Category Technology
Why Tech Companies Need To Build Brands Before They Launch: An Interview with Emily Heyward, Co-Founder of Red Antler
A video interview with Red Antler co-founder Emily Heyward, who talks about the importance of branding at startups – and why almost all conversations about the customer problems that new brands solve leads to discussions about death.
Listen To My Podcast On iTunes, Spotify, And Google Play
The Pre-Made Podcast, my show about people who have overcome long odds and serious setbacks to do extraordinary things in their communities and careers, is now available on iTunes, Spotify and Google Play. Simply choose the service you prefer and subscribe. All past and future episodes will be available without needing to stream from my […]
In-House Or Agency?
When it comes to whether a brand should hire an agency or bring the work in-house, ask yourself this: is the activity in question revenue generating?
The Future of TV Ad Planning: Audience or Index-Based?
For decades, advertisers have relied on an index-based approach to determine audience concentration. This way, they can size up who’s consuming what content and figure out if it makes sense to advertise there. No one uses this method more than TV advertising planners. An index worked pretty effectively when we had fewer choices of what […]
[Webinar] How Legacy Brands Can Compete in a Direct-To-Consumer Economy – My Conversation With LUMA Partners CEO Terry Kawaja
Last week, I hosted an ANA webinar with LUMA Partners CEO and Founder Terry Kawaja to talk about the rise of the direct brand economy and what traditional advertisers can do to compete. Many of you may know LUMA Partners for its LUMAscapes visualizations of various ecosystems – here’s the one they created for ad […]
How Direct-to-Consumer Brands Succeed — and Why It’s Not Too Late for Incumbents [paywall]
A few years ago, I started noticing several former colleagues taking jobs at direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands, including pet food provider Ollie and Bombfell, a seller of men’s clothing. At first, I thought of these companies as experiments in a new business model, one that bypassed traditional retail and forged relationships directly with the end consumer. […]
Audience-Based Planning: Advanced TV’s Most Critical Component Explained
Like so many other innovations that have come before it, advanced TV has become a crowded, noisy field. It can mean very different things, depending on who you ask. There is one aspect of advanced TV that is consistent, however: using richer data than a blunt age-gender demographic to define and plan to reach an […]
[Published in MKTGInsights]: The New CMO Data Mandate
Having a data strategy is as important to the modern enterprise as a product road map and a sales plan. In this article in MKTGInsights, I explain why marketing’s shift from “Madmen” to “Mathmen” mandates a proactive approach to acquiring, synthesizing, reporting, monetizing and protecting customer data. To read the full article, click here.
[Appearing in Broadcasting & Cable] – Advanced TV Ad Targeting: Separating the Wheat From the Chaff
I wrote this piece on Advanced TV advertising, which published in Broadcasting & Cable today (February 26, 2018). If you’ve heard about Advanced TV and want to learn more, or if you’re just getting started, I hope you find it useful. ***** You probably read the trades and know that you can now use rich […]
To Find A New Job, Try Becoming Un-Unemployed First
During the eight and a half years that I worked at Nokia and Microsoft, I survived layoffs exceeding a staggering 50,000 people, enough to fill a large stadium. Among this throng are people whose stories I’ll never forget. There was the colleague who had started his new gig at Nokia just six weeks before Nokia […]
Matt Collins' Blog 