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In times square this weekend, I spotted a long billboard with mathematical equations and schematic drawings along with the cryptic URL – www.beyondthedrawingboard.com. Unfortunately, a visit to the website delivers neither a new online community for tech geeks, nor an innovative new virtual drawing board for users to collaborate on. Instead, the site is nothing … Read more
I’m at the Search Engine Strategies Conference in New York and will be participating in a panel discussion tomorrow about agencies and search. The topic raises an interesting discussion about where search engine marketing should fit. Is it a PR activity? An advertising program? These are the questions that not only agencies are struggling with, … Read more
Using celebrity spokespeople can be a tricky thing – especially when it comes to athletes and sports sponsorships. Nike and Visa both learned this with their ill-fated Olympic sponsorships of Bode Miller and Lindsay Jacobellis, respectively. Both turned out disappointing performances, with Bode Miller coming off as a total ass yesterday with his declaration that … Read more
As most good content publishers know, there are moments where a highly relevant "nugget" of content from your site will be the piece that generates the largest number of searches and a surge in site traffic. For content publishers offering Winter Olympic coverage, that nugget is definitely the Olympic Medal Count. To reach all the … Read more
I read an interesting piece in the NY times today about a new site being launched by Sony Pictures around the upcoming release of a screen version of Dan Brown’s bestseller, The Da Vinci Code. The book has fired up many traditional Christians and the Catholic church with it’s premise that Jesus was not resurrected, … Read more
In this month’s issue, Wired magazine asked several visionary thinkers to assign a new word to the future of the Internet. Paul McFedries, author of Word Spy, mentioned the term: Infosphere … an apt term for the current state and future potential of the web. The growth of information resources online has been symbolized by … Read more
Every year there are lists of the best and worst ads from the Super Bowl – and usually I look at them with frustration because they have nothing to do with advertising effectiveness … just pure entertainment. Entertainment is fine, but it’s hard to imagine that any of the advertisers in the Super Bowl will … Read more
As part of the merger between US Airways and America West airlines announced in November last year (2005), they had an intriguing new decision to make about the beverage brands that they served on their flights. America West had Pepsi and Budweiser, US Airways had Coke and Miller. Over the past decade, both brands in … Read more
One of the biggest hurdles that online publishers have faced in trying to make money from content has been the lack of a single standard for micropayments. While services like Paypal have made strides in popularizing a form of digital cash, micropayments of less than 1 cent still remain impossible online. As a result, sites … Read more
I remember about five or six years ago going through Coke’s brand guidelines for agencies in preparation for a project we were about to design for them. It was a nearly 50 page document with details about everything from pantone colors, to reverse out instructions to where to place the trademark symbol in relation to … Read more
Non-Obvious Thinking is my upcoming book about the 4 secrets of becoming a non-obvious thinker - coming 09/24!
Rohit Bhargava is a trend curator, founder of the Non-Obvious Company and the 3-time Wall Street Journal bestselling author of ten books.
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Rohit is the author of 10 books on trends, the future of business, building a more human brand with storytelling and how to create a more diverse and inclusive world.
