19 2025 February
The Secret of Startup Success Might Be Who Is Willing to Lose Money the Longest
Amazon, Spotify, Netflix, Uber … all dominant players in their industry. What if the secret to their success is just that they were all willing...
Read Now25 2024 April
Detroit Rides “Post Bankruptcy Energy” To Become America’s Most Unlikely Boomtown, According to WSJ
About ten years ago, no one would have said the city of Detroit would be sitting at the perfect crossroads of multiple urban trends. Around...
Read Now14 2024 March
Why the Key to Bringing Traditional Medicine Back Might Be Better Branding
Yes, this headline and the article it references are a conclusion that only a marketer could make. But it does have a point about how people react...
Read Now30 2022 December
The Most Popular Non-Obvious Stories of 2022 (Based On Reader Feedback)
Based on this combination of quantitative and qualitative data, here is a partial list of some of the most popular stories of the year, based on what my readers shared.
Read Now15 2022 September
Why Are We So Unprepared For Predictable Things?
In a world where we spend a lot of time worry about disruptions that we can't see coming, this whole week should be a reminder that there are some disruptions we clearly know are coming. So when they do happen, being unprepared is no one's fault but your own.
Read Now13 2022 September
Monopoly Makes Kids Angry, For Their Own Good
I really wish I was in the room when they presented the insight behind this campaign to Hasbro. It's bold, clever and deep in a way you don't expect marketing to be.
Read Now17 2020 July
How Afrofuturists Think Different and Why the Questions They Ask Matter
“Futurists labor over questions about the nature of Android consciousness and empathy. Afrofuturists ask how race might be wired into Android consciousness and whether the...
Read Now30 2020 March
10 Futuristic Ideas Becoming Reality Faster Because Of COVID-19
For the past ten years I’ve been a collector of innovative ideas. When I write about them and interview the people behind them, I know...
Read Now03 2020 February
The Best & Worst Of 2020 Super Bowl Marketing Strategy
Can a Super Bowl ad that costs nearly $6 million be worth it? That’s a question worth debating if you’re in marketing, so let’s take...
Read Now02 2020 January
2020 Will Be The Year Of Bullsh*t. Here’s How To Survive …
This past weekend the Sunday Review from the New York Times declared the past ten years as the “Decade of Mistrust” and suggested that “Americans learned that...
Read Now26 2019 December
5 Non-Obvious Megatrends Changing Our World In 2020
For the past ten years I have gone through an annual ritual of publishing a book about trends that describe our shifting culture and business...
Read Now12 2019 July
6 Marketing Lessons From Ed Sheeran
There is a moment during a show at the Austin City Limits where Ed Sheeran finally starts to perform his biggest hit at the time:...
Read Now04 2019 April
The One Reason So Many Brand Pranks On April Fools Day Failed This Year
Why do some branded April Fools Day jokes work while others fall flat?
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