February 2012
17 posts
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A Leap Year Tradition
Did you know…
In some places, Leap Day has been known as “Bachelors’ Day” for the same reason. A man was expected to pay a penalty, such as a gown or money, if he refused a marriage proposal from a woman on Leap Day. In many European countries, especially in the upper classes of society, tradition dictates that any man who refuses a woman’s proposal on February 29 has to buy her...
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“Premium pricing is rationalized in part by ensuring consumers’ awareness that...”
– How Whole Foods Became The Luxury Brand Of Millennials
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Nike Digital Sport
Traditional ad spend down, in favor of more digital innovation and tracking/use of consumer data. Love everything about this.
But Digital Sport is not just about creating must-have sports gadgets. Getting so close to its consumers’ data holds exceptional promise for one of the world’s greatest marketers: It means it can follow them, build an online community for them, and forge a...
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Pinterest!
There is a great scene in an old Seinfeld episode where Jerry is complaining that his dentist has converted to Judaism, just for access to the jokes. And when asked if this offends him as a Jew, Jerry quickly responds “no, it offends me as a comedian”.
Pinterest similarly, doesn’t offend me as a user. It offends me as a strategist.
As Adam Kmiec said in his Digiday talk (and...
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I'm Big In Indonesia
For some time now, I’ve been getting Facebook friend requests from random Indonesians on a somewhat regular basis. I’d say as often as 2x per week on average.
For the most part I’d been deleting them, and chalking it up as likely being spam, and potentially being some mistake.
After some poking around, it would seem like it was in fact the latter, but for a far more...
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Emailed Receipts
Does anyone out there know what the laws are concerning a retailer signing a user up to an email list, when that user gives their email address to the retailer specifically for the purposes of receiving their purchase receipt via email?
I am suspicious that certain retailers (namely Urban Outfitters), are offering to email you the receipts when you make an in-store purchase, but then also signing...
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Tech Blogging Is Mostly Shit
Amen. Brilliant post from MG Siegler, former Techcrunch writer. Content Everywhere, But Not A Drop To Drink.
Some of my favorite tidbits here.
The problem is systemic. Print circulation is dying and pageviews are all that matter in keeping advertisers happy. This means, whether writers like it or not, there’s an underlying drive for both sensationalism and more — more — more.
Read the...
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The Brilliant Marketing Of Diamonds
I was just talking about this with Brad last night. Now there is a great piece in The Atlantic, about DeBeers, and the history of the diamond’s place in love. Spoiler alert…it’s all in the marketing.
My favorite passage from the article:
De Beers needed a slogan for diamonds that expressed both the theme of romance and legitimacy. An N. W. Ayer copywriter came up with the ...
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“Spread and participate in culture. Remix, reuse, use, abuse. Make sure no one...”
– Peter Sunde, Co-Founder of The Pirate Bay
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Google Plus....Plus Google
I was initially bearish on Google Plus. But I’ve spent some time with folks over there recently, and it’s now becoming more clear to me how this will come together for Google in the long-term, and it’s awesome.
I still maintain that for the time being, Google Plus pages will not likely replace Facebook pages for brands or users. But that’s not the point. Google Plus...
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Even The Graffiti Artist Is Getting PAID On The...
Amazing. The graffiti artist that painted the early Facebook offices, may be parlaying that job into $200mm.
In 2005, Mr. Choe was invited to paint murals on the walls of Facebook’s first offices in Palo Alto, Calif., by Sean Parker, then Facebook’s president. As pay, Mr. Parker offered Mr. Choe a choice between cash in the “thousands of dollars,” according to several people who know Mr. Choe,...
“A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by...”
– Jeff Bezos (Amazon.com CEO)
January 2012
15 posts
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“Brands need to be careful in not only what, but how much they curate. There...”
– Brands Want To Be Content Creators
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“It’s easy to show an incredible display of service when you know lots of people...”
– A Day In The Life - JetBlue Social Media
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Killing Off Your Advertising Icon
Timely that Priceline has decided to throw it’s icon William Shatner into a ravine (literally). Brad, Peter and I were just yesterday discussing how brands handle the ultimate expiration of a brand spokesperson.
Hats off to Priceline, who did this in a rather deft way that killed off the mascot, and did so elegantly.
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Boston's Collective Weight-Loss
City to launch website to track residents’ weight loss
The Boston Public Health Commission will launch a citywide campaign this spring, inviting residents to log in to a website where they can record their starting weight and their goals and track their progress, executive director Barbara Ferrer said in an interview. The website will include a database of places people can go to...
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“But there’s a cost to these Open Graph applications that is as imperceptible as...”
– The Hyperinflation Of Social Sharing
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Why Do All Eyedoctors Use The Same Eye Chart?
From Quora.
Most eye doctors use the Snellen chart because it was designed very intentionally. Certain letters help detect astigmatism better, for example the V on the bottom row is often confused for a Y. E can look like B, D looks like O, etc. The font is also very specific and the spacing and thickness of the lines are also scientifically derived. A minor thing is that doctors also have...
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“I am certain that the battle of the next generation of internet businesses will...”
– The key to Yahoo’s long term success is data…
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“Next time you are thinking about building a product, evaluating a company or...”
– You Are What You Share
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December 2011
12 posts
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“Recently, I did the unthinkable. I methodically culled my list of Facebook...”
– Check out the rest over on the Hill Holliday blog.
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WatchChristmas For The Jews
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Gaming Social Media Contests
For years now there have been groups of people, who more or less have become professional online-sweepstakes-enterers.
And now, it seems that this gaming of the system is spreading over to the social media contest space as well.
I was poking around Toyota’s Shareathon contest, and it struck me that most of the activity Toyota is trying to drive, appears to be junk.
The contest essentially...
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“Corporate execs have very busy schedules. Believe it or not, they don’t waste...”
– Explaining Social Media ROI
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____ Is The New Hot Thing
Color is the new hot thing.
Google Plus…new hot thing.
Wait, no, PATH. So hot.
Remember Diaspora? That was going to be the hottest.
Can I Instagram my yFrog photos and cross-post them to Twitpic and Tumblr?
Spotify kills Pandora kills iTunes, and then Google Music kills everyone.
As someone that works professionally in the world of social media strategy, it seems near impossible to...
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“Leadership (even idea leadership) scares many people, because it requires you to...”
– Seth Godin (The Trap of Social Media Noise)
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Louis CK on Self-Distributing His Latest Stand-Up...
A really interesting answer from the always awesome Louis CK, who is participating in a Q&A on Reddit.
From Louis CK on Reddit’s IamA….
Question:
I know you might be reluctant to share this information, but how has the response to the Beacon Theater experiment been?
1) Has it sold as well as you hoped / Have you covered all of your expenses?
2) Have you seen the...
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November 2011
16 posts
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“By choice, I would eat out six nights a week. It’s better and easier — and even...”
– From a very cool interview with the founder of TGI Fridays. Never knew this back-story…new respect for this franchise.
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WatchFucking love this.