Jun 30
I have yet to see this ad in print, but I did see it on Boing Boing and, subsequently, Copyranter. And I have to agree that it’s a pretty dumb ad. There are a lot of things wrong here. First of all, the entire idea is a non sequitur — two things that shouldn’t go …
Jun 04
This piece is part of a series that shares some of my reflections on the future of television advertising. Part I, Part II and Part III are already available. I’ve spent the last few articles discussing the changes that media outlets need to invest in if they want to keep ad-supported television alive in the …
Jun 03
This piece is part of a series that shares some of my reflections on the future of television advertising. Part I and Part II are already available. Part IV will be posted tomorrow. So far throughout my discussion of TV advertising, I’ve been focused on how ads can be better positioned in the future to …
Jun 01
Let’s pretend we’re not marketing professionals for a moment, and just think about what it’s like to be a real person watching a real TV. Let’s consider three different scenarios: being stuck in a waiting room where a TV is locked on a single channel, watching live television at home without the aid of a …
May 31
This piece is the prologue to a series that shares some of my reflections on the future of television advertising. Parts I, II, III and IV will be posted later this week. Like many folks in the marketing industry, I’ve been watching the shifting culture of television with a lot of interest over the last …
Apr 27
I’ve probably mentioned it before, but I began my professional life as a journalist. In fact, in my younger and stupider days, I even attended journalism school at the University of Illinois for a year and a half before I dropped out to… well, to manage a McDonald’s. (Don’t worry, I eventually finished my degree, …
Apr 14
Like many marketing professionals, I read Advertising Age‘s digital edition on a daily basis. Often, they have some interesting content, and I have particularly enjoyed their video podcast as of late. But at least once a week, they break a story that’s so stupid I want to bang my head against the wall… particularly when …
Apr 13
A recent piece by Patrick Keane on Advertising Age urges readers to be careful about confusing social media and social networking. To be honest, I’m not really sure what he feels distinguishes the two from each other; he seems to draw the line at “crowdsourced” content and insist that there’s a difference between something like …
Apr 12
I feel like I’ve been writing a lot of articles on Social Media since I started this blog, but I think the reason that I’ve done so is because social media is really the new frontier for marketing strategy. As we’re watching traditional models start to erode and die away (television, print, radio and direct …
Mar 31
Yesterday’s article on Sony’s Playstation 3 reminded me about something else I’ve been meaning to write about. Over the last few months, Sony has unveiled a really wonderful marketing campaign called, “It only does everything.” The premise of this campaign is that their Playstation 3 game console, which is really more like a home computer …