The Story

brass is the magazine about young adults and money. Fresher than Forbes or Fortune, this publication targets Gen-Y with articles, interviews, and statistics that are relevant for them. Not only is the content original – so is the marketing. At brass, they know that the under-30 crowd doesn’t respond well to flat […]

Attention-grabbing, brilliant, tacky, non-trad, childish, irritating - a range of adjectives have been used to describe Tao Lin’s self-promotion strategy. Though people can’t come to a consensus about the author, they can firmly tell you whether they love or hate him.
Tao Lin has been putting stickers around New York that say “Britney Spears” to […]

I realize Forward ‘08 was a while ago, but there were some important points made at the conference that I didn’t discuss in my last post, Successful word of mouth marketing. Namely, word of mouth marketing as it applies to services and B2B.
After Andy Sernovitz’s speech - which was mostly about word of mouth […]

I write this blog with apologies to Jeff, our CEO here at CBC, who is about as far away from a science-fiction fan as Romulus is from Earth. I just can’t resist going where no CBCer has gone before for this post. I was recently watching a documentary about the making of the first Star […]

It didn’t occur to me until after spending 30 initially uncomfortable minutes in the pedicure chair next to my significant other that we at CBC ask our clients–CMOs, CEOs, managers–to continually get outside their comfort zone with the wildly innovative bank marketing ideas we present, but we don’t, however, take the time to advocate they […]

I’m pleased to introduce a new mini-series within The Story, called “Amusing Yet Disturbing.” In this series, I’ll share with you some of the “amusing, yet disturbing” questions, discussions and comments I come across from bank and credit union marketing folks. Why are these items both amusing and disturbing? Because they often show […]

Yesterday, I attended the AMA’s Forward 08 non-traditional marketing event. There was a notable concentration on word of mouth marketing - what works, what doesn’t, and why it’s important. The importance is pretty obvious (people trust their peers more than they trust advertising). But some people might still be asking: what creates […]

Max Havelaar, the label that was the world’s first Fairtrade Certification Mark, recently released a viral marketing video to help promote fairtrade. I personally find this cool for two reasons. A) I got to hear one of Max Havelaar’s team members lecture about corporate social responsibility during a student conference in Copenhagen (back […]

Good news–after a bit of drama, I’m happy to follow up to my previous post, It’s Hard To Eat Your Own Dogfood, and report that we did the right thing. We’ve separated from a client who was not a good fit. Does it hurt revenue? Yes. Is it frustrating as hell? […]

Recently I’ve gained a new level of respect for the challenges our clients face. Not because of the economy, not because of competition, or anything like that. More because they’ve got me constantly harping at them, telling them to prove their stories…preaching that they need to have a spine, stand up for what […]