When my boss (AKA my wife and business partner) gave me a copy of THE Boss’ autobiography, I tried not to look like an ingrate, even though I anticipated it would be hard slogging. And that, my friends, is lesson #1 of this newsletter: keep your mind open, not just to the potential of any author to entertain you but also to the possibility that useful lessons—whether for life ...

If you’ve avoided CES for fear of being overrun by 177,293 gadget geeks or simply because you loathe the very idea of Vegas baby, don’t worry, your intrepid team of Renegades has got you covered. We spent two days scouring the 2.47 million square feet of exhibit space in search of news you could use. And in between the dumb (Bluetooth hair brushes) and dumber (vacuum cleaner shoes), we ...

About the only thing we know for certain is that 2017 will be a new year (thanks, Captain Obvious!), and change will abound—much of which will be way beyond the control of the marketing department. So what is a renegade thinker to do in the face of this uncertainty? One trend we’ve observed among successful companies is a renewed focus on the internal audience—i.e., their employees—...

It’s not that your content sucks; in fact, it might even be pretty darn good. It’s just that every minute of every day there are 1300 more blog posts, 360 thousand more tweets, 1.7 million more Facebook posts and 2 million more videos uploaded to YouTube. And that only accounts for a few channels. Which means your content is simply being drowned out in an ever-quickening deluge of words and images. ...

The unfortunate truth for marketers is that people trust people a lot more than they trust brands. To address this trust deficit, marketers are increasingly turning to people — both within and outside their organizations — to get their messages heard. And while employee advocacy is indeed a great way to cut through (and one we’ll discuss in another newsletter), today we’re going to help reframe your thinking about ...

We’re guessing that World Space Week is not yet on your planning radar, and unless you happen to work for NASA, Lockheed Martin or IMAX (which is airing a galaxy of recent sci-fi giants that week) we totally understand. Nonetheless, we’d like to suggest that you take the week of October 4 as a time to explore new horizons for your brands and accelerate the opportunity for your ...

“Publish or perish” – a commonly known directive once applied exclusively to university professors. But today, every brand from the personal to the corporate giant, needs to have a plan for creating and distributing content that connects them with their prospects and customers.

Easier said than done. Becoming a publisher whose content cuts through is one of the greatest challenges marketers face today.

To help Renegade ...

While the citizens of Great Britain were contemplating a departure from the European Union last week, more than 300 social media devotees convened in Brooklyn at the Corporate Social Media Summit to challenge, if not leave behind, the conventional wisdom of years past. Though the outcome of this gathering was hardly of the historical significance of the Brexit vote, it did yield a new vision for marketers seeking to get ...

In the 1960s classic “The Graduate,” a young Dustin Hoffman is comically “enlightened” about the future with one infamous word: “plastics.” Today, we suspect that same smarmy grownup might proclaim “video” as the key to unlocking a successful future. And like he was back then, we’d judge him to be half-right.

Video is going to play an increasingly important role in marketing, and here are six ...