Helping Americans ‘Take Charge’ of Their Futures
Before Lincoln Financial set out to launch our new advertising campaign on Thanksgiving Day, we decided to get the feel for the mood of America. After the financial turmoil of the last few years, we...
View ArticleThe Boardroom Has Been Replaced by the Kitchen Table
Work comes home. Home comes to work. These are today’s truths. We know executives are busy. That’s not news. But, we didn’t know how and where decision-makers are receiving information. How is it...
View ArticleThe Emotion Found in Social Data
Let’s be clear: Most people don’t use social media just for the sake of it. Some might, but the vast majority of people who share content, post comments or offer sentiments and opinions online do so...
View ArticleFour Ways Brands Can Build Better Relationships
Is your brand focused on transactions or interactions? Grammy-nominated artist David Gray’s “A moment changes everything” celebrates how a single moment between two people has the power to change...
View ArticleWhy the Recession Has Forever Ruined Us for Retailers
It was an awkward moment. At the cash register, the clerk placed my cashews, ice pops, deodorant and laundry detergent into a shopping cart, which I thought was very nice of her. After all, I had...
View ArticleAd Lessons from the Sears, Roebuck and Co. Catalog
To land his first copywriting job, my father was asked a question that still resonates today. In my father’s recently released memoir on his 50-year career in advertising, “Pickett, Plunkett and...
View ArticleFive Marketing Lessons from Fantasy Football
Fantasy football is unique: It combines something incredibly masculine with something incredibly nerdy. It’s like the high school quarterback and the captain of the Dungeons and Dragons Club got...
View ArticleAgency CEOs Talk Tech At Advertising Week
Tens of thousands of advertising experts are swarming New York for the ninth annual Advertising Week. Conference rooms, theaters and lounges are packed with industry folks schmoozing, talking the...
View ArticleReturn on Investment Is Dead. Long Live Return on Emotion.
Act 1 First, money was disconnected from economic and social reality. Euphoria, detached from common sense, swept over the financial markets. It was intoxicating: “We’ll take, take again and keep on...
View ArticleEngineering Content For Makino
In the wake of the major biennial machine-tool trade show for which it was developed, Makino’s most recent campaign is now being implemented across multiple platforms. As marketing manager of Makino, I...
View ArticleAlgorithm And Blues
I’m not one of those people who enjoy being stalked. I know some folks like the attention, the cat-and-mouse excitement of it all, the little notes on the doorstep, the abduction of pets. But I don’t....
View ArticleA Marketer’s Time Capsule
Let’s assume for a moment that the Mayan calendar is accurate in its prediction that the world is going to end December 21. That means mankind has gone as far as it is ever going to and the marketing...
View ArticleThe Apple iPhone At Age 6: My, How Things Have Changed
So my colleague asked me to write a piece on the Apple iPhone as it’s now 6 years old. I thought, who better to ask than someone who has never owned one? I’m fiercely loyal to a couple of brands, one...
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