Bob Garfield
Is John Winsor Bringing Industry Full Circle?
Victors & Spoils Founder on Difference Between Crowdsourcing and 'Expert Sourcing'
Bob Garfield
Hey Marketers, Give Me a Call Before You Pull a Nivea
Apologies in advance, but what follows amounts to an ad -- an ad for a business that should not exist.
Dentsu Hits up Canon's Publishing Partners for U.S. Open Tickets
Petty exaction in advertising went online this week when a media executive sent an email to publishers soliciting freebies -- specifically, tickets to the U.S. Open -- for its Canon client.
Proponents of Online Self-Regulation Disadvantaged by Inability to Regulate Themselves
Broken industry promises about safeguarding consumer privacy will yield demands for legislative and regulatory remedies, putting at grave risk the fragile business models undergirding the digital economy.
A Pheromone-Laced Scent for Social-Media Set Isn't Mad Science
In trying to prove the value of its medium, CrowdGather risks insulting its core consumers.
Cannes Takes One Small Step Toward Catching Up With Reality
MOFILM contest entrant shows that a winning idea can come from outside the industry.
Inside Osama bin Laden's Quest for an al-Qaeda Name Change
Following a report by The Telegraph in London that claims Osama bin Laden wanted to change al-Qaeda's name for marketing reasons, Bob Garfield imagines what an email exchange with an agency exec concerning the matter might have contained.
What Marketers Can Learn From Weiner-Gate
I've previously used this space to chastise marketers for being too corporate, too stilted, too impersonal in their social-media outreach. Weiner's is a cautionary tale of too little institutional dignity, too relaxed a voice, too personal exchanges.
To What Extent Are We Ethically Responsible for Our Tech Breakthroughs?
When unleashing a data technology onto the internet, is it enough to imagine only the proximate benefits?
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: The 'Truth' About Facebook PR Gaffe
We can't reveal our sources, but intelligence officials may have found evidence of links between Facebook and al Qaeda.
Advertising May Be the Thing That Saves Us From Donald Trump
Advertisers bailed on Glenn Beck; they'll do the same to Donald Trump.
Death Stalks the Twittersphere, Offering a Lesson in Consumer Exposure
The online marketing industry at the moment is at pains to assuage the feds on the privacy implications of online behavioral tracking. Imagine what will happen when they realize the physical privacy risks of mobile apps
Is John Winsor Bringing Industry Full Circle?
This is going to get philosophical verging on mystical before it's over with, but let's start with a simple question: What's the best way to locate a good advertising idea?
Chrysler's Twitter Controversy Teaches Us 'Brand Journalism' Is a Lie
It's ironic that marketers are charged with conducting conversations, yet no one is allowed to tell the truth.
Guerrilla 'Success' for Cap'n Crunch Does Social-Media Proponents No Favors
Two Chicago 20-somethings trying to get attention for their new social-media boutique hit on a clever idea. They found a large, iconic brand that inexplicably had no presence on social media and decided, with no permission much less a contract from the marketer, to establish that presence themselves.
Egyptian Activists Understood Key to Social Media: It's the 'Social'
She doesn't have some new sentiment-analysis app. She doesn't consult on finding influencers. She doesn't claim to know the secrets of viral earned media. And I'm pretty sure she isn't on a panel at SXSW. All she's done is put her life, and the future of her country, in the hands of the internet. Mona Seif is a democracy protester in Cairo.
VW Finds Viral Force With Cute Ad, but So What?
By game time Sunday, the VW spot had been viewed on YouTube in excess of 10 million times. That's very viral, very fast. Now maybe those views were dwarfed by the broadcast audience of 100 million or so, but you get a lot of extra credit for being sought out. I can't quantify the multiple for earned media vs. paid media, but it's certainly not trivial.
Fortune Publisher Agrees With Me About Death of Broadcast
This Mr. Apocalypse game is no cinch, let me tell you. Whenever you patiently try to explain to people that their mega-multibillion-dollar industry is going down the tubes, and with it their livelihoods -- not to mention "CSI: Paramus," or whatever -- you get all sorts of pushback. Take broadcast TV, which for quite a number of years now I've consigned to the leaking underground fuel tank of history.
Cable Execs Should Be Last Ones Put in Charge of TV Everywhere
As smart phones and tablets continue to proliferate, there will be plenty of opportunity -- and, in time, plenty of wireless spectrum -- to stream all kinds of wonderful content right to your palm or laptop or tablet or, probably by the Consumer Electronics Show 2021, directly to your visual cortex. The question is: By what route, exactly?
A Thank You Letter to the Santa-Industrial Complex
A holiday message for Madison Avenue: They say you've ruined Christmas, commercialized it, desecrated it, co-opted it. I say humbug. What you have given me, and what I am about to lose, is beyond priceless.
Social Web Makes It Harder for Marketers to Target (and Manipulate) Girls
It is a historic opportunity for the very marketers whom till now have prospered by persuading young women how inadequate they are. "Post88s are a critical market to master, as they are a brand's ticket to the future," GirlApproved's website declares. "Capture their loyalty and you will own generations of females to come."
