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)