case study Tag

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango & Hardcore Caffeinated Beverage Addict So Pepsi is skipping the Super Bowl, ending a 23-year run of entertaining ads. Contrary to what the social media cultists would like to believe, Pepsi is not doing so because it prefers social media. (As much as I use social media — including this here blog — I find its cheerleaders to be about as endearing as televangelists on crack.) Indeed, Pepsi will be heavily plugging another of its products, Doritos, so it’s hardly abandoning theRead More

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango + Aspiring Snackologist… Of course, you already know Pringles aren’t really potato chips. One bite told you that. You just ate ’em because they make delicious midnight munchies. And they come in that cool tube. But the blogosphere buzzed when parent company Proctor & Gamble publicly proclaimed that Pringles aren’t entirely made from potatoes. In an attempt to save on snack taxes in Britain, the company noted that 58% of each Pringles chip consists of wheat and corn flour, fat, seasonings, andRead More

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango LLC + Guy Who Likes Brands With Personalities… So my longtime bank, Washington Mutual (WaMu), recently got taken over by megabank Chase. ‘Twas a sad day for us WaMulians, because for all its faults — and it had a few — WaMu was a friendly place to bank, with everything from chirpy messages on the ATMs to free candy at the teller windows. What wasn’t to like?Read More

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango + Multimedia Marketer I hear it all the time: “Advertising is a waste of money.” “If you have a great product, you don’t need to advertise.” “Word of mouth is more effective than traditional media.” “It’s impossible to cut through the clutter.” “Most consumers tune out or TiVo past commercials.” While these declarations might be true in some cases, many bullheaded companies still invest millions in advertising — and not just during the Super Bowl when everyone pays attention to the commercials.Read More

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango + Guy Still Looking For His Lost Shaker Of Salt… Want to see a brand done right — and gone wild? Go to a Jimmy Buffett concert, but don’t bother with the music performance.Read More

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango LLC Nice work, WVU! And I’m not just talking about your football team.Read More

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango + Proud Obama Supporter… One of marketing’s primary responsibilities is to make your brand stand out from the competition — ideally in a good way. So even though I’m a marketer who supports Obama, I’ve hesitated to write about Obamarketing, because every other marketer with a blog (99.9% of all marketers) has already done so. Back in mid-October, Advertising Age crowned Obama “Marketer of the Year” based on a survey of its readers — which would have looked awfully silly had heRead More

by Freddy Tran Nager + Guy Who Watches The Super Bowl For Both The Footbal AND The Ads… How can you exploit the Super Bowl without spending millions for a 30-second commercial?Read More

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango + Guy Who Usually Likes Direct Mail Offers… You gotta love asterisks* — those little stars that tell you some juicy bits of information are lying far from the statement you just read. The late great novelist David Foster Wallace turned the footnote into a powerful literary tool: “notes and errata” make up nearly 100 pages of his 1079-page novel Infinite Jest, and they’re as compelling to read as the main body of the novel itself. Then I got a massive jestRead More

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango LLC + Marketing Forensics Practitioner… As an L.A. interactive-media guy, I’m expected to blog about sexy new developments online or in Hollywood, but today I’m writing about Mervyns department store. And, yes, that’s the only time you’ll ever see the words “sexy” and “Mervyns” in the same sentence. Ah, I see I just lost 98% of this article’s readers, which reflects the same percentage of consumers who couldn’t care less about the fashion retailer. And that explains why Mervyns recently declared bankruptcy.Read More