Marketing
Driving the Best Marketing Agencies since 1984. Continuous Innovation.
Atlanta-based marketing agency STOUT Creative celebrates 40 years of turning ideas into action. Since 1984, we have helped local, regional, and national clients with branding, marketing strategies, website design, and inbound and direct marketing campaigns. We enjoy helping clients celebrate milestone anniversaries with creative themes, logomarks, animated timeline graphics, and visual storytelling content across digital,…
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Basic B2B Marketing: What Does the Buyer Know?
A Legendary Lesson in No-Nonsense B2B Marketing In 1958, Business Week Magazine published a jolting B2B ad known as “The Man in The Chair.” I first saw this ad decades later when it was featured in an Advertising Age retrospective and I was just starting out in my career in B2B Marketing. The ad’s simple design,…
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How to Have Big Ideas and a Sly Don Draper Grin
Many articles were published about the television series Mad Men from 2007 to 2015, especially the final episode. Not only did this show first air before the onslaught of AI tools, but it was also set in a time often considered the “Golden Age of Advertising” as described by the American Association of Advertising Agencies:…
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Ideas for Rebranding With a New Name
A prospective B2B client is considering a name change for their business. There are many factors to consider, and the CMO asked me to share any immediate ideas I had on the subject. I have ideas, and I will share them with you, too. Some of these ideas apply as much to a new product…
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Positive Encouragement and Inspiration Are Gifts That Keep On Giving
On the wall across from my desk, two images look back at me from inside their frames. They’re old gifts, one from each of my parents, that give me positive encouragement each day. The first, on the top, is a colorful sketch of a cowboy riding a red bucking bronco. Although his hat has been…
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Improve Your Marketing Team with the Deming Method
It took until the 1980s for U.S. automotive manufacturers to realize how much they missed by ignoring Dr. W. Edwards Deming for thirty years. His revolutionary ideas on total quality management and continuous improvement helped Japan’s automotive industry experience an industrial enlightenment in the 1950’s. With Deming’s help, Japan kept improving and caught Detroit asleep…
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Audacious Ideas Can Take Flight in Unexpected Ways
The motto of our creative marketing agency in Atlanta is, “We make ideas work.” When a client asks me about my role within the company, my customary response is, “I’m an idea man.” When I consider the origins of ideas and ways to enhance them, the following account from long ago occasionally comes to mind.…
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With Big Ideas, It’s Important to Share Encouragement
My dictionary defines encouragement as “the act of encouraging”, …so I had to read further. Encouraging means “giving courage, confidence or hope.” In times like these, I can’t think of a more important word for those of us in marketing. And since we are the ones most equipped with the talents, the messaging, and the…
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Let’s Discuss the B-Word in Marketing–Your Budget
Considering the current economy, marketing budgets are under more scrutiny. And all too often, the word budget is preceded by “limited” or followed by “cutback.” Just as many of our marketing clients have done, we’ve considered some belt tightening at STOUT Creative. We realize that like our clients, we too are marketing our business in…
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What I’ve Learned About Creative Marketing Strategy
I have long considered myself an accomplished marketing strategist, but several years ago I worked on a project that taught me I still had a lot to learn. As a board member of Genesis Shelter (now Our House), a local non-profit organization, I had the good fortune to be “volunteered” to the strategic planning committee.…
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