Yesterday I had the opportunity to meet Peter Shankman. You probably already know about him, so I don’t have to give you those details. What you probably don’t know is that he’s a really good guy. I met him via Twitter over the winter, and he happened to be in Asheville yesterday, so I drove over from Charlotte. We had a coffee and then I sat in on his keynote address at the Carolina Connect conference, which focused on modern…
This morning I participated in a walk to cure Juvenile Diabetes at our daughters’ school. I didn’t want to go. I had work to do. Two-hours standing outside encouraging 2nd and 3rd graders to keep walking around a big field wasn’t going to be very productive. I needed to finish some projects. I needed to make ends meet. Because that’s the most important thing. I’m an idiot. 20 years ago, my life changed in a moment of clarity when…
A couple of years back, Barack Obama gave a speech. In it, he mentioned that we (America) must ‘brave new directions.’ I immediately checked whether ‘bravenewdirections.com’ was available. It was. I thought it had massive potential for a campaign – whether political or commercial. A command like that doesn’t fall out of the tree every day. Only, my hosting company was migrating servers as the result of an acquisition and my account was temporarily locked. Fearing I might lose the…
My first job was at McDonald’s. Yes, I was issued a pair of brown polyester pants with grease stains from the last guy my size, and did my time flipping burgers and scraping the trap. One of the things I remember about that job was how politeness was part of the culture. When someone removed french fries from the oil, they’d shout ‘Fries are up!’ and at least one person would shout back, ‘Thank you.’ I eventually graduated from the…
I came across this banner ad tonight. I know it’s not as sexy to talk about advertising concepts as it is to talk about the technology that advances these concepts, but I’m a copywriter and this stuff is in my blood. So what’s wrong with this ad? The second I saw it, I targeted the writer as a Junior. It’s not the art direction, as that’s actually a pretty strong visual and I happen to like classic layout. And it’s…
Influence. It’s something that all advertising since the beginning of time has aspired to do. So should brands target influencers in social media? Not just yes, but hell yes. The data available to (the highest bidder) brands today directly identifies audiences in ways that Don Draper could only dream of. If they had the information we have back in the 60s, they’d’ve sent cartons of cigarettes to people who they believed could influence others to smoke a certain brand. Despite…
