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Max Kalehoff

Member since May 2004Contact Max

Student in marketing, strategy and innovation.

Articles by Max All articles by Max

  • Doing Fewer Things Well in Online Spin on 03/25/2014

    I noted recently how we all maintain several identities across many online venues. One important one for me has been my persona in this column -- for most of eight years. But part of managing different versions of yourself on the Web is hard. Actively managing them sometimes means pruning them. That includes venues where you've contributed and received immense value for a long time. Well, that's what I'm doing now.

  • How Many Online Identities Do Your Consumers Have? in Online Spin on 03/18/2014

    I've accumulated perhaps dozens of identities across various social platforms over the years. I use the same handle -- maxkalehoff -- on all of them, though the persona I present is nuanced across each platform and norm. Here are my major ones and their purpose:

  • SXSWi Postmortem in Online Spin on 03/11/2014

    As I write this column, I'm wrapping up an immersive five days at SXSWi 2014. Following are some observations from the Austin-based event that keeps growing and everyone seems to be talking about:

  • Amtrak Should Expand Its Writers' Residency Program To Business Professionals in Online Spin on 03/04/2014

    My work these days takes me from New York to Washington, D.C. every month. I always take Amtrak's Acela high-speed train because it is a little more civilized, faster and has better WiFi. My New York-D.C. train trip has become my most cherished time for thinking and writing. I wish Amtrak would offer trips to nowhere!

  • Yes, We're Still Solving The Same Fundamental Problems in Online Spin on 02/25/2014

    I once had a conversation with the head of engineering of a large, successful software company. I asked her how -- as her career evolved from tactical to senior managerial -- she maintained technical prowess along with respect from advanced technical teams. While being a front-line developer wasn't her calling, she said her ongoing effectiveness in leading teams and solving complex engineering issues came from the quality of her early training and technical foundation.

  • How Can I Be Helpful To You? in Online Spin on 02/18/2014

    "How can I be helpful to you? Let me know now or in the future." I always try to end conversations that way. It's not just a saying, it's a state of mind.

  • Why Were The Super Bowl's Second-Half Ratings So High? in Online Spin on 02/11/2014

    According to Nielsen, some "drop off" in ad memorability is expected between the first and second halves of a Super Bowl game (10% average from 2009-2013). However, this year's Super Bowl XLVIII blowout countered that trend, with ad performance down only 7% during the game's Seahawks-Destroy-Broncos second half. Nielsen also reported that only 5% of the audience tuned out for the final half-hour of the game. I don't believe this was a random event, or caused by Mother Nature. My theory is that tv ad execution, combined with early social promotion, was partly responsible, and this phenomenon will continue in the future.

  • Online Views Of Super Bowl Ads Reaching Critical Mass  in Online Spin on 02/04/2014

    Super Bowl XXXIV, played on January 30, 2000, was often referred to as the Dot-Com Bowl, with over a dozen Internet companies advertising in the big game.While most of these high-flying pioneers are gone, they accelerated an important trend in the advertising business: sophisticated integration between the Internet and conventional television.

  • Grand Inspiration in Online Spin on 01/28/2014

    A few of my friends from New Jersey and Pennsylvania were lamenting sarcastically how New York City's Pennsylvania Station, once among the world's most majestic railroad stations, had become the Seventh Circle of Hell. The New York Times' Julie Bosman named the razing of the original station and construction of the new one as one of the city's greatest architectural disasters. Even on a hygienic level, the station is desperate for a rehab. Meanwhile, I love my weekday commute through Grand Central Terminal, 10 blocks away from Penn Station. In fact, Grand Central Station inspires me tremendously. It really gets me fired up and motivated to seize the day.

  • Nine Best Practices To Mobilize Colleagues To Accomplish Big Goals in Online Spin on 01/21/2014

    All companies require cross-functional collaboration to succeed. Even if you're the chief, you need to win the hearts and minds of colleagues to accomplish big things. When it comes to accomplishing big goals that require engaging disparate teams (or entire companies), a few best practices can make a world of difference. The following have worked for me:

Comments by Max All comments by Max

  • Past Cannes by Dave Morgan (Media Insider on 06/23/2022)

    Dave: Agree! Given what you say, the prevalence and celebration of "brand purpose" lingering in the festival environment is ironic. Regardless, for the abundance of advertising suppliers, these fancy venues are fertile destinations to access CMOs and other senior execs with buying and decisinoing authority.

  • Counting Ads Delivered When TV Is Turned Off by Dave Morgan (Media Insider on 02/03/2022)

    Ed: you'd be surprised how much video creative goes untested prior to launch. Sure, a tentpole campaign or big linear campaign, where there are a handful of creative assets, tend to deploy pre-launch creative testing. But that is not yet the norm with the growing diversity of assets for various digital channels and targeted audience segments. AI and agile creative scoring methods is making it more feasible to score every video creative, tested on actual humans and AI predicted response.On a related note, there are interesting things you can do by combining (pre-market) creative test quality scores with living-room attention data. Realeyes and TVision released a new analysis showing how different creative performs in various environments, and the results sometimes counter conventional wisdom. You can find that report publicly on our respective websites.

  • Counting Ads Delivered When TV Is Turned Off by Dave Morgan (Media Insider on 02/03/2022)

    Similarly:- when the TV is on and the ad is delivered but NOBODY is paying attention - when the ads creative suck so bad that nobody pays attention after two seconds Advertisers should care about all the above.

  • Homilies For Innovation by Ted McConnell (Media Insider on 01/06/2022)

    I like your "give it a way."In advertising and media tech, a strong team and execution is a much bigger differentiator than a patent!Thank you Ted!

  • Murder By Numbers by Ted McConnell (Media Insider on 09/05/2019)

    AGREE 100% You, like me, must be inspired by The Terminator.The ethics and principles of AI are trailing application and practice.The examples you mention are strong, as they are very tactile.However, there are many examples where I fear great widespread damage wlil occur (and have occured) before they are even addressed in a meaningful way.Consider AI's role in widespread addiction and depression with respect to interactive, autonomous apps and systems. If you though oxycontin was bad, just wait...

  • Not Much Between Us And Dystopia by Kaila Colbin (Media Insider on 06/07/2019)

    Ted:Good points. There is another key nuance related to the business models you described: the threshold of minimum scale for startsups is way lower. The upside for a d2c startup and its investors from zero sales and a few million bucks is massive. Coversely, the downside of a large "built-for-scale-only" cpg manufacturer to go after markets of only high tens-of-millions of dollars or low hundreds-of-millions of dollars is massive -- when you factor in the risk of distraction, cannabilization and incompatability with existing systems. And a second big gap is culture. D2C startup companies will inherently attract savvier and higher risk takers -- tuned and motivated to tackle the challenges of today with modern strategies and tools.But to your point, they still lack the scale...for now.Max

  • Build A Wall -- For The Third Garden by Ted McConnell (Online Spin on 03/16/2017)

    Ted, Agree with you 100%. Though a key piece you didn't cover is ad products that work. They must work for the consumer, in that they have a positive impact on the user experience, and create value. They also must work for the advertiser, in that they perform against business objectives and reveal insights about the campaigns, creatives, formats, audiences and more. The two big walled gardens have largely been succeeding because they've delivered great ad products, and they're innovating like hell. There are two giant walled gardens, but there also are some other emerging, scaling platforms as well, like Snapchat and Pinterest. These platforms are innovating at breakneck speed as well, and delivering great ads products that create user value and drive performance and insight for the advertise as well. That innovation and impact is inextricably linked to ignoring (or at least de-prioritizing) IAB standards and constantly pushing the bar within their own uniqiue, native experiences. And that is why these publisher platforms are becoming the preferred method of consuming publisher content -- their experience don't suck; load times work great on mobile or any device; they ads are targeted and they fit into the native experience. Is that notion at all possible in a third walled garden? I argue it is not. Regardless, the vast sea of struggling publishers -- relying on unreliable cookie systems -- have a ridiculous amount of easy wins to make better ad formats and better experiences for their users. If they mix that with your measurement and accounting recommendations in a third-walled-garden cooperative, they'd have a much brighter future. 

  • Five Industry Expressions I Want To Ban Immediately by Maarten Albarda (Online Spin on 03/24/2014)

    Maarten, you just inspired me to create a bingo card in honor of ad-tech and agency jargon: http://maxkalehoff.com/1rtJqpY Enjoy!

  • Yes, We're Still Solving The Same Fundamental Problems by Max Kalehoff (Online Spin on 02/25/2014)

    Great quote: "The online advertising community has become the pharmaceutical industry."

  • Publishing Industry's Turbulence Creates Surge Of Talent For Marketers by Max Kalehoff (Online Spin on 01/14/2014)

    @Al DiGuido: Whether you're a conventional publisher or a brand (which can be a publisher), trust and quality in content are one and the same. Indeed, brand content can be more compelling and useful than content from a conventional publisher. And vice versa.

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