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

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

“Innovate or die.” It’s one of the core principles we bring to our client services at Schifino Lee, and one that guides many other ways our agency works. This includes our internship program that throughout the year gives aspiring advertising professionals the opportunity to gain experience with the latest innovations and best practices we provide to clients. It also includes an opportunity for us to learn from the next generation and stay on top of the latest innovations with the Gen Z crowd, whether it’s the newest fads on TikTok, the coolest new series on Netflix, or the next breakout artis ..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

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 Krishna Patel, Accounts Coordinator. Your role? Helping manage the many day-to-day tasks to keep our accounts on track, like scheduling, coordinating internal approvals and communicating with clients. I’m also involved in strategy and content creation for social media, an area that’s a passion of mine. What you’re working on this month? Social media strategy and planning for two of our clients, Alessi Foods and Muscaro ..read more