First Time Here? Take A Quick Tour …
In 2007 an association of about 50 Honda dealerships based in the Southern California area launched a bold experiment. Faced with the reality that customers generally rate car dealers among the least trustworthy people in business, Honda and their agency at the time had an idea to change that perception. The “Helpful Honda Dealers” concept
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After two days of conversations about social media with 25 of the world’s largest brands, perhaps the nicest benefit is that you don’t hear the same conclusions or experiences over and over. For the third year in a row, I had the chance to moderate and lead the Corporate Social Media Summit in NY – which
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There aren’t many people in the world who don’t love a good soccer trick video. And when the World Cup rolls around, you might expect that there will be lots of them flooding YouTube. So over the past few weeks I have seen everything from a freestyle champion soccer player dressing up as an old
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There is an original Hawaiian Beach Boy and his name is Ted. Every day at the Waikiki Beach Boys surf shop on the beach in Oahu, Ted teaches tourists how to surf and sometimes shares a story about the legendary Pink Palace hotel on the beach. Or tells visitors how he first purchased the name
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The worst mistake I ever made online was searching for a bow tie. In a world where credit card numbers and identities are being stolen en masse, that probably seems pretty innocent. Outside of the occasional danger of credit card fraud, online shopping is usually a fairly safe activity. Unless you happen to be shopping
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The greatest word The Simpsons ever offered to the English language was “craptacular.” When Bart Simpson used it to describe Homer’s Christmas decorations, he introduced a much needed concept for us all: something that was so bad it might actually be good. Today we are in the age of instant startups, where launching an idea
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About two years ago, aspiring photographer Murad Osmann was in Barcelona on vacation with his girlfriend Russian journalist Nataly Zakharova when she grabbed his hand to pull him forward – annoyed at how often he kept stopping to take photos. He captured that moment from his perspective, and it started a project where he spent
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Real experts don’t talk about cat videos. There is a strangely troubling trend I have come across recently that seems to be once again afflicting presentations at business events around the world. It comes down to the ubiquitous cat video – and its closely related cousin, the animated cat GIF. Don’t get me wrong. I
Continue reading »As the three hour party RSVP line outside an Austin bar stretches around the corner, no one wonders why a surprising number of people seem to be wearing red clown noses. To my right, a guy walks towards me with a light up disco ball covering his head. He passes nonchalantly by a woman dressed
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Just mention “Olympic Marketing” to anyone in communications and two images will likely come to mind immediately. The first is the predictable 30 second spot focusing on the dedicated Olympian who wakes up super early, braves crazy cold temperatures and sacrifices a “normal” life for their dream. And the second is an army of lawyers
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