Are You Making These 7 Deadly Advertising Mistakes?

The short version: subscribe to the Phil Bernstein on Advertising Newsletter here, and I’ll send you a copy of my newly-revised-and-expanded report, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them. The newsletter is free, it comes out by email twice a month, and you can unsubscribe any time you want to. Here’s the […]

Making a Funny Commercial Work

“Oh… and make it funny.” For nearly a decade, my biggest Portland radio advertising client was a car dealer who appeared in his own commercials. I wrote the copy — more than 500 separate scripts over that time. And whenever he gave me the copy points, “Make it funny” was one of them. He wanted […]

Penny Arcade, Ocean Marketing, and an Email Lesson

Let’s start with the lesson: email is social media. Even if it starts out private, it can be made public. Extremely public. The short version: in November, a guy named Dave orders a pair of PS3 controllers from an outfit called Ocean Marketing. The controllers don’t arrive. In mid-December, Dave writes to the company asking […]

Public Relations Pros: How Would You Help Best Buy?

You are a public relations professional, specializing in crisis management. Your client, Best Buy, took a whole bunch of orders online, and now can’t deliver. What advice would you give them? Comment below. ___________________________________________________________________________________ Email Phil Bernstein here. Like what you’re reading? There’s more! Sign up for Phil Bernstein’s free advertising and marketing e-newsletter here. […]

Email Marketing That Misses the Mark

I received an email this morning from a woman named Ophelia, who works for an SEO company that offers “professional link building” services.*Excerpts follow: Hello, my name is Ophelia  and I am an Internet Rankings Engineer. I performed a Google search for the keyword pedicure portland oregon and upon perusing past the first page, i […]