Schifino Lee has rebranded the Steel Manufacturers Association (SMA), the largest steel association in the U.S., which represents the electric arc furnace (EAF) steel industry. EAF-made steel accounts for over 70% of steel made in the U.S., and it’s significantly more sustainable than traditional blast-furnace steelmaking. The new brand campaign, titled “The strength of America’s sustainable steel,” integrates an array of new creative content and multimedia elements to redefine American-made EAF steel in terms of its environmental sustainability as well as the positive change it has brought to ..read more

By Jeff Philbin, Director of Business Strategy Is the Super Bowl a world-class sports event with cool commercials – or a showcase for the most über-awesome ads of the year with a little football? Not surprisingly, I’d say the latter, and this year’s commercials lived up to that reputation and more. Luckily, I got an amazing opportunity to share my thoughts on this when I was invited to appear on Fox 13’s Good Day Tampa Bay and talk with Russell Rhodes on the best and worst commercials from this year’s big game, and I’m excited to share some here. And I also have some highlights from our first ..read more

Welcome to the Schifino Lee Ad Bowl! Starting on Jan. 28 and continuing up to the Super Bowl, on our Instagram story feed, we’ll begin taking what we’ve chosen as 16 iconic commercials and putting pairs of them in head-to-head competitions where we ask you to vote for the one you think is best. Then, in the bracket we’ve created below, the same type of bracket used for the Sweet 16 NCAA basketball championship series, we’ll chart the progress of the winning selections through three rounds until we reach a final winner. Check back here often to see what commercials are coming out on top, and st ..read more

By Jennifer Ruyle, Executive Creative Director, Lead Brand Strategist What’s the better Super Bowl commercial, the Snickers “Betty White” ad, or the Budweiser “Frogs” spot? How about the McDonald’s Larry Bird and Michael Jordan “Showdown” commercial vs. the  Wendy’s “Where’s the Beef?” ad? And is the Apple “1984” commercial better, or the Coca-Cola “Early Showers” Mean Joe Greene ad? Understanding what makes these commercials so memorable is a lot more important than you may think. It’s estimated that 17% of people say they watch the big game first and foremost for the ads. More crucially ..read more

SL Spotlight illuminates the personal stories of our one-of-a-kind talent who day in and day out enable us to neurotically care for our clients. This month’s Spotlight shines on Jennifer Ruyle. Your role? Executive Creative Director, Lead Brand Strategist and master problem solver! What you’re working on this month? A little of everything . . . but I’m super excited about a video campaign project for one of our pillar clients. On vacation at Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado. Things about advertising that interest you the most? The human psychology part and the way that brands can gen ..read more

Each spring, summer and fall, our internship program gives aspiring marketing and communication professionals the opportunity to gain experience with the latest innovations and best practices we provide to clients. Likewise, it gives us at Schifino Lee an opportunity to learn from the next generation and stay on top of the latest innovations with the Gen Z crowd, from the newest fads on TikTok, to the most hip new series on Netflix, to the next breakout artists on iTunes. It’s innovation sharing that’s a win-win for interns and for us. This fall, we continued our program with two marketing maj ..read more

By Jeff Philbin, Director of Business Strategy Maybe it’s the change with the cooler temperatures that has me in the spirit. Or maybe it’s the Apple Music playlist that’s already on shuffle with my favorite holiday jazz songs, from greats like Vince Guaraldi, Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. Whatever the reason, the holiday season is here and now for me. So as a marketer and admirer of the way that brands shape our culture, I have to ask, do you find yourself in awe of the way some brands can connect with us this time of the year? You know, those brands that you come to expect great creative f ..read more

By Joseph Priest, Social Media Content Strategist The holiday season is here, and along with those old decorations we pull out and dust off are those shopworn clichés that we uncover and flood our language with each December. While it’s true that marketers fall back on familiar phrases at this time of year, it’s also true that these phrases have become dull and lifeless after many years of use. Clichés are usually only effective if they can be used with a fresh twist or in an ironic tone. What’s more, one of the worst things about clichés is that by falling back on them we don’t stretch our cr ..read more

By Jeff Philbin, Director of Business Strategy “Culture is the shadow of the leader,” Larry Senn, author of Winning Teams, Winning Cultures once said. I recently had an opportunity to talk on this exact topic and the importance of achieving the right culture at the 6th Annual Marketing Summit held by Visit Tampa Bay. There I was privileged to join speakers Dave Andreychuk, a Tampa Bay legend who is the former Tampa Bay Lightning team captain and the team’s current VP of Corporate Affairs (left, in the photo above), and Jamie Santillo, (bottom center), CEO of JS Creative Concepts and Marketing ..read more

By David Stob, Media Director Early last year, Google said it would end support for cookies in Chrome by early 2022, “once it figured out how to address the needs of users, publishers, and advertisers, and come up with tools to mitigate workarounds.” Most recently, the company has announced that it will now phase out support for third-party cookies beginning in mid-2023 and continuing through the end of the year, if that timing sticks. With whatever timeline that Google ultimately decides on, it promises to have challenges for the way that advertisers target consumers online once cookies are p ..read more