There was a time when the editorial and advertorial worlds had clear lines of demarcation. It was easy to tell the difference between an investigative report and an ad. However, the days of this “Church and State” arrangement have been disrupted by the sheer weight of online content we now see on a daily basis. As we’ve moved from a print-dominated to a digital world, new avenues for promotion like native advertising have blurred this once easy-to-read landscape. And with social media and online influencers, this line can be even murkier – in some cases being obfuscated on purpose to …

My colleagues Mark McNeely and Alice Chapman, along with an incredible MP&F team, have just completed a clean sweep of national awards honoring their work for the statewide “Red White and Food” campaign to allow the sale of wine in Tennessee retail food stores. Not only did they win “Best of Show” at the local Parthenon Awards last spring, they’ve just completed the trifecta of national awards – the SABRE Award, the Silver Anvil Award and the PRWeek Public Affairs Campaign of the Year award. For a Nashville public relations firm to claim all of these awards in one year …

Back in 2011, my friend Gini Dietrich asked me and several of our marketing and PR colleagues nationally to write one-pagers for a book she was working on titled “Dear CEO: Letters to the C-Suite from Experts on Vision, Culture, Community, and Integration.” The advice was to help organizations make it through the Great Recession. My one-pager was in the Community section. In total, there are 32. There was a recent instance that made me want to pull it out for a quick read. In reviewing this more than five years later, I don’t feel that I would change a …

MP&F was thrilled to work with Bryan Byrdlong during his time as MP&F’s first diversity fellow. Bryan spent six months at MP&F, and the following blog shares highlights from his experience. Click here to learn more about our diversity fellowship program, or visit www.mpfnewsite.wpengine.com/careers to apply. The deadline for our 2016 fellowship is April 1, 2016. Fellowship 1: community of interest, activity, feeling or experience 2: the state of being a fellow or associate To say that my time as MP&F’s first diversity fellow has been invaluable both personally and professionally would be an understatement. It is difficult to summarize a six-month …

Marketing trends come and go, but successful ad campaigns play by some age-old rules. How can you create ads that drive action? Below are four key points to keep in mind during the creative process. Don’t lose sight of your goal. This may sound like a basic concept, but we’ve all been in that conference room when a brainstorm gets lost down a rabbit hole. Whether you want to increase sales or drive traffic, state your goal early on, and for every idea, consider whether the end justifies your means. We recommend sticking with the KISS principle – Keep It …

When I arrived at MP&F four months ago, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. Would I be handling some mundane or important tasks? Would I be sitting at a desk doing research all day, or would I be driving around doing errands for clients? While I did do each of these, my internship was so much more fulfilling than I could have imagined. Instead of doing “intern” tasks, I was able to do meaningful work that I actually saw come to fruition. I saw client tweets I had drafted pop up on my Twitter feed, I saw my …

We’ve been working on a website refresh for the last few months. Google’s announcement about the mobile-friendly algorithm change scheduled for today added fuel to our fire. As Search Engine Journal reports, “mobile-friendliness will be a ranking signal throughout mobile search results.” In plain English, if your website isn’t easy to use on a smartphone, it will rank lower in search results than one that is. And mobile usage is only expected to grow. The Cisco® Visual Networking Index™ (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast for 2014 to 2019 reports in 2014 nearly 59 percent of the global population (7.2 billion people) were …