With the Super Bowl ads breathing down our necks, it’s time to admit that traditional advertising doesn’t sell shit. Times have changed. No longer is the :30 second TV spot, or the full page print ad a guarantee of anything like a bump in sales. (If it ever was.) That is, of course, unless you’ve got a coupon. No, advertising isn’t advertising any more. When advertising exists as an entertainment vehicle, it’s no longer about sales. It’s about branding. Brands…
Most of what constitutes branded content these days is so formulaic that it’s indecipherable. It’s as though everyone bought the same book and is following it to the letter. It’s boring and uninspiring. And that’s not just an elitist writer saying this. When I read branded content I think from the perspective of the audience. And, well, yawn. Sure, there are some outliers who get it, but most don’t. The problem started a couple of years ago when the benefits…
*** Call me crazy but I don’t trust parking decks Claustrophobic and heavy and with one sneeze of the earth it turns into a pile of rubble. And everyone will be crying bloodied and bruised and covered in ash Except for gangsters Gangsters don’t cry. *** jmitchem
In keeping with a tradition that goes back to 2011, here’s the year in Tweets as seen by me popping in and actually paying attention on Twitter. It was a weird year. More serious and less funny than previous years. And yes, my book came out in 2015 and I was pretty excited, so back off. Click here for 2012, 2013, 2014. @jmitchem – Chapter Five of Minor King – freaking poetry, man. Just read it for the 6th time. —…
Thanksgiving night I had a dream about an Olan Mills photoshoot. Maybe it was some deep memory that bubbled to the surface, but I woke up on Black Friday thinking we’d create something like an Olan Mills photoshoot gone bad for our Christmas card this year. We hadn’t done a Christmas card in a few years, and the last one we did was just like all the others you see from Shutterfly–a grid with pictures of kids, a picture of the…
There once was a boy who wanted to be an astronaut. Or at least an astronomer. He lived in Florida and watched rockets take off from Cape Canaveral in his own backyard. He had big dreams, wild ideas, and routinely got lost in make-believe worlds far, far away. That boy was me. And in 1977, during the summer I turned 12, at the literal peak of my imagination, Star Wars hit theaters. It was early June. School had just let out. I was playing baseball in a…
