Yea, I'm a proud father! This is an essay my daughter Sydney (who just turned 12) wrote this week and I just had to share her writing and her message -- Cherish the things you love! My brother died at a young age, only 12. Well, actually, he died when he was 84. Confused yet? Ok, I lied. I'm an only child. The brother I talked about, his name was Dublin and he is a real person. Well, kind of. As you might have guessed by now, my brother is not human. So what? Just because he's a German Shepard/Beagle... Continue reading

Back by popular demand! Building on last year’s packed Show & Smell showcase combining inspiring emerging technologies and sensory marketing, this hands-on crowd experience of leading edge technologies, continues to define the key factors of how to make new technology work in a promotional marketing program or experiential states. With live demonstrations of technologies you won’t see every day—technologies bringing together the physical and digital to harness your sight, smell, touch and taste including Twitter-driven robots, crowd-controlled gaming, and a host of emerging technologies even WE haven't seen yet. You can go here to see what we presented last year,... Continue reading

As I wrote in Shouldn't We Make Place Special, retailers have spent billions of dollars to create physical environments that today they all too often ignore. It's hard to find merchandise, pricing and usually even staff. In todays economy, can you afford to have hundreds of thousands (or millions) of square feet of retail space and all of the expenses that go with it, and just have it act like windows for people to do online shopping -- and they may not even shop online at your store! Can you continue to support online social media efforts while creating physical... Continue reading

Just love this promotion program for the new James Bond movie Skyfall. It has everything a great promotion should have,. It's fun, it's place-based (you know how I feel about that!) and it's pretty darn engaging. Kudos to Coke Zero for putting it together. They really use the space well and the placement of people telling you how much time you have left adds to the excitement. Plus, it's great for spectators, as you watch people try to complete the mission. Sadly, liability issues here in the States would probably prevent something like this from happening here. Check out the... Continue reading

[NOTE - This was originally writtwen in 2001 and focused just on the online space. Think it's still valuable as we continue to explore the relationship between brands, consumers & privacy.] Online privacy. It's in our headlines every day. We talk about it at trade shows; over lunch and even the government is getting involved. How can it controlled? Who can use your information? Whose information can you use? The Child Privacy Act has gone into effect and it will have a major impact on how we collect information online. The recent outcry over Doubleclick's collection and use of user... Continue reading

Yes, it's that time of year, the annual Come Out & Play festival in NYC. Once again returning to Governor's Island on Saturday, this yera's events also adds a Friday evening program at the South Street Seaport. As always, there are lots of cool games for all ages and thanks to being at Governor's Island, I think there will be more families again. Sydney & I had lots of fun last year (sadly, she's away at camp this year) and I'm sure this year will be no different. I'm particularly excited to have helped the AT&T Research team bring their... Continue reading

Came across this on my old blog from 2009 and it's still pretty funny. And sadly, still pretty true! Continue reading

Yep, I've been asking this question for a while and some recent posts/Twitter conversations stirred it up again for me. Do we really want to be friends with a brand? Without a doubt, there are brands that we maintain more of a relationship then we do with others, but in most cases, here's what I think we want from brands: That they deliver. Tell me you're going to do something, I expect you to do it. That they listen when I have a problem. I don't want you to listen to me 24/7, but when I have a problem and... Continue reading

Another oldie from my original blog! The internet is a great learning tool and you can really find some great information out there. I was reading through posts on the Re-Imagine discussion boards and came across one that was posted by a Paul Hanson: The Economist had a wonderful article on the history of coffee shops a few weeks ago. In the 18th and 19th centuries they were amazing places. Many shops became known for the types of customers who visited. i.e. the subject of discussion was different in each shop. One shop was known for scientific arguments (in one... Continue reading

One of the great things about youtube is finding old clips like this. Back in March of '93, I brought a VR system to Live with Regis & Kathie Lee. I remember it being a lot of work to get set-up on time and then we only had a short segment to get it all done. We had lots of fun and it sure is nice to see myself without grey! Continue reading

I did this interview last year in Denmark while I was there for NEXT and thought that I would share it. We covered a lot of ground, including retail trends; what's working in retail and what the future of retail might be. Probably the first time I spoke about the role of history and legacy in creating retail experiences, something I still continue to formulate. Have a watch and let me know what you think. Continue reading

I'll be heading out this weekend to CES, which as Ad Age points out below, is quickly becoming one of the go to events for the advertising industry. In addition to exploring the show floor myself, I will also be doing some tours with MediaLink and Shelly Palmer, something I'm very excited about! In addition, Michael Kassan will be moderating the Brand Keynote, and this year's line up is pretty stellar! It includes AT&T's David Christopher, General Electric's (GE) Beth Comstock, Facebook's Carolyn Everson, Walmart's Stephen Quinn, Hyundai's Steve Shannon and Unilever's Keith Weed. It again shows how more and... Continue reading

I originally wrote this piece just a few weeks after 9-11 for a trade publication in the amusement industry. They were looking for an article that would come out during the annual IAAPA conference and I usually covered topics like experience design and the importance of authenticity. But that week, I didn't know what to write. Sydney was just six months old at the time and I spent a great deal of time being grateful that she was too young for me to have to try to explain what happened and why. I'm still excited when I look at Sydney... Continue reading

UPDATE: Well, it took about 4 hours of trying on the phone and on Twitter, but Delta was able to get Sydney & I on a new flight that, if all goes well, gets us in at the same time as originally planned. Of course, it means leaving at 7:30 tomorrow morning and basically spending the next 24 hours on planes, but at least we'll make it to the conference! More when we get there! Yes, once again, weather seems to be thwarting another trip that I've been looking forward to for months. I get it. There's a hurricane. It's... Continue reading

Very excited that Sydney & I are off to Denmark to participate in the Next Festival, produced by the iLab. They always produce an excellent program, with a pretty wide range of speakers and I'll be talking baout the future of retail. In addition, Sydney will be presenting with me at Lego on what it means to play and being a digital native. Plus, we'll get some time to explore Copenhagen! I'll be blogging and Tweeting from the event, so look for updates next week. Concurrent with the renowned international cultural venue – Aarhus Festival – NEXT 2011 offers boosts... Continue reading

I'm a big fan of this kind of activity and really do believe that it create more value for both the advertisers and the consumers. We tried to get people to think about things like this at the Brand Experience Lab, but I'm guessing we were juist a little ahead of our time. With the network-startup team up, CW advertisers will be able to reward Shopkick users with offers intended to drive them to stores if they watch select ad spots. Television viewers will be prompted to open the Shopkick application on their Android or iPhone devices before a commercial... Continue reading

Nice piece from Forbes about how consumers are using mobile phones to create their own, "oneline" experiences. Some good thoughts here, click on the link below to see the entire article. According to JiWire’s Q4 2010 Mobile Audience Insights Report, 20 percent of the on-the-go-audience has visited a physical store after seeing a location-specific ad (emphasis mine). Promotions, store proximity, and product availability are all significant factors driving mobile users of location-based services into stores. Similarly, many consumers who begin their shopping process with online research continue to go to a store to make their final purchase, citing lack of... Continue reading

What more can you say about a quote, probably written 50+ years ago. And I really love this part of the quote: "Advertising so interrupting, so daring, so fresh, so engaging, so human, so believable and so well-focused as to themes and ideas that, at one and the same time, it builds a quality reputation for the long haul as it produces sales for the immediate present." I think that often today, advertisers are all about being daring, but they're not well-focused. It's the combination that's critical! (BTW, I've been trying to find the date, but haven't had any luck.... Continue reading

I've been using this quote for probably 10 years, because it's an excellent way to reframe our conversations about advertising today. We like to think that our "advertising everywhere" world is a new phenomenon, but it really isn't. In fact, it's a great example of what I say often -- "Those that don't know history are destined to think everything is new." If you don't know who Samuel Johnson is (and many people don't!), he was an 18th century writer and I've tracked this quote to about 1751. So, 260 years ago, he was complaining that there were too many... Continue reading

Excited to be back for the upcoming Retail Advertising and Marketing Association Innovate conference to present the Kaleidoscope experience on the future of retail. What I've liked about this session (this is the 3rd time we're doing it), is that the bulk of the session involves the audience actually working together to finish the presentation. You can see some of the visuals from one of our first Kaleidoscope sessions last fall in the image below. At Innovate, Alan Treadgold, from Leo Burnett, will share original research direct from the customer’s point of view and I will give an experience overview.... Continue reading

I thought that I would post a different quote each Friday and these seemed like 2 good ones to start. I hope that they'll inspire you to think a little differently. Lots of companies start out ahead of the curve and then let everyone pass them by as innovation becomes stagnation. I've used this quote for years and what I like about it is that some 3,000 years ago, Confucius was talking about the need to involve people in what you're doing. Are you telling, showing or involving? Continue reading

The BRITE Conference is back at Columbia on March 2nd & 3rd. As I've done in the past, I will be blogging & Tweeting from the event and as always, they have a great program lined up. It's one of my favorite events to attend each year and I'm confident that you'll enjoy it as well. The conference has extended a 25% discount to readers of my blog, when you register, use code briteblog25. Early bird rate runs through the 21st, so sign up now to get a great rate on a great program. Holler if you're going to be... Continue reading

I was doing some searching on earlier projects from my life and was happy to re-read this article about my first, big event. Way back in the early 80's, I was hired by the Art Council of Central Florida to help produce the events that they did. I was working at Disney at the time and also running the World Disney World Youth Theater Club, so I was a little sad to leave Disney at the time. Within a few months of being at the Arts Council, I came up with the idea of an international performing arts festival that... Continue reading

A few years ago, I was doing an interview for a new book about experiential marketing and I was asked about the importance brand ambassadors. My response was that while they were certainly very important when you were doing marketing events, the truth is that there shouldn't be a select group of brand ambassadors. Every employee that you hire should be a brand ambassador. I've written about the importance of retail in the past: Retail Grows in Importance: Retail spaces will become even more important as a connection point between the consumer and the brand. And the people you hire... Continue reading