If you’re looking for hot topics and insights on brands, businesses, and the people who work on them, here’s a digest of my content from the past month: brand experience: McDonald’s Metro: Lipstick on a Pig – a post about how McDonald’s new Metro concept only looks better, when it needs to actually be better […]

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Change happens.  That’s not just a bumper sticker slogan; it’s the state of business today.  Mastering change requires new ways of thinking, talking about, and doing business. I believe the leading companies in 2011 and beyond will distinguish themselves by embracing these five ideas: […]

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Now that summer is officially here, I wanted to take a look back at the past 6 months and see what kinds of conversations had been sparked by brand-as-business bites. The following are the top posts from each month in terms of number of re-tweets, comments, or emails they generated – I’ve also included some […]

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Rich Thomaselli from Advertising Age called me recently for some comments for an article he was writing, “If Consumer Is Your Agency, It’s Time for a Review.”  The piece turned out to be a great analysis of how the use of John Q. Public to develop ads has “jumped the shark” (as Rich refers to […]

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I’m fascinated by the recent flurry of activity of designer PCs.  Having worked at Sony during the early years of VAIO (perhaps the first fashionable PC line, launched with its distinctive violet color and sleek features and all), it’s pretty amazing to me to see how the category has developed. […]

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Recently Ad Age published a list of what it considered to be “America’s Hottest Brands.”   The list featured 40 brands that are “setting the pace for innovation — and getting results – right now.”  Although their selection criteria wasn’t clear and I can’t say I agree with all of the choices, I did find some […]

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Last week’s Ad Age featured an article called “Why It’s Time to Do Away With the Brand Manager.” The piece, and the Forrester research report which inspired it, argues for “changing the name ‘brand manager‘ to ‘brand advocate,’ and fundamentally changing marketer organizations in response to the onset of the digital age.” It reminded me […]

Last week Ad Age announced that Anheuser-Busch InBev is holding an online contest in China in which consumers can pitch ideas for a Budweiser TV spot which will run during next year’s Chinese New Year.  The only brief to the aspiring ad-makers:  the commercial must include ants (a recurring theme for the brand’s Chinese New […]

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This week’s AdAge features a troubling piece, Want More Out of Your Agencies? Write Better Briefs:  Execs at Top Shops Say Clients Are Unclear About What’s Expected, Leading to Lots of Wasted Time.  The article cites research […]