Kennywood Park
Kennywood Park (http://www.kennywood.com) is western Pennsylvania’s largest provider of summer fun and a National Historic Landmark highly regarded as America's finest traditional amusement park. Kennywood is part of the Palace Entertainment (http://www.palaceentertainment.com) family of parks that hosts over 14 million visitors annually at five theme parks, two animal parks, 10 waterparks, and 21 family entertainment centers. Palace Entertainment is part of the Parques Reunidos family of parks. For many years, BrandMill has provided strategic marketing communications counsel to Kennywood Park in the areas of branding, targeted marketing (to moms, families and teens), public relations, media relations, media buying, email marketing, pricing, ...
Idlewild & SoakZone
Founded in 1878 as a simple picnic ground along the Ligonier Valley Rail Road, Idlewild & SoakZone (http://www.idlewild.com) is the oldest amusement park in Pennsylvania, third-oldest in America and is rated the second best kid’s park in the world by Amusement Today magazine (http://www.amusementtoday.com) and one of the top five family amusement parks in the world by the National Amusement Park Historical Association (http://www.napha.org/). Idlewild features seven fun theme areas such as SoakZone Waterpark, Story Book Forest and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood of Make-Believe. Idlewild is part of the Palace Entertainment (http://www.palaceentertainment.com) family of parks that hosts over 14 million visitors ...
Priory Hospitality Group
The Priory Hospitality Group (http://www.thepriory.com) properties consist of the Priory Hotel a 24-room European-style boutique hotel on Pittsburgh's North Shore rated the best in Pittsburgh by Zagat Survey® (fifth edition); Pittsburgh’s Grand Hall at the Priory (http://www.pittsburghsgrandhall.com) located adjacent to the hotel and situated in the former St. Mary’s German Catholic Church, which offers a breathtaking space for weddings, banquets, parties, charity events and gatherings of all types; and the award-winning Priory Fine Pastries (http://www.prioryfinepastries.com) custom bakery. In addition, it is a leader in the revitalization effort of the National Register District of Deutschtown. For several years, BrandMill has served as ...
Whiskey Rebellion II
We led the "Whiskey Rebellion II" marketing strategy and rebranding of the Friends Against Counterproductive Taxation (F.A.C.T.) (http://www.stopdrinktax.com) campaign to, "Axe the 10% Drink Tax" imposed by Allegheny County government on Pittsburgh area restaurants, taverns and banquet halls. We provided expert Web site, email marketing and analytics, Web 2.0 strategies and executions and Public Relations counsel which led to national media coverage by the Associated Press and Wall Street Journal and a ton of media coverage throughout the Pittsburgh region! Our award winning and record breaking marketing effort helped F.A.C.T. collect over 40,000 signatures (nearly 2X required) for a ballot vote of ...
American Marketing Association
As president of the Pittsburgh American Marketing Association (http://www.amapittsburgh.org) for the 2007/08 season and members of the programming and communications teams, Stephen Wayhart led the 63 year old Chapter into the record books by building the largest membership of Pittsburgh marketing executives in its long history and achieved its highest increase in Revenue-to-Expense Ratio of 122+%! AMA Pittsburgh Chapter goals were met working under an aggressive "Raise the Marketing Bar" Mantra. The Chapter delivered more member value (3X the number of speakers than prior years), more innovative programming offerings such as Summertime Marketing Mixers, Fall and Spring Marketing Summits (Digital and ...
Honor Flight CAK
Since 2005, the Honor Flight Network (http://www.honorflight.org) has had one simple goal in mind, to safely transport America's veterans for free to Washington, D.C. to visit those memorials dedicated to honor their service and sacrifices. Priority is given to World War II veterans – who are dying at a rate of 1,000 every day – and then Korean and Vietnam War veterans and so on. HFN presently has 71 hubs in 30 states and by the end of the 2009 flying season in November, it will have transported more than 42,000 veterans of World War II, Korea and Vietnam to ...
The Carlton Restaurant
Nationally recognized, The Carlton (http://www.thecarltonrestaurant.com) is Pittsburgh’s only DiRoNA (Distinguished Restaurant of North America) award winning restaurant is conveniently located in One BNY Mellon Center, in the heart of the Pittsburgh’s bustling business, hotel and cultural district. For 25 years, The Carlton has been consistently recognized as one of the very best restaurants in western Pennsylvania achieving numerous awards and commendations such as: - The “Overall Favorite Restaurant” by Pittsburgh Post-Gazette readers - A 14 time recipient of the Wine Spectator’s Award of Excellence Restaurateur of the Year by Pittsburgh Magazine, the Pennsylvania Restaurant Association, and the International Geneva Association To better reflect The ...
Featured
How to Get People to Join Your Cause or Brand
There’s an old saying in cause marketing which is, “People don’t join causes, people join people with causes.” That is, if you’re a good friend of mine, and if I’m stricken with cancer and involved with one the American Cancer Society’s initiatives such as Relay for Life, chances are you will be more in tune with ACS messages and offer to help (donate money... [Read more]
A Renaissance in Marketing is Needed
A Renaissance in Marketing is needed today..a rebirth! When the Renaissance swept through Europe from the 14th to the 17th centuries, scholars followed the humanist method in study searching for realism and human emotion in art. And, today we marketers could learn a great deal from those old Renaissance scholars. It seems like we’re on to something with Social Media – and I remain cautiously... [Read more]
Trusted Word of Mouth Packs 50X More Punch
…than lower level recommendations and these trusted sources are typically friends or family members., reports McKinsey. Three key telegrams from McKinsey’s word of mouth report are that WOM recommendations drive 20% to 50% of all purchases; influentials make up about 9% of the population and drive about 3X more WOM; and, the payout of pursuing WOM excellence is enormous, delivering a... [Read more]
Marketing 3.0 – Kotler’s New Values Based Model
Since graduating from college, I voraciously read a new marketing book every 10 days and in my library you’ll find several books by the father of modern day marketing Philip Kotler. What I love about the guy is that even though his book Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, Implementation and Control, 13th ed., is the most widely used marketing book in graduate business schools worldwide... [Read more]
Give the Finger Test to Your Work
A guy rushes into a hospital’s emergency room with blood gushing out of an artery and close to death. A surgeon on call is immediately summoned and after taking a minute or two, puts his finger on the gusher, sews the guy up in 10 minutes and the patient is good as new. A few days pass and the guy gets a bill for $25,000 for the 10 minute job. He’s ticked. He rushes back into the hospital... [Read more]
Erik Qualman’s Social Media Revolution Part Deux
I’m a big fan of Erik Qualman and his Social Media Blog Socialnomics. He’s helped me and my clients a ton. He’s a smart guy – so smart that being a James Bond fan, I think I’ll call him “Q.” Q’s Socialnomics the book is a great read too. And, his outstanding Social Media Revolution video which hit YouTube last year generated about 2 million views. If... [Read more]
How Do You Wow
In 20 days at noon, on July 2, 182½ days of the year will have elapsed and 182½ will remain before Jan 1, 2011. Now is a great time to take a hard look at your marketing systems to see what’s working, what’s not working, what needs to be improved and what needs to scrapped. That’s exactly what my team and I are doing. Over the past few weeks, we’ve picked up a few significant... [Read more]
$6 Google AdWords Campaign Lands Dream Job
For anyone looking for a new job (pay attention college grads) or trying to get that next big sale and running into a roadblock because you can’t get the attention of a key decision maker, check out this brilliant job search strategy by copywriter Alec Brownstein. Brownstein used Google AdWords to target Ad Agency Creative Directors on Madison Avenue in New York He bet 15 cents per click that... [Read more]
Hopeful Marketing Ideas to Help Homeless
One of the things that sickens and saddens me in homelessness. On a such special day as today – Mother’s Day – where is our “mothering” skill when it comes to others – we’re all connected aren’t we? In this rich country of ours, these homelessness statistics are mind blowing to me: About 3.5 million people experience homelessness in a given year 40%... [Read more]
25 Brand Marketing Lessons From My Mom
This weekend is always a great time for me, because it gives me extra time to truly pause and reflect on my super Mom – I adore her (same goes for my mother-in-law too) and am so very blessed to have her in my life. Now, I’ve always been a believer in the Big Guy upstairs, but I’ll tell you if my Mom doesn’t make it to heaven, there just simply isn’t one! While Mother’s... [Read more]
NHL Scores Clutch Marketing Goal
Growing up in the city of Pittsburgh in the 60′s and 70′s, hockey wasn’t the hot sport it has become, and even today I’m what the NHL calls a “casual fan.” However, when it comes to NHL hockey marketing, I’m a rabid fan. After the lockout season of 2004-05, the NHL has put forth an amazing marketing power play. The NHL has become more relevant, is skating with... [Read more]
Guilty on All Three Counts
NERD ALERT! This chart shows that nearly 30% of U.S. consumers use their cell phones and/or computers at the same time they watch TV. And, I have to say that I’m guilty on all three counts and possibly four, because I can hold a conversation at the same time – at least I think so – but, don’t ask my wife! The integration of marketing messages across platforms is becoming... [Read more]
Email Marketing to Double by 2014
Forrester says that by 2014 (see Advertising Age article), you and most of your customers are going to get over 9,000 email marketing messages a year which is about 25 messages per person per day or two times what you both got last year! And, email marketing spending will increase to $2 billion in 2004 – about 2X what was spent last year! So, what’s all this mean for marketers like you... [Read more]
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