“There’s no bigger sucker than a gullible marketer convinced he’s missing a trend.” Strong words from a guy who runs an ad agency. But for those familiar with Bob Hoffman, it’s par for the course—and a refreshing dose of reality in an industry that can, shall we say, overcomplicate matters at times.
Okay, a lot of the time.
So, who better to inaugurate the Straight Talk Speaker Series hosted by
Hoffman | Lewis than the ‘H’ in H|L?
No one was the answer we came up with. And on August 18th, Bob entertained and engaged the audience of more than thirty people with his speech entitled “The Three Most Annoying Trends in Advertising.”
For a sample of what Bob—author of the book The Ad Contrarian and his blog by the same title—had to say, click below.
The Straight Talk Speaker’s Series will be a quarterly event held at Maryland House in the Central West End. According to the invitation, it’s a “gathering of top marketing leaders to listen, learn, discuss and debate the most talked-about trends taking place in advertising today, and what it means for tomorrow.”
Stay tuned for an announcement about the next speaker.
And, yes, there were drinks.
Here at Hoffman | Lewis, we pride ourselves not only on how creative our work is but also how effective it is. Novel, huh?
Well, as obvious as it may seem, not all agencies maintain both standards.
You’ll see work on their website that sure looks pretty, but if you ask how it was received, you’ll get a shrug and a reminder that, well, it sure looks pretty.
Or, perhaps worse, they’ll pepper their presentations with ironclad case studies leading to . . . wait for it . . . wait . . . build-up . . . steady climb, then sharp drop off to mediocre work, leaving one to wonder whether they thought more about the creative process or the process of defending the “creative.”
This is not such an occurrence.
A year after launching Touchstone Energy’s Together We Save campaign, agency and client are both extremely pleased. In fact, Hoffman | Lewis is currently developing a second wave of materials for the campaign. Stay tuned.
In the meantime, check out the spots for a refresher. And read up on some of the analytics below to see how the campaign is working thus far.
- The Together We Save campaign for Touchstone Energy Cooperatives is the only national energy efficiency advertising campaign
- The site has averaged over 10,000 unique visitors a month
- Users have calculated nearly $19,000,000 in potential home energy savings
- The site’s message resonates globally, with regular visitors from all over the world, including Canada, India, United Kingdom, China, Malaysia, Mexico, Germany and Australia
- The greatest number of referrals to the site (next to organic search results) come from emails forwarded from friends after visiting the site
Missouri’s very own Negro League Baseball Museum is going into its third decade of existence.
To commemorate the achievements of this institution and those who are enshrined within, the state of Missouri asked Hoffman | Lewis to place an ad in the 20th Anniversary museum program.
A simple, thoughtful tip of the cap was created. But there was a chance to do more. With a few conventions coming to Kansas City in the coming months, a collector’s set of three posters was produced to tout this one-of-a-kind gem to visitors from out-of-state.
