Brand strategist Karen Kang puts the importance of personal reinvention bluntly: “Consider yourself a free agent—no one else is looking out for your best interests but yourself. You need to be crystal clear about who you are and the value you bring to a world where constant change is the only norm.” That’s the premise [...]
May 06, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features, Insights, Marketing | Tags: Apple, brand communications plan, brand strategy, BrandingPays, business school, Cake, change, companies of one, constant change, emotional value, Forbes, free agent, Genentech, hypercompetitive, icing, image, Intel, Karen Kang, Marketing, personal brand, personal branding, promotion, rational value, Regis McKenna, reinvention, reputation, self-marketing, Silicon Valley, values | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] It used to be that receiving a CEO title—and the corner office and tufted-leather sofa that came with it—was the acme of professional success. It was the recognition of a lifetime of hard work, of moving up the ranks, of following the path to its pinnacle. Once you’d arrived there, where [...]
Mar 22, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features, Marketing | Tags: 20-something, ad sales, adventure, America's Cup, Arielle Patrice Scott, Bianca Bosker, Bill Gates, billionaire, brand, Bravo, cable TV, CEO, college, corner office, corporate, corporate brand, Daily Candy, daredevil, digital, dropout, entertainment, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, Facebook, Fandango, fearlessness, female entrepreneur, Green Is Universal, hard work, Harvard, Healthy at NBCU, Henry Ford, Hispanics at NBCU, innovation, innovators, integrated media, InternshipIn, iVillage, kite surfing, Larry Ellison, Lean In, Marissa Mayer, Mark Zuckerberg, Marketing, mavericks, mobile, monetization, MTV, mun2, NBC Universal, Oxygen, personal brand, rebellion, revenue, Richard Branson, risk, risk taking, rule breaking, sailing, sexy, shareholders, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, social, spiritual growth, Sprout, Stanford, startup, Steve Jobs, Technology, telecommuting, Telemundo, the Huffington Post, Thiel Fellowship, title, TV One, Virgin, Walt Disney, women, Women at NBCU, Yahoo | Leave A Comment »
With the rise of DogTV and gourmet pet chow, it was just a matter of time before we extended canine luxury to living quarters. High-end doggie daycare has been around for a while, but only recently have the offerings become so numerous. In Manhattan, there’s the Ruff Club, which prides itself on being both exclusive [...]
Feb 11, 2013 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Marketing, Trends | Tags: Animalle Mundo, doggie daycare, dogs, DogTV, luxury, Marketing, pet luxury, pets, Pierre hotel, Pooch Hotel, Ruff Club | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] I recently got a humorous pitch from a real estate agent in New Hampshire, where, he wrote in his email, “there is a theme-branding wave that is part capricious, part serious business.” At first his proposal made me giggle, but then I saw how it reflects the ways in which personal branding [...]
Jan 15, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features, Marketing, Politics | Tags: branding, Brands, community branding, corporate branding, freedom, identity, libertarian, liberty, Live Free or Die, Marketing, New Hampshire, PorcFest, porcupine, real estate, state | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] To a certain extent—in this age of marketing ourselves, finding our niches and explaining how our distinctive personal backstories make for unique selling propositions—all our names are brand names. But some have gone above and way beyond. That’s especially true in the world of fashion, where some of the most iconic [...]
Dec 19, 2012 | Categories:Brands, Fashion, Features, Marketing, Trends | Tags: Alexander Wang, Balenciaga, brand, brand name, Brands, Chanel, CSR, Dita Von Teese, Donna Karan, entrepreneur, evolution, Fashion, Karl Lagerfeld, Kenneth Cole, Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Marketing, Martha Stewart, personal branding, personality, Ralph Lauren, risks, The New York Times, Tommy Hilfiger | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] It’s not news that this is the Age of the Personal Brand. Never before have people of all stripes had to—or wanted to—work so hard to sell their own unique service proposition. Mostly that’s a good thing for workers and businesses, but lately it has started to seem that it might [...]
Dec 11, 2012 | Categories:Brands, Features, Marketing, Trends | Tags: accountant, career, Forbes.com, generalist, lawyer, Marketing, personal brand, personal branding, positioning, service, service practitioner, The New York Times Magazine, therapist | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] Who’s kidding whom? Reading through my company’s latest Prosumer Report, “Aging: Moving Beyond Youth Culture,” I was struck that around three-quarters of respondents to our 19-country survey say they intend to age gracefully rather than fight it every step of the way. Yet, as the report points out, pharmacies are stocked [...]
Aug 20, 2012 | Categories:CSR, Features, Health and Wellness, Media, Trends, Youth | Tags: "Aging: Moving Beyond Youth Culture", aging, anti-aging, BCC Research, brain, brain health, Canada, communications, consumers, corporate social responsibility, CSR, Daniel Kahneman, Edward Bernays, euro rscg, Fast and Slow, Forbes.com, gratification, marketers, Marketing, Michael Bloomberg, mobility, Neuromarketing, Nobel Prize for Economics, old age, Prosumer Report, Robert Trivers, Thinking, unconscious desires, United States, Youth, youthful | Leave A Comment »
[Originally published in longer form on Stamford magazine’s website.] It’s as much a part of today’s office culture as mediocre coffee and birthday cupcakes from the nearest deli—and a whole lot more fun and useful for maintaining sanity. I’m talking about the work spouse, that person who is a sometime confidant, habitual significant partner and [...]
Aug 10, 2012 | Categories:Advertising, Features, Marketing, PR | Tags: 30 Rock, Advertising, Captivate Networks, collaboration, Facebook, HR, IM, Marketing, marketing communications, OfficeMax, sales, significant other, the Accidental Adult, the Huffington Post, Twitter, work husband, work spouse, work wife | Leave A Comment »
Are you looking for new ways to make inroads with African-American customers or clients? Community outreach might be the ticket. In fact, 84 percent of African Americans agree that companies that make sincere efforts to be a part of their local community deserve their loyalty, according to the Yankelovich Monitor “Multicultural Study 2010.” By incorporating [...]
Jul 23, 2012 | Categories:Brands, CSR, Features, Health and Wellness, Marketing, PR | Tags: African American, audit, community, community outreach, eye health, health, local, Marketing, multicultural, National Council of Negro Women, partnership, Transitions Optical | Leave A Comment »
If you haven’t heard about Fifty Shades of Grey, then you’ve likely been living under a rock. The book trilogy written by British author E.L. James started as an ode to the “Twilight” saga on FanFiction.net—a site where fans of celebrities, books or TV shows will write stories based on established characters—and has since taken [...]
Jun 18, 2012 | Categories:Features, Marketing, Media, PR | Tags: adult toys, Angelina Jolie, best-seller, E.L. James, Fifty Shades of Grey, Focus Features, licensing, Marketing, New York Times best-seller, product launch, Twilight, Universal Pictures, USA Today | Leave A Comment »
Many of you reading this have worked in marketing, advertising or PR and have made a lifelong career out of building brands and selling products in many categories. But have you ever taken the time to think of what you have to offer the world as a product? Maybe it’s your ability to write great [...]
Jun 13, 2012 | Categories:Advertising, Brands, Features, Marketing, PR, Social Media, Technology, Trends | Tags: adland, Advertising, Advertising Age, Apple, Brand Me, freelancing, linchpins, Marketing, personal brand, Pinterest, polyglots, PR, public relations, self-curation, Seth Godin | Leave A Comment »
What can we learn from people who have created a brilliant Brand Me? In today’s highly curated world of social networking, it’s more important than ever to let your personal brand beacon hit new heights. Your brand can incorporate everything from the hobbies you pursue in off-hours (as if that exists with the always-on, 24/7/365 [...]
Jun 04, 2012 | Categories:Brands, Fashion, Features, Insights, Marketing, Social Media, Technology | Tags: ambition, Apple, Bethenny Frankel, blog, blogosphere, Brand Me, Brands, business, C-suite, CEO, confidence, creativity, customer service, Dunkin' Donuts, Erika Napoletano, fearlessness, good, good taste, innovation, Internet, Lauren Bush, LeBron James, LinkExchange, Marketing, Microsoft, Nike, personal brand, planning, Ralph Lauren, RedheadWriting, Richard Branson, SapientNitro, Skinnygirl, Social Media, Steve Jobs, Tony Hsieh, Virgin Atlantic, Zappos | Leave A Comment »
It’s been the inspiration for popular classic songs from Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” and Elvis Presley’s “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” to the Beatles’ “Eleanor Rigby.” It’s an inescapable element of the human condition, as old as time. And as solo living becomes more popular, we debate the relationship to a growing [...]
Apr 25, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Health and Wellness, Marketing, Social Media, Trends | Tags: elderly, elderly lonely, Elvis Presley, George Clooney, Hank Williams, Jeff, kodokushi, loneliness, lonely, lonely deaths, lonesome, Marketing, meme, One Lonely Guy, psychology, seniors, seniors lonely, Social Media, songs about loneliness, The Beatles, Tokyo, viral | Leave A Comment »
The concept of targeted advertising has taken a bit of a PR punch in the gut just lately. First, there was the story of the teenaged Target customer who was sent pregnancy-related offers before she’d told her family she was expecting. Target has admitted to tasking a statistician with making educated guesses about its shoppers—but [...]
Apr 23, 2012 | Categories:Advertising, Brainsnacks, Marketing, PR, Social Media, Trends | Tags: America, browsing history, data tracking, Google, Marketing, online privacy, privacy, search engines, Target, targeted ads, technology trends | Leave A Comment »
Following the wild success of author Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games, dystopian fare is being called the next big thing in young adult fiction—set to steal attention away from all the vampire romances that have quickened our pulses in recent years. The best-selling Hunger Games trilogy, about a 16-year-old heroine in a post-apocalyptic world, has [...]
Apr 10, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Marketing, Trends, Youth | Tags: Christian radio, dystopia, end of the world, film trends, Harold Camping, Marketing, Mayan calendar, NASA, post-apocalyptic world, publishing, publishing trends, Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games, young adult, young adult trends | Leave A Comment »
Biking: a boon to the environment or urban nuisance on wheels? It depends on whom you ask. Turns out that the growing number of bicyclists in cities around the world are subject to a bit of a backlash—call it a “backpedal.” And nowhere are the complaints more loudly heard than in New York City (natch). [...]
Jan 27, 2012 | Categories:Advertising, Brainsnacks, Marketing, Politics, PR, Trends | Tags: Advertising, American cyclists, bicycle, bicycle accident, bicyclist, biking, biking accident, British cyclists, Dutch cyclists, environmental movements, global trends, Marketing, Politics, public relations, transportation trends | Leave A Comment »
St. Petersburg, Fla., is the saddest U.S. city; Austin the funniest; and Nashville the manliest. The loneliest city on the entire planet? Dublin. And the very best city to live in all the world is … (drumroll, please) … Vancouver. Have qualms with any of these or questions about how they were chosen? So do [...]
Jan 25, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Brands, PR, Social Media | Tags: Advertising, Austin, city lists, city rankings, Detroit, Dublin, happiest city, Marketing, marketing trends, Nashville, public relations, saddest city, Social Media, sponsorship, St. Petersburg, Top 10 lists, transportation, urban planning, Vancouver | Leave A Comment »
It’s so 2008 to complain that Mom and Dad have joined Facebook. The platform long ago ceased playing host to mostly college kids and their keg party pictures. These days, the average age of an American Facebook user has risen, to 38 in 2010, up from 33 in 2008. (Also of note: This average user [...]
Dec 14, 2011 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Marketing, Social Media, Trends | Tags: Advertising, aging, baby boomers, elderly, Facebook, Kevin Bacon, Marketing, Medicare, seniors, six degrees of separation, social connections, Social Media, SoMe, Twitter | Leave A Comment »
Have you noticed a gender stereotype emerging in some of today’s humorous ads? (Brands such as Dodge, Dockers, Dove and Miller Lite come to mind.) Each ad has in common a hapless male weathering his wife’s requests while longing to reclaim his manhood. In spite of some backlash, this new generation of ads is an [...]
Dec 12, 2011 | Categories:Advertising, Brainsnacks, Brands, Fashion, Marketing, Social Media, Trends | Tags: Advertising, Chechnya, controversy, Dockers, Dodge, Dove, Dr Pepper, female consumers, feminism, gender, Marketing, Miller Lite, sex, Summer's Eve, women | Leave A Comment »
Now that the social media footprint of corporate brands has been directly linked to a company’s growth and value, more emphasis is being put on the how-tos of branding via social media. For one, there’s the matter of “likes” and comments and how to get them. Comments, especially, are valuable to brands, as they lead [...]
Dec 05, 2011 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Brands, Fashion, Social Media, Technology, Trends | Tags: Advertising, Bank of America, branding, damage control, Facebook, Google Plus, Harvard Business School, Marketing, promotion, public relations, Social Media, Tory Burch, Twitter | Leave A Comment »
These days life’s great balancing act concerns not just the demands of work and personal relationships but of media outlets, as the majority of us are guilty of simultaneously checking email or Facebook while watching the tube. And while advertisers are over the moon about what “multiscreening” could mean for their clients—considering that 38 percent [...]
Nov 29, 2011 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Health and Wellness, Social Media, Technology, Trends | Tags: BlackBerry, computer, cultural trends, iPad, Marketing, mindfulness, multiscreening, multitasking, simplicity, smartphone, Social Media, texting while driving, TV | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on the Huffington Post.] Everybody’s talking about the inevitable social media fatigue setting in, but I myself am having a wicked case of brain blur. At any given time, my head is filled with ways to solve problems that often have no answer, as in trying to make sense of how to communicate [...]
Nov 04, 2011 | Categories:Features, Marketing, Media, PR, Social Media | Tags: ABC, Amanda Knox, Amazon, blur, brain blur, J.C. Penney, Jeff Bezos, Marketing, McDonald's, Microsoft, Missoni, PR, public relations, Social Media, social media fatigue, Steve Jobs, Target, Twitter, Wal-Mart, Wall Street, Yahoo | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on the Holmes Report.] It’s been almost three years since we first heard about Bernie Madoff and his Machiavellian Ponzi scheme that ruthlessly cheated people out of millions of dollars. But now that Stephanie Madoff Mack (the widow of Bernie’s son Mark, who hung himself last December) has published an autobiography, The End [...]
Oct 27, 2011 | Categories:Brands, Features, Insights | Tags: Bernie Madoff, brand, branding, greed, Marketing, Ponzi, PR, rebrand, reputation, Ruth Madoff, shame, Stephanie Madoff Mack, The End of Normal | Leave A Comment »
Emoticon Marketing As emoticons pick up steam, more marketers—and even scholars—turn to them for sentiment analysis If you believe the New York Times, there’s been an explosion of emoticon usage in the email exchanges of the dourest of colleagues; if you believe Jezebel,
Oct 26, 2011 | Categories:Brainsnacks | Tags: Apple, communication, email, emoticons, JELL-O Pudding Mood Monitor, Marketing, marketing research, mood, mood research, social marketing, Social Media, text messages, texting, Twitter | Leave A Comment »
