Gordon Hotchkiss

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• Gordon attended OMMA Global at Advertising Week, September 27, 2010
  
  

Articles by Gordon All articles by Gordon

• Social Media Is Barely Skin-Deep in Media Insider on 06/27/2017
  

  Here's a troubling fact. According to a study from the Georgia Institute of Tech, half of all selfies taken have one purpose. They are intended to show the world how attractive we are: our makeup, our clothes, our shoes, our lips, our hair. This category accounts for more selfies than all other categories combined -- more than selfies taken with people or pets we love, more than us doing the things we love, more than being in the places we love, more than eating the food we love. It appears that the one thing we love the most is ourselves. The selfies have spoken.

• The Medium Is The Message, Mr. President in Media Insider on 06/20/2017
  

  Every day that Barack Obama was in the White House, he read 10 letters. Why letters? Because form matters. There's still something about a letter. It's so intimate. It uses a tactile medium. Emotions seem to flow easier through the use of cursive loops and sound of pen on paper. They balance between raw and reflective. As such, they may be an unusually honest glimpse into the soul of the writer. Obama seemed to get that. There was an entire team of hundreds of people at the White House that reviewed 10,000 letters a day and chose the 10 that made it to Obama, but the intent was to give an unfiltered snapshot of the nation at any given time. It was a mosaic of personal stories that - together - created a much bigger narrative.

• The Death Of Sears, The Edge Of Chaos in Media Insider on 06/13/2017
  

  So, here's the question: Could Sears -- the retail giant that has become the poster child for the death of mall-based retail shopping -- have saved itself? This is an important question, because I don't think Sears' downward trend is an isolated incident.

• The Brain On Reviews in Media Insider on 06/06/2017
  

  There's an interesting new study that was just published about how our brain mathematically handles online reviews that I wanted to talk about today. But before I get to that, I wanted to talk about foraging a bit.

• How Vision And Strategy Can Kill A Marketer's Job Security in Media Insider on 05/30/2017
  

  Marketing is becoming more powerful, but the markets themselves are becoming more unpredictable. And marketers are squarely caught on the horns of that dilemma. We sign on to deliver results -- and when those results are no longer predictable, we feel our job security rapidly slipping away.

• Flow And The Machine in Online Spin on 05/23/2017
  

  Flow, the highly engaged mental state when we're completely absorbed with the work at hand, may be the one thing that machines can't replicate -- yet.

• How I Cleared A Room Full Of Marketing Techies  in Online Spin on 05/16/2017
  

  Whenever we start talking about B2B marketing, people start heading for the door. If there is a B2B track at a general marketing show, you can bet your authentic Adam West Batman action figure (not that I would have any such thing) it will take place in some far-off corner of the conference center, down three flights of escalators, where you turn right and head toward the parking garage.

• Disruption In The Rear-View Mirror in Online Spin on 05/09/2017
  

  Two companies that didn't exist 20 years ago -- Google and Facebook -- now account for 20% of all global advertising expenditure. And the speed with which they're gobbling advertising budgets is accelerating. If you're a dilettante student of disruption, as I am, those are pretty amazing numbers.

• Shopping is Dead -- Long Live Shopping! in Online Spin on 05/02/2017
  

  Last week, a delivery truck pulled up in my driveway. As the rear door rolled up, I saw the truck was full of Amazon parcels, including one for me. Between the four of us that live in our house, we have at least one online purchase delivered each week. When compared to the total retail spending we do, perhaps that's not all that significant, but it's a heck of a lot more than we used to spend.

• Every B2B Vendor Must Understand The Status Quo Bias  in Online Spin on 04/25/2017
  

  It's probably the biggest hurdle any B2B vendor has to get over. It's called the Status Quo Bias, and it's deadly in any high-risk purchase scenario.

Comments by Gordon All comments by Gordon

• Too Many Fish In The Sea: The Search For Brand Love by Gord Hotchkiss (Online Spin on 02/21/2017)
  

  Thanks Esther. Ordered and in my Kindle "to read" queue. Stay tuned!

• The Vanishing Value Of The Truth by Gord Hotchkiss (Online Spin on 01/24/2017)
  

  I should have let Clint write the column..as he has much more expertise in Alternate Facts than I do. Your link is taken from an angle to show a full crowd. A much more objective analysis is here:http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/24/fact-check-inauguration-crowd-size/96984496/. But at the end of the day..I'm probably not going to change what you believe based on verifiable facts..and that was the whole point of the column.

• When Evolution (And Democracy) Get It Wrong by Gord Hotchkiss (Online Spin on 11/01/2016)
  

  Paula and John - very interesting thread you've started. I think I'll follow up on this in next week's column.

• The Rise Of The Audience Marketplace by Gord Hotchkiss (Online Spin on 08/30/2016)
  

  Thanks all for your comments. I actually just submitted tomorrow's column before the recent round of comments. There's a lot of potential follow up here..especially Esther and Doc's contributions. I'll be ruminating further on this.

• Media Buying Just Tip Of Advertising's Disruptive Iceberg by Gord Hotchkiss (Online Spin on 08/09/2016)
  

  Thanks Ed and Maarten...great points. Regarding the "Hub" concept, I probably didn't add enough of my own thoughts on this topic, as it wasn't the main point of my column. Rather than a hub, I would place my bets on an aggregated media marketplace that is more democratized than our current models. I think audience identification and customization based on multiple (and smarter) segmentation criteria will move media buying to "audience" acquisition. These thoughts are admittedly off the top of my head. Perhaps I'll fully bake them in a future column. Regarding Maarten's comments on filtering - we essentially agree. I meant "objectivity" and "reliability" in terms of what the consumer perceives those things to be. There are all kinds of biases and personal preferences still in place, but I do contend that we are looking for information sources that we perceive as objective and reliable.

• Trump's Bump: The Scary Appeal Of The Authoritarian Father by Barbara Lippert (Mad Blog on 07/28/2016)
  

  Barbara..in reading this, I was reminded of something I had read in the past. It took me a bit to dig it up..but found it: "From the standpoint of social development, the family cannot be considered the basis of the authoritarian state, only as one of the most important institutions which support it." Another quote, "(the goal is) producing an individual who is adjusted to the authoritarian order and who will submit to it in spite of all misery and degradation. At first the child has to submit to the structure of the authoritarian miniature state, the family; this makes it capable of later subordination to the general authoritarian system." It was from Wilhelm Reich. The work was the Mass Pscyhology of Fascism. It was written in 1933.

• Why Marketers Love Malcolm Gladwell -- & Why They Shouldn't by Gord Hotchkiss (Online Spin on 05/24/2016)
  

  A few additional comments..First..Kenneth - you're absolutely right. Mea culpa. Now..to Ted. Absolutely word of mouth and influencers is a huge factor  - my point - and Duncan Watt's point - is it's not nearly as simply or predictable as Gladwell makes it out to be. Anyone could be an influencer, given the right context. You cite a Fast Company article defending influencer marketing - here's one on the opposite side worth a read: http://www.fastcompany.com/641124/tipping-point-toast. Watts discredited? Not really by any credible academic source - just a lot of marketers pissed off because he's poking holes in their business model. And he's certainly got a lot more empirical evidence behind him than Mr. Gladwell.

• Why Marketers Love Malcolm Gladwell -- & Why They Shouldn't by Gord Hotchkiss (Online Spin on 05/24/2016)
  

  Jeanne - Watts is a very able writer. His prose is accessible - but he is an academic at heart and so doesn't have a habit of jumping to satisfying conclusions, unlike Gladwell. Watts tells things as they appear to be, backed up with empirical evidence, rather than as we wish them to be.

• The Collateral Damage Of Disruption by Gord Hotchkiss (Online Spin on 03/01/2016)
  

  Thanks Kenneth. I'm amazed at how some will find one semantic bone to pick, while skipping over the much more important larger consequences (intended or not). What is important here, as you point out, is the idea of disruption as driven by a technological catalyst and the resulting impact on entire industries. And another important distinction. Hayek and Schumpeter both saw entrepreneurialism as the force that drove creative destruction. But what is interesting about what we're seeing is the role of the user in this, empowered by new technological capabilities and challenging an existing supply chain. There is a networked, distributed dynamism at work here that may be a brand new flavor of disruption.

• The Face Of Disruption by Gord Hotchkiss (Online Spin on 02/23/2016)
  

  Thanks Paula..I assume you mean for President. I would say I don't qualify, but seeing as both Ted Cruz and I were born in Calgary, who knows?

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