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Coupons date back to the late 1800s, when Asa Candler, a Coca-Cola partner, distributed handwritten tickets for free glasses of Cola in 1887. Clearly, it worked. Within 20 years, one in nine Americans had received a free Coke, and we all know what happened after that—we became addicted, the Coca-Cola company became an international success, and couponing became a widespread business tactic.

Today we’re seeing another great leap in coupons, mobile coupons, and like their forebears they are one of the best ways to bring customers to your retail establishment.

Unfortunately, many businesses still fear mobile coupons, even though they have no reason to. But more on that later. First let’s talk about why mobile coupons are taking off.

Could Craigslist be a source of inspiration for advertising copywriters?

The writing on CL forms a genre all its own, with ads ranging from the purely straightforward to the ridiculous, outrageous, hilarious, desperate and self-indulgent. Say what you want about this online classifieds site, but many of the postings are nothing short of creative genius.

Business owners are renowned control freaks, and that’s often a good thing. After all, you want to know and, to a certain extent, manage each and every aspect of your business in order to ensure your vision is being met. Perhaps that’s why some business owners fear the “business directory” corner of social media; it’s a land where anyone with a keyboard can say nearly anything they please about the services and products you offer.

Social media marketers (such as Davis Advertising’s expert and creative web development team) will tell you, however, that there is nothing to fear. Yelp, Yahoo! Local, Citysearch and the rest should be managed just as one would manage any other marketing messages pertaining to your business.

When Marissa Mayer ended Yahoo’s work-from-home policy, a debate erupted in the media and in break rooms everywhere, questioning the merit of the decision. The magnitude of the ensuing uproar is due to the fact that she called into question issues that all workers deal with, not just those working at Yahoo: the very nature of work—productivity, creativity and innovation. Shortly following her decision, Best Buy terminated its own Results Only Work Environment, begging the question: if it’s not about results, what is it about?

Many people wondered if this was the start of the end for working-at-home. After all, if a new mother thought it was a bad idea, doesn’t that say something?

Countless articles and video tributes have been produced recently about the history of the Big East conference, now that the conference has lost many of its original schools and will soon be renamed.

One nugget, however, caught our eye. In the Alexander Wolff article published in Sports Illustrated, “Pearl, In the Lane, With the Kiss,” Wolff describes how the conference got its original name, way back in 1979:

We live in a connected age with a rapidly growing percentage of the population always online—carrying mini-computers with phone capabilities, do-it-all tablets and even “books” capable of browsing.

A large percentage of time spent online can be considered passive shopping, or a precursor to active shopping.  This can take the form of reading reviews of new products on blogs (frequently the result of free samples sent to bloggers), scanning Pinterest for new spring fashions or sitting through commercial breaks while watching a show on Hulu Plus.

At the same time, mobile browsing is taking up a larger portion of overall internet usage.  So, why hasn’t mobile advertising received the attention, respect or funds to match that growth?

Over the years certain iconic slogans have had a way of remaining in the public consciousness. Some are so successful that they continue to influence our behavior or thinking no matter how long ago they were in active use.

Here are a few that come to mind, along with some thoughts on if, and how, they may still be influencing us.

Call us egotistical, but we copywriters we like to think of ourselves as artists. As we weave words together to put products, companies and brands in the best light, we’re also hoping to entertain and inform along the way.

It’s a challenge we relish. We love that moment when our words sound JUST RIGHT. And all HAS been right – so far. Throughout the history of advertising, we knew the challenge and did our best to meet it: our print ads sang with beauty; our radio and TV scripts brought joyful laughs or heartfelt tears.

And then came search engine optimization, or SEO. Now we have to ask, is the art of copywriting dead? Did SEO kill the copywriting star?

Predicting how potential customers will react to different design options is an important step in branding your business.  Although names and slogans are important, many other subtle factors go into creating a response in your customers—a response they may not even realize they are having.

Color is one of these factors, and it has a larger effect than many people realize.