Category Archives: biz

Is Music The New Merchandising?

Back in the day, recording artists made the bulk of their revenues from merchandising. Herbie Herbert, Journey’s burley manager, was the first person I was aware of who exploited this fact to great benefit. I was told that Journey made more money from merchandising sales and touring receipts than from their platinum albums.
I got a [...]

Star Trek Products To Die For

When you want to go out in style.

See all the products here

Back @$$wards

New Japanese (Nissan) concept car, the Pivo 2, makes reverse gear obsolete, and parallel parking perpendicular… and of course it looks like a cartoon character! What would they have to do to this car to make it viable in the U.S.?

Teaching New Dogs Old Tricks

It was announced last week that Brooklyn has approved $2MM for a new high school dedicated to advertising and media education. Set to open in September 2008, the new school is designed to “foster a relationship between minority youth and the ad industry, allowing students to explore careers in advertising and media while helping to [...]

Turning the Industry on its Radiohead

We talked about subscription versus advertising models for content providers in an earlier blog post. Now one of the biggest bands in the world is demonstrating the “pay what you value” model and the “premium packaging” model for music content. This is the experiment to keep your eyes on.

Radiohead to give away new album
By Angela [...]

Why Would We Want to Measure Engagement?

Folks in the experience business know that brands exist in context, and this context is the lens in which consumers of products and services experience brands. This notion is in stark relief against prevailing attitudes of advertisers, who often seek to foist experiences upon consumers, turning simple experiences into grande spectacle. Better to distract consumers [...]

Startup Weekend

This is an interesting concept I came across while reading about decentralized company organizations. The idea is that a group of tech-savvy friends can get a “Startup Weekend” in their town. Usually the group includes people from different disciplines (pr, marketing, tech/coding knowledge, design, etc.) who work together to create a business from “Concept to [...]

Break the Rules, Not the Brand

Nearly every company on the planet claims appreciation for their customers and promotes the quality of their customer services policies and procedures. The best examples of true customer service are when the deeds of company employees speak stronger than any words the marketing geniuses at those companies can construct. And when the CEO acts to [...]

Media, Celebrities, and Foundations with Common Cause

In an interesting twist, or perhaps the next logical step, a number of celebrities and foundations are teaming with youth media powerhouse MTV to establish a venue for socially-conscious, online social networking. This follows MySpace’s Impact in the online space, and numerous other campaigns and events tying social good to youth.
MTV Launches Socially Conscious Networking [...]

(Non)Soul Of The New Machine

Today is the first day in 2 years that New York Times online content is available free of charge to readers. The Times dropped their subscription service in favor of an ad-based revenue model (you’ll see the ad when you click the article link below). The move by the Times indicates that 1) ad-based revenue [...]