Press Coverage & Awards Recognition
Below represents a sample of coverage we have secured for our clients. Click on the images below to see the full articles.
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Featured Coverage
Select pieces.
DON’T BOTHER TACKLING THESE 5 BUSINESS FUNCTIONS YOURSELF
Every business involves tedious but indispensable tasks. Those are the ones it's best to outsource. Outsourcing isn’t a new trend -- but what and why companies are outsourcing is changing.
How social media influencers use their followers to cash in
Social media influencers have become a $1 billion industry and it's projected to grow to more than twice that in the next two years. In some ways, it's a throwback to integrated content at the dawn of television, but as one expert said, what's different is who can be the pitchman and how much money can they make. Jamie Wax reports.
CONFESSIONS OF AN INSTAGRAM INFLUENCER: BRANDS JUST WANT BIG NUMBERS
Influencers have a fraud problem. Some social media stars, typically those with 100,000 or fewer followers, are known to use bots to artificially inflate their engagement. For the latest installment in our Confessions series, where we trade anonymity for candor, we talked to an Instagram fashion influencer who’s fed up with the practice. Our conversation has been lightly edited.
Thought leadership
Opinion pieces that we drove with clients to conceptualize, draft and place with relevant target outlets.
CALIFORNIA'S DIGITAL INNOVATION PLANS CAN'T JUST MOVE FAST AND BREAK THINGS
By Anderee Berengian, Co-Founder and CEO at Cie
As a proud Californian, an immigrant, a tech entrepreneur and an investor, I couldn’t help but applaud when Gov. Gavin Newsom announced his plans for a new Office of Digital Innovation and innovation academy within the state's proposed 2019-20 budget. When it comes to projects like this, Gov. Newsom and his tech-savvy constituents know that buy-in at the top is the first requirement for success, and California has it.
HOW TO AVOID GETTING CRUSHED BY THE BIG 5 IN THE STRUGGLE FOR ATTENTION
By Anderee Berengian, Co-Founder and CEO at Cie
People don’t usually brag about how poor they are, except when it comes to being ‘time-poor.’ It’s a badge of honor now to say how busy you are. As writer Tim Kreider has observed: “It is, pretty obviously, a boast disguised as a complaint.”
The startling truth though is that we have more time than in the past. American men now work on average 12 hours less per week than 45 years or so ago. Labor-saving devices like dishwashers and microwaves mean that we spend less time toiling on house chores than we used to.
The unrealistic expectation that kills startups
By Anderee Berengian, Co-Founder and CEO at Cie
The old saying warns us not to “major in the minors,” but getting mired in minutiae is an occupational hazard for startup founders.
After startups make it past the earliest stages -- say, after their Series A -- founders go from being hyperfocEused on their unique value proposition to spreading their time across non-unique challenges that all businesses face. Founders then have to suddenly become adept at HR, recruiting, haggling for office space and managing the board, along with the constant mental overhang of the next funding round. It’s as if the quarterback is now expected to block and tackle, throw the football, call the play and sell tickets. Each of these undifferentiated jobs is a potential point of failure for the founder who is suddenly expected to be a jack-of-all-trades.
WHY THE SUPREME COURT'S INTERNET SALES TAX DECISION WILL HURT E-COMMERCE STARTUPS
By Anderee Berengian, Co-Founder and CEO at Cie
Startups have a lot stacked against them, including oligarchic competitors and the ever-present threat of running out of money. This summer, the Supreme Court added another burden. On June 21, the Court voted 5-4 to overturn Quill v. North Dakota, a 1992 ruling that stated that internet-based businesses were exempt from state sales taxes unless they had a physical presence in those states.
IT’S TIME TO DITCH YOUR INNOVATION LAB
By Anderee Berengian, Co-Founder and CEO at Cie
A half decade into Corporate America’s love affair with innovation, it’s time to admit it’s not working.
Innovation labs have become vehicles for marketing, not innovation. Dubbed “hipster money pits,” labs can torpedo morale (only the cool kids get to take part) and sap resources. No wonder Nordstrom downsized its innovation lab two years ago. Ad agency Ogilvy closed Ogilvy Labs last summer. Many others have abandoned theirs, too: Microsoft’s Silicon Valley Research Lab (shut down in 2014), Disney’s research lab (shut down in 2016), Turner’s Media Camp (shut down in 2014), Coca-Cola’s Founders Initiative (shut down in 2016), The New York Times’ R&D Ventures (shut down in 2013), and Adecco’s Ignite Lab (shut down in 2016).
WHAT ONLINE RETAILERS CAN LEARN FROM AMAZON
By Dave Campbell, VP of Strategic Accounts at BounceX
Only five years ago, Amazon ranked 15th behind Sears and Publix in the National Retail Foundation's list of top 100 retailers, with $26 billion in sales. Today, Amazon runs in a league of its own with $80 billion in online sales, eclipsing second place Walmart's $13 billion by sixfold. Moreover, while Macy's, Gap, Nordstrom, Target and others posted disappointing sales and stock performance last year, Amazon knocked it out of the park with 16% growth. And last but not least, here's the final jewel IN the crown: Amazon has become the most relevant brand to millennials in America.
How fast food brands can build Lasting digital campaigns
By Sean Looney, Co-founder and President at Looney Advertising and Branding
Fast food marketers have increasingly looked to digital to boost consumer engagement and loyalty throughout the year. But in digital, consumers have become a squirrely bunch, making it tough for fast food marketers to pin down the right balance between entertaining branded experiences across various platforms and relevant information and offers that will drive in-store traffic and customer loyalty. While unique one-off initiatives such as these social practices create interesting ways to connect with brands, to some extent they have become formulaic—competitive logos can be easily swapped in the content and consumers would not be able tell the difference.
Here's how amazon could finish off the rest of the retail industry
By Anderee Berengian, co-founder and CEO at Cie Digital Labs
Amazon has gleefully eviscerated the retail industry for 20 years now. Now comes the coup de grace.
How Marketers Can Plug These 3 Leaky Areas Of E-Commerce Abandonment
By Dave Campbell, VP of Strategic Accounts at BounceX
Imagine you’ve just invested a good portion of your marketing budget toward the semi-annual event of the season. You paid for print, OOH, TV, radio -- all of these different channels to drive the traffic required to make the event a success. Now imagine the day of the event arrives, and consumers begin trickling through the door as expected. You stop by and much to your horror, the store is devoid of sales associates, the floor maps and signage have been removed, even the shopping aisles have been cluttered with clothing racks. The assets typically available to help your consumers make a purchase is gone … along with your successful event.
HOW TO PRICE AN INFLUENCER CAMPAIGN
By James Nord, CEO at Fohr Card
CBS News' 60 Minutes recent segment "The Influencers" showcased social media's most recognizable personalities, such as Paul Logan (the slapstick, Midwestern boy next door who commanded more than 300 million Facebook video views just last month), Andrew Bachelor (King Bach, the theatrically trained actor who rose to fame for his 6-second Vine clips, and has won recurring mainstream TV roles) and Amanda Cerny (a former model turned comedian who has more than 20 million followers). These 20-something-year-old moguls have been able to build profitable empires, thanks to major deals with brand advertisers. For example, King Bach made a handful of six-second vine videos wearing sandwich maker Jimmy Johns' logo, and earned more than $300,000.
TOP NEUROMARKETING TRENDS TO WATCH IN 2017
By Sean Looney, Co-founder and President at Looney Advertising & Branding
Comedian Steven Wright deadpanned, "The brain is the smartest organ in the body, by then again, consider the source." Over the past decade, scientists have learned more about the brain than any time in history, finding that more than 95% of brain activity--our decisions, actions, emotions and behaviors--are programmed in our subconscious mind.
The Internet of things: A growing, rebellious teenager
By Dominique Guinard, Co-Founder and CTO at Evrythng
While the concept of the Internet of Things (IoT) has been around for a while, the term was officially coined in 1999, so the IoT is now well into its teenage years. Over the past couple years, the IoT has experienced a rite of passage (thanks to Google, Cisco, Apple, IBM, and others) as it continues to figure out its identity and far-reaching role in society. Without clear parenting, we’ve also seen IoT make mistakes here and there; but next year, IoT will become more mature and start to work through its issues.
3 lessons on switching from bootstrapped to vc-funded
By Justin Choi, CEO at Nativo
Every entrepreneur must choose whether to bootstrap a company or use venture capital to fuel it. I’ve traveled these two drastically different paths. I spent more than a decade building a bootstrapped, profitable cash flow business, only to put all my chips back on the table with two venture-backed companies. My journey began with an interactive agency I founded in college called Cie Digital Labs, which then went on to incubate two successful venture-backed spin-outs. Last year, Cie Games was acquired by Glu Mobile for $100M, and my current venture Nativo recently raised a $20 million Series B round.
A New Addition to the C-Suite: Chief Programmatic Officer
By Finn Faldi, CEO at Trueffect
The New York Times, AOL, Meredith and The Washington Post -- what do each of these media companies have in common? Within the past year, all have hired top executives as programmatic ad chiefs. Given that real-time bidding digital display ad spend is expected to grow another 38% in 2014 (after increasing 74% in 2013) and reach $9 billion in ad spend by 2017 (almost 30% of total digital display ad spend), it makes sense that these companies are investing senior-level resources to help embrace and monetize the massive opportunity.
heed the signs: digital advertising is undergoing a massive transformation
By Justin Choi, CEO at Nativo
From the outside looking in, native seems to be more of the same when it comes to the evolution of digital advertising: a new category that is quickly becoming noisy and crowded. I’m often asked, usually by venture capitalists (VCs), “Who are the major players in ‘native’?”
augmented reality and virtual reality's susceptibility to ad tech problems
By Jeff Bander, President and CRO at Sticky
Earlier this year, Goldman Sachs predicted that by 2025 virtual reality revenue will outpace TV revenue. While it projects TV to reach $99 billion in 10 years, Goldman expects virtual reality to hit $110 billion.
Why Native Advertising Is A No-Brainer For Publishers And Marketers
By Brett Rosin, CEO at Rant
Native advertising is heating up in digital media these days, and there are plenty of reasons why publishers should get excited. To start, a recent study from BI Intelligence forecasts native ad spend to hit $7.9 billion this year (a 69% increase from 2013) and reach $21 billion by 2018. Publishers, that’s significant revenue opportunity up for grabs.
How to become a brand's irreplaceable business partner
By Sean Looney, Co-Founder and President at Looney Advertising & Branding
Teenagers can be pretty socially awkward at times. I have two of them and their communication skills can sometimes be both painful to watch and fascinating at the same time--although they have the best intentions, vital pieces of info either get lost in the shuffle or never make it to the right person. Unfortunately, oftentimes it feels like deja vu when I see brands and agencies trying to plan their marketing campaigns.