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« Monday « April 28, 2014
1. datetime
  1. {04282014}
  2. {08:13:56 PM}
  content
  1. NBA Fans: The ball is in your court
  2. The NBA has a brand image problem. Donald Sterling is a racist white supremacist, he really doesn't like black people, allegedly, and he owns an NBA team, the Los Angeles Clippers.
    
    The NBA has a brand image problem. Donald Sterling is a racist white supremacist, he really doesn't like black people, allegedly, and he owns an NBA team, the Los Angeles Clippers.
    
    A lot of people think the NBA has to do something about this problem. Racism is apparently bad for business. Tuesday, at a press conference, we'll find out what the league plans to do. But the NBA, which represents the group of team owners, a group which obviously includes Sterling, is not the answer.
    
    A lot of people think the NBA players should stage a work stoppage, or show some kind of solidarity that counters the plantation mentality evinced by Sterling's hateful, ugly remarks. The Clippers players had a chance to do it Sunday afternoon in their playoff game against the Warriors, and they did nothing. Of if they did something, it was small and inconsequential. I, for one, am tired of looking to athletes to be the flagbearers of social justice. Time and again, most pro athletes have proven that they are ill-equipped to be role models outside of the context of arenas, courts, and playing fields. And that's cool, it's fine. Just don't go chasing waterfalls, ball players, stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to. The players are not the answer.
    
    A lot of people think the sponsors should do something about this problem. Over the course of the last 48 hours or so, many big-name sponsors have ended their marketing affiliations with the Clippers, including Virgin America, RedBull, CarMax, Sprint, Kia, and State Farm. They're doing what smart brands do: distancing themselves from bad brand associations. It's Branding 101. But the sponsors are not the answer either.
    
    The answer is as obvious as the Google Glass sitting on my face: the fans, the collective fans of the NBA, in the United States, and across the globe, but mostly in the United States.
    
    Follow me here: the sponsors pay for tie-ins with NBA teams in order to get to the fans—and their money.
    
    The players gargantuan salaries are supplemented partially because of those sponsors, but mostly because of the fans. Fans' love and admiration of the players often pays off handsomely for the sponsoring brands, in money.
    
    And, of course, league exists for no other reason than to grow and harvest a large, loyal base of repeat customers—the fans—whom they can then sell to sponsors and broadcast networks, again, and again, and again.
    
    Everywhere you turn, it comes back to the fans. The fans. The fans.
    
    So the fans are the answer.
    
    This brand image problem boils down to one key question: collectively, are the fans of the NBA so disgusted with a racist white supremacist like Sterling owning a team in their beloved league that they are willing to walk away, even if only temporarily? Are the fans willing to boycott all NBA games—not just Clippers games—until a satisfactory solution is reached? Or do the majority of fans just want the problem to go away, swept under the rug after some emotional and incendiary rhetoric is spewed out and eventually forgotten in the relentless and endless media cycle, so that they can go back to giving their hard-earned money away to people who see them as cash cows?
    
    Make no mistake about it, this is about two things: money and racism white supremacy. The player composition in this league is predominantly black. The composition of the fan base, at least in the United States, is predominantly white. These variables are ineluctable, essentially permanent. The money part is the dynamic component. Without regard to what the NBA, the players, or the sponsors do about Sterling, what the fans do is the key to whether or not this story will write its own ending. And what the fans do will change the money part of the equation.
    
    If the fans stand up, and show the NBA—and the world—that they will not stand for racism in the league and in the sport, then they will take control of this situation, and will dictate what the NBA, the players, and the sponsors must do. Smart brands pay attention to the tastes, temperments and preferences of their customers (in realtime if they can), because without customers brands cease to exist. The fans of the NBA everywhere—not just LA Clippers fans—have a chance to exise a cancer from the game they love. All they have to do is vote with their wallets and with their time.
    
    NBA fans—the people—the ball is in your court.
    
    Photo credit: CSCT3, Flickr (Permission being requested)
  metadata
  2. 08:13:56 PM
  3. The NBA has a brand image problem. Donald Sterling is a racist white supremacist,
  categories
  1. keywords:
  2. white supremacism
  3. sports
  4. tags:
  5. donaldsterling
  6. nba
  7. magicjohnson
  8. clippers
  9. boycott
  type
« Thursday « November 21, 2013
1. datetime
  1. {11212013}
  2. {09:20:20 AM}
  content
  1. Kanye vs Zappos: when brands beef, we buy more ish
    
    (E Online)
  2. Kanye West Slams Zappos CEO
    
    How about these lyrics:
    
    It's amazing.
    There's a reason.
    Zappos trying to make some news this season.
    With Black Friday, fast approaching.
    They're in need of attention-poaching.
    No matter what you'll ever buy from The Z,
    A brand will act just like its identity.
    
    Wake up people. This is a publicity stunt.
    
    Above all things, Kanye West and Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos, are elite brand marketers. Mr. West doesn't need branding advice from Mr. Hsieh. And Tony Hsieh sure as hell doesn't need to take branding notes from Kanye West. It's absurd that these two identity experts got into a heated argument over brand strategy that somehow "leaked out" during the recording of a podcast, which, by the way, was promoting a movie Mr. West is currently working on with writer Brett Easton Ellis.
    
    This fight was staged, packaged, and shipped out via social media, in order to get these muscular pop culture brands into forefront of their target audiences' minds—right at the crest of the most critical shopping season of the year.
    
    A brand is as a brand does.
    
    The Kanye West brand is all about innovation, juxtaposition, brash irreverence to the point of insult, and controversy. Talking ish is what West does, just ask Taylor Swift.
    
    The Zappos brand is all about choice and selection, irreverence to the point of ingratiation, speed, and sublime customer service. Reacting swiftly, and in context, is what Zappos does.
    
    Funny, both of these brands, in this contrived kerfuffle, this tempest-in-a-digital-teapot, end up acting exactly how we would predict from their brand signatures—they're both spinning "on brand," as we say in the biz. That's what good brands do.
    
    And it's probably not going to hurt either side of this argument, because West and Zappos (and by extension Hsieh) have carefully constructed their identities over the last 10 years or so, and their well-known brands serve as hedges that will protect them during goofy, ephemeral attention-getting outbursts like this ish fight.
    
    And that's one simple reason—amongst many—why brands are important, especially with consumer products: they are shortcuts to understanding. And in a cluttered world, full of microscopic attention spans, where anything longer than a tweet (this blog, for example) can tax the ability of many to focus, shortcuts are requisites for success. Necessary.
    
    Since you know going in what Kanye West and Zappos are all about at their respective cores—if they are brands that are of interest to you (i.e. if you are in their target audiences)—this faux entertainment, this fake fight, just serves as a reminder, a practically free commercial for both sides. You're thinking about them, and reacting. I'm writing about them. They have colonized your mindspace. And don't be surprised if West's much anticipated Air Yeezy 2 shoe, out of his partnership with Nike, somehow ends up for sale on Zappos.com by Christmas.
    
    Please get your credit cards ready.
    
    Just in time for holidays.
    
    It's amazing.
  metadata
  2. 09:20:20 AM
  3. Kanye West Slams Zappos CEO..."
  categories
  1. keywords:
  2. popular culture
  3. entertainment
  4. tags:
  5. kanye
  6. zappos
  7. beefs
  8. shoes
  9. branding
  type
« Thursday « September 5, 2013
1. datetime
  1. {09052013}
  2. {04:51:46 PM}
  content
  1. Meet the new Yahoo! It's the same as the old Yahoo!
    
    (www.lagtime.com/cib/)
  2. ...well, kinda, sorta.
    
    Typography pundits and colorists will bloviate over the pluses and minuses of clown fonts, serifs versus scallops, Pantone Violet C, and what is actually achieved by tilting the exclamation point in "Yahoo!" exactly 9 degrees, and not 9 + pi degrees, or 42 degrees. Some pundits even say, the Yahoo! mark has grown up. Feel free to debate. But to most people—like you and me—the new Yahoo! mark doesn't herald some momentous sea-change.
    
    And I think that's point of this entire exercise: it's not about change to us, the outsiders, it's about change for them: the people inside of Yahoo!
    
    The thing about branding is there's at least two stories of the brand. First, the outside story, where the brand signals to the marketplace how they're different, and why they're better than the competition. All of the things you associate with branding—design, color, fonts and typography, packaging, naming, labeling and nomenclature, brand architecture—those are the signals that help evoke the essence of the brand in the marketplace. That's what people think they're talking about when the say "branding."
    
    But there's also the inside story: the story that takes place behind the walls of the ivory tower. Where the leaders get all of their employees to buy into the vision, drink the Kool Aid, and dare I say, live the brand. We call it internal branding, and it's a critical piece of brand experience, and a key to the ultimate success or failure of a brand. To me this entire Yahoo! 30 Days of Change campaign schtick was mostly about CEO Marissa Meyer signalling to her troops how the new Yahoo!—her Yahoo!—is going to go to market, from the inside-out, right down to the degrees of gangsta lean in their purple exclamation point.
    
    In the classic business book, Good to Great, the authors state unequivocally that in order for a company (or a brand) to be great—as Yahoo! once was—the captain of the ship has got to get the right people on the boat, and then get them to accept the direction in which said leader wishes to sail.
    
    In little over a year, in numerous ways, Meyer has started to get the right people on her boat, and has started making employees more accountable for their actions and responsibilities. Another key piece in her turnaround strategy has been getting the employees to believe in her vision and in where she wants to take them.
    
    How can she do that? Well, one way would be to concoct a widely publicized campaign to change the company logo—not by going to experts (aside, this DIY vibe is something that absolutely scares firms like my employer to death) but by working in-house. Sure, a bit of transparency is shown to the outside world in this process, but it's just an attention-getting tease. This campaign nets a new identity that is semantically different than the one that proceeded it (and again, I'll let the typography wonks battle it out on the aesthetics and color). But inside, the process included employee opinion and participation, and was hand-crafted by employees. It was a process that reveals to the Yahoo! rank-and-file what matters to their leader: thoughtfulness (to the extreme perhaps), precision, and just a dash of uber-geeky whimsy, 9 degrees to be exact.
    
    As personal trainers, and life coaches will tell you: real change starts on the inside. And this was an inside job.
    
    Who knows it may just work. It just may energize a sleeping giant.
    
    Last month, for the first time in almost two years, Yahoo! beat Google for the top spot in global Web traffic.
    
    Yahooooooooooooo! say the stockholders.
    
    Yahoo! logo courtesy of Yahoo!, Inc. Permission being requested.
  metadata
  2. 04:51:46 PM
  3. ...well, kinda, sorta.
    ..."
  categories
  1. keywords:
  2. business
  3. internet
  4. tags:
  5. web
  6. yahoo
  7. search
  8. marissameyer
  type
« Monday « May 6, 2013
1. datetime
  1. {05062013}
  2. {02:27:34 AM}
  content
  1. Kingpin (2012)
  2. Subtitle: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground...
    
    OK, this book was a well-paced travelogue through the cyber-underworld that most of the people on this planet probably aren't even aware of. We meet Max (Butler), a seemingly bipolar computer geek, when he's a teenager in Boise, and follow his rise into the world of computer hacking in the 1990's and 2000's. Good and bad—in almost Shakespearian proportions—Max lets his bad side control his actions as we follow his rise to global prominence in the seedy, but stunningly lucrative world of credit card fraud. In the end, Max, and his colorful accomplices, all featured in this book, are all caught. The story ends when Max is caught and sentenced for the largest credit card scam in history; he is currently serving time in a California prison, due for release in 2018, when he'll have to figure out how he'll repay over $25 million in fraud reparations—marked down from an estimated $86 million during his time on the top of the cybercrime mountain. And of course, he's got successors who are picking up where he left off right now!
    
    The book was alright—not great—and it was a fast read, but it raised more questions than answered for a garden-variety civilian like me. What I came away with was this nagging conclusion that for all of the businesses and banks that get pilfered by cyber-geniuses like Max over the last 10-15 years, they all seem to prefer to take the insurance losses on fraud than to actually protect consumers.
    
    In the end, I walked away from this book thinking that none of the money in any of my bank accounts or on my credit cards is actually safe.
  metadata
  2. 02:27:34 AM
  3. Subtitle: How One Hacker Took Over the Billion-Dollar Cybercrime Underground......"
  categories
  1. keywords:
  2. cyberculture
  3. crime
  4. tags:
  5. wired
  6. hackers
  7. malware
  type
« Wednesday « April 21, 2010
1. datetime
  1. {04212010}
  2. {10:07:48 AM}
  content
  1. Let's not get carried away with faux relationships
    
    (Advertising Age)
  2. We in advertising and marketing need to remember this, and embrace it. The technology may seem to make us closer, but in reality it is less intimate and personal -- less human.
    
    This is a great article, and I applaud the author, adman Derek Walker, for putting it down on paper, albeit electronic paper. But, there's always a 'but,' in my experience, the problem with a lot of advertising/marketing people and technology is that: 1) they don't embrace technology so they're suspicious and doubtful about what it can do for them from the outset; and 2) they don't take the time to actually learn how to use technology in service of their goals, which as Walker states, should be in pursuit of making (brand) experiences more human. Absent any comfort with technology, and mostly filled with ignorance of its capabilities, all you have left is hype which, of course, is the domain of (m)admen.
    
    So if the ad world is getting carried away with all this buzz about iPads, iPhones, Facebooks, Twitters, Foursquares, interactivity and videogames, ad (LOL) nauseum, it's because not enough ad people are building their technology skills. And yet, here we are living in a world enveloped by technology. Look, technology is just a toolbox, it's not a substitute for relationships, but used properly and with insight, it can certainly enhance, or hinder, real relationships. But you must learn how and when to use it, or all you'll ever be able to do with it is hype it, or complain about it. That's why people in the ad game are getting carried away: their lack of technological acumen, and their unwillingness to do the hard work to master the tools is at fault. Becoming skilled with technology will not make you, or your ideas, any less human, and it's not going to erase that opportunity to get drive-through cheeseburgers with your children. But step up your digital game first, then pop off.
  metadata
  2. 10:07:48 AM
  3. We in advertising and marketing need to remember this, and embrace it. The technology may seem to make us closer, but in reality it is less intimate and personal — less human...."
  categories
  1. keywords:
  2. cyberculture
  3. business
  4. tags:
  5. advertising
  6. marketing
  type
« Tuesday « April 20, 2010
1. datetime
  1. {04202010}
  2. {09:48:14 PM}
  content
  1. Web sales tax debate flares again
    
    (CIO.com)
  2. California now asks taxpayers to disclose how much they've spent on items purchased on the Internet that would have been taxable if purchased in state. I haven't seen any statistics on this one, but I'd guess that compliance rates are rather low.
    
    I didn't fool around with this one, I don't mess with the IRS or the FTB. I had all of my online receipts from 2009, and California was more than happy to tack on another $83 to my tax bill. Other than the convenience of shopping in my pajamas, online shopping doesn't look as pretty as it once did. For me, online perks like free shipping and true long-tail choice are going to be much more important to making that purchase decision.
  metadata
  2. 09:48:14 PM
  3. California now asks taxpayers to disclose how much they've spent on items purchased on the Internet that would have been taxable if purchased in state. I haven't seen any statistics on this one, but I'd guess that compliance rates are rather low...."
  categories
  1. keywords:
  2. cyberculture
  3. business
  4. tags:
  5. taxes
  6. ecommerce
  type
« Wednesday « February 10, 2010
1. datetime
  1. {02102010}
  2. {06:20:18 PM}
  content
  1. Time to start blogging (and writing) again
  2. The seductive magnetism of social media, all those Twitters and Facebooks, all of those mobster and spy games and apps, and the wealth of bright, shiny mobile time-sinks, has been totally detrimental to my blogging and writing muscles. It's time to start flexing those muscles again, before they atrophy into nothing.
    
    Started blogging in 1999, and since all of that content is hosted (and backed up) on my own system and media, I have evidence of what I've done, and what I've been thinking about that goes all the way back to the start. With Twitter and Facebook, I wonder if they're going to preserve everyone's content perpetually. My guess is at some point, the cost of storing all the material, and memories, that's being uploaded and shared on these various social networks is going to outweigh the value of any one company keeping it online forever. And then they'll delete it. And then what will you have? I think I'd rather pour my thoughts and ramblings into a bucket that I own and control, than count on a third-party to keep everything safe for me.
  metadata
  2. 06:20:18 PM
  3. The seductive magnetism of social media, all those Twitters and Facebooks, all of those mobster and spy games and apps, and the wealth of bright, shiny mobile time-sinks, has been totally detrimental to my blogging and writing muscles. It's time to start..."
  categories
  1. keywords:
  2. weblogs
  3. internet
  4. tags:
  5. social
  6. media
  7. web2.0
  type
« Tuesday « December 22, 2009
1. datetime
  1. {12222009}
  2. {01:18:30 AM}
  content
  1. Tracing the Journey of a Single Bit
    
    (Wired)
  2. The Internet surrounds us like air, saturating our offices and our homes. But it's not confined to the ether. You can touch it. You can map it. And you can photograph it. Here are five postcards from the journey of a single bit, as data flashes from sea to wired sea.
    
    b/w: growabrain
  metadata
  2. 01:18:30 AM
  3. The Internet surrounds us like air, saturating our offices and our homes. But it's not confined to the ether. You can touch it. You can map it. And you can photograph it. Here are five postcards from the journey of a single bit, as data flashes from sea t..."
  categories
  1. keywords:
  2. cyberculture
  3. internet
  type
« Monday « September 7, 2009
1. datetime
  1. {09072009}
  2. {11:57:42 AM}
  content
  1. The New Literacy
    
    (Wired)
  2. "I think we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization," she says. For Lunsford, technology isn't killing our ability to write. It's reviving it'and pushing our literacy in bold new directions."
    
    Time will tell.
  metadata
  2. 11:57:42 AM
  3. "I think we're in the midst of a literacy revolution the likes of which we haven't seen since Greek civilization," she says. For Lunsford, technology isn't killing our ability to write. It's reviving it'and pushing our literacy in bold new directions."..."
  categories
  1. keywords:
  2. literacy
  3. technology
  type
2. datetime
  1. {09072009}
  2. {09:41:16 AM}
  content
  1. Access vs. Ownernship
  2. Or rent vs. buy. It's the big debate I've been having with myself lately. And I think the access side of the argument is winning. Will return to this later.
  metadata
  2. 09:41:16 AM
  3. Or rent vs. buy. It's the big debate I've been having with myself lately. And I think the access side of the argument is winning. Will return to this later...."
  categories
  1. keywords:
  2. finance and investment
  3. economy
  type
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« Monday « April 28, 2014

« Thursday « November 21, 2013

(E Online)

« Thursday « September 5, 2013

(www.lagtime.com/cib/)

« Monday « May 6, 2013

« Wednesday « April 21, 2010

(Advertising Age)

« Tuesday « April 20, 2010

(CIO.com)

« Wednesday « February 10, 2010

« Tuesday « December 22, 2009

(Wired)

« Monday « September 7, 2009

(Wired)

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