Started looking at things I've been writing over the years and some of the consistent thoughts have been around the socialization of place. Thanks to Covid, I think many people have really started to understand the incredible importance of community in our world and as I've written about here, physical retail has in the past and should continue to play a role in community building. I think that back in 2005, iTunes became the 7th or 8th largest music store in the United States. Think about that. They have no real estate, at least none dedicated specifically to iTunes, and... Continue reading

As we become more digital, our physical environments becomes even more important, for both employees and customers. Given how crowded the retail world is today,and given the number of brands reaching out to consumers, the ability to touch and engage consumers in a place where you control the entire message has incredible value. Instead of viewing retail presence as a necessary evil, you should be using it to create a better connection with your audience. Retailers need to look for ways to ‘e-tail’ their retail. There also needs to be a much better connection between the in-store experience and the... Continue reading

Since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, our interaction with the physical world has undergone a profound transformation. In the realm of community building, the concept of the "third place" has gained significance. This term refers to social environments distinct from the home ("first place") and the workplace ("second place"). Examples of third places include churches, cafes, clubs, public libraries, bookstores, and parks. Ray Oldenburg, in his influential book "The Great Good Place" (1989), emphasizes the importance of third places for civil society, democracy, civic engagement, and fostering a sense of place. Consider the innovative office spaces created by companies... Continue reading

A few days ago, Starbucks had a pretty big earning miss, prompting lots of discussion about what went wrong and how to fix it. In a recent interview with CBS, CEO Laxman Narasimhan had this to say: The company's plan to turn things around includes updating its app and mobile payment offerings, speeding up service, and overhauling its menu to lure customers back. Ex-CEO and founder of Starbucks, Howard Schultz had no issues jumping into the discussion saying in an interview: “The stores require a maniacal focus on the customer experience, through the eyes of a merchant,” he added. “The... Continue reading

Gotta be honest, I like how AI updated my bio! And I'm excited to be getting out and speaking more, so if you're looking for someone who can help with any of these topics, Please email me for pricing & availability and you can find additional information about my speaking here. From Disney Character to VR Pioneer to Emerging Technologist: David Captivates Audiences David's journey isn't your typical marketing path. He honed his storytelling with his degree in theater and as a performer in the WDW Tencennial Parade, a skill that electrifies his speaking engagements. With over 30 years of... Continue reading

We have just returned from a 10 day cruise to Alaska (amazing, BTW) and since it was hot, muggy and rainy this weekend, we went to the movies. Of course, we saw two of the hottest movies right now, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One. We did enjoy them both, but it was the experience around watching the movies that I want to write about. I've written about my love of watching movies in the theater here, but here's the main point: Seeing a movie in a theater with an audience... Continue reading

It was a pretty busy month for the team at BEL, as we packed the Lab and took it on the road. While we worked hard, we did get some good dinners in as well. Remember, Experience, Experiment, Execute is not just a tagline. It's at the core of everything we do here. Give us a shout and let's see how we can work together to help you better engage your audience and drive sales. Today's consumers have many options when it comes to making purchases, we can help you stay top of mind. Our first stop was the Shop!Marketplace... Continue reading

At Brand Experience Lab, we're really leaning into the all of the possibilities of AR and how retailers can use the technology to create new experiences. A recent article on AR in the Business of Fashion shows just how powerful AR can be as a sales tool: 86 percent of US brands who use AR say it helps boost sales, helps acquire new customers and drives performance metrics 66 percent of end consumers are interested in using AR for help when making purchasing decisions In addition, Threekit has these AR stats: AR product experiences are 200% more engaging as they... Continue reading

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know that I started doing work with virtual reality back in the early 90's and coined the expression Experiential Advertising to talk about using VR to create immersive marketing experiences. Today we're combining that experience with the metaverse (what we used to call cyberspace) and our teams extensive experience with retail to create the next generation of retail experiences. Members of our metaverse retail team have worked with major retailers to develop their merchandising experiences, propelling brand presence, change, profitability, and performance through the orchestration of complex sales,... Continue reading

Curious as to what we do every day here at the Lab? We're excited to launch our new, overview video of the Brand Experience Lab. This video features our experienced team including Mitchell Edelman, James Ackerman, James Wiemer, Alexandra Zelcer and me and gives a great look into the selection of technology we offer such as Augmented Reality/Virtual Reality and the metaverse Shoppable live streaming Glasses-Free 3D Dynamic Interactive Displays Data on things Smart kiosks Virtual try-ons and more - all at our 14,000 sq. foot space in Jersey City! Want to know more about all of the technologies we're... Continue reading

As you may know, I was actively involved in VR back in the 90's (see here, here and here) and I coined the phrase Experiential Advertising to talk about the use of VR as a marketing tool way back about 1993. As I wrote back then: For the first time, consumers will be able to enter and, more importantly, interact with a corporate marketing message. From traveling through the human body to playing a virtual football game, consumers will be able to experience almost any marketing world. Virtual reality offers advertisers the ultimate sampling opportunity and will present a clutter... Continue reading

If you know me at all, you know how I feel about Oreo's. And if you don't, well, know that there's no way I could pass up a chance to visit the first Oreo Café at American Dream. Regular Oreo's, Double Stuff, yea, I can eat them all. Knowing I was pretty close to their first Café, I grabbed the family and we went over to check it out. I'm also a great fan of location based branding, using the physical space to bring your brand story to life. To me, this is more than just having stores, it's spaces... Continue reading

As you can see by the photos below, I recently decided it was time to make a change from the Covid beard I had grown this past year. I’ve had a beard mainly since I left Disney in about 1984, but hadn’t been clean shaven in about a decade. Because of that, the sudden shaving was really irritating my skin and I was getting a lot of razor burn. So I decided I would try an electric razor and see if that helped. I did my research and deciding which one I wanted, started to go to stores to buy... Continue reading

My daughter, Sydney, is a sophomore at Bucknell and like many students, she has had a tough year. Between suddenly having all of her classes go remote, the food program being really hard (at least last semester) and the lack of social experiences, it's been a hard year for her. But one thing that was awesome, is her experience at her residence hall, Fran's House. But last week, she had an experience that no one at college should have. Her house was attacked by a group of graduating seniors, members of a fraternity that had previously lived in the building... Continue reading

Unless you've been on a deserted island (which honestly, might've been a good idea for the past year), you've no doubt heard of 5G. You might even have a 5G phone right now, there are a number of them on the market right now. 3G enabled the phones to start being more than a voice/text device, while 4G brought us the data opportunity that we've been living in for a few years now. Without 4G, much of what we do on our phones on a daily basis would not be possible, including watching content, maps, etc. 5G, as it becomes... Continue reading

So, the very first, virtual CES has completed day one and, I have to be honest, it wasn't nearly as much fun as actually being there! No doubt, it's really hard to get as excited about things when you can't really see or touch them. The second challenge that I've actually had with CES for a few years is that many times, the show is pretty incremental. In fact, this was was what I said when I reviewed CES in 2019. So we'll see what the breakouts are this year and whether or not it's more incremental than innovative. You... Continue reading

I've been giving tours of #CES for 10 years now, this is the first year that I'm not checking into a Vegas hotel today! One of the reasons I was brought in to give tours was to help separate things that would be trends from things I didn't think would be trends. While I've had a few misses over the years, I haven't done that badly. So, while most people are currently posting CES trends, I thought I would talk about some things that won't be trends, at least any time soon. 8K TV's. Truth be told, no one needs... Continue reading

Repealing Section 230 has been a hot call this year, even hotter now that it's been tied to additional Covid relief in the Senate. And it's certainly been a hot topic for President Trump all year, even tied into his veto of the defense budget. But there's a serious amount of confusion about what 230 is and how it came about. So, let's start at the beginning. Section 230 was part of the Communication Decency Act of 1996. Yes, a good 10 years before social media even really existed. It doesn't just protect social media companies from lawsuits coming from... Continue reading

American Girl Doll store, NYC I was involved in a discussion on Twitter today and was reminded on the idea of the the third place. It was a topic that I used to write about about a great deal and with everything happening these days, guess it's kind of fallen off my radar lately. If you don't know the idea of the third place, it's this: In community building, the third place is the social surroundings separate from the two usual social environments of home ("first place") and the workplace ("second place"). Examples of third places would be environments such... Continue reading

BARBENHEIMER WEEKEND This past weekend was the now infamous Barbenheimer weekend at the cinema. As I'm sure you've read, Barbie broke multiple box office records, raking in an incredible $162 million in its opening weekend. Globally, it's done $337 million. Oppenheimer, a movie that couldn't be more different, brought in $82.4 million, exceeding all expectations. Combined, it's the fourth largest weekend box office. We saw both and they were both packed. In fact, we saw Oppenheimer at an 8:45 AM showing (in 70MM) and it was almost sold out. The audiences we were with loved both movies and showed the... Continue reading

During the Covid break, Sydney and I had the chance to speak with Alyssa Mullin from NUMA New York on a variety of Gen Z topics. In this section, Sydney talks about how they're using things like Instagram and, of course, TikTok. She also talks about her general media consumption and how right now, they're looking for things that make them feel nostalgic. Let us know what you think in the comments! Media Consumption Gen Z from NUMA New York on Vimeo. Continue reading

It's 2020 and we're in the middle of a pandemic where people can't go out to eat in restaurants as we usually do. Thankfully, take out and delivery is booming! So why do so many restaurants still not have their actual menu online??? Sometimes I can find the menu in pictures taken by guests and posted on Yelp or Trip Advisor, but the restaurant itself doesn’t have their menu available. This seems like such a simple thing to do to keep themselves going in these very challenging times. If I can't get this simple, basic information, how can you expect... Continue reading

We are excited to welcome Veda Labs as a member to the Brand Experience Lab! VedaLabs is an India based company who uses an AI platform that helps retailers gather real time insights. From their website: Veda labs as an AI platform that offers deep insights powered by computer vision and machine learning. These insights allow a business owner to extract deep insights from any form of video data in real time. VedaVision™ allows retailers the following: Real Time Reporting. A single dashboard that allows you to have a real time data on how your stores are performing based on... Continue reading

I know it’s hard to believe, especially for some of the youngsters who might be reading this, but there was a time when air travel was so much nicer than it is today. And no, I’m not talking about back in the 40’s! If you were waiting for a flight to depart and there was a problem, the airline might move you to a competing company to make sure you got to your destination. They might even do that if it was your fault, like getting to the airport late and missing your flight. Not that I have any firsthand... Continue reading

Don't forget to join us this Thursday for a fun talk about media, marketing and #GenZ. Sydney Polinchock & I will be talking about: The relationship between Gen Z and technology. What media are they consuming? How is this influencing the way they spend your time and money? What is the biggest challenge in marketing to Gen Z right now? What are marketers getting wrong? Who is getting it right? What marketing campaigns are resonating right now? What trends are you most excited about moving forward? * What trends are you not excited about? Hit the link here for additional... Continue reading