Customers may never know how a company’s finance or HR department responds to a major unpredicted event, but marketing sits center stage, its moves reflected in every ad campaign, message and channel. You set the tone for how customers perceive the brand during a difficult time. Taking the right actions and finding the right message →
To say it’s a unique time in the world is an understatement. As we all collectively grapple with what this global pandemic means for us — as humans first, but also as professionals — there are often more questions than answers. There is no playbook for times like these, but what I’ve found is that →
As people continue to travel, it is only a matter of time before COVID-19 spreads to the rest of the 54 countries on the continent. As I write this from Monrovia, Liberia – a country whose health system has suffered enormous challenges due to civil wars and the Ebola epidemic in 2014 – I am →
An Italian design company has teamed up with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to create prefabricated intensive care →
In the coming months, businesses are going to become more reliant than ever on their digital strategy. Without wanting →
As the SARS-CoV-2 virus – more popularly known as COVID-19 – has spread around the globe, conspiracy theories and rumours have also gone viral on social media platforms and other outlets. As World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus rightly said in February, “We’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic”. Read More →
Fifty-six percent of consumers report being happy to learn about how brands are helping in response to the coronavirus pandemic, according to a recent survey from the American Association of Advertising Agencies (4A’s). And helping they are! Read More →
ONE DAY IN late February of 2016, Mark Zuckerberg sent a memo to all of Facebook’s employees to address some troubling behavior in the ranks. His message pertained to some walls at the company’s Menlo Park headquarters where staffers are encouraged to scribble notes and signatures. On at least a couple of occasions, someone had →
AS HOLLYWOOD EVENTS go, there are few more congratulatory than film festival awards ceremonies, where everyone wants to →
Fast Company’s sixth annual Innovation By Design Awards drew more than 2,500 submissions. The 299 honorees, chosen by →
Experts say that bias is one of the biggest problems facing the development of artificial intelligence. When a →
When was the last time you were lost on your smartphone? Because for me, it was just this →
In the second of our eight-part series on the mobility of the future we explore how urbanistic choices can influence the spread of battery-powered cars. A city that’s growing in size doesn’t need to forgo sustainable mobility options. From the densest city centres to the edges of a metropolis, well-distributed charging points can be a →
We all know that colds, the flu, and other diseases are contagious. They spread from one person to →
The 2018 Data & Analytics Global Executive Study and Research Report by MIT Sloan Management Review explores how companies better engage with customers through their use of analytics. The report, “Using Analytics to Improve Customer Engagement,” finds that innovative, analytically mature organizations make use of data from multiple sources: customers, vendors, regulators, and even competitors. →
In a world where customers are shifting a significant portion of their purchases from off-line to mobile and →
We see the effects of transformative new technologies everywhere except in productivity statistics. Systems using artificial intelligence (AI) →
After years of hope and promise, 2018 may be the year when artificial intelligence (AI) gains meaningful traction →
For more than a century, economies of scale made the corporation an ideal engine of business. But now, →
Anxieties about whether machines will take our jobs will soon be a thing of the past. Robots are →
One of the most common questions I get asked by senior managers is “How can we find more →
Business in the 21st century is being redefined by a data-driven revolution. Take the MIT Media Lab’s experiment →
Erich Joachimsthaler, author of Brand Leadership, once quipped that every 10 years or so someone predicts the end of television, but it keeps on playing. His observation is prescient. Television is in the midst of an enormous evolution where consumers can watch programming on any internet-connected device with a screen. According to a Harvard Business →
Companies spend a lot on marketing communications. In fact, global spending on media is expected to reach $2.1 →
Mario Natarelli and Rina Plapler, both partners at MBLM, “the Brand Intimacy Agency focused on strategy, design, creative →
Not long ago, mom-and-pop shops struggled to compete with the big conglomerates and internet businesses luring their customer →
In response to repeated brand safety flare ups on YouTube over the past year, Pixability has launched a →
There is a ton of speculation about how artificial intelligence will impact our jobs, but little on-the-ground data—until now. Glassdoor, a job search portal, has data on millions of job postings. This data can tell us much about how AI is changing the employment landscape. Thankfully, Glassdoor breaks it all down in a new study →
Founded in September 2011, Snapchat continues to evolve and innovate in a way that keeps the industry on →
In an era when brand durability is being questioned, getting customers to see how your brand differentiates itself →
Facebook ’s FB -1.33% ad-measurement odyssey continues. The social-media giant has revealed two new adjustments to the data it provides marketers to evaluate the effectiveness of their ads. In September, The Wall Street Journal reported that Facebook had been overestimating a video-advertising metric for as long as two years in some cases. Then last month, →
Above and beyond. 2016 has been a tumultuous year for American politics, business, and society. Luckily, these products →
These cool new technologies are controversial to say the least. →
It’s not entirely your fault if the words “It’s fine” are defaults in your vocabulary. Honestly, it’s not–social →
On Tuesday, Ikea—the Swedish furniture company that has become eponymous with trendy, affordable furniture and relationship tension—announced a →
There are few things that can bring geeks (like me) to the edge of hyperbolic hysteria like compelling new hardware videos, and this last week had not one but two! There’s no question both products are exciting in their own right; what makes them compelling, though, is not simply the technology demonstrated, but the fact →
It is election day in the United States, and the tech figure who had one of the biggest →
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) released the results of its 2015 global rankings on student performance in mathematics, reading, and science, on the Program for International Student Assessment, or PISA. The PISA is a worldwide exam administered every three years that measures 15-year-old in 72 countries. About 540,000 students took the exam in 2015. The US saw an →
While many teams within your organization contribute to your success, one that cannot be overlooked or understated is →
Big companies are often criticized for having “missed” the future — from the comfortable perch of a present →
It’s not enough to have a strong vision or a single great idea. To successfully innovate—in a way →
The problem is that over the years, strategy has become something of a buzz word. Whenever we want to sound smart and demonstrate our business acumen we just make sure the word strategy shows up in our ideas. The result is that we now refer to many mundane and uninteresting aspect of the business as →
We’ve all been in those meetings. The subject of the company’s brand purpose comes up and the C-level →
The U.S. presidential election last month did more than just open the front door to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to Donald Trump. It’s also initiated a period of national soul searching about how we get our news. Facebook in particular has come under fire for failing to distinguish or deprecate “fake news” and downright propaganda from →
To build great products, you need input from the people and organizations that are actually going to use →
Technology has made it difficult to tell a trend from something that’s merely trendy because of the ways →
Telstra innovations, enabled by Windows 10, are bringing the digital and physical retail worlds together for Australian customers like never before. By using the new solution, Telstra is able to reduce average wait times for customers to three minutes. →
We often doubt our own powers of persuasion because we do not realize that it is often harder for people, even our bosses to says no than yes says JM OLEJARZ, HBR Editor →
Push notifications are a cornerstone of every mobile app’s engagement and retention strategy, yet we know so →
In our world of eye-popping stats, John Herrman recently shared a new one from a Morgan Stanley analyst that shakes the wobbly legs of the digital →
Not so long ago (and not so far back as the Mad Men and midday scotch) you could reach the majority of your target audience if you advertised on the right TV channel or radio station at the right time or in the right newspaper or magazine. With the rise of the internet, particularly websites →
T is the season of reports in the digital content industry. With Mary Meeker’s “2016 Internet Trends” report, PageFair’s annual ad-blocking report, IAB’s quarterly revenue update, and Pew Research’s “State of the News Media” all coming out within the span of a few weeks, there has been a flood of information about the current state of the media, advertising, and →
There is something marketing managers seem to forget about the internet: it was made for people, not for →
I’ve been talking recently about how design makes the difference for brands. And now, a month after the EU Referendum, →
To read the many, many excellent (and often elementary) posts about the developing ‘uni-pocalyse’, you would assume that VCs have decided to double-up their fleece vests and hole up in Montana. This fear is largely untrue, especially when it comes to FinTech funding. First, remember that PayPal launched in a down year. Carry that bit of information →
There is much discussion online, and also in small, private groups, about why the prices of technology companies–public and →
The Italian-made Brain One is a standalone, wireless tracking system that is claimed to be easy to use, →
Part farm and part school, “Nursery Fields Forever” offers three approaches to learning: learning from nature, learning from technique, and learning from practice. “We think that kids should enjoy nature,” said Edoardo Capuzzo Dolcetta to Fast Company. “So we designed this strange school: No classrooms, but open spaces where vegetables grow inside and animals can come →
Whether you’re a video producer fielding numerous calls from your social media management team or the social manager making the →
Content marketing success starts with knowing how to find your target audience. After all, how can you begin creating content before you know who your audience is? Good content marketing takes time. A lot of it. You can’t afford to waste that time with content that isn’t perfectly focused on your target market. You need to find who →
Different generations engage with mobile advertisements in very different ways, according to recent research from Nielsen. The report was based on →
We live in uniquely uncertain times for brands. According to brand strategist Rod Parkes, in a discussion on The →
Ten disruptive marketing trends that will shape the future of brand leadership. 1. Mobile will be the dominant platform. Intelligent devices— smartphones, tablets, watches, wearable gadgets, glasses, microchips, HoloLens (pictured), and others—will reshape and remix the marketing world. As we shift to a world of intelligent devices, marketing will strike up an even more personalized relationship with customers. →
We have explored the topic of Brand Differentiation from many angles over the years to help brands break free from the pull of ‘me too’ strategies. Today we’re highlighting nine insights that will help you think through and discover the meaningful point(s) of difference your brand can represent. 1. Is Brand Differentiation Still Possible? There’s a shift of →
At Google BrandLab; we’ve run more than 400 workshops from San Bruno to Singapore. We’ve partnered with thousands →
Some say the world is divided into humanities people and science people; artists and geeks; intuitive types and →
In an age of infinite media choices, what types of ads will make consumers want to tune in? →