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Food Transparency and When Storytelling Can Backfire

Storytelling can shape consumer perception, but it may also have an underappreciated downside. When journalist Amy Wu was invited by Iowa Select Farms to tour their pork production operations, she noted that taking a consumer into a farm to show “food transparency” is a good idea in principle, but it doesn’t change the fact that … Read more

Tinder’s Redesign Prioritizes Your Looks and Profile Photos

Judging whether you want to get to know someone romantically solely based on their photos has become such a commonplace behavior that “swiping left” has its own meaning. That is about to get even more prevalent as Tinder’s latest redesign prioritizes the images you upload. While it may seem shallow, this is not really that … Read more

Brazilian Publisher Offers On-Demand Clever Captions For Your Selfies

Sometimes it is hard to pick the perfect caption for your selfie, but Brazilian publisher Leya has a solution to help … and introduce you to some of their newest authors in the process. The brand launched a chatbot that will ask you about your photo and then suggest a quote from one of their … Read more

How Convenience Is Transforming Dating, Fast Food, Fashion And More

This week I kept seeing the recurring theme of convenience. Whether it was a story about how cell phones can be used for monitoring disease carrying mosquitos to a new Amazon Echo Virtual Stylist that will judge your new outfit. There is a new portable scanner that will test the pesticides in your fruit and … Read more

The Awesome and Terrifying Future Of Influencer Marketing

This week the FTC sent warning letters to more than 90 “influencers and marketers” as a reminder to disclose when social media posts are paid for by advertisers. The move comes in a week filled with stories about the nature of influencer marketing, the sad reality of what it takes to be popular today and exactly … Read more

15 Non-Obvious Business Trends Shaping 2017 (Retail, Consumer, Tech, Marketing, and Media)

Are you a member of the media? Visit our media kit to download a trend summary and more information about requesting an interview with Rohit >> This week I launched the seventh edition of my annual trend report featuring all of my research from throughout the year on trends. Many of you have already picked … Read more

Zika Killing Billboards, Facebook’s Tip Jar And HBO’s Ambitious Hologram Strategy

This past week it was hard to escape the dominating headlines of the US political primary – and the announcement of a coming change to the faces on the $20 dollar bill. Outside the mainstream news, though, were several relatively quiet stories that contained potentially huge implications for marketers and business overall – from a … Read more

Brand Reputation And Why All PR Actually Is Good PR (Unless You’re Already Famous)

Lots of people who don’t work in public relations will tell you that “all PR is good PR.” In other words, if people are talking about you – it doesn’t matter what they are saying. Then there are those who are in the profession who will usually tell you the exact opposite … that PR … Read more

2013 Trends – Friend-Sourced Travel

What’s the Trend? New and old friends change the travel experience by curating where to go, and offering more local authentic experiences. Your friends are the new travel agent and tour guides, as a host of new services online and offline enable any traveler to get recommendations for unique experiences from friends. Beyond recommendations, this … Read more

5 World Changing Ways To Avoid BS And Be More Believable

I was on a short flight from NY back to DC yesterday and opened a copy of the NY Times to find a full page ad with the simple declaration “Marketing is BS.” Beneath that attention-grabbing headline, Adobe called this “Myth #1” as part of their campaign to speak to marketers and business people about … Read more

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#1 WSJ & USA Today Bestselling Author

In addition to Non-Obvious Thinking, 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.

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