I just ran for Congress, was on reality TV, was once a brand manager, and have worked at various startups. I'm still figuring out what's next...
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“…the future of business lay in its ability to manufacture customers as well as products.” That’s a quote from an advertising trade publication from the early 1900′s in referencing mass production and the shift from scarcity to abundance. But it struck me as what’s often missed about advertising. Marketing and advertising has two central components [...]
Time magazine writes an article this week on “How to Save Your Newspaper.” Their conclusion? Micropayments. Basically, allow people to pay a small fee, like 5-25 cents for every article they read. The dominant platform for this doesn’t really exist since Paypal charges fees too large to make this viable. I used to think that [...]
Detroit. Mitch Albom is a terrific writer. Think Tuesdays with Morrie and The Five People You’ll Meet in Heaven. Albom has a great way to make characters real, settings come to life, and emotions feel at home within you. He’s a storyteller in the truest sense. Today, I read his latest in Sports Illustrated called [...]
What if Nike expanded their definition of “commercials”? I’ve long been a fan of Nike’s commercials. For fans of sport– those who love playing and watching, Nike has always tried to capture the essence of the sport we love, and of the individuals we admire. I remember the Jordan/Mars Blackman ads, the “tag” commercial, and [...]
What if Pandora had more ways of making money? Pandora, a site where you can basically create a radio station that is right for you, has been one of my favorite websites for the past few years. But based on everything I’ve read, more revenue streams would be a good thing for them. So here [...]
I love Google Maps. I have no sense of direction whatsoever, and since the days of Mapquest on my AOL in the late 90′s I’ve been hooked on the category. Google Maps has always been the best for me given how uncluttered it is, the crisp AJAX display, and recently the actual street views! Oh, [...]
What if McDonalds rethought how they looked at marketing? McD’s is a brand that’s fed its customers for nearly 70 years and fed 47 million people daily. Both its reach and longevity can’t be argued, and are impressive. McD’s makes food that people really like and sells it for a price that can’t be beat. [...]
Nike’s always been known for their kick-ass advertising. When I was at P&G, we regularly studied Nike’s work because it was among the best out there of embodying a brand’s essence. W+K has done it again with the new Nike spot: Courage. Most of you probably saw it this weekend during the Olympics. When I [...]
P.S. Random chunks. Wondering what LinkedIn does? Watch the video. P.P.S. Incredible article in Vanity Fair on what went down at Bear Stearns. Ridiculously fascinating read. P.P.P.S. What the hell is going on with Iran? The New Yorker tells you. And it’s not exactly going to warm the heart.
So I’ve been delinquent with blogging! Life in SF is good, and so that could be why. When you’re running around doing a thousand things, and you’ve broken your regular routine of blogging, it’s easy for that to deteriorate into zero updates. I’ve spent most of my free time working on the book. I’ve got [...]
Delta sucks. And they certainly seem to go out of their way to do so. I’ve flown on Delta almost exclusively over the last 5 years. I’ve wracked up about 200,000 miles cris-crossing the country (with a side-trip to Europe). I’ve put up with some rude employees, no food and often pillows/blankets, uncomfortable seats, and [...]
Everyone wants to capture someone else’s interest. Marketers. Managers. Singles. Parents. Children. Pets. Everyone. I’ve always thought that getting people intensely interested was actually pretty simple. Capture their imagination. That’s it. I took advantage of living in a major city yesterday. I saw a movie before it opened in wide-release. The Assassination of Jesse James [...]
I’ve never posted about any of the radio, newspaper, or tv coverage that’s found it’s way to me since The Apprentice. Mostly because it was all so random and I never really found any of it that interesting. But Advertising Age just announced their “40 under 40″ list, and I’m quite honored (and surprised) to [...]
This post is from: Surya on Marketing (suryaonmarketing.com) I’m making a prediction. By the end of 2007, there will be a slew of mainstream media stories on Facebook vs MySpace. I further believe that they will have the tone that the previous MySpace vs Friendster stories had: breathless accounts of how Friendster (and this time, [...]
I’m going to cross-post this on suryasays.com and suryaonmarketing.com (SoM) What’s that? SoM is going to be a site where I post my random thoughts on marketing and sometimes business in general. I’m going to focus on two areas of marketing: general marketing fundamentals and technology marketing. To read why I’m doing this site, you’ll [...]