• ONLINE SPIN
    What Is The Purpose Of Online Advertising?
    What is the purpose of online advertising? Surely, search advertising's purpose is to capture shopper intent. It does so extremely well, providing more economic visibility than any other advertising medium. It's made Google one of the most valuable media companies in only a few short years. But what about the rest of online advertising, such as display?
  • ONLINE SPIN
    How Should Our Business Schools Respond To The Financial Crisis?
    Today, my column is going to go a bit off normal topic. I'm going to get up on a soapbox and try to help answer a question that a friend posed to me yesterday, for the leaders of the many, much-hallowed graduate schools of business in the U.S.: "What are you going to do about this financial crisis?"
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Location-Based Digital Media Poised For Growth In 2009
    "Everyone is somewhere all of the time." That line sounds like something Yogi Berra might have said after a long, hot day at the ballpark, but I'm afraid that I have to take credit for it. It's something I said all by myself and it might as well be the slogan for location-based digital media.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    How To Not Be Creepy
    It's a slippery slope from being an effective marketer in social media to being creepy. Showing someone exactly the right product they might want to check out can be beneficial and therefore effective -- but using certain personal information to target the ad can very easily come off as creepy. Asking and empowering people for endorsing your brand to their social graph can be incredibly effective; but attaching your marketing message to my likeness without EXPLICT permission can be creepy (see: Beacon). Rewarding people who share your brand with their social graph can be effective, but pure pay-per-post is certainly …
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Thoughts On 'The Team'
    Team-speak can sound trite. We innately understand the value of collaboration, building teams, team players, taking one for the team - and so on. But until we've been impacted by a team fractured or wowed by one's success, we may not get it. One thing is certain -- when it comes to team, with a capital T, you will know one when you see one.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Twist Of Fate: Obama Demonstrates How Businesses Should Operate
    Why can't governments operate more like businesses? In a twist of fate, the White House now is demonstrating how businesses should operate. Including online. This was evidenced, perhaps more than anywhere else, at 12:01 p.m. .during the Presidential inauguration, at www.whitehouse.gov/blog. Yes, the White House now has a blog! I subscribed to in my Google reader. Did you?
  • ONLINE SPIN
    My Belated Predictions For 2009
    While I'm generally not a big fan of making predictions, I do think that they can be fun and can spark valuable thought and controversy. With that in mind, I belatedly offer up some of my predictions for the advertising and media industry this year. Here they are.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Digital Tools For Change
    I am starting this article on my BlackBerry, standing among well over one million people in well-below-freezing temperatures. It is Inauguration Day, and the anticipation is palpable. I am making new friends all around me, but even more impressive is how connected I am to people hundreds -- even thousands -- of miles away. In real time I can broadcast to those within my social graph the specific happenings moment-to-moment. I can take a picture with my camera phone and within minutes have the picture up on my Twitter, Facebook and MySpace accounts. I may not be able to feel …
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Good Customer Service Works -- Or, How I Got a Pony!
    Good customer service goes a long way to cementing a relationship, and if you play your cards right, it can even get you that pony you've always wanted!
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Obama Community Post-Win, Now That He's Moved In
    We have been hearing about "Obama for America II" for a while, and for a moment it seemed unclear what would or could come next, especially once the race was won. Truly, at this launch, and even with my own personal exhilaration - as a consumer marketer, I am especially interested in "Organizing for America." This just-announced program represents the next true stage of Obama's original lauded grassroots community effort -- much of which was implemented through digital strategies and tactics.
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