Culture

Brand Architecture, Brands, Culture, Product Positioning

When it doesn’t pay to advertise

With Republicans accusing Obama of buying the vote and the uproar over $150,000 wardrobes just subsiding, it’s a dangerous time for an expensive half-hour infomercial. While the Obama campaign has largely been a model of branding perfection, its occasional outsized confidence (Berlin? Greek Columns? Thoughts of delaying the Phillies’ victory when Pennsylvania is a game-changer?) may have limited its success in closing the deal with the moderate middle. Can Obama’s messag

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Culture, Hospitality, Trends

Redefining Fine Dining: Travese City’s “Cooks’ House”

And now for something completely different... In recent years, the apogee of fine dining has been defined by chefs adroit at manipulating and transforming ingredients into virtually unrecognizable concoctions. The pioneering molecular gastronomy of Ferran Adria’s El Bulli. The Fat Duck under Heston Blumenthal, delivering on the assertion that “Preparing and serving food . . . [is] the mo

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Culture, Organizational Development

Creating Corporate Culture – Before the Hire

Building and nurturing a strong brand is a matter of delivering products, services, and experiences that provide unique and compelling value to customers. That requires much more than creative communications. It requires aligning culture, people and processes so that they are incentivized to work, act, and interact in ways that produce desired brand outcomes. That means teaching and rewarding productive brand behaviors, discouraging unproductive ones, and - perhaps most importantly of all – hiri

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Culture, Trends

The English Language: Evolving, or Devolving?

Did you notice the error in this title? If you did, how much did it bother you? Language is changing. But is it degenerating? Or is it simply shedding antiquated encumbrances? • It’s vs. Its • Your vs. You’re • Their vs. They’re • The subjunctive voice Language is becoming more relaxed. IM’s, SMS’s, Facebook, blogs, wikis – they’re profoundly influencing how we read, write, speak,

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Brands, Culture

Ask Not What YouTube Can Do For You

In this election year, the new media are emerging not just as democratic, but also as Democractic -- in the capital D sense. The Obama campaign is using the internet as a resource like no other candidate has done before. These days, getting elected is a matter of knowing not only how to market a candidate but where: the medium matters. Barack “Scarlett Johansson loves me” Obama and his supporters are reaching out

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Brand Strategy, Brands, Culture, Trends

Is the Whole Foods Brand Losing its Mojo?

John Mackey, the legendarily combative CEO of Whole Foods Markets (NASDAQ: WFMI) is back. Back to blogging, that is after an 11-month self-imposed hiatus while the SEC considered whether his two thousand + Yahoo! posts under the anagram “rahodeb” (borrowed from his wife Deborah Morin) violated securities regulations. Equal parts enfant terrible and éminence grise, Mr. Mackey seems surprised by all

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Culture

Death, Taxes and Jury Duty: Jury Service in Los Angeles

"I consider [trial by jury] as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which a government can be held to the principles of its constitution." -- Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Paine, 1789 Every year the fifty courts in Los Angeles County handle 2,700,000 new cases. This gives the system the ignominious distinction of being the largest court in the country. To fuel this formidable juggernaut of justice, Los Angeles calls 2.68 million residents every year for jury service – the equival

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