review can travel, as they say, halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on, how does a business control its own message? Our guest in this episode of “What’s Working with Cam Marston” is Kinnon Phillips, an accredited public relations professional who is experienced with crisis communications and what to do when the weight of the world – and the worldwide web – is crashing down on your business’ reputation. Social media is now our “town square,” Phillips says, and “word of mouth” takes… Read More
Categories: Advertising, Entrepreneurship, Podcast
Stop blaming millennials for the internet’s dirty work
Posted On August 20, 2018
So apparently Business Insider isn’t the only outlet obsessed with blaming millennials for the demise of pretty much any product that’s seeing a slip in sales. Quartz published a piece recently blaming millennials for what it termed the death of the classic novel. In making this claim, writer Ajinomoh Ozovehe Caleb compared sales of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye upon its release in 1951 with a newer critically acclaimed work, Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, which sold only half as many copies per year as Salinger’s masterpiece. Caleb further noted that it’s almost unheard of now for… Read More
Categories: Advertising, Downloadable Media, Generation Y / Millennials
Getting creative: How to know when you need outside help
Posted On May 23, 2018
What is creativity? The answer to that question will be different depending upon who you ask. But to Rich Sullivan, CEO of Red Square Agency in Mobile, it’s really quite simple. “Really, creativity to me is the ability to adapt,” Sullivan says, “the ability to take what’s happened — facts and experiences and trends that you can draw a backwards line on — and be able to look what’s going to happen and predict something or literally influence what the future is.” Influencing the future is what Sullivan’s clients would like him to do – particularly, influencing their future sales…. Read More
Categories: Advertising, Podcast, Product Design
From classic movies to Chick-fil-A: Millennial reaction videos reach critical mass
Posted On May 19, 2018
Just when you thought there wasn’t anything else that millennials could try while their reactions are filmed for a cheesy video, Business Insider has found a new one: Chick-fil-A. That’s right: Somewhere in this country are 10 millennials who apparently had never tried Chick-fil-A until Business Insider stuck a camera in their faces and shoved a chicken sandwich in front of them. One said she grew up in Europe. One was from Montana. One was a former vegetarian. One just said “the lines are always really long.” This worn-out trope has come in many forms, perhaps the best of which… Read More
Categories: Advertising, Generation Y / Millennials
Are Millennials, online shopping taking a bite out of Black Friday?
Posted On November 29, 2017
Is Black Friday fading? It depends on who you ask. Anecdotal evidence around the country seemed to indicate that the traditional Friday-after-Thanksgiving shopping spree wasn’t as big a free-for-all as in past years, but Forbes cited numbers from the National Retail Federation and Prospect Insights & Analytics that showed turnout to be higher than expected. Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported that online spending on Black Friday was a record $5.03 billion, according to Adobe Systems Inc. — up nearly 17 percent over last year. We didn’t even wait for Cyber Monday. The ease of online shopping has taken a bite out of… Read More
Categories: Advertising, Generation Y / Millennials, Wealth