Month: January 2016
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What Are The Elements Of A Brand Strategy?
This question originally came in on Quora. Definition of a Brand Strategy A branding strategy is a document that shows how you plan to get from the current image you project to the future image which you would like to project. It’s Not a Marketing Strategy Note that a branding strategy is not a marketing…
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The Ordinary Extraordinary of David Bowie
I’m a little bit stunned that David Bowie, may he rest in peace, has actually passed. I didn’t know him, but I knew him. His music videos were a very real presence in my life at a time when pop culture seemed to overtake it. Like Madonna, Bowie branded his music song by song. Visually, compellingly,…
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How To Get Your Brand Hijacked: The Radical Thinking of Alex Wipperfurth
Who creates the brand – the consumer or the producer? Ten years ago nobody ever really considered this question. The brand was owned by its owner, and within the dominant advertising-focused mindset, all one had to do was promote it. Then Alex Wipperfürth published the classic Brand Hijack: Marketing Without Marketing. In it he attacked conventional wisdom with…
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Seeing Through The Eyes Of Faith – Sforno On Parshas Vaera
The most important lesson for me out of this week’s Bible reading, Exodus 6:9. Just before this verse, G-d says to Moses [Moshe], basically: “It’s time to get out of Egypt now. Tell the people I’m taking them home to Israel.” When Moshe tells them, the Jews refuse to listen “because of shortness of breath…
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An Open Letter to Whole Foods: 5 Reasons to Drop Marc Gafni
The back-and-forth on the charges and explanations have filled many of my notebooks over the past three years, as I have interviewed more than 50 people on this issue. Some investigations have a clear resolution; this one does not. Defenders of Gafni note the allegations go back many years. They demand more recent proof of…
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The Secret To Happiness – Rarely Shared
My beloved father-in-law, may he rest in peace, was an irreplaceable figure in my life. He passed away just about a year ago, on New Year’s Day in fact, and the grief remains as raw as it was on Day One. Dad taught me a lot of things about how to survive. But the most…
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One Solid Way To Fail, But Not Fall, In 2016
I was thinking this morning about the pressure we’re all under walking back into the office after New Year’s. Vacation is over, the resolutions are made and it feels like there are just so many of them: “Eat clean,” “learn to construct a computer,” “get my college degree,” even “work hard and get that promotion.”…
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Abuse Survivors On The Job: Signs, Symptoms & How To Help
Maybe child abuse isn’t such a problem. As of 2011, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, there were 742,000 “confirmed cases of child maltreatment,” which translates into about .1% of the child population. Of course “there are lies, damned lies and statistics” and the numbers depend on both definition and methodology. For…
2016 Diary - Dannielle Blumenthal 