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Rock and Think
Category: General
Author: Steve Dolbinski
Posted on Thursday, February 21, 2013
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Some days, it can be difficult to come up with new and interesting ways to communicate our client messages.
But if you think we have it tough, think of what Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart faced: perform the most covered song in rock and roll history - Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven - and perform it for the actual band members of Led Zeppelin.
They did it at the Kennedy Center Honors.
Their amazing... more
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Super Bowl Ad Previews
Category: General
Author: Karen Kallestad
Posted on Tuesday, January 29, 2013
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We'll see some of the usual suspects in Super Bowl XLVII. Returning advertisers include Budweiser, Best Buy, Cars.com, Century 21, Coca-Cola, Doritos, E-Trade, Go Daddy, Hyundai, Kia, M & M's, Mercedes Benz, Skechers and Volkswagen. Newcomers include Axe, Gildan Activewear, Oreo, and Wonderful Pistachios.
A 30-second spot in Super Bowl XLVII cost an average of $3.8 million, compared to an average of about $3.5 million in 2012's game. Of course that's just the cost for... more
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Marketing is Simple
Category: General
Author: Michael Pierce
Posted on Monday, October 29, 2012
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Marketing is very simple. Put the right message in front of the right audience at the right time and you have the blueprint for a successful campaign. But what if you have one of those three elements wrong? The result is an unsuccessful campaign and worse yet, a wasted budget.
All three elements rely on one very important detail: your audience. Who are they and what motivates them? Where do they spend their time and... more
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Hope Heals
Category: General
Author: Karen Kallestad
Posted on Thursday, October 04, 2012
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"I always felt like I needed to do something," says Candace Brekke, interactive creative director in our Minot office. When Minot was inundated with floodwaters last year, her home on North Hill was dry, but the Odney offices were flooded and the staff worked from temporary quarters for months. "When the anniversary came around, I wanted to give hope." Candace used her artistic skills to express that hope in an acrylic and graphic artwork, "Hope... more
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Retro-cool or Obsolete Relics?
Category: General
Author: Karen Kallestad
Posted on Friday, September 28, 2012
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"Could you fax that to me?" says nobody any more. Just last week I realized that my fax wasn't plugged in. It had apparently been unplugged since I rearranged my office - over a year ago.
Mashable recently published a list of office technologies and trends that are on their way out, including fax machines, Rolodexes, desk phones and desktop computers. Do you still use any of these? What's still lying around the... more
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Young Professionals Standing Up and Standing Out
Category: General
Author: Rhonda Jensen
Posted on Thursday, June 28, 2012
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I looked around the room at all the faces of the young professionals gathered for the 3rd Annual Great Plains Young Professionals Summit and thought "wow, these are the future leaders of North Dakota and they are all gathered in Minot for the Summit." I'm not going to lie when I say that I'm on the older side of the Young Professionals demographic and yet still felt like I really learned some valuable insights for... more
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How "How I Met Your Mother" changed the way we watch TV
Category: General
Author: Scott Larkin
Posted on Thursday, June 14, 2012
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The internet and social media have revolutionized our lives, including the way we watch and experience TV. We don't just sit back and watch anymore-we interact. We follow our favorite characters on twitter and Facebook. We chat with people across the world while watching the same show. The list goes on.
But before we ‘liked' pages and tweeted hashtags, How I Met Your Mother led the way in using the internet to connect with its audience.... more
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Meow Meow Meow Meow
Category: General
Author: Karen Kallestad
Posted on Tuesday, April 03, 2012
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Ad campaigns come and go, but jingles get lodged in your brain forever. A recent survey of cat owners shows that the majority of them recalled the Meow Mix "singing cats" jingle, and most believed they had heard it recently. Nearly 21 percent thought they'd heard it between one and three months ago, and 81 percent recalled hearing it within the last year. The jingle was actually retired 16 years ago, in 1996. more
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More Hits & Misses
Category: General
Author: Karen Kallestad
Posted on Thursday, October 27, 2011
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Five weeks into the new TV season, AdWeek weighs in on which shows are hits - CBS' Broke Girls and Fox's New Girl - and which are misses - most of the rest. The highly touted Playboy Club, the Charlie's Angels reboot and Free Agent have already been cancelled. The big-budget sci-fi series Terra Nova and the high-profile talent show The X Factor aren't living up to the up-front audience guarantees.
So far, CBS is... more
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First Apple? Best Apple?
Category: General
Author: Karen Kallestad
Posted on Thursday, October 06, 2011
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Steve Jobs influenced your life even if you've never used an Apple product. His vision changed computers from pieces of hardware or business tools to personal accessories. While other computer marketing focused on technology, Apple created a lifestyle and a culture. What was your first Apple product? What was the best Apple product (so far)?... more
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Mini Me and Me
Category: General
Author: Casey King
Posted on Thursday, September 15, 2011
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I was given the opportunity to bring my son Steven with me to work through Odney's infant at work program and it has been a great experience. Steven comes with me to work Mondays and Fridays and generally is the most popular guy in the office those two days. I see more smiles walking into my office those days than I normally would. Generally those smiles are followed by some sort of "Mini Me" reference.... more
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E-readers vs. Tablets
Category: General
Author: Karen Kallestad
Posted on Tuesday, July 05, 2011
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Every time we take a trip, it's the same difficult decision on what to pack. No, not clothes or shoes. The important choices: How many books can I take along? So the prospect of an e-reader is very tempting. Take them all! But I couldn't justify the cost for a one-use gadget, so we went with an Android tablet. Apps are available for all the major e-reader formats, so we're road-ready for hours of reading... more
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Inbox vs. Mailbox
Category: General
Author: Karen Kallestad
Posted on Wednesday, June 01, 2011
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What's in your inbox compared to what's in your mailbox? You only have to glance at your inbox to know that e-mail marketing is on the rise - up 61 percent over the past three years. Major retailers are now sending a whopping 152 e-mails to each subscriber per year. That's an average of nearly three messages per week. Over the holiday season, the major retailers ramp their frequency up to one message per day.... more
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We Don't Just Talk. We Listen.
Category: General
Author: Patrick Finken
Posted on Wednesday, May 04, 2011
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We don't just talk to our clients. We listen. In a recent survey, marketing professionals were asked what they would like to tell their advertising agencies. Some of their suggestions:
- Talk less and listen more
- Do a better job with the upfront strategic messaging part
- Act as a partner, not only a provider
- Know our markets
- Know our industry and be willing to offer suggestions not previously considered
Our marketing consultants spend a lot of time making recommendations to... more
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Best/Worst of the Super Bowl
Category: General
Author: Karen Kallestad
Posted on Monday, February 07, 2011
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Super Bowl ads: which were great, which were so-so, and which missed the mark? Volkswagen's little Darth Vader ad started racking up the YouTube views long before the kick-off. Cute, yes. Funny, sure. But it was really more of an ad for remote starters. Does it matter that the car happened to be a Volkswagen?
For car ads, Chevy hit the mark better with "Tommy." Cute, funny, packed a lot of story into 30... more
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Working from home
Category: General
Author: Jayette Young
Posted on Monday, January 10, 2011
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A little over four years ago I was single and living in downtown Bismarck. I was the Regional Sales Manager for Reiten Television. My life revolved around work, family and friends. All I had to worry about was myself, and usually the hardest decision I had to make in a week was where I wanted to go for happy hour on Friday (or Wednesday or Thursday).
In June 2007, I married my husband, Cameron, and... more
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You are What You Watch/Read
Category: General
Author: Karen Kallestad
Posted on Thursday, November 18, 2010
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You are what you watch. You are what you read.
These recent articles ask - and try to answer - what your media consumption habits say about you. We consider psychographics for our clients, but how about for ourselves?
I love Glee, hate DWTS, and subscribe to only one magazine: Skeptical Inquirer, which would seem to be at odds with Ad Age's assumptions about Gleeks.
What do you watch/listen to/read in various media, and... more
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Interning at Odney
Category: General
Posted on Wednesday, September 01, 2010
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Working as an intern at Odney this summer has been a great experience for me. I had an excellent group of talented people to work with, frequent opportunities to interact with clients, and have increased my interest in marketing as a career. Odney was the first, and very important, step for me as I gained work experience and knowledge related to my career goals. As of now I plan to finish schooling, get more practice... more
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Net Neutrality
Category: General
Author: Michael Pierce
Posted on Tuesday, August 24, 2010
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The internet is blind, and it should stay that way. By that I mean its infrastructure should remain a blind carrier of information packets. The internet has operated under "net neutrality," meaning that all data packets are created equal. Packets from web site A go whizzing down the line right along with packets from web site B. Net neutrality has been a driving force for innovation, as little guys with the best ideas, best products... more
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How We Got Here
Category: General
Author: Karen Kallestad
Posted on Tuesday, August 10, 2010
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A recent Ad Age story featured advertising professionals talking about how they got they got their start in the industry. So that got some of us thinking -- how did we get our start? Whether you're a newbie or a veteran, what brought you to this business in general and Odney in particular?... more
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Discuss (1 Comment )
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My top 7
Category: General
Posted on Thursday, July 15, 2010
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The question was recently posed around the shop: What are your top resources for information and inspiration? Mine follow.
1. Ragan.com and several of their great e-newsletters: They ably gather and disseminate the best of all PR, social media, internal and external communications.
2. Google: For when I need to KNOW.
3. Snopes.com: Helpful for unwelcome viral email forwards and general edification.
4. Facebook: To make things... more
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Discuss (1 Comment )
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Why are we top 10?
Category: General
Author: Karen Kallestad
Posted on Tuesday, June 29, 2010
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For the past three years, we've been chosen as one of the top ten places for young professionals to work. What's your definition of a good workplace?
From a professional standpoint, I love the fact that we're always looking ahead to the next thing. Not mindlessly jumping on bandwagons just because it's the latest trend, but thinking about how we can use new technologies, techniques and opportunities in meaningful ways. We keep trying new ideas... more
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Affect Behavior with the right message
Category: General
Author: Paul Kadrmas
Posted on Monday, March 08, 2010
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I just read about a study showing that advertising to prevent risky behaviors (smoking, teen drinking, etc.) can backfire. This is a subject we deal with often at Odney. It's important to note that advertising works, provided that we get the message right.
The study confirms what we have long known. Guilt and shame advertising doesn't often work. Neither does being graphic about the horrid result, like the black lungs pictures we were shown... more
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Locker Talk: Odney Making a Difference
Category: General
Author: Paul Kadrmas
Posted on Thursday, December 17, 2009
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I just got a quick, but profound, refresher lesson in why our work is important. It affects a lot of people.
Not that I try to eavesdrop, but I overheard a conversation at the gym yesterday. Guys talk loudly in the locker room. They just do. I'm just saying.
Anyway, two men were talking about what so-and-so is doing, where this guy's son or that guy's daughter is working, and who had to come to Bismarck to... more
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Doing good, feeling good
Category: General
Posted on Wednesday, November 25, 2009
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I spent a day last week with 200 high school students as a part of a chamber-sponsored ethics event. I found some things I expected - cliques still exist, the class clown is the class clown in any setting, kids mature at radically different rates and teenagers still demand honest answers from adults. But I learned or re-learned a few things too.
I rediscovered how little gray exists in the teen world. As I watched my... more
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Search Engines Top Yellow Pages
Category: General
Author: Karen Kallestad
Posted on Monday, June 15, 2009
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Looking for a local business? Chances are you're letting your fingers do the walking - on your keyboard. A recent study from comScore and TMP Directional Marketing shows that, for the first time, search engines topped printed Yellow Pages or White Pages among customers looking for local businesses. Preferred sources among the survey respondents:
1. Search engines: 31%
2. Print Yellow Pages or White Pages: 30%
3. Yellow Pages websites 19%
4. Local search websites: 11%
Last year's statistics... more
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