You may forget facts, but chances are you’ll always remember how a powerful story, emotionally told, made you feel. That’s the power of qualitative research. I was reminded of this yesterday as I was recounting some interviews I did for a project a few years ago. A...
Finally saw the Barbie movie yesterday! My movie ticket was one of many making this a billion dollar film. Ther have always been blockbusters, but the Barbie movie stands alone in marketing promotion. Maybe not in total budget, but certainly in its ability to capture the...
There’s a creative concept I learned in graduate school that’s served me well throughout my career. It’s called Vampire Video, and refers to a TV ad with a big, shiny executional flourish that distracts from the message of the ad. But hey – I’m a strategist,...
Yogi Berra was one of the greatest baseball players of all time. And what a character. If you’re in marketing, even if you’re not a baseball fan, it’s worth watching the recent documentary about his life, It Ain’t Over Until It’s Over, now streaming on Amazon...
"Change is never painful. Only resistance to change is painful." - Buddhist Proverb Are you feeling comfortable about your marketing plan? Perhaps sales are soaring past expectations. You’ve got the best team ever in place and your leadership is an inspiration to all. At...
Are you a sell out? Is your aim to give the people what they want? Or are you an artist, creating what you feel, what you absolutely need to express, economics be damned? By definition, all of us are in the marketing business are sellouts to...
Elon Musk Rolls Out New X Logo as Twitter Rebrands The movie business has seen dark times lately, but this past “Barbiheimer” weekend has provided hope. And things are looking up! I can’t wait for next year’s big comedy, “How to Lose an Iconic Business in 10 Days.”...
Good habits can fly out the window when you feel out of control. Some people deal with stress by doubling down on hard work. But I seek comfort, and in this regard, I think My basic internal dialog goes something like this. I’m so stressed because...
The Therapeutic Value of Human Interaction Before AI, before Siri, before Alexa, there was HAL. HAL was a central character in one of the mind-blowing, must-see films of the Boomer generation, 2001: A Space Odyssey. HAL was a compassionate, empathetic, helpful, always-there-for-you computer guiding two astronauts and...
Here’s What Happened when I Gave My Students a Personal Branding Assignment Last year, I added a module on personal branding to my graduate branding class at USC's Communication Management program in the Annenberg School. It was no surprise that the students struggled. When it comes to...