Three years ago, around the end of 4th quarter I was talking with Christopher S. Penn about the shortage of interesting things going on in the industry at the end of the year. Everyone is trying to close business for the end of the year, retailers are flat out with the holiday crush, and the back to back dietary threat of Thanksgiving and Christmas eliminate the chance of much excitement in...

Yesterday I saw two demonstrations of  Barry Schwartz’s Paradox of Choice in action. This is one of the most useful books about decision making that I have found, and is a must read for anyone in marketing. Jeff Bussgang asked why everyone still uses 4 year vesting schedules at startups when, in the current economy, exits usually take longer. For those that don’t speak VC...

Mr. Penn had a good post last week about refreshing quality content that’s deep in the archives, and I was looking for something that dealt with authenticity. Authenticity is one of the topics that came up in last week’s Marketing Over Coffee interview with Simon Sinek, which I highly recommend, it is one of my favorite interviews: Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or...

A few years back we went with our neighbors to make some beer at the local self brewery. I made up some custom labels for us and stumbled upon them last week and I still got a laugh out of them so I thought it would be worth posting. The beer was a light lemon brew, a summer beer. I started with the Sam Adams Label for inspiration: Our friend does an excellent job landscaping and takes...

Even though I said I was taking November off, I’m back again. A friend asked me about recording a phone interview and I wrote so much that I thought it would be a shame not to get a post out of it too. The Phone Tree Option in Order of Sound Quality: Best – Skype to Skype Still good – Skype to regular phone (Skype Out) A lot of people use this if your interview subject...

At WebInno tonight there’s a panel on bootstrapping PR. You can get the bios of the panelists and an overview of the event here. Some overall pointers on how to get attention. Quotes are direct, stuff without quotes are my summaries. Bob Brown: “CEOs need personality” Journalists are becoming cognizant of page views. Peter Kafka: “Get a referral from someone I...

While in Traverse City, Michigan over vacation (“Up North”) for those in the know, I came across a store called M-22. They had casual clothing with the M-22 logo on it, a highway that runs along the coastline and is travelled by kiteboarders. You can read their story here and check out their stuff. In the store you can see that the merchandising was done with the brand in mind...

I’ve used Samsonite luggage all of my life. My parents gave me an old school suitcase when I was a kid (back when one of their competitors had an ad with a gorilla beating the crap out of a suitcase). When I graduated from college I had a Samsonite Briefcase (yes, and I even wore a suit to work too, every day), and a garment bag that I put 5 years of heavy travel on before it finally...

I had a question come in this week about event sponsorship. There are a lot of grassroots events out there and that in the current economy you might think it would be difficult to find sponsors but it’s actually easier than ever. As far as what sponsors are looking for, it’s very simple, the majority of them just want to sell more stuff. Companies that are Marketing savvy may be...

I have been very impressed with CVS Pharmacy‘s program that goes above and beyond. Popularity: 1% [?]