Reading that Paramount greenlighted the Frazier reboot with Kelsey Grammer for a second season reminded me of a product placement for the ages. As part of our Sony consumer electronics assignment at the time, we supported Aibo, a robotic dog. While I love B2B tech, periodically landing in consumer space delivers a nice change of …more
Father’s Day takes center stage on Sunday. I’ve decided to take the liberty of viewing Sunday as “Parent’s Day.” It’s difficult write about my dad without bringing the mom into the picture and vice versa; hence, this post on the two of them. With all the talk and political rancor flying around on immigrants, I …more
Today is Mother’s Day. We pay tribute to all the moms do. My mom taught me the basics of interviewing, specifically what I came to term the where-what-who method of questioning: Where you were last night? What did you do? Who were you with? Fast forwarding to today, I’ve conducted well over 500 interviews. I …more
Is it just me or does it feel like there’s been an acceleration of time since the pandemic slammed the world in early 2020? I can’t believe we’re already counting down the days to the year’s end. In a year that marked the Agency’s 35th anniversary, we had our best year ever. Typically, when you …more
How is that possible? No, please don’t answer that question. I’d rather not know. The image you see above was the official announcement in 1987 which starred my Mom proclaiming that The Hoffman Agency was open for business. The vision of becoming a marketing communications consultancy — in today’s words integrated communications — has only …more
I respect people who can keep the scent of the trail. Fellow storytelling evangelist Brad Marley approached me back in April 2019 to answer a handful of questions on my second-favorite topic. The plot took some twists and turns (naturally), but I answered Brad’s questions a couple of months ago. For those who don’t subscribe …more
I decided to republish this post from a couple years age when our younger son Elliot got married. While today is Father’s Day, not “Parent’s Day,” I still seems to fit the scene. Here goes … Let’s start with the marriage of Marv and Ruth Hoffman. The photo above shows my parents on their wedding …more
Today is Mother’s Day. We pay tribute to all the moms do. My mom taught me the basics of interviewing, specifically what I came to term the where-what-who method of questioning: Where you were last night? What did you do? Who were you with? Fast forwarding to today, I’ve conducted well over 500 interviews. I …more
Is there a task more mundane than doing laundry? It is the ultimate in dullsville. Yet, a podcast by Malcolm Gladwell called “Laundry Done Right” shows that indeed . I first wrote about Gladwell in 2009 when he told a David vs. Goliath type story that used a 12-year-old girls basketball team as the frame. …more
