enlighten

On the way home from our detour into "pre-modernism," we stumbled upon a hotel unfamiliar to us. This is a group called "CitizenM" out of The Netherlands. As a branding guy, I have to hand it to them. They have reimagined their industry, selected a specific segment and tuned everything they do to meet the needs, sensibilities and travel preferences of that segment. Very smart. Our pleasant surprise began with an early clue in the form of a welcoming window sign. It's a homage to the traveler with a pretty fresh tone of voice. Nice. Once inside the lobby, we encountered ...

Coincidentally, for a couple of clients, we are exploring the strategic relevance of branding based on sustainability. One pitches more towards preservation of assets and lifestyles; the other takes the general idea of sustainability and applies it to people. In other words, can people reinvent more sustainable versions of themselves through education, personal development, etc.? The real coincidence lies in the fact that the Masai have mastered sustainability. As I've said, they like to keep it simple. For generations, they've been practicing a lifestyle, like many indigenous people around the world, that honors and preserves natural resources. As our guide, Buston, ...

Ok, maybe this post isn't so much about marketing as it is about Masai Finance. One of the things we learned on our visits with the Masai is that the Masai Tribe makes use of credit. A relatively new phenomenon and perhaps an area in which they have taken their cues from modern culture, the Masai practice a form of credit. Here's how it works. When a young Masai man decides to get married, he buys his wife from the father of a woman in his village or a neighboring village. I mentioned before that the Masai are herdsman. Their cattle ...

Ok, readers, I know I’ve been a little lax.  The truth is, we’ve been traveling.  Just returned from Kenya.  Needless to say, the state of the culture over there is anything but post-modern.  In fact, as you might expect, most of the country isn’t even up to modern.  After spending a few days in Nairobi, we departed for the Masai Mara, a region inhabited since the 17th century by the Masai Tribe…one of the most primitive tribes left in the world.  But, don’t let that fool you, they are a very clever and delightful people. Over the years, they have been ...

This post is about the changing landscape of local media and the newspaper industry specifically. Shrewd management, like that of Ann Caulkins, of the Charlotte Observer, has helped to navigate the metro newspaper through choppy waters.

Well, it is happening. Facebook, the dominant social site with the most people and minutes on-line and second only to Google with respect to log-ons, has to say the least, "critical mass." Despite its founders historically disdainful attitude towards advertising and all things commercial, Facebook is donning its business suit these days. It seems that something called a "revenue model" has their attention as they continue to prepare for the IPO. And even under the heady, post-modern, "we don't need no stinkin' advertising" rubric of Facebook, there are changes happening that are decidedly commercial. One is the timeline feature. The good ...

Just saw Moneyball.  I know, we were a little late.  Great movie though.  I hope the guy who plays the Assistant General Manager wins something.  We’ve been talking about the movie ever since we saw it…not just because it is a good movie but because of what we can learn from it.  The movie is about the beleaguered Oakland Athletics.  More fundamentally, this is a film about the concept of paradigm shift.  Let’s go there for a minute.  A paradigm is a method for understanding a particular phenomenon.  When new information “enters the system,” the current paradigm is typically disrupted and ...

We met Chris Gergen and Charles Thomas last night.  Chris is what could be described as a serial entrepreneur.  His organization, Queen City Forward, is about social entrepreneurship.  Businesses that are essentially about public well-being and are often aimed at social justice.  In my city, Charlotte, a.k.a. “The Queen City” (don’t get your nose out of joint Cincinnati), there are some 4,000 not-for-profits.  This isn’t about that.  Social enterprises have something called a revenue model.  Thats right…they make money, provide paying jobs, compete in a marketplace.  They are sustainable.  At a time when many are peddling phrases like “class warfare,” ...

Ok, it’s happened.  The guy who was the voice for the computer on “Lost in Space” died this week.  His name was Dick Tufeld.  He died at 85.  Here’s a tidbit (with all due respect to Mr. Tufeld and his family) he wasn’t actually the robot; the person “inside the robot” was played by a fellow named Bob May who died in 2009.  In hindsight, it is perhaps not surprising that it took two men to do the work of one robot.  But give him his due, he coined the phrase: “Danger…” and gave the robot that anthropomorphic feel.  He ...

You have to admit…it’s a sad day in marketing when you hear about what happened to poor ol’ Twinkie.  It’s true, Hostess Brands (the owners of Twinkie) have filed for bankruptcy.  It looks bleak. To tell you the truth, I’ve never even eaten a Twinkie.  I thought name was pretty good in that mid-century modern groove.  I figured they sold them two per-pack, hence the name twin-kie.  Then I heard that the inventor came up with it having been inspired by the phrase “twinkle toes.”  I like my idea better.  They did a campaign that in my opinion was a pre-internet viral ...