Category: Marketing

  • CES 2017 for Brands: a Skeptical Review

    Most years at CES you can spot me leading tours, and most years after the show is over I sit down to ponder what I made of it all, what the pundits got right and what they missed. While in past years I’ve given presentations on these things, this year I wrote it up for…

  • SHORT: Don’t Miss REDEF Original on Truth in Advertising

    From the “too long for a tweet” department: I just finished Adam Wray‘s powerful Fashion REDEFined original article “With Great Power: Seth Matlins on how Advertising can Shift Culture for the Better.” It’s about Seth Matlins‘ efforts to change how advertisements featuring too-skinny and Photoshopped models body shame girls and women (men too, by the way).…

  • Don’t Call Them “Consumers”

    What you call people matters.  It tells them what you really think about them. Here’s an example: years ago my friend Jules shared how her Mom would call for her Dad in a never-changing escalation of urgency and decline of affection: “Sweetheart!” she’d trill, followed by, “Honey?” and then ending with “Bill!!”  The equation worked…

  • Michael Wolff’s Just-Released Book is a Puzzler

    The dust-jacket of Television is the New Television: the Unexpected Triumph of Old Media in the Digital Age describes Wolff as a man with unparalleled access to powerful figures in media and the book as something that will change the reader’s thinking. Moreover, it frames Wolff as an archly bitchy writer with enemies who would…

  • I Want to be my own Big Brother: an App Daydream

    “I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.” (Gwendolyn Fairfax in Wilde’s “The Importance of Being Earnest”) I’m skeptical about how much corporations benefit from the data I generate.  If tracking my every movement worked, then Facebook would not keep trying to sell me the icky…

  • My 2014 in Books

    I read a lot — magazines, two newspapers, email newsletters, and countless social-media-shared links I chase down digital rabbit holes. I’d never know anything, for example, without Jason Hirshhorn’s magnificent daily Media Redefined. But I’m lost without books.  Actual books.  Whether paper or digital, if I’m not reading at least two books then I get…

  • IOS 8 Correction: I was WRONG (but check Location settings anyway & here’s why)

    Sunday morning after updating my iPad to IOS 8, I was horrified to see that just about all my apps were broadcasting my location 24/7/365, and I blamed the update thinking that Apple had toggled the settings from off to on. I wrote a post about it that you can find here, and I asked…

  • IOS 8 Warning: Look at your Privacy Settings

    Tuesday Update: I was wrong about Apple changing settings: see full Correction and explanation here.   Apple hates Google.  It REALLY hates Google. I have evidence. A few days ago I updated my iPad to IOS8. Today, as I was looking at email, a warning flashed across the device that roughly said: “Google is sharing…

  • 2 Kinds of Wearables: Info display vs. creation, and how they work with time

    Note: I’m keynoting about wearables at the Brand Innovators Fashion Week event on Friday, February 14, 2014.  The kind folks at Brand Innovators have published this piece as a white paper. You can learn more about the event and download the white paper here. People talk about wearable computers in one lumpy category, but doing…

  • What should I ask Google’s Susan Wojcicki onstage at ad:tech SF?

    I’m delighted to be interviewing Google’s SVP of Advertising Susan Wojcicki next week at ad:tech San Francisco 2013. She’ll make a brief presentation and then the two of us will sit down for a fireside chat. So what should I ask her?  What burning questions do you have for Google when it comes to their…