Algorithms and Humanisms

“Facebook Inc. is largely ruled by algorithms. But ultimately people must make judgments about what to show its 1.6 billion users and how.” -May 11, 2016 Wall Street Journal People actually have something to do with what you see on Facebook – oh my! According to the article, there are “allegations that Facebook workers manipulated […]

Victoria’s Secret Kills its Catalog. Does This Mean Print is Dead?

I won’t keep you in suspense: print is alive and well. Back in the day, when investing marketing dollars, it was easy to draw a line between mailing catalogs (the only direct marketing investment at the time), the value of acquiring a customer and the bank statements that arrived months later. This news from Victoria’s […]

(SPATIAL) RELATIONSHIP ADVICE: 3 Keys to the Successful Marriage of Geometry and Catalog Design

What’s the secret to a successful marriage? OK, confession. I’m not married, so really how the hell would I know? Just bear with me here. This is going somewhere. Thanks to copious amounts of TV and movie viewing, along with observing my married friends, I’ve come to see what contributes to a good marriage. Like […]

I think, therefore I brand…

I recently came across an interesting study that looks at the power of brand from a little different angle. Anyone reading this is probably familiar with the concept of the placebo effect. The subject of countless articles, it was first defined over 60 years ago. It identified the important role that perception plays in physical […]

Selling + Storytelling: 3 Sites That Get It Right

You only need to do two things to have a great website. 1). Make shopping your website as intuitive and simple as possible. 2) Tell the story of your brand and your unique selling proposition, without interfering with the above. Simple, right? Riiiiiiiiiiiight… In search of that elusive combination, I found three eCommerce websites that tell their story […]

Prince Owned Purple. What’s Your Color?

Sadly, we’ve lost a couple more music legends recently—Merle Haggard and Prince. It’s the latter I’d like to talk about. There is no doubt that Prince was a musical genius.  And there are actually many branding lessons we could learn from him. The importance of being different, of standing out, of being true to who […]

Rant and Rave: Privacy in Direct Marketing

$#%^#@*%)! I recently changed to a new phone service provider and within hours of my new phone number being connected, I started receiving sales calls for the “owner of the house.”  Yes, within hours!!!   This is direct marketing on a steroids with a healthy dose of rudeness.  I was not offered any “opt-out” of marketing […]