Everyone has a story. Books and movies and songs have stories. Every company and brand has a story. Schools and universities have stories. Governments have stories. My dog has a story. Stories are more important than you might think. In tough times like these, if your story is just about low price, your story will [...]
In Rob Walker’s book “Buying In,” along with espousing his thoughts on ‘murketing’ (look it up) he talks about how trust in authority is suffering even more than usual. A cursory Google dig will build a nice little stack of those we don’t trust anymore. Recently, the untrustworthy pile was as tall as [...]
GM was the house that SUVs built – until this year. Recently GM’s management scraped the future of their core SUV program by killing the CXX (the next SUV phase for Suburbans, Escalades and Yukons) and are headed in a smaller, less guzzling direction. Ford has similar plans. Chrysler is just looking for a date [...]
On a recent work-related trip into the August swamps and green, late summer rivers near the Gulf Coast, I had the opportunity to understand the full implications of air conditioning in the South. Outside, it was so boiling that you weren’t sure whether to sweat or cry. Inside, however, behind panes coated with water beads [...]
While shooting a few weeks ago around lovely Gwynn’s Island (home of Scott Witthaus and his lovely wife, Pam), I happened to mention a gimme cap. He turned and looked at me quizzically and asked, “What is a gimme cap.” “You know, a hat, a cap with a bill. They’re called gimme caps down South [...]
This summer, Dee, Angela, Charles, Paul, and I were on a shoot. It was sort of a documentary. We do a lot of brand documentaries, if you can call them such a thing. This particular concept involved little kids. They had to ask some simple and some not-so-simple- questions about life. We recorded their answers [...]
Since I have spent about 16 hours a day lately looking for innovation across America (shooting mini documentaries), I thought I would sit down and write a few ideas I have on the complicated subject. First, it’s really not complicated, or it shouldn’t be; it’s just difficult for many people to fully wrap their minds [...]
We tend to attach logos to the ends of our accomplishments in branding. I’d like to look at the last 29 years, however, as experiences (plural) rather than experience (singular). There is a big difference.
You get a call on your free Internet phone service. RING “Hello.” “Hey, it’s me.”
I have said this for 20 years (if you have worked with me, you know it already): Every commercial should have a dog, preferably a talking dog. Bud Light knows this truth of advertising. Few branders have put as many dogs in commercials as they have (thank you DDB Chicago). Now I have witnessed ad [...]
I remember when the annual office holiday party was a bit like the aptly-named bar in that grisly-yet wonderfully-bad movie “From dusk til Dawn” – an endless night in a funky, dark room filled with drunks, debaucheries and more than a little blood by dawn.
Ever since digital video recorders like TiVo came out, people have been prophesying the death of commercials because people can fast forward through them to only watch the show they recorded. But reality proves otherwise.
Somewhere, someone gave the order. The edict has come down, in case you were absent for the meeting. The Ad gods have spoken. Every retail commercial on TV must look exactly like a Target commercial. You know the ones; they look like Target advertising but they’re not. Doesn’t matter what your store is, just make [...]
I have always been leery of guys with three names. Presidents and serial killers come to mind. Into my doubting field of vision has wandered one more – Michael Gates Gill, and his book “How Starbucks Saved My Life: A Son of Privilege Learns to Live Like Everyone Else.”
I can hear the whistling of that familiar opening tune over black and white images of Andy and Opie strolling down a wooded trail to fish in the lake. I have heard that song all of my life. Now I can get a taste of it, sort of.