Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 101

SBF: What’s Behind Your Curtain?

Several weeks ago I saw a television special about television (no, that wasn’t a typo!). It was one of those programs where they look at old shows and interview the actors about what their lives are like now. When they came to Garry Shandling, the former star of the self-created Larry Sanders Show – this is what he said: “the curtain is a metaphor. On the other side of the curtain is when we are ourselves.” Last night I had the chance to watch an extremely powerful video from comedian Anthony...

The 8 Year Website Redesign

If there is one fact I have seen over and over from just about anyone who runs a website … it is that we all are constantly dreaming about redesigning our sites. Almost from the day we launch, we can’t help thinking about all the things we would like to add to our sites and what we would change if we could start over. For me, that process started more than 8 years ago when I first launched my blog. Back then, I titled it “Influential Interactive Marketing” and thought I would focus on user in...

How To Launch A Successful Product: Lessons From the New Kindle Fire HD

I have been a fan of the Amazon Kindle device for some time now ... and I ordered the new 7 inch Kindle Fire the day it was announced. This weekend I had the chance to try it out, and have been fairly happy. What I didn't expect, though, was to take away quite so many marketing lessons from the announcement and launch of the device itself. In the leadup to the launch as well as after I had the chance to try out the device, there were a few extremely smart marketing choices that stood out to m...

The Surprisingly Simple Secret of Social Advertising

There is a military technique described by the acronym LTD which you should know about. It stands for Laser Targeting Designators and it is basically a laser light source which is used to designate a target. In other words, by "lasing targets" - you put a marker on something so that when you shoot at it, you are more likely to hit it. Marketing people are fond of using military terms like campaigns, targets and hits to describe what we do. For all of our militaristic language, however, most o...

Why Usability & Usefulness Are Cool Again

Not a lot of people know this, but 2002 I did my Masters Thesis on the topic of web usability. It was the "appfication trend" of its day ... a topic that every business was talking about and spending more and more money to get right. Jakob Nielsen was a household name in web development teams - and "Information Architect" and "Usability Expert" were considered careers for the future. Then one day usability started to fade into the background. It became more of an afterthought. When is the la...

The Sexiness of Statistical Insignificance

People love numbers. We respect #1 best sellers. We believe in a product if four out of five dentists like it. And every week there is new Presidential election polling in the US to give the media real time numbers to spend hours "reacting" to in live talk shows. In today's world, numbers are used to prove anything to anybody. Why make an argument when you can find a number to do it for you? If a picture is worth a thousand words, the right number seems to be worth a thousand pictures.

Thi...

Airline Asks For Gas Money, Misses Golden Marketing Opportunity

Business is unpredictable, but its amazing how much time is spent in corporate marketing and PR teams trying to anticipate and avoid any sort of unplanned events. So yesterday when an Air France flight had to divert from landing in Beirut to an unplanned landing in the Syrian capital of Damascus. Unfortunately for them, payments for fuel in Damascus can only be made in cash - so Air France decided to ask their passengers for gas money.

As the story broke in media, which of course it would, h...

Go Daddy Teaches Brands How To Grow Up?

Love them or hate them, there is no denying Go Daddy's sex-based TV commercials designed to create a splash and introduce their brand to the world have been remarkably successful. Every year they have made a tradition out of having ads prepared that are "too hot" for the SuperBowl and get partially banned from airing. Then they publish them online, invite people to watch the full versions on their website and watch the traffic roll in. It is the ultimate awareness strategy, and has worked so...

Olympics Newsflash: Social Media Isn't The Problem, YOU Are The Problem

It is just Day 5 of the "Social Olympics" and already social media has taken center stage in good and bad ways. For anyone who hasn't been as Olympics-crazy as me, over the past few days we have seen athletes thrown out of the Games for racist comments made on Twitter, Olympic level whining about tape delays from coverage in the US, people choosing to stay off social media in order to avoid spoilers, and indignation from social media believers about limiting social media usage by athletes in...

Olympics Newsflash: Social Media Isn’t The Problem, YOU Are The Problem

It is just Day 5 of the "Social Olympics" and already social media has taken center stage in good and bad ways. For anyone who hasn't been as Olympics-crazy as me, over the past few days we have seen athletes thrown out of the Games for racist comments made on Twitter, Olympic level whining about tape delays from coverage in the US, people choosing to stay off social media in order to avoid spoilers, and indignation from social media believers about limiting social media usage by athletes in...