Ubiquitous Marketing

Despite a lingering fear that I resorted to too many cliches (though I hope the slight tweaks made it bearable), I really enjoyed writing my recent PRWeek column - to appear both online and in print. Here’s
a snippet:
What Renegade was getting at - and what bears repeating - is that marketing is not spackle, and [...]

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I know; I know. Many (perhaps, even PRWeek) will focus on how GM pulled out of its Survivor sponsorship curiously close to the announcement that teams will be divided by races. And that’s fine. But the question I have, about television sponsorship, in general, is this: what exactly is GM buying with its attachment to [...]

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… and these are the sample posts from Gawker’s soon-to-be-released music Weblog, well, the rest of the music Weblog community is in serious trouble. Because who isn’t clamoring for YouTube’d videos of Tony Snow playing the flute? Or Puff Daddy jokes? The world, that’s who. And, come to think of it, you know who would [...]

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Here.
Please do check out more videos on Beet.TV, run by the estimable Andy Plesser (disclaimer: his PR agency, Plesser Holland Associates, represents my employer PRWeek)

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In the same conversation alluded to two posts agao, the intersection of Apple, design, and marketing came up. My contention, flawed or brilliant as it may be, was that Apple gets a huge pass on glitches and iPod frowny faces. Dell, on the other hand, gets no such pass because its design conveys a product [...]

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I can imagine that a dialogue about how a band name would fare in Google results would be anathema to the true “artiste,” but the unmistakable reality of today’s society is that nearly everything (offline or on) runs through Google. And that includes band names, political slogans, and embarrassing photos that became stored online when [...]

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I had a chance recently to engage a marketer in a long conversation about the disconnect between what corporations want and need, in terms of messaging and public impressions of their brand.
Companies in peril — especially those that are public entities — are handcuffed by the fact that they can’t just retool (both their business [...]

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I came across an interesting thought yesterday as the subway took me home from a post-work drink. While I was listening to Ice Cube and reading the New Yorker, I realized that my demographic was, indeed, very small. Small like… perhaps Sasha Frere-Jones and about sixty-five other people. It might take a one-in-one-thousand shot for [...]

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The recent news that the Academy Awards and IRS (two tastes that taste great together!) have reached an agreement to pay back taxes on swag (the ever-present “gifts” given to celebrities as a product seeding endeavor) will likely have great implications for the consumer marketing community.
What you need to know: come next tax cycle, celebrities [...]

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Posting has been light as I’ve adopted (adapted to) my new position and all the inherent challenges of starting anew. How serendipitious, perhaps, that I’ve switched blogs at the same time. This is still a work in progress (thankfully this environment supports — nee endorses — that. I hope to approach things more from a [...]

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