Tak Tik Boom

The Power Of Sloppy

Have you ever wondered how McDonald's and Coca-Cola and Nike and Toyota and Apple and all the other enormous worldwide brands became successful?

For one thing, they were sloppy. They had to be.

They didn't have big data or precision targeting. They couldn't punch a key and immediately identify left-handed Lutheran dry cleaners who rode recumbent bicycles.

So they had to use mass media and

The Sadness Of Sameness

Here's what a once-great agency looks like when it turns its message over to jargon-monkeys.

This agency used to awe us with wonderful ideas. Now it can only bore us with the same dreadful drivel we've heard a thousand times before.

It's a very sad thing.

More on the Author Collective

Today on the Triskele Blog, I interview another author collective, Writer's Choice.

Hard Times For The Cult Of Social Media?

It could be that the social media zombies have had their day.

Frankly, it couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.

Now, before the hate mail comes rolling in, let me state the obvious. There are some very capable, hard-working and talented people in the social media world.

But there is also a roiling cesspool of arrogant, insufferable charlatans who parlayed a few buzzwords into a career and with

My Talk At "Advertising Week Europe"

Last week I was honored to be asked by ITV to deliver their “Spotlight Lecture” at Advertising Week Europe, which was held in London.

It was a week-long conclave of ad, marketing and media people.

My talk was called “The Golden Age Of Bullshit” and was about the difference between the predictions of experts and the reality of the past 10 years.

The fellow introducing and interviewing me on

Talking Babies And Babbling Baboons

I am not a fan of either the talking animal or the talking baby genre. They've been done a million times and rarely have they been anything but awful.

However, every now and then someone does it well. They take a clichéd idea and make it into something good.

One of the cases in which talking babies were done well was E-Trade. Before I go too far, they weren't all gems. But some of the writing

The Power Of Precision Guessing

We know that consumer behavior is often irrational. That's why there are large market share differences among products that are essentially the same.

We also know that consumers tend to be pragmatic and don't like to throw their money around on crap. That's why so many new products fail.

So how do we reconcile these two seeming contradictions? How can consumers be both strangely emotional yet