• ONLINE SPIN
    The Only Thing Worse Than Being Talked About: NOT Being Talked About
    In April 2014 I wrote about what I dubbed SMFPs, or Social Media Faux Pas, defined as a sudden outburst of social media sharing stemming from an accidental or poorly judged piece of content created by a marketer. Without reading the original column, can you recall any of the "damaging issues" that were highlighted in the examples I used in 2014? Yeah, me neither. I was reminded of my 2014 column over the weekend as I read several articles on how political candidates are mastering social media as a force to drive their brand.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    The FBiOS Affair: Why Advertisers Should Care
    The dispute between Apple and the FBI / Department of Justice is not about unlocking the iPhone of one dead terrorist. It is, as many have reported, about setting precedents. For Apple, precedent in this case is a Gordian knot of legal questions (how many similar requests will follow this one?), economic issues (how will this impact sales in China?), and technical concerns. Ostensibly, government officials have asked Apple to build new firmware giving them exceptional access to a specific iPhone, not all iPhones, thus qualifying this request as a firmware change, not an open backdoor. This nuance will be …
  • ONLINE SPIN
    The Simplicity Imperative
    An industry association leader recently told me that the complexity of digital marketing was reaching the breaking point. Advertisers are questioning whether the added complexity is worth it, and asking for a fix. Is it really that complicated? If so, why?
  • ONLINE SPIN
    What Grandma Thinks About Our World
    It's 2026. I wake up at 5 a.m. to the gentle pulse of my Apple Watch, unfold my iPaper (the bendable, ultra-thin iPad generation 14) and begin reading the news, my email and Facebook.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    The Face Of Disruption
    If you ask publishing giant Elsevier, Alexandra Elbakyan is a criminal -- a pernicious pirate. If you ask the Lifeboat Foundation, or blogger PZ Myers, or millions of students around the world, Alexandra Elbakyan is a hero. Labels can be tricky things, especially in a world of disruption. Elbakyan certainly doesn't look like a criminal. You would walk right past her on a campus quad and think nothing of it. She looks pretty much like what you would expect a post-grad neuroscience student from Kazakhstan to look. But her face is the face of disruption. And she's at the receiving …
  • ONLINE SPIN
    CMOs Want To Know: Which Naked Disney Princess Are You?
    No worries, today's column is not about anything naked, Disney or princesses. But it is true that marketers both directly and indirectly keep this kind of clickbait nonsense alive. How?
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Waze, Google, Facebook: The Observer Effect And Our Interconnected, Co-Created Reality
    In science, the "observer effect" describes the impact of measurement on behavior. To measure voltage, for example, you have to stick something in the current, and that something will in turn modify the voltage. The photons used to measure electrons affect their paths; a thermometer exchanges heat with the object whose temperature it is taking. As a metaphor, the concept can be easily extrapolated. Our society, our economy, our politics, our impact on the planet -- all co-created in a complex feedback loop of which each of us is an integral part.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Future Of Digital Marketing Supply Chain: Serving Consumers & Marketers, NOT Intermediaries
    Many folks in our industry believe that the digital marketing supply chain needs to be rebuilt. It is convoluted. It is wasteful. For all of its sexy technology, it leaks money and data like a rusted-out, 100-year-old hulk.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    A Less-Disruptive Advertising Future
    How can we find a more harmonious way to bring advertising back to a state of approval, or even enjoyment, for the general consumer?
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Is Amazon Creating A Personalized Store?
    There was a brief Amazon-related flurry of speculation last week. Apparently, according to a podcast posted by Wharton School of Business, Amazon is planning on opening 300 to 400 brick-and-mortar stores. That's right. Stores -- actual buildings -- with stuff in them. So what might those stores be like?
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