By Hailley Griffis
As a regular feature, we provide our readers with a roundup of some of the best articles we have read in the past week. On the podium this week are Convince&Convert, VentureBurn, Kim Garst, TechVibes and Commander Chris Hadfield.
Contagion, social media, and why things catch on
Jonah Berger, marketing professor at the Wharton School, discusses setting realistic goals with a viral marketing campaign and the science behind it.
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This is the next entry in our “Best of” series, in which we venture deep into the vault to replay blog opinion and insight that has withstood the test of time. Today’s post hails from July 2011. We welcome your feedback.
By Francis Moran
At the time my PR agency,inmedia Public Relations, was founded, I worked out of a large integrated agency in the city and some of the account executives there loved to push my buttons by declaring that media relations was free advertising. They especially liked to do this in client meetings because they knew it would prompt me to mount a fevered defence of the merits of PR and all the ways in which it differed from advertising.
I knew they were only kidding. I knew they really knew better. I knew it was all a bit of harmless fun.
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By Francis Moran
The aphorism that a camel is a horse designed by committee is usually attributed to Greek-born British car designer Sir Alexander Arnold Constantine Issigonis, who was responsible for British Motor Corporation’s popular Mini. I never quite understood why Sir Alex would disparage a camel’s design — the animal, while unusual in shape and function, seems perfectly designed to be the ship of the Sahara that it eventually became. I take no issue whatsoever, though, with his sentiment that it is a very bad idea to ask a bunch of people to try to work together to design anything.
And yet, it is still too common an activity.
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By Bob Bailly
When I was first asked to contribute to this blog, my stated interest was writing a piece that “is really all about you and how evolution has contrived you to be who you are, acting and feeling the way you do. It’s also about how to improve your business performance.”
Since then, I’ve tried to explore how evolutionary sciences can be used for predictive modeling for our business stragegies.
I’m more convinced than ever that if you are looking to build better brands, increase your marketing effectiveness, shorten sales cycle times, improve communication at all levels of the organization, and foster loyalty with customers, stakeholders and employees, you can benefit by understanding how we came to be the kind of animal that we are.
The first thing to remember is we’re not as clever as we think we are.
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By Leo Valiquette
OK. I must confess off the top to be being a diehard Trek fan. (And no, I do not attend conventions wearing prosthetic Vulcan ears or Klingon foreheads, nor do I even own such things.) But even if I were not, I’m sure I would still be praising the latest celebrity ad campaign from Audi.
If you haven’t seen it, do not read further until you’ve watched this first.
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