Thoughts on Marketing, Advertising, Media, DRTV and Technology
The Tyranny of Creative Correctness in Advertisng
Let’s define a new term: Creative Correctness. In other words, the tyrannical pressure from a specific view of artistic perfection that turns advertising from a powerful advantage into failure. Creative correctness is a disease. And it’s one the ad business needs to fight. Because forcing advertising to live up to any one group’s specific flavor [...]
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Setting Reasonable Expectations for Online Video Power
New media has found one more shiny new bauble - this time it's online video. And we're bombarded with exaggerated promises of a new marketing utopia. In truth, online video can bring tremendous power - but only if you approach it with your eyes open. 
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Award Show Skepticism: An “Effie” for Old Spice?
I wasn’t entirely shocked to see that the Old Spice social media video campaign had won an Effie – a lot of people in the ad business seem to have decided this campaign was the grand epiphany of social media effectiveness. Except, I’d done some reading about the effectiveness of the campaign and found its [...]
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There Is No “ROI vs Brand” Dilemma When You Know Your “Profit Horizon”.
Far too many “smart” (aka self-conciously cool) agencies these days proudly seek talent from anywhere EXCEPT business backgrounds. They believe, they say, that these fundamental skills for understanding arcane concepts like “profit” get in the way of true creativity. (More on this mis-direction in a future post about an ad biz culture I call “creative [...]
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“Dude. It’s Not Our Problem”: ThinkGeek.com Blows their Brand This Time
It would make sense that oddity website ThinkGeek.com would be intimately familiar with de-motivator posters from Despair.com. It’s just sad that today’s customer rep picked the one that says “We’re not satisfied until you’re not satisfied”. I just got off the phone from my worst customer service experience in…well…a long time. And this catalog that [...]
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Cable Cutting & Self Righteous Attacks on TV
I get pretty miffed when the “cable cutter” enthusiasts try to argue that online video will drag society out of the depths of depravity found in TV programming. After all, what are most teens watching online? You can bet it’s NOT Masterpiece Theater or Nature. More likely they’re watching video’s of guys becoming eunuch’s when [...]
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New Book: “Building Brand with Direct Response Television”
With the October edition of Response Magazine, we have released my book “Building Brand with Direct Response Television“. This book takes an unusual look at DRTV – focusing on it’s biggest potential power: building brands while driving immediate sales (at retail as well as direct). This book is the result of the past decade when [...]
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GoogleTV: “More Returns than Sales” (Logitech)
I was skeptical of GoogleTV. It seemed Google fell prey to corporate hubris – believing they could build anything and make the marketplace think it’s valuable. And from the start Google revealed they had no coherent strategy to deliver value to consumers. Instead, announcements made it clear they were in a desperate ploy to steal [...]
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A Baker’s Dozen Truths About Brands and Brand Advertising
Brand has become the marketing religion of our time and takes on outsized importance in every decision. And that leads to a bunch of lists – each claiming to reveal “the” absolutes of brand building. The following makes no claim about summarizing absolutes. But the more lists I see, the more I love the far [...]
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How is it that Television Keeps Getting MORE Vital, Not Less? (Including Some Surprising Thoughts from Jobs.)
There’s something in the water of technology centers in the US that drives an idea that digital media always means revolution. It’s been there a very, very long time. And it makes pretty outrageous claims about technology’s impact. But when it comes to “revolution”, more often than not, human reality keeps getting in the way. [...]
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