Your Marketing and Design Reading for The Weekend

4) Listen to your audience. How perfect to read this advice when we are planning client satisfaction surveys and measurement tactics for 2012. We also factor in what we hear during meetings with prospects and at industry events. These gatherings are great opportunities to test your new messaging too. Your messaging can't be developed in a vacuum.

5) No two snowflakes are alike. Marketo suggests we ask the question, "Does your messaging and brand point out what sets you apart from your competition?" This topic just came up when a competitor decided to create a video similar to one we did several years ago. Ken asked my opinion and after we agreed they probably dusted off our script and just changed a few paragraphs. But I went on to point out that I don't like their messaging. They use a word that feels cumbersome and is not instantly understandable (see number 3).

Hmm, perhaps I should get some big sunglasses and a bodyguard if we are following in the footsteps of Justin Bieber, Ellen DeGeneres, Steve Jobs and others!

10 Marketing Jingles That Make Your Ears Bleed

I just had to include this one because I am constantly getting jingles I hear on the morning news stuck in my head and don't even get me started about that Xfinity Voice commercial that ran incessantly for months so that I would recite it along with the TV ("Bozo the boss will never know the difference"--AAAAGGGHH!).

Unfortunately, it is this irritating stickiness that makes marketers keep producing these jingles because we remember them. I have to agree with Hubspot about Dixie Ultra, Hefty Hefty Hefty, Arby's Good Mood Food, and the FreeCreditReport.com Band. I would add "Call 1-800 Steamer. Stanley Steamer makes your home cleaner" (I would hope so; isn't that the point?).  "773-202-LUNA" is up their with the ones that make my shoulders tense up. And as much as I love cats, Meow Mix is particularly annoying because you don't even have to learn the words!