STEVE SMITH

Articles by Steve All articles by Steve

• P&G Goes Native: D2C Deodorant Tests New Paths To Brand Building in Brand Insider on 07/03/2020
  

  When P&G acquired the all-natural deodorant brand Native in 2017, it saw more there than a hip, pricey deodorant for the tree-hugger demo.

• Ferrero And The Great Chocolate Search Of 2020 in Brand Insider on 06/26/2020
  

  The company's ecommerce partners became critical for maintaining sales as strung-out chocoholics scrambled for their comfort fix.

• With Influencers And OTT, Tula's Strategy Soothes The Savage Sales Crisis in Brand Insider on 06/19/2020
  

  The company's online sales even made up for its lost brick-and-mortar sales at premium retailers like Ulta.

• Ro Learns To Sell Telehealth By Not Selling Telehealth in Brand Insider on 06/12/2020
  

  It is hard to imagine a category more relevant to consumers during a pandemic crisis than telehealth.

• Live From Aisle 3: Grocery Outlet Walks The 'Here For You' Walk in Brand Insider on 06/04/2020
  

  Store managers at many of its 350 independently owned stores hit Facebook Live in the morning to give real-time reports on what essential goods were coming off the delivery truck palettes. Just one case where Grocery Outlet zigged when others zagged in response to the crisis.

• 'Protect the Margins': Spread The Love Masters Amazon CPG Channel With A Simple Mantra in Brand Insider on 05/29/2020
  

  Eschewing VC funding and focusing on B2B and a single Amazon consumer channel paid off big for nut butter company company Spread The Love.

• Skullcandy's 'Content-to-Commerce' Model Was Ready For A Crisis in Brand Insider on 05/21/2020
  

  For headphone maker Skullcandy, its "Mood Boost" campaign and product releases were well-tuned to the lockdowns. And it was easy to double down on a content-first strategy, CMO Jessica Klodnicki tells "Brand Insider."

• 'A Fear of Not Working, And a Fear of Working': Indeed.com's Singular Perspective On A Singular Crisis in Brand Insider on 05/13/2020
  

  The largest job search engine comes at the COVID-19 crisis from several unique perspectives. As Indeed CMO Paul D'Arcy told us hours after the release of the historically tragic jobs report last week, his site is more than an activity meter around job searches during these challenging months.

• Zenni Optical Positioned To Trump Hipness With Value in Brand Insider on 05/07/2020
  

  This could prove to be a record year for a brand that was doing D2C eyewear many years before Warby Parker made it cool.

• Slumberkins: Coping And Comfort Sell Themselves Now in Brand Insider on 04/29/2020
  

  Slumberkins was built for this crisis, even if the founders of the emotional learning brand never quite had it in mind. In 2016, best buds Callie Christensen and Kelly Oriard applied their backgrounds in education, therapy (and being moms) to pairing cuddly creature toys with board books that taught youngsters lessons in emotional coping and socialization. First sold on Etsy, then accelerated by a "Shark Tank" appearance, the company has grown exponentially mainly on the strength of its deep social media interactions and organic growth. Christensen and her VP of Marketing, Vanessa Holfert, joined us to discuss growing a social-first brand. It turns out the Slumberkins product and marketing model were well-positioned to serve the needs of the current situation.

Comments by Steve All comments by Steve

• 'Mad' Magazine's Famed Cartoonist Mort Drucker Dies At 91 by Melynda Fuller (Publishers Daily on 04/09/2020)
  

  Drucker's style was our childhood entryway to American TV and film for many of us. Everyone both at MAD and at all of its imitators tried to imitate Drucker. But even as a kid I could tell the real thing from the copycats. No one tutored us more effectively in how not to take these media industries too seriously. Like Jack Davis, Wally Wood, John Severin, Drucker's pemcil and brush had an outsized power in our lives and culture. Thanks Mort.

• Obit: Pioneering Magazine Publisher Hugh Hefner, Dead At 91 by Joe Mandese (Publishers Daily on 09/28/2017)
  

  Malcolm X, Norman Mailer, Saul Bellow, James Baldwin, Jimmy Carter, Alex Haley (who originally interviewed Malcolm X for Playboy), Erica Jong, Germaine Greer, Bella Abzug, David Bowie - just a few of the interviews that still resonate for me decades later becasue they went deeper.and got closer to the figure's voice than anything else available. All of it sat within a package that was also irredeemably sexist and unapologetically wedded to the shallowest material pleasures of consumer culture. Somehow they were all of a frightening, contradictory, delusional, brilliant, craven, dazzling, piece that was America itself in the last half of the 20th Century.       

• GenerationVexed by Bob Garfield (Garfield at Large on 04/10/2017)
  

  This is the fake news we need more of.

• The Trump-ification Of 2016: The Super Bowl Implodes by Steve Smith (Mobile Insider on 02/08/2016)
  

  Luke. Thanks for that. Nice evolution of the argument. Although post-mass culture is more manageable than post-mass politics. Democracy still demands majorities to move forward. Mutli-party systems worldwide have long had to rely on coalition-building among varied three and four parties. One argument goes that the American two party system is already now based on coalitions of unlike-minded segments, and have been since the late 60s and the original Nixon Southern Strategy. Reagan's coalition of the blue collars, evangelixals and country club has always been an uncomfortable marriage. We are now seeing the seams show.  

• The Trump-ification Of 2016: The Super Bowl Implodes by Steve Smith (Mobile Insider on 02/08/2016)
  

  Thanks Jon, Peter and both Georges for your comments. But take heart. I may sound depresssed, and this may all seem very depressing. But I think there is a real hunger for creative thinking in both commercial and political fields. History shows (American Renaissance, Civil War, Progressive Era, Great Depression, Modernism, post-WWII pop and high art in America) that it takes a loss of faith in old institutions to make us receptive to new ideas.  

• Remembering A Legend We Lost In 2015: Joe Franklin by Adam Buckman (TVBlog on 12/15/2015)
  

  The WOR TV show was integral to my own passion for pop culture and respect for the troupers who hoofed, crooned, astonished and touched us from the stage. Joe had a humbling envy/respect of performers. His hospitality to performers of all stripes was an object lesson for budding media critics like myself that the people we wrote about were putting themselves out there in ways we never would. 

• A Mass Medium Without Mass Media: Live TV Losing Default Status by Steve Smith (Data and Targeting Insider on 07/27/2015)
  

  Hi all. I agree with your reticence over trusting self-reported data, which is why I mentioned that caveat. The research is a tracking study of 1200 US TV viewers with broadband access, so there is a skew built into the sample. But what I found most interesting in this research was the attitudinal implications - the ways in which users admitted to watching TV with different levels of engagement and attention according to situation and source. This part of the research I find very recognizable in my and my household's own behavior has to do wil how and why we choose different sources. OTT video is chosen much more deliberately I think and is my default source for content I am ready to pay attention to. On the other hand, most live TV is on because I have made a choice not to pay close attention while I peruse books or a second screen. 

• Verizon's 'No Cord Required' Mobile Video Service Launching Soon? by Steve Smith (MoBlog on 07/26/2015)
  

  @JS Oops. Missing work. The phrase should read "an OTT video market that will not lack players." Corrected. 

• A Modest Proposal: Truly 'Native' Mobile Advertising by Steve Smith (MoBlog on 07/16/2015)
  

  DanielYes some vendors tried on their own to do this, which is why I am suggesting it needs to be done at the OS level or as a common standard within the infrastructure. Single players trying to make it happen won't 

• Mobile Wallets And The Great 'Someday' Brigade by Steve Smith (MoBlog on 06/25/2015)
  

  Exactly.

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