We’re never far from junior high, it seems, even when we’ve gotten decades away from those squirm-inducing days of yore. We still yearn for popularity. And we so want to be cool. Nowhere does that seem more pronounced than in marketing these days, where the pursuit of acclaim on social media feels both frenzied and, […]
Emotional punch from reframing
In this short video from WATERisLIFE, tweets from the popular hashtag #FirstWorldProblems are used to brilliant effect. As impoverished residents of Haiti recite whiny gripes of the privileged (like you and me), we are shown a mirror, and the view isn’t pretty. Nonetheless, it’s done with gentleness, and its power is real. Happily, the Twitter […]
Breakout brilliance at HubSpot
HubSpot is well known for its expertise in inbound marketing. Its founders, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah, quite literally wrote the book: Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs. (Highly recommended!) Tech innovation from a successful software firm is not surprising. What is both novel and exciting is to find nuanced human […]
Marketing microcosm at the Edge: The good, the bad, and the silly
Some things make me proud to be a marketer. Some make me sigh. Still others make me wince. All were on full display last week at the 2011 Edge Conference, sponsored by the Ad Club of Boston.
This annual event is designed to showcase innovations in branding. In a series of posts I’ll offer a highly subjective summary of highlights and lowlights, focused perhaps more on what they say about the current state of marketing—and humanity—than the actual items in question. Let’s start at the bottom and work our way up.
Content marketing: The No. 1 problem
Move over, Facebook and Twitter. Social media is being displaced as the hot topic in marketing as a new truth dawns. News flash: what you have to say is at least as important as where you say it!
Content marketing is the new holy grail, and brands are challenged to create content worth paying attention to. No easy task for most, for one big reason. Ego.