312 Selling God

This week Terry O’Reilly marches you boldly where the angels of marketing fear to tread: he looks at the delicate, always-controversial relationship between faith and advertising. He’ll look into the controversy surrounding recent bus ads, which read “There Probably Is No God. So Stop Worrying and Enjoy Your Life.” And he’ll explain why not all people of faith embrace the marketing tactics popular in some of today’s churches.

311 Sun Tzu and the Art of War

What does modern advertising and marketing have to do with a 25 hundred-year-old military theorist? Terry O’Reilly is so glad you asked. This week he examines the ancient bamboo scrolls of Sun Tzu- author of The Art of War, and shows how modern marketers- including an upstart vodka and a revolutionary hair colouring brand- have gleaned valuable lessons from Sun Tzu’s writings.

310 Repetition Repetition Repetition

Is advertising advertising advertising all about repetition repetition repetition? This week, Terry O’Reilly examines the role ‘frequency’ plays in ad messages. He’ll explain how many times you are meant to see or hear an ad in a given week, and why some campaigns seem to bombard you more than others. He’ll also explain how the creative content is what helps some ads run successfully for years, and causes others to wear out their welcome almost immediately.

309 Great Canadian Campaigns

There’s no “Made in Canada” label on ad campaigns: but Terry O’Reilly often wishes there were. This week he proudly tells the story of some Made-in-Canada success stories. They’re ad campaigns with maple syrup in their veins; how an idea resurrected from a wastebasket put one retail chain on the map; how a campaign that ran on TV just six times is still talked about, nearly four decades later. And how a three-word ad phrase brought a nation to its feet.