A couple of weeks ago, I had the good fortune to be interviewed by Dan Raviv, a correspondent for CBS Radio. During our conversation, Dan asked me what “elements” he should mix together to help build an audience for the CBS News Weekend Roundup radio show. I hemmed and hawed a bit, suggesting he start with his target audience. He probed…
This past weekend, New York City had one of its biggest snowstorms ever, and, as usual, this presented an opportunity for brands to engage in the social conversation. Not surprisingly, New Yorkers expressed a lot of joy, surprise and down right frustration across social channels. What was surprising is that as the snow and chatter piled up across Gotham, most…
Mark Hanna, CMO at Richline Group, is a diehard New England Patriots fan and like all of his brethren is in a good mood as the Pats rack up more post season victories. I try not to hold this kind of fanaticism or misplaced loyalty against Mark — I mean you can’t really blame a guy for where they were born, right? And…
As this is my first blog post of the year, I’d like to focus your attention on the power of positivity. Don’t gag! Seriously, the first step to getting something big (or little) accomplished is believing that you can. Conversely, if you harbor negative thoughts about a particular challenge chances are you will outright fail and then fall back on the…
Admittedly, I’m a biased blogger. I love big ideas. And I am more than happy to celebrate big ideas even if my agency had no hand in creating them. Think of it as a form of largesse. Or jealousy. Either way, Revlon’s “Love is On” campaign meets all of my criteria for a big idea: 1) It’s emotional. What’s more emotional…
Hu-Friedy is a mouthful of a brand name which may or may not have been on the mind of Hugo Friedman when he founded his dental instrument company back in 1908. More than a century later, Hu-Friedy is a global leader in its category and yet, quite remarkably still completes 80% of the manufacturing process by hand. According to their website, “they meticulously…
Sometimes a single blog post can’t span the breadth of what I’ve learned from a particular CMO. This is definitely the case with Steven Handmaker, CMO at Assurance, winner of The CMO Club Leadership Award who also joined me for the opening panel at Incite’s Content Marketing Summit. While the interview below focuses on his approach to leadership, it doesn’t cover what…
Content marketing is one of those things that is easy to talk about yet extremely hard to get right. It’s not enough to have a clear strategy although that is essential. It’s not enough to tell compelling stories across a wide range of platforms. Even with paid media driving views and influencers adding their audiences, there is no guarantee that your…
Just when you’d thought you’d wrapped your marketing minds around millennials, along comes Gen Z to really mess with your head. Born between 1996 and 2013, the oldest part of this group is just now entering college, wreaking havoc with their multi-tasking mobile mindset and no doubt, creating huge challenges for the marketers trying to engage with them. One such…
I’m on the phone the other day with my friend John Hall of Influence & Co and casually ask, “Do you know any Chicago-based wizards of content marketing that would be good panelists?” [My inquiry was anything but casual in that I’m emceeing the first day of Incite’s Content Marketing Summit and I’m a stickler for getting sharp and articulate panelists thus…