Chapter six:
Deep Thoughts
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Nike Wins Gold
I was at a five-year-old’s birthday party on this last Sunday of the Olympics. A bunch of the parents were sitting around in the shade
Subject: Crash Testing the Google Car
By now you may already have seen this evocative video of the Google self-driving car in action. If you haven’t, I won’t give it away,
There’s a Zucker Born Every Minute
There’s been a lot of buzz about the Facebook IPO and its underwhelming reception. While there are certainly financial and possibly even legal issues at
Facebook Buys Amway
Just kidding. The whole Facebook/Amway thing is just a metaphor. Years ago, I was at a large family gathering, and my second cousin George was
The Island of Misfit Foods
Over the holidays, my partner Jim heard a story likely to disturb the sleep of a lot of food marketers: A friend of mine told
Putting On a Show, Part II
A couple of weeks ago I sent out an essay on the magic of retail, based on Michael Francis’s insight that retail, at its best,
Hey Gang, Let’s Put On a Show!
Sometime back, when we were working on the story framework for Target, then CMO Michael Francis explained the magic of retail to me: At its
Breakfast with Flo
We did a blog post a couple of months back about the explosion of characters in the car-insurance category. This morning I heard that Flo,
Bread and Redemption: A Killer Brand
Being story guys, we’re always looking for examples of brands that seem to be using story really well. It’s pretty self-serving. We hope that these
Deconstructionist Advertising: The World’s Most Interesting Ad Your Ad Could Smell Like. In the World.
As if I hadn’t already spent entirely too much time thinking about the Burger King king recently, I decided to see if he had his
Amping Up the Electric Car Story
There was a funny article in AdAge this past week about Nissan and Renault airing essentially the same commercial for two competing electric cars. (In
The Truth in Darkness
Darkness in a television commercial is intriguing. I’m not talking about a lack of illumination as much as an ominous, negative or even creepy quality