Mei 2013

Marketing Is A Mystery, Not A Puzzle

I was listening to the BeanCast the other day. The BeanCast is a podcast (yes, they still have them) produced by my friend Bob Knorpp that intelligently examines issues related to marketing, particularly of the digital variety.

The show had some very smart people on it and they were discussing the effect that "big data" might have on the job of the CMO.

All the experts seemed to agree that

The Dull-Witted Stepchild Of Marketing

Yesterday's post about the need to rid our industry of the people who are destroying it -- Martin Sorrell and his ilk -- generated an extraordinary response among the readers of this blog.

Strangely, it also generated an unexpected response in me. The more I thought about it, the angrier I became. I am not a callow idealist who thinks the advertising industry was ever charming or amiable. But

Time For Sorrell To Go

There is a small group of men who have ruined the advertising industry.

They have made it leaner and meaner. They have made it more efficient. They have made it more productive. They have squeezed all the fat out of it. They have also squeezed all the life out of it.

They have replaced ideas with data. They have replaced value with efficiency.

They are accountants and investors and financial

Triskele Books "Collective" Giveaway and Author Features

For each day of this week, starting 26th May, Laura from Colorimetry will interview a different Triskele Books author, who will offer a free e-copy of their book. And on Launch Day - June 1st - it's the Big Giveaway. All seven of the Triskele Books will be on offer for a signed paperback giveaway of whichever book(s) readers choose.

New giveaway and review of Spirit of Lost Angels

Many thanks to Audra of Unabridged Chick for her lovely review of Spirit of Lost Angels. Audra is also hosting a giveaway of one paperback and two e-copies. Enter the draw until 7th June, on her blog.

Advice For Students And CEOs

Advice For Ad Students From The Wonderful Dave Trott

Dave's new book is called Predatory Thinking. You can find it here.

Advice For CEOs From The Not-So-Wonderful Me
Yesterday, Bob McDonald, CEO of the world's largest advertiser, P&G, lost his job.

Mr. CEO, before you get snowed by the digital miracle workers, take a deep breath and study the case of Mr. McDonald.

Here's a quote from

Please Don't Use That Word

There is a universe that a certain kind of digital marketing bonehead comes from that has a language of its own. It's a horrible language. It is hugely annoying, but it is unrelenting and it seems to be spreading.

It gives us compound words and neologisms that must seem terribly clever to illiterate nitwits, but make anyone with a sense of propriety want to commit hideous acts of violence. Some

The Taxman Cometh

Since the stupidity of the I.R.S. is all over the news, I thought I'd weigh in with my own I.R.S. story.

This probably means they'll come to my house in the middle of the night and drag me off. But, as I'm sure you know, my dedication to my readers is more important than my freedom.

So it's about 4 or 5 years ago and the I.R.S. decides to audit my agency. They came into the agency and went

Native Advertising: Traditional Advertising On Line

Last week, Mashable asked the question, "Is Native Advertising Just Another Term For Good Advertising?" The answer is no, not quite.

From what I can tell, native advertising is a horrible and misleading term that is being used to describe something that may actually turn out to be a good idea -- the application of traditional advertising principles to online advertising. Let me explain.

Online

Display: A House Of Cards

Despite its dismal track record, spending on display advertising keeps growing at an astonishing rate. Forrester Research is projecting a 17% compound annual growth over the next 5 years.

As far as I'm concerned, it's a house of cards. And if the house goes down, it will take a lot of advertising-supported online businesses with it.

Here are some reasons I believe display is a house of cards:

How Dumb People Become Successful

After a few years in the business world, something occurred to me. I realized that the majority of the people I met in business were astonishingly stupid.

Years later I was sitting around a bar with a couple of my agency colleagues. We had won a very important piece of business from a world class client. We were working with the very top people at the client and we were astounded by their

Mein Erster Blog Auf Deutsch

Millennials or Gen Y or whatever nitwit cliche you want to use to describe people born between 1980 and 2000 are the current obsession of the marketing industry.

I have a daughter right smack in the middle of this group. She is a lovely, wonderful, intelligent, well-educated, hard-working person. But she is... I guess the polite term would be "economically challenged."

A good deal of what she

What Sparks Ideas For Your Stories?

Read my post on Julie Dawson's blog, Bards and Sages

Meryl Streep Wants To Be a Barista

One of the enduring absurdities of the marketing and advertising industries is the old wives' tale that "people over 50 want to be like young people."

Ask any brain-dead CMO of a car company why the people who inhabit his commercials are all young, when 18-24 year-olds buy 1% of all new cars, and you'll get some version of that idiocy.

It's what passes for "strategic thinking" in the Golden

17 Mind-Blowing Facts About People Over 50

This is the first video from my new company, Type A Group.

To share this video, go here.

Explanation:

Earlier today I posted a different version of this video. It was called "19 Mind-Blowing Facts...".

Because the blogging industry has such a bad reputation for accuracy, I try to be very scrupulous about what I publish as "facts." I checked all my sources and I realized that I had lost the

Where Are The Brands?

Yesterday, Business Insider published a piece a wrote. I am reproducing it here today (with the correct title.)

I went to the supermarket the other day. I walked up and down the aisles slowly. I noticed something. They have a lot of stuff.

They have fresh stuff and canned stuff. They have packaged stuff and bottled stuff. They have new stuff and old stuff and expensive stuff and cheap stuff.

My New Gig

Today I'm launching a new venture. It's called Type A Group.

Type A is going to be an interesting company. It's not going to be an agency. Fortunately, I am in a position where I can work only on stuff that interests me. So Type A is going to specialize in only three areas that I have a particular interest in:

1. Consulting to independent agencies. I have had the good fortune to help build

Spirit of Lost Angels Nominated for EFestival of Words Award

I was very happy to learn Spirit of Lost Angels has been nominated in the Best Novel and Historical Fiction categories for the 2013 eFestival of Words Awards.

Time To Clean Out The Stables

Earlier this week I posted a piece called Online Advertisers Getting Hosed.

In it, I discussed the alarming amount of fraud being perpetrated against naive and confused online advertisers.

But there's more. Not only are online advertisers getting screwed by crooks, some of them are also getting screwed by their agencies.

For those of you who are too busy having a life to follow the arcane

Langganan: Postingan (Atom)

Home - About - Order - Testimonial
Copyright © 2010 Tak Tik Boom All Rights Reserved.