Marketing and advertising can make or break a business. Yet, so many companies continue to sabotage their own success by making avoidable mistakes—whether it’s chasing shiny new trends, skimping on their budget, or refusing to trust experts who actually know what they’re doing.

If you’re serious about fixing your marketing and advertising, here are five brutally honest ways to unfuck it.

1. Know What You Know—And More Importantly, Know What You DON’T Know

Look, just because you watched a YouTube video on marketing doesn’t mean you’re a marketing expert. You wouldn’t build a house because you saw a tutorial on home construction, so why would you try to DIY your marketing and advertising?

There’s a reason successful businesses hire professionals. Strategic media placement, ad targeting, creative development, and branding all require expertise, experience, and data-driven decision-making.

If you don’t understand how to craft an effective marketing campaign, when and where to advertise, or how to build brand recognition—then defer to the experts. Winging it is not a strategy.

2. Stop Chasing Shiny New Trends Without a Strategy

Every year, some new marketing trend emerges that businesses feel obligated to jump on. Sometimes it’s TikTok. Sometimes it’s AI-generated content. Sometimes it’s influencer marketing.

Here’s the reality: Not every trend is right for your business.

Just because it’s possible to market your business on a new platform doesn’t mean it’s profitable or even relevant to your audience. Before you start throwing money at the next big thing, ask a professional if it makes sense for your business.

3. Stop Trying to Do Marketing on a Shoestring Budget

This might be tough to hear, but if you’re not budgeting properly for marketing and advertising, your business is already screwed.

Marketing is not an optional expense—it’s the engine that drives customer acquisition, brand awareness, and sales. If you only invest in marketing when sales are slow, you’re already too late.

Businesses fail not just because they lack sales, but because they are underfunded and unable to sustain growth. If you’re cutting corners in marketing, you’re crippling your business before it even has a chance to thrive.

Make marketing a priority. Budget for it. Plan for it. Invest in it. Every single month.

4. Build a Brand That Doesn’t Look Like a Cheap Afterthought

Branding is more than just a logo—it’s the identity of your business. And yet, so many companies treat it like an afterthought:

• Using random fonts and colors with no consistency
• Slapping together a logo from Fiverr that looks like it was made in 30 seconds
• Using stock photos that don’t reflect your brand personality

Your brand should be intentional, cohesive, and professional. Every piece of your marketing—from your website to your business cards to your social media presence—should reflect the same high-quality, well-thought-out identity.

If your branding looks cheap, inconsistent, or amateurish, that’s exactly what your audience will assume about your business.

5. Stay in Your Lane (And Leave Your Ego at the Door)

Not everyone is cut out to be the face of their brand—and that’s okay.

Some business owners insist on starring in their own commercials, video ads, or social media content, even when they have zero charisma, terrible camera presence, and no ability to communicate their message effectively.

If you aren’t good on camera, don’t force it.

There are better ways to showcase your brand without making yourself the centerpiece. Let professionals handle the visuals, voiceovers, and ad creatives. Focus on running your business, not feeding your vanity.

Conclusion: Fix It Before It Fails

If your marketing isn’t working, it’s probably because you’re doing it wrong.

The good news? Mad Men Marketing is here to help. We cut through the bullshit, build real strategies that actually drive results, and help businesses stop wasting time and money on ineffective marketing.

Ready to unfuck your advertising? Contact Mad Men Marketing today and let’s do this the right way.

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In today’s evolving advertising landscape, choosing the right platform can significantly impact your brand’s success. With traditional broadcast television competing against newer streaming platforms like Paramount Plus, it’s essential to understand which medium offers greater advantages for your marketing goals.

At Mad Men Marketing, we frequently advise clients about effective advertising strategies tailored to modern audiences. In this article, we outline key benefits of advertising on Paramount Plus compared to traditional broadcast television.

Targeted Audience Reach

Paramount Plus:

Advertising on Paramount Plus offers powerful targeting options, allowing brands to reach specific demographics based on interests, viewing habits, and content preferences. This tailored approach ensures your message resonates directly with your ideal audience, enhancing ad effectiveness and ROI. You can also view analytics about your ads in real-time. Paramount Plus even has a pixel you can add to your website to track a desired action.

Broadcast Television:

Traditional broadcast television typically provides a broad, less targeted audience. While beneficial for mass-market awareness, it doesn’t offer precise demographic targeting, potentially leading to less efficient use of advertising budgets. This is especially notable when you have a business with a single location in a specific area of town that wouldn’t benefit from the reach of a large geographic DMA.

Higher Viewer Engagement

Paramount Plus:

Viewers on Paramount Plus are actively selecting their content, making them more engaged with what they watch—and consequently, with the advertisements they see. Ads within streaming services are often shorter and less intrusive, making viewers less likely to tune them out.

Broadcast Television:

Broadcast TV ads often interrupt programming, leading to lower viewer engagement. Audiences typically utilize commercial breaks for other activities, decreasing ad recall and overall effectiveness.

Precise Analytics and Measurement

Paramount Plus:

Advertising on streaming platforms like Paramount Plus provides detailed analytics such as viewer impressions, demographic insights, ad completion rates, and engagement metrics. This rich data helps brands optimize their campaigns in real-time, improving performance continuously.

Broadcast Television:

Traditional TV ads rely on broader, less granular ratings systems. While useful, these ratings offer limited immediate insight into campaign performance, viewer engagement, or detailed demographic data, making precise optimization more challenging.

Flexibility and Cost Efficiency

Paramount Plus:

Digital streaming platforms offer flexible advertising packages with customizable budgets, campaign lengths, and ad placements. Brands can start, pause, or adjust their campaigns quickly to respond to performance data or market conditions, ensuring maximum budget efficiency.

Broadcast Television:

Advertising on broadcast television typically requires larger budgets, longer lead times, and fixed schedules. There’s less room to make rapid adjustments, potentially leading to less efficient use of advertising spend.

Growing and Diverse Audiences

Paramount Plus:

Streaming services like Paramount Plus are rapidly growing their user base, capturing diverse audiences across all demographics. The rise of cord-cutting means more consumers are adopting streaming platforms, presenting advertisers with significant new growth opportunities.

Broadcast Television:

While still reaching broad audiences, broadcast television faces declining viewership among younger demographics who increasingly prefer digital and streaming platforms. Advertisers targeting younger or tech-savvy consumers may miss key opportunities by relying solely on broadcast television.

Less Ad Clutter, Greater Visibility

Paramount Plus:

Paramount Plus generally offers limited commercial breaks, meaning fewer ads competing for viewer attention. This reduced clutter ensures your advertisements stand out, leading to greater visibility and brand recall.

Broadcast Television:

Commercial breaks on broadcast TV can be lengthy and crowded, making it challenging for individual ads to capture viewer attention. Increased clutter decreases overall ad visibility and effectiveness.

Final Thoughts: Paramount Plus or Broadcast TV?

When considering advertising strategies, it’s clear that Paramount Plus offers significant advantages over traditional broadcast television, especially regarding targeted reach, viewer engagement, precise analytics, budget flexibility, and reduced ad clutter.

Mad Men Marketing can help your brand navigate this landscape effectively. Our expert media planners will develop tailored campaigns designed for maximum impact on platforms like Paramount Plus.

Ready to elevate your advertising strategy with Paramount Plus? Contact Mad Men Marketing today to get started.

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I think everyone knows what streaming TV is, but in the very basic terms, it is the digital distribution of any video content that is consumed on TV screens. Some popular platforms are Disney+, Netflix, Prime and for this article, Hulu.

I am focusing on Hulu because they are the first service to offer local insertions in their programming. This is huge for local advertisers! According to Nielsen, adults 18-34 traditional TV ratings have declined 69% since 2017. So in 4 short years, 70% of adults under 35 years of age, are no longer watching traditional, local news station content over the air, or through traditional cable service providers. I for one have been a huge fan of “Only Murders in the Building” on Hulu, and when a platform has successful content such as this, it increases usage in large numbers. As an example, I am now watching the Hulu platform almost daily at some point, whereas before the show, I did not.

So why is this important? Because like me, Hulu viewership is up in a big way.  As Hulu puts it, we are starting to see GENERATION STREAM come to maturity and they consume their content almost exclusively on a streaming service. In fact, Hulu’s research points that ads on their platforms are 151% more engaging than linear TV. There are many reasons for this, but their limited content breaks and non-traditional approach to breaks in general, makes for a better user experience.

The new Hulu self-service option to buying and inserting ads locally in their programming, for as little as $500, is something I hope local companies will take advantage of!

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Meanwhile, Facebook has gone from cool collegiate exclusivity to the most ubiquitous social channel in the world.  Recently, Facebook revealed that it would amplify its existing e-commerce ads to account for showcase shopping ads.  Just like Google, Facebook is taking advantage of their online resources to help advertisers push more merchandise just in time for holiday shopping.  The new ad format allows advertisers to display one main picture with several product images that would, ostensibly, have their own unique landing pages.  This gives the potential consumer a broader understanding of what the retailer may be selling and what's specially priced.

Pandora's box is open and there's no going back. Linking a bank account to everyone's personal Facebook page isn't far off and this may raise security concerns all over the world, but for now, social media will undoubtedly see a rise in sell-through, especially with reasonably priced impulse buys.  It will continue to command an ever-increasing amount of your advertising budget as their ads evolve in terms of what can be done with them creatively and who can be targeted strategically.  Currently, only a few heavy hitters are testing out the new format, but look for a wider roll-out soon with other companies following suit in 2017.  Admittedly, I laughed derisively when some people claimed that Facebook was coming for Google.  Well, it appears that not only do they want to compete with Google, but with Amazon and Alibaba as well.  What's more is that they seem to have the golden touch right now and I wouldn't put anything past them.

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At the end of the day, the name of the game is value, and what you can bring to the table will ultimately determine your level of success.  Offering a superior value guarantees satisfaction which earns loyalty (Day, 1994).  Marketing in contemporary America now favors the cultivation of relationships, proving once and for all that it is, and always has been, all about the people.

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The World Cup trumps even the Olympics.  It is a month-long event that takes place in the summer and televises the world's most popular game to an international audience.  Corporate sponsorships are priced ~$75 million per sponsorship.  That's nearly 20 times the cost of a Super Bowl ad, BUT this includes a lot of bonus spots and a confirmed number of spots that eclipses 400.  This puts increased pressure on agencies and corporations to keep their message fresh because no one wants to be diluted with the same commercial over 400 times for a month.  

The Olympics offers more competitive rates over a sustained period, but ratings will likely diminish based on time of day, event, and so forth…Figure skating may not appeal to a younger audience, whereas snowboard superpipe may not appeal to an old crowd.  

The trick to determining whether or not to advertise during one of these highly visible sporting events is to do some thorough cost analysis and opportunity cost analysis and decide which suits your target demographic best.  Will the impression you get with a Super Bowl ad give you the frequency you want?  Will the frequency you get with a World Cup or Olympics ad reach the number of people you want it to reach (think Croatia vs Cameroon in the WC or Curling for the Olympics)?  

Regardless of what happens, the CPM will continue to rise and so will the price for a single spot (as high as $10 million/ 30 seconds for the Super Bowl by 2040).  Why does this happen?  It's not just because of the VOLUME of people reached, but the quality of ads increases on the world's biggest stages.  During the Super Bowl, people don't turn the channel, the viewership of advertisements actually EXCEEDS that of the game itself!  Exciting times indeed….

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You could be strolling down the beach, basking in sunshine while ordering a new grill for Labor Day.  Even GM is rolling out a new application that would allow savvy consumers to trade-in their car, and take delivery or test drive a new car, all without bothering to get dressed in the morning.

 I already order all of my take-out online when I used to phone it in.  Further innovation will herald the dawning of a new Kondratiev Cycle that could yield innovations in every single industry on a global scale, and this would represent a huge boom for the logistics industry, with higher levels of import/export and international shipping business.  It would also mean smaller businesses could level the playing field a bit.  For instance, I love the asadero cheese from the Licon Dairy in San Elizario, Texas.  I encourage everyone to find a niche product that you absolutely love, and see if it's available for international shipping.  What an industrious age in which we live!!!

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For those of you who advertise, rest assured that Mad Men Marketing will be their every step of the way, monitoring viewing habits with NSA-like precision, down to what people DVR.  We are the only agency in the market to implement Rentrak, a service that gives us an extensive breakdown of what viewers watch based on innumerable sub-categories and demographics.  While Nielsen utilizes an archaic journal-entry style system with less than a thousand people in the Jacksonville market participating (less than 1/8 of one percent), Rentrak uses 68,000 set top boxes that you're already using to gather data (roughly 8 percent).  This is what sets us apart among agencies, being well-informed of where to spend YOUR money on advertising and being ahead of the curve with a research-oriented approach.  

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Fortunately, Mad Men Marketing is ahead of the curve.  Not only did we become the first in our market to begin using Rentrak, (a wonderful little tool that lets us target the appropriate media buy to your target audience) but we also offer customizable research delivery and custom-tailored case studies.

Why case studies, you may ask?  They explore CAUSATION to underlying principles which allows us to tweek our approach.  It is empirical research that investigates real-life phenomena.  So while every other agency is out there telling you to “trust them”, we do not remain static in our approach like so many others.  We are not so overzealous to think we get it right all the time.  NO!  We are dynamic.  We will get you results, quantify them, and show them to you.  We will constantly refine and improve our approach, guaranteeing the highest level of efficiency possible.  

In 1985 Michael Porter attempted to improve upon Ricardo's comparative advantage and suggested his own theory of competitive advantage.  This emphasizes production, efficiencies, and the acquisition of attributes that can be utilized to outpace the competition.  Think of Mad Men Marketing as your Swiss Army Knife or the ace up your sleeve because we are delivering our clients comparables, measurables, and demonstrating causative reasons for market change utilizing a number of inputs.  

In short, when you perform research, and you can deliver the goods to your client, you're allowing them to track progress….no matter how small it may be.  This keeps clients abreast of changing market conditions and keeps them competitive in their industry.  

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I read those words again.  This time they seemed envious…like someone who feigned distaste for something simply because it was out of their comfort zone, their little bubble of what was familiar.  The last time I read that lawyer's words made me think he was a child who wanted a toy that another boy had, and acted like he didn't want it just on the off chance that the other boy would stop playing with it long enough so that he could have a turn.

The world of legal representation is like any other.  You're selling something you want people to buy, but in this case, you're selling your legal expertise.  How will people ever like you….ever build a rapport with you, if they don't even KNOW you?  I'm here to tell you that advertising in the legal industry WORKS.  I've never needed an attorney in my life, but if I did, I would surely call one that advertises because those names immediately pop into my head, and my personal opinion is that one is just as good as another for any service I may ever need.

While I'm on this legal kick today, have you ever listened to a Morgan and Morgan commercial and noticed the emphasis on “FOR the people?”  For them…..not against them.  Why not “for the PEOPLE”?  Farrah and Farrah really “gets it” in my humble opinion, because he portrays himself as a very affable “every man”.  “Call me Eddie.”….and if I were ever in Mr. Farrah's office, I might feel comfortable doing just that, and I feel that he would make me feel welcome and not overwhelmed.  I salute these two law firms for doing it the right way.  Some of you may tire of the Morgan and Morgan, Farrah and Farrah, and Harrell and Harrell commercials, BUT I BET YOU REMEMBER THEM.

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