Surprising New Information Regarding Internet Use and What it Means for You

January 1st, 2011

Keep this valuable new data in-mind when developing your integrated marketing plans


By Lou Pierce

President, Big Idea Company

Beware shifting patterns

Prepare yourself for a few new surprises when it comes to the way that different age groups use the Internet. Pew Research studied this question in 2009 and has just released a follow up study called Generations 2010. The new study reveals surprising shifts in patterns since 2009.

According to Pew, searches for health information now comprise the third most popular online activity for all age groups 18 and older. This is a significant shift. And it means that older people no longer dominate the category. Read the rest of this entry »

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Nominated for two 2010 Emmy Awards!

September 29th, 2010

A film about baseball history in South Bend, Indiana and an advertising campaign featuring local cancer patients have been announced as nominees for the 2009/2010 Emmy Awards by the Chicago/Midwest chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.

We’d like to give a special thanks to the South Bend Silver Hawks and Michiana Hematology Oncology, respectively, for allowing us to help tell your stories.

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Interviewing Journalists: A Monthly Q & A

August 16th, 2010

by Lou Pierce

President, Big Idea Company

John Strauss

News and public relations are changing so fast that it’s hard to know anymore what constitutes best practices.

There’s no shortage of advice, certainly – behind every blog or business card is an “expert” of one kind or another. But when it comes to figuring out where we’re going and how best to respond to vast changes in the industry, I still like to hear from the real media professionals themselves. Read the rest of this entry »

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Still Fresh Long After the Expiration Date

August 6th, 2010

The Key to Crafting Ads that are Timeless

by Lou Pierce

President, Big Idea Company

Fresh NeonTelevision done well, is television that is timeless.  There is nothing in these classic local ad campaigns that dates them.   There are no special effects for the sake of special effects.  The writing, the concepts and the strategies are as daring and as relevant today, as the day they were conceived.

From our point-of-view, you should always be asking yourself “Will my new print ad, my television ad or my web ad still make sense five years from now?  Will it look silly and out-of-date?  Or, will it remain as relevant in the future, as it is today?”  If the answer is “I don’t know,” that’s fair.  But, if the answer is “no,” you need to rethink what you’re about to do.

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Simple Advice for Complex Public Relations Situations

June 14th, 2010

The Best Way to Handle an Embarrassing Situation or Crisis

From the series What Not To Do

By Lou Pierce

President, Big Idea Company

Like delicious frosting spread without apology over a toxic handmade cake, the public relations machine at BP Oil expects Americans to gobble up their latest concoction… and even like it. The point that their catastrophic slow motion oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is a foul and costly mess hardly needs belaboring. What deserves our attention as professionals in the public relations field is this, the latest example of what not to do in a crisis.

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Posted in Media Relations | 2 Comments »

Settling the Double-Space Dispute Once and For All

May 24th, 2010

by Ryan Faist

Big Idea Company

Have you ever wondered why some people double-space after typing a sentence and others don’t?  Is it a perfunctory habit? Or is there in fact some purpose for tapping the space bar twice after every period?

To solve this little writing mystery, we must go all the way back to the 1800s, when the world was introduced to the typewriter.

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Posted in Writing for Media | 5 Comments »

Marketing on Mother’s Day?

May 11th, 2010

What would you do for your mom? See what one little girl did in this :60 film. The :30 version that was posted without any promotion on YouTube, has been watched and shared worldwide nearly 4,000 times. We’re not sure why, but we’re glad. It may help to save a few lives.

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Inspired by the Client

April 26th, 2010

When we set out to create a development or marketing film, we are always excited about what we’ll learn in the process. Occasionally, we are actually humbled by what we learn.

This is a case where we were humbled and remain humbled, in-part, by a gentleman who by the age of 12, was working 6 days a week, ten hours a day in a Pennsylvania coal mine. On the rare occasion that he would see daylight for any amount of time, he learned to do something unique — and he did it so well, that it changed his life, and the lives of thousands of men, women and children in northern Indiana forever.

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The 3 Incredibly Simple Rules for Making Ads that Actually Work

March 10th, 2010

by Lou Pierce

IT'S GOOD THAT MOST ADS ARE BAD

President, Big Idea Company, LLC

Almost all local advertising is bad.  It insults the intelligence of local consumers and brazenly overestimates their interest in the product, service or brand.  Despite this fact, tens of millions of dollars are spent in this local market alone on bad advertising every year.

This not so surprising fact is actually good news for you and for me because the companies that produce all this bad advertising are doing us a favor.  That’s right. They’re doing us a favor.

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Posted in Media Relations | 4 Comments »

The Final Showdown in the Publishing Revolution

March 3rd, 2010

by Ryan Faist

Big Idea Company, LLC

I heard a story this morning on NPR that made me stop what I was doing and write this post. It was yet another commentary about the future of the publishing industry, something that I pay close attention to because I’m a writer. But even if you don’t earn your living with words, this affects you. It may even change the way you read books, magazines and newspapers forever.

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