Creating Comedy: The Alliance for Family Entertainment

The Alliance of National Advertisers' (ANA) Alliance for Family Entertainment (The Alliance for Family Entertainment) is launching a national search for a new screenwriter this month, with the winner receiving $5,000 for a 30-minute live-action family comedy. Along with the cash award, the winner will receive personal mentoring from  John Wells on his or her script. Wells is probably best known...

Writing Wrongs: Five Things Writers Need To Teach Themselves

According to the Harvard Business Review, nearly one-third of all professionals write poorly. And if these numbers are consistent with high school proficiency studies from two years ago, the majority aren't much better. Most get by with rudimentary skills. After all, proficiency is a cut above basic. And right now, only about one in five high school graduates is a proficient writer. I suspect that number could...

Creating Communities: More Choices, Weaker Loyalists

The saying may be cliche, but the science is real: Birds of a feather do flock together. According to research published in Group Processes and Intergroup Relations, people prefer to make friends with others who share similar beliefs, values, and interests. But even more interesting, in the age of diversified and limitless choices online, people are even more apt to choose friends who are like them. In fact, although...

Shifting To Social: How To Transition Into Social Media

How do you transition into social media as a profession?  That was one of the questions a friend of mine asked me on Twitter a few weeks ago. But I couldn't answer on Twitter and have my answer make any sense in a 140 characters. It wouldn't work, not even with anecdotes, because the short answer isn't one most people would want to hear: You don't. Keep in mind that I didn't say: You can't. You can. People do...

Automating Marketing: Customer Contradictions

According to the recent 2011 Mid-Year Marketing Trends Study by The Kern Organization, an Omnicom Agency, 48 percent of all marketers have implemented marketing automation this year. The decision to automate likely lies in marketing's increased desire to capture a mega-avalanche of data about all online and offline sales activities. Simply put, more organizations are being held accountable to their budget and to demonstrate...

Making It Up: Orabrush Marketing

About a year ago, the Orabrush success story was all about social media and YouTube — the opportunity for a small company and marketing student to reach millions of people, one person at a time. But its latest success has nothing to do with the millions of viral views that resulted in one million sales. Their latest success, recently profiled by AdAge, was turning a $28 Facebook advertising purchase into one order...