You want to see the world’s most well-practiced and ridiculous eye roll? Play me a sappy country music song. I see right through that charade – disingenuous, insipid and frankly offensive. Cue. That. Eye. Roll. To me, there are two kinds of emotional appeals in advertising and media. First, the kind I’ve just mentioned — […]
Thoughts from Erin McCarthy
Elliance held its annual employee holiday bash last night. It was tons of fun. And we had a lot to celebrate — It’s been a great year! We are so thankful for our awesome clients and freelance talent! Happy Holidays from all of us!
For an ad lover and athlete like myself, the olympics are like super bowl, but better — I get to experience great ads for two weeks straight. (The only difference is the advertisement restrictions that the International Olympic Committee for non-sponsors but this isn’t a blog about those rules. This is a blog about the awesomeness that has […]
“Everything you quote — every movie, every TV show, every lyric — has been endlessly rewritten… Fall in love with rewriting!” My uncle, who is a great writer, recently said these words. And I love them. It’s a process I know well. Every brand. Every headline. Every script. Every sitemap. Every webpage. All of it. […]
A friend and I were finishing up a late dinner Tuesday night when we realized the New Hampshire primary was just about finished up. Curious for the results, I pulled out my phone to check. But I surprised myself with the first place I looked. Not Google. Not CNN. Or Twitter. Or The Times. But […]
A gift. A donation. A lunch. A trip. Volunteering. An interview. They’re all grounds for a handwritten thank you note. To me, it’s a big priority. It’s an appreciation I got from my father. Looming is the memory of my brother and I sitting at the dining room table, pens in our aching hands, scribbling […]
The Greeks called it their Muse. The Romans called it the Ingenium (the genius). I call it whatever that magic is that gets some meaningful words onto the page. Inspiration. I recently heard a great re-air of a RadioLab interview with Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat Pray Love. In it, she tells the story of […]
In light of my yellow Elliance copywriter’s desk making its first journey around the shy Pittsburgh sun, I got to thinking about what I’d learned about higher education marketing in the last year, and if there was anything the handful of schools I’ve worked with had in common. It seems to all boil down to […]