Tak Tik Boom

Fear Of Selling

I don't want to be a salesman.

I want to be an artist. I know it's not easy, but it's what I want.

If I can't be an artist, at least I want to be helpful. I want to change things.

I've seen the damage that crass consumerism can do. I don't want to be a peddler. I am nobler than that.

You know what I mean, right? You agree, right?

Well, here's the thing. If you're in advertising, you're a

Fact-Free Research

While I am fond of calling advertising pundits, trade press reporters, and marketing gurus morons, nitwits, and cement-heads, the truth is many of them are pretty smart.

So how can it be that they have been so wrong about so many things over the past 10 years? For example, we've been told for 10 years that TV was dying when in fact viewing has reached record highs. How can this be?

Part of the

10 Dreadful Clichés The Ad Industry Should Euthanize

Intelligent people talk in simple clear language. Dimwits talk in dense jargon and mind-numbing cliches.

The marketing and advertising world has devolved into a cesspool of dreadful clichés, jargon and meaningless buzzwords.

Here are 10 bullshit ideas and phrases that advertising needs to jettison.

1. Native advertising
Code for ads disguised as editorial perpetrated by integrity-free online

The Second Screen Mystery

Maybe you can help me understand something.

I often read that TV advertising isn't as powerful as it once was because people are sometimes distracted by other media while they're watching TV. They're tweeting, or they're on Facebook, or they are doing something else on line.

While I haven't seen any research that confirms this hypothesis, it seems logical to me and I think it's probably true.

Math And Millennials

Us ad hacks have a problem. We don't understand math.

The result is that we're easily impressed, mislead, and bullied by sneaky or irrelevant data, meaningless charts, fast talking metrics monkeys, and cement-head marketing mavens who know even less than we do..

Here's an example.

Someone recently sent me one of those articles about the brilliance of auto makers shifting to online media to

Spirit of Lost Angels Giveaway

If anyone is interested in winning a signed copy of the first novel in my HF L'Auberge des Anges, series, I'm currently running a Goodreads giveaway. Spirit of Lost Angels follows the struggle of French peasant-woman, Victoire, in the years leading up to the French Revolution.

The Woeful Weenies Of Traditional Media

I never attended college. I was enrolled and I graduated, but I never actually attended.

My college had the unfortunate habit of scheduling classes at inconvenient times when horses were running, pool rooms were operating, and the occasional hippie chick required horizontal therapy.

I majored in political science because they had no attendance requirements. A very fortunate circumstance for