What is the longest-running sponsored content (sales promotion) in the history of marketing? I’ll give you a hint. The Jewish holiday of Passover kicked off last night. And the answer is … Maxwell House which has produced the Haggadah — the text that walks everyone through the Passover story and Seder ceremony — for roughly …more
What do you remember about the 2013 Super Bowl? Unless you’re a fan of the Baltimore Ravens or the San Francisco 49ers, your overriding memory is the blackout, when someone pulled the plug at the Superdome for 34 minutes. And if you work under the marketing umbrella, you admired the nimbleness of Oreo Cookie to …more
How do you interview a celebrity who has passed away? The San Francisco Giants and star pitcher in his day Tim Lincecum shows the way. I’ve always admired the marketing efforts from the San Francisco Giants acknowledging that some might miss the mark. If you live in the Bay Area and follow the Giants, you’ll …more
I first touted the virtues of the “word visual” in 2014. For those not familiar with this technique, the idea is to use the words (or typography) to drive the action while minimizing the need for design expertise. The image above borrowing the Soup Nazi from Seinfeld falls in the “word visual” category. Most “word …more
I believe levity is the killer app in business storytelling. Levity lifts the narrative, especially in the B2B tech world where inserting an action verb is considered a win. For the B2B tech companies who say this is too hard, too risky, check out the use of levity by law enforcement agencies, starting with last …more
One’s use of language can change EVERYTHING. Words matter. Which means your choice of words matters. As Exhibit A, consider the seemingly innocuous email wherein the recipient misinterprets guidance as criticism. Capitalizing on the radio voice of Matt Burrows, a member of our Silicon Valley team, we put together an animated video designed to amuse …more
The Grab Bag post returns for a second 2019 installment. Again, the story lines in these posts can’t quite shape stand-alone posts. Yet, I hate to see a shard of a story go to waste. . TIME Cover Photo Depicts a Stately President Trump Take a gander at the cover of TIME Magazine August …more
Here’s my second grab bag post of 2018, capturing vignettes that caught my attention, but don’t lend themselves to stand-alone posts. Broken Links, an Opportunity Most companies treat broken links as a functional challenge. The person has clicked to a wrong place (page doesn’t exist), bringing a 404 page to navigate the person back …more
I’ve written 1,009 posts including this one. I don’t know if my Mom has read all of them — suspect she took a pass on my tirade about the city of Middleton’s proclamation of “Mustard Day” — but she’s been an avid reader of the blog. She claims that the blog is an extension of …more
