• ONLINE SPIN
    Of Mice And Mad Men
    Last fall, as usual, a mouse moved into my house when the weather got cold. Also, as usual, I began my quest to remove it. But this year, planning its demise, I suddenly felt sorry for the mouse. I realized, with a small twinge of guilt, that I was doing to the mouse what Internet marketers do to everybody.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Millennials Are NOT The Enemy
    If you add up the sum total of everything written about Millennials, you come to a possible conclusion that there's a war on media being waged by the Millennial generation -- which is simply not true. The fact is, we're blaming Millennials for our own faults. The truth is, we sort of suck at what we do right now.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    The Case For Strong External Marketing Partnerships
    Last week, I said that a shorter "sense-making" cycle is one reason why moving advertising and marketing in-house might be a better way to go. But what if those sense-making cycles lead to a skewed view of the world because of perceptual distortion? What if it leads to us seeing the world not as it is, but as we wish it was? Today, as promised, I want to look at the other side of the question: the advantages that can come from having strong external partnerships.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Transparency An 'Opt-In' Choice, Say The Agencies
    There are weeks that I am proud and optimistic about our industry (looking at you, Walton Isaacson and your #turnignorancearound campaign), and there are weeks I am frustrated, angry and disappointed in our business. Both happened last week.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Bot-topia -- Or, The Value Of A Good Edit
    Reading down the list of the top 200 mobile apps underscores the power of great editing. The top apps -- Snapchat, Messenger, Instagram, Pandora, Spotify, Uber -- are perfected, purposeful environments free of nonessential details or functionality. And because these top 200 apps dominate 70% of all usage, they form the de facto rulebook for success. A few brands follow this rulebook: Chase, Starbucks, Walmart, Target, Bank of America, and CVS. But the vast majority of brands do not, residing alongside 1,499,800 others in the purgatory of the 30%. Help is coming, and it will look like a bot.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    More On The Simplicity Imperative
    What does simplicity look like? We could argue all day, but maybe we could agree on some basics. Advertisers might be happy if they could easily discover what works, across all media, and do more of it, with a minimum of effort, and continually improve return on marketing spend by learning about consumers and audiences. What factors either enable or disable progress toward that goal?
  • ONLINE SPIN
    Your Management Style Will Determine Your Success As Marketer
    Want to transform your brand into one more digitally focused and data-driven? It takes more than just writing a strategy and a new generation of KPIs. In order to transform, you have to be willing to ask the hard questions. You have to know whether you have the right people in the right places - and if not, what to do about that lack.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    A Case For Bringing Marketing In-House
    When we talk about disruptions in marketing, one of the elephants in the room is the increasing demand to bring marketing in-house. Companies like Philips are bringing more and more marketing functions in-house. As an ex-agency guy, this will sound either blasphemous or disingenuous -- but I suspect that it might be the right way to go. I'll tell you why. It has a lot to do with the evolution of strategy.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    The Next Revolution Will Not Be Televised, But Instant-Messaged
    eMarketer released its Media Usage Around the World report this month. If you love data and stats, this is one for you. It is also one for you if you are in charge of figuring out where to place your next bet for connecting with where your consumers already are.
  • ONLINE SPIN
    It's Time To Connect TV & Social Advertising At The Hip
    Among the findings at ARF's annual conference, Re:Think: Advertising works. It may be taken for granted by most of us, but study after study showed that when advertising is measured at the ROI level, well-delivered and appropriately targeted advertising can be proven to drive brand and sales growth. Next: advertising campaigns that are delivered on more channels -- particularly when TV is one of the channels -- do better.
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