Archive for April, 2008

Courtesy of The Onion’s A.V. Club: “I make one film as a filmmaker, but the audience, based on that film, makes 100 movies in their minds. Every audience member can make his own movie. This is what I strive for. Sometimes, when my audiences tell me about the mental movies they have made based on... »

I’ve been planning on writing about Burger King for a little while. I really love the narrative they have created over the last couple of years. Sure it started with the legendary Subservient Chickent, but then they reintroduced the King character as a human with a giant, plastic King head and things got really... »

I love Target, shop there all the time. I think they’ve done a great job of positioning. I think of them as affordable luxury, or at least affordable style. I like Barneys very much too, though I don’t shop there much. To me they are aspirational luxury, or aspirational style.  So what do I see... »

Good article by the Freakonomics gang the other day. They asked a handful of really smart people how innovation could/should be measured. As you can imagine, a consensus was not reached. Sure, innovation is often the result of systematic R&D efforts, but sometimes it’s just dumb luck and unintended consequences (wasn’t Viagara originally intended for... »

About a month or so ago I contacted a blogger for work and we got off on a tangent regarding photography. I’m just starting to get into it, and he does it regularly/professionally. It was a nice email conversation and I thought nothing more of it. Today I received issue #2 of Ben Shot Me,... »

Fourteen of the first 16 FIFA World Cup tournaments were held in either South America or Europe (with Mexico and the U.S. being the exceptions). For the 2002 event, FIFA, the world governing body of the sport, made the unprecedented move of not only awarding the tournament to Asia, but also having it hosted... »

Rather than use this blog as a vehicle to distribute fully formed, ready to go concepts, I feel this is a good forum for developing ideas and hopefully receiving feedback from readers who can build upon the idea, and together something better is developed. I’m still wrestling with the concept I termed, “Deeply Immersive... »

In a Monday NY Times article the battle between media, both mainstream and bloggers, and sports franchises/leagues over access was laid out. In a nutshell, the media want more access and the ability to report sooner. The teams and leagues, who have become media channels in their own rights, want to hold on to some of... »

An article in Sunday’s New York Times talked about the preponderance of the ‘my’ prefix in web marketing. We all know them: MyYahoo!, MyCoke, MySpace, the list goes on. Add to that sites like YouTube and Ubid or even products like the iPod and it’s clear that the online marketing imperative of the last 10 years was... »

As I think more about this concept of the Deeply Immersive Narrative Universe (DINU), I wondered if this was an idea that worked for things like science fiction stories (Star Wars) or video games (Halo) especially well, but maybe not for the vast majority of brands, properties and franchises. But the more I thought... »