Some say it is the hottest new trend in fitness and fashion. These HotPants claim to elevate your temperature while wearing them. It is not a new fact that the hotter you get, the more calories you burn.

We market to women, and although that may seem like a small niche to reach (it’s not, read here), marketing in general can fall on deaf ears if any of these common brand messaging mistakes take place:

1. Not speaking to customers’ values: companies too often build messages around their products, not what’s most important to their customers. Align your message with their values for the most success.
2. Relying too heavily on buzzwords: Gamification? Clickability? Using buzzwords on a campaign that is targeting your customer can backfire in two ways – your customer doesn’t know what the words mean or they are so overused that the words don’t have an impact anymore. It is better to just stay away from them.
3. Failing to make your messages portable: Make your messaging simple yet effective so word-of-mouth can carry it on. Think of boiling it down to 2 sentences and use that as a central theme throughout all marketing materials.
4. Forgetting to excite: You are excited about your marketing message because you probably came up with it. However, many customers are on auto-pilot when shopping, making decisions, etc. so stand out and excite your customer in a new way.

Bring success to your new marketing campaign by avoiding these common marketing mistakes. If you need help marketing in the Knoxville area, give us a call today at (865) 249-8371.

Menstruation isn’t exactly the most delicate topic to discuss, whether in casual conversation or for marketers and advertisers. In advertising, we typically see euphemisms which vaguely allude to, and dance around, the matter at hand. You hear words like “flow,” “absorbent” and “keep you dry” instead of “period” or “menstruation.”

It’s summer, which means people are hitting the road, taking road trips and heading to far-off destinations.

If you’ve kept up with our blog, you may have noticed a new author posting recently. That would be me, Abbigail the Intern. (*Note: I’m thinking of patenting that for my superhero alias. You’ll see why if you continuing reading.) I started interning for FletcherPR at the end of May and have had my fair share of stories to tell.

We have been fortunate to work with the Knox County Health Department on two different campaigns in the last year. While very different topics and projects, both received recognition from the American Advertising Federation (AAF) at their annual Addy Awards.

It’s summertime, meaning movie studios are mounting their assault of big-budget films on theater-goers. This is a high-stakes season for movie studios because those blockbusters can be big cash cows when they succeed or huge money pits if they fail.

One interesting development this blockbuster season has been the success of The Heat. The Heat is an odd-couple police comedy starring Melissa McCarthy and Sandra Bullock. In addition to being popular among critics and viewers, it has also been a success at the box office, earning nearly $86.4 million in the U.S. in about two weeks, which looks great next to its $43 million production budget. One hundred-million dollars in ticket sales should be in reach.

The Heat has a quality about it very uncommon in Hollywood—a summer-time movie with female leads. The conservative media have long painted Hollywood as being home to liberals and progressives, a designation Hollywood has seemingly embraced. However, the fact is that certain aspects of the film industry have been stuck in the 1950s – movies with female leads are rare. Sure there are a lot of women playing romantic interests, but it’s seldom Hollywood gives us a movie where most or all of the main characters are female. In recent years, this trend has been reversing, with releases like Sex and the City, Mamma Mia! and Bridesmaids putting up big box office numbers on the backs of female-dominated casts.

In the grand scheme of things, The Heat will probably turn out to be a modest success. As of July 7, it is the 19^th-highest grossing film of 2013. Still, it is the most recent example that movies can market to women through avenues other than genres starting with the word “romantic.” Perhaps the recent success of films with female leads will cause studios to consider something other than white men as the money-making paradigm for summer blockbusters.

Social media has changed how we communicate with people and how often. From things like posting pictures of our delicious breakfast to staying connected with loved ones across the globe, we can utilize social networking sites in any way we choose. We are more connected than we could have imagined and now there’s a day to celebrate it.

Staff from FletcherPR were at the Waldorf Towers in NYC last week meeting with jewelry and accessory editors from major magazines, websites and blogs. This effort is part of the “Jewelry For Your Life” campaign that we conceptualized and are executing for my former employer and long-time client, Jewelry Television (JTV).