April 17, 2008

Dear CMO: When we think of our relationships to institutions, we can categorize them in one of several ways. There are brands, and we talk a lot about them here and elsewhere. There are causes. There are memes, ideas, manifestos, and viruses. And then there are movements.

February 5, 2008

The recent article in Fast Company by Clive Thompson discussing – or debunking – Malcolm Gladwell’s Tipping Point theory went around the Internet last week with celebrity dirt-like speed. Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki and many others posted on the demise of the influencer. Having just spent a week in a room full of Phd’s discussing the social psychology of influence, it struck me that there were layers of meaning and misunderstanding here, one or two of which I could grapple to the ground with a degree of credibility.

January 22, 2008

Green is the new e-. It used to be that anyone worth their buzzword bingo card could slap "e-" in front of practically anything and expect their valuation to double. "E-enabled," "e-business," et cetera, ad nauseum. Post-bubble, we experienced a short-lived affair with "X-treme." We had "X-treme sports," the "X-Games," "X-treme poker," and practically everything else. For full transparency, I made the last one up. However, if I may borrow the current lexicon of the mainstream press, my statement was "fake but accurate." Next question.

October 10, 2007

Dear CMO: The back story to this post is that I originally wrote a piece chiding SABMiller for sponsoring the somewhat distasteful Folsom Street Fair in San Francisco, a local event catering to a sub-segment of the gay population that leans, shall we say, to the extreme.

July 27, 2007

Dear CMO: Now that the dust has settled a bit on Jet Blue's ill-fated flirtation with Yearly Kos, let’s all reflect on the lessons learned so we don’t have to go down this path on our own. I wrote about this over at Note to CMO, but the comments -- both online and off -- warranted a second look and some new takeaways.

July 9, 2007

The music industry has been declared dead. CD sales experienced the steepest plunge in recent memory, according to the RIAA, with a double-digit decline of 12.8%. Artist management now view CD sales as supplementary to the core business of concerts and merchandising, much like dishing out single servings to passers by at Costco.

May 24, 2007

We can talk ourselves into almost anything. What constitutes a “need” at any given point of time falls anywhere on the axis that runs from "passing fancy" to "temporary insanity," depending on the size and shape of the object of your desire.

May 15, 2007

Dear CMO: Moving product is easy. Moving knowledge, as we’ve recently discussed, is harder.

April 2, 2007

I don't watch American Idol. I’ll readily admit that it’s a timely concept that hopefully can breathe life into the moribund music industry. But growing up in a family of performers with a house full of “voice students in training” taught me to run from sounds that hurt my ears. But what caught my attention here wasn’t the talent, or lack thereof, but the fact that contestant Sanjaya has become the unwitting hero of an anti-AmIdol movement. The “social” part of “social media” has been gamed. Again.

March 21, 2007

Dear CMO: I won’t go political. Not here, not anywhere. We keep our political rants well away from our marketing discussions just like we keep our peas from touching our carrots. Usually. Sometimes, succotash happens. But someone has to give a great big “Wow, did you see that?” to the 1984 spoof ad that an unknown perpetrator has launched on YouTube for Barack Obama.

March 13, 2007

Dear CMO: Remember the days of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, where Marlin Perkins would show us the cruel world of the African savannah from the relative safely of his helicopter, always in his immaculately clean, pressed and pleated khakis, while his assistant, Jim, would be wrestling with the python on the ground? Poor Jim.

March 1, 2007

Dear CMO: The exigencies of rapidly evolving markets often create strange bedfellows. One look no further than the wild west of the entertainment industry to see as many examples as you care to read.

February 27, 2007

Dear CMO: It seems a bit stereotypical for the new CMO to make his or her presence felt by quickly strangling the mascot, changing the tagline and firing the old ad agency. I see over at Spike’s place that Bank of America has just shed its tag line because, we’re to understand, it has become too ingrained in the company’s culture.

February 5, 2007

Dear CMO: Why do the mis-steps of our leaders get so much press? Why do we spend more time watching CEOs who have fallen into the potato salad on YouTube than the ones who are quietly leading their companies through troubled waters? This is unfortunate, so we're going to correct this with a post praising the CEO. Here's why....

February 2, 2007

Dear CMO: A large part of the dust storm has settled at this point over the now infamous Aqua Teen Hunger Force case study in how not to execute a campaign and wow your client. I won't rehash the facts of the case, which are all-too-well-known at this point. The point of introspection is this: being clever isn't the point -- being smart is....

January 30, 2007

Dear CMO: First, a confession. When I wrote the memo on “Killing Giants, Part 1”, I didn’t actually have a “Part 2” in mind. I was just hoping that things would progress along and new thoughts would quickly come to mind. Thankfully, a few good questions -– one spurring a 300-word response -– shook a few new ones loose....