Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 64

Victorinox and How To Use Powerfully Ordinary Videos For Marketing

One piece of advice I am fond of sharing from the stage is about the importance of showing your work – something we are told to do in school but often forget. This brand video from Victorinox is a twelve minute journey behind the scenes into how their iconic Swiss Army Knives are made. The video, now a few years old, is boring, matter of fact and is too long … but it is also a great reminder that sometimes just showing what you do behind the scenes is interesting enough to be a way to engage...

The Big Question Facing The Future Of Media and Publishing Online

Recently a contributor to Forbes named Panos Mourdoukoutas wrote an opinion piece suggesting that local taxpayers would be better off if libraries were replaced with Amazon. The article created an instant controversy and media reporting of the outrage led Forbes to quickly take it down. For years the expansion of contributors to the Forbes network has led to plenty of so-called experts with questionable credentials writing self promotional articles. Earlier this year, there was a long post ab...

What British Grocery Chains Can Teach Us About Delivering Retail With Empathy

British supermarkets are quickly becoming the unexpected pioneers in adding more empathy into retail. In January, Tesco introduced a “slow checkout line” for customers who have dementia or otherwise need more time to check out. This week, Morrisons, another British supermarket chain, announced it would have “quiet hours” to help autistic shoppers to have a more noise-free shopping trip. Both are beautiful non-obvious examples of how a small change can create a retail experience more welcoming...

Binge Rooms: The Ultimate Immersive TV Experience

Back when I worked at a marketing agency I remember those times when I would see a campaign so inspired it would immediately make me wish I had thought of it. This new effort from FCB New York is one of those envy-inducing efforts. The goal is to position LG TVs as the ones that your binge-watching experience of your favorite shows deserves and the clever idea is to let you watch those shows in a set that recreates the environment of the show. So you can watch The Crown inside of an actual Br...

Why The Joy Of Missing Out (JOMO) Is So Hot Right Now

Facebook recently added a feature to help you track how much time you spend on the platform. Instagram will now show a checkmark when you are done scrolling through your friends’ updates from the past two days. A recent NY Times feature even proposed that this might be the summer of “JOMO” (the joy of missing out), a “benevolent younger cousin” to FOMO (the fear of missing out). This shift has been in the making for years. Spending all day reading posts about people having fun without you is...

Can Hyperlocal Apps Actually Make Us Interact With Our Neighbors?

The idea that neighbors might want the food you won’t eat might seem far fetched depending on where you live. Yet the hyperlocal food sharing app called Olio just picked up another $6 million in funding and has already expanded to over 40 countries with rapid growth. More than 400,000 food items have been shared since the app started with everyone from students to local shops raving about the experience. It turns out people hate to throw away perfectly good food – and stories like the user wh...

How The Backlash Of Superfans Might Ruin Entertainment For The Rest Of Us

Logan director James Mangold is worried that “the fear of upsetting an eager mob” of online fans might drive smart, creative people out of creating great art. For years comedians have been avoiding college campuses because of the inability for easily outraged youth to take a joke. Have we become so uptight that we are unable to find joy in entertainment anymore? The real problem may not be the emotion itself, but the many ways today that outrage can be amplified. The loudest voices become the...

Pokemon Go Isn’t Dead … It’s Quietly Dominating

A little over two years ago, Pokemon Go was everywhere. People walked down the street glued to their phones. And then one day it all seemed to stop. Yet as this article from WIRED explores, the game is still dominating. Who is still playing? As writer Brian Barrett notes: “The game attracts proportionally more older people and more women than its peers—and in fact can credit much of its initial success to enthusiasts who otherwise wouldn’t be playing anything at all.” The entire story is a pe...

Cadbury Is The First Brand To Get Banned From Advertising To Kids

For years unscrupulous marketers pushing unhealthy foods or unbelievable marketing claims have dragged down the credibility of all marketers. Now under a new rule from the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), junk food ads are not allowed in media where under-16s make up 25% or more of the audience. While Cadbury has become the first symbolic advertiser to have ads banned, the real target won’t be brands that make candy (which is obviously not a substitute for a meal), but rather the brands...

Masculinity Evolving: What Does It Mean To Be A Man Today?

What do men think it means to be a man today in the era of #metoo? This is a question that has been receiving a lot of attention recently. Data analytics site FiveThirtyEight.com commissioned a study that found plenty of fascinating conclusions, including that more than 75% of men don’t believe there are any advantages today to being a man at work, and they are “fractured” about their role in society. As a recent piece in The Atlantic about the stifling double standard of masculinity noted, b...