Maret 2014

Facebook's Awesome Bait-And-Switch

I guess you have to admire the shamelessness of their duplicity.

And I guess you have to marvel at the stupidity and naivete of an industry that not only allows such bullshit to exist, but doesn't even seem to care.

The subject is social media marketing, and the perpetrator is Facebook.

Let's go back a few years. Social media marketing was going to disrupt the traditional paid advertising

Triskele Books on Writers & Artists Blog

Today on the Writers & Artists blog, Triskele talks about the rise of the author collective and how they can work to the advantage of self-publishers.

Talking About Talking

Today we have an audio post.

It's an interview I did for Advertising Week Europe promo-ing my talk in London next week (Weds. April 3, 10:30 am.)

Here is the interview.

Author Interview

Many thanks to Edward James for interviewing me on his blog today, to talk about historical fiction and Triskele Books.

Great Advertising Transcends Strategy

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all know that advertising is 50% strategy and 50% execution. Or something like that.

But that's only true of normal advertising. The kind you and I do.

It's not true of great advertising -- the kind people a thousand times better than us do.

Great advertising transcends strategy. It's great for all the wrong reasons -- the reasons we never talk about in new business

Crimes Of Passion

Today I am doing something I almost never do -- a guest post. The post was written by my good friend, Marcie Judelson (@MarcieJudelson) for her blog Chronic Fatigue. She has given me permission to reproduce it here.

My topic today is something I feel very passionate about; namely, the egregious overuse of the word "passion".

I can remember when I was quite fond of "passion". Once upon a time,

Indie Author Land

Many thanks to Indie Author Land for featuring Wolfsangel today.

Recognizing Foolishness In Everyone But Ourselves

One of the great truisms of marketing is that a good deal of consumer behavior makes no sense.

While we often go out of our way to scour Google for the lowest prices and the best reviews, we also frequently behave in ways that defy common sense. When it comes to buying stuff, or any other human behavior for that matter, we are not logic machines.

Back when I worked on Toyota, there was a great

Branding For Dummies

Among the topics that marketing and advertising people can bore you to death with, perhaps the most annoying is "brands."

On one side we have brand maniacs (often, agency creative directors) who think that all advertising has to do is get "the brand" right and everything else will fall into place. On the other end of the spectrum we have brand deniers (lately, online advertising zealots) who

The BIG Announcement

My Triskele Books colleagues and I are thrilled to welcome fellow indie author, Barbara Scott Emmett onboard the jolly SS Triskele. Read about Barbara joining Triskele Book and, more importantly, her stunning and unique novel to be released later this year: Delirium - The Rimbaud Conspiracy here.

Most Published Research Is False

Over the years, this blog has been highly skeptical of marketing, advertising, and media research.

What passes for research in our world would be laughed out of most reputable scientific laboratories.

We almost never use controls
We almost never replicate our work
We don't have peer review
We don't have others see of they can reproduce our results.

There are so many ways for research to go

Money For Nothing

Money For Nothing
Radio Shack reported this week a 20% drop in 4th quarter sales. It was their 8th consecutive quarter of losing money. They also announced that they would close over a thousand stores. Oh, and they also announced a half-million dollar bonus for their ceo.

Dude shoulda closed 2,000 stores. Then he coulda got a million.

Running My Mouth
Two speaking gigs coming up in the next

Bulletin: Advertising Trade Press Discovers Television

Stop the presses!

The advertising trade press has just awakened after a 10-year nap to discover that television is popular with consumers. Well, f*ck me blind!

That's right after 10 years of bullshit about how TV was dying and the web was taking over the world, Adweek had a piece on Monday called You Won't Believe How Big TV Still Is.

Really? We won't?

Well, guess what, Adweek, not only do

The Eternal Eye-Roll

There are a substantial number of people in the marketing and advertising industry whose livelihood depends on convincing us that we need them to help us understand and interpret the "unprecedented" changes in our culture and society.

These market researchers and "behavioral anthropologists" are constantly bombarding us with propaganda about how changes in our culture are uniquely different