I’m supposed to listen to people. As a marketer, I have read thousands of pages of consumer studies and surveys. I have spent time on stage in front of thousands more trying to share insights they want to hear. Super Bowl Sunday, however, is the one day of the year when I stop listening to people
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There are plenty of signs that the way we have typically described gender may be dying before our very eyes. In Austria last year, the winner of Eurovision’s popular song contest was a 26 year old drag queen with a beard named Conchita Wurst. Earlier this year, Sweden officially became the first country to add
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Do you know a selfish brand? Most of us do. We encounter them constantly – trying to promote their latest and greatest product. Their ads seek to interrupt us and every interaction is clearly only focused on either closing a deal or collecting our information for their database. They think in terms of short term
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Robert Townsend is one of the most underappreciated leaders in history. He is not a household business name like Steve Jobs or Jack Welch. He didn’t lead an organization into making products to change the world. In fact, many of the employees that now work at the company he once led have probably never even
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Last week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, AT&T announced a new partnership with Microsoft to produce a suite of mobile Office products and wireless plans geared for small and medium-sized businesses. It is an understandably hot (and profitable) market for any technology services provider – with one recent survey noting that “new technology” was the number
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I should have loved McDonald’s ambitious Super Bowl ad promoting the idea that customers could pay with “lovin’” instead of cash. Any marketer should. It’s bold, innovative, and takes a stand. McDonald’s believes we should be nicer to each other and have a little more fun. What could be a better brand message than that?
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There are a surprising number of people who believe that I don’t like puppies. Every year the day after the Super Bowl when the votes are tallied rating all the ads, the ads with puppies always mainstream favorites. Meanwhile, for the past four years I have published my own list of winners and losers based
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If there is one thing that is dramatically clear from this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, it is that the future is definitely not about mobile. Or smart televisions. Or super slim digital cameras. Instead of these mainstream consumer gadgets, the products getting attention this week are wildly diverse … from wifi enabled
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Facebook has brands worried … again. A recent article headline from Ad Age magazine summed up this concern perfectly, announcing that “Facebook Cuts Brands’ Reach Once Again.” Of course they did. One of the biggest issues facing the largest social media platforms today is how to monetize their offerings. Facebook, Instagram, Twitter are all working
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Today is great timing for a Halloween promotion. Everyone is talking about costumes, candies and spooky stuff as they prepare for the rare treat of a Friday evening Halloween. If you happened to visit Oreo on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter today, you would see what seems like another piece of social media brilliance from
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