During my investigation of novelists and their personal biographies, I stumbled across a clever use of owned media by Team Grisham. Every publisher sends out copies of a new novel to various media in hopes of garnering positive reviews. The marketing team behind John Grisham’s latest novel, “The Litigators,” went one step further. They created …more
We’ve been trained to craft a lead sentence that grabs the reader by the scruff of the neck. It seems logical that the sooner you interest the reader, the better, especially in business communications where you don’t have the luxury of developing a narrative over 200 pages. To test this theory, I looked at the …more
The media and Wall Street have dissected every consonant and statistic in the Facebook S-1. Plug the phrase “Facebook S-1” into Google covering the past week and more than 150,000 hits appear. But as far as I can tell – didn’t look at all 150,000+ mentions – no one has examined the storytelling techniques in the …more
The “what’s ahead for the blog in 2012” post mentioned plans to create the “Grab Bag,” a collection of tidbits that couldn’t rightfully stand alone. Here’s the first one – Leadership and Storytelling Prior to the 49er/Giants NFC championship game, Monte Poole from the Bay Area News Group wrote a column about the leadership of …more
Business Wire captured its top 20 news releases of 2011 in terms of views. On average, each news release garnered 63K views. More proof that every company has the potential, doesn’t happen automatically, to be a media company. When it comes to applying storytelling techniques to communications and driving popularity, what can we learn from the top …more
Google is getting serious about advertising in traditional media. It seems like whenever I watch TV or pick up a magazine, I come across a Google ad. At first, the ads focused on Google+, which makes sense. With so much at stake in social networking and Facebook’s head start, Google wants to accelerate its position. But it …more
It will be fascinating to see how Tim Cook responds to this first crisis since taking the CEO reins at Apple. I don’t think today’s expose in the New York Times, “In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad,” will go gently in the night. Unlike the spike of hoopla around Foxconn (supporting role in this …more
That’s the question that The Holmes Report set out to answer. To put science behind the quest, Holmes engaged Sociagility which measured each global agency’s social media footprint. Sociagility uses what it calls the PRINT social media performance measurement methodology. The PRINT Index measures five attributes of social media performance – popularity, receptiveness, interaction, network …more
When it comes to reviewing egg roll cookies, Janice Leung at the South China Morning Post plays rough. Here’s a breakdown of her narrative on the Wing Wah product: Don’t get too excited about the retro red and violet tin. Always good to set expectations from the outset. Known for its classic Chinese pastries such …more
