Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 69

Utah Ski Resort Embraces Its One Star Rating In Clever Print Ad

This story has made the rounds this week, but it deserves it. The Snowbird Ski Resort in Utah received a one star review, based on how insanely difficult the mountain was … so they embraced it. The original review reads: “I’ve heard Snowbird is a tough mountain, but this is ridiculous. It felt like every trail was a steep chute or littered with tree wells. How is anyone supposed to ride that? Not fun.” You can’t get much better advertising than that review for a resort that prides itself on t...

Kingsman 2 Director Is Annoyed Trailer Gives Away Too Much

If you are like me, you’re frequently frustrated by just how much of a film the trailer often gives away. You’re not alone. Kingsman 2 Director Matthew Vaughn is ticked off that the trailer reveals Colin Firth’s character Harry Hart was actually alive. It’s hard to disagree as I suspect we have all had that experience of seeing a film and being disappointed about how much we already knew about what would happen. In this case, handing over content control to the marketers is a bad idea.

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Uber Lets Drivers Tell You Why You Deserve A 1 Star Ranking

If you are a jerk to your Uber driver, you’re probably a jerk. For some time the ride sharing platform has allowed drivers to rank you, but this week they announced that you will now be able to see that feedback from drivers if you get the same feedback twice in a month. This is part of a host of new announcements the reeling ride-sharing app made this week to improve its relationship with drivers – including increasing what drivers make from UberPool rides and making it easier to get tips. T...

French Chef Asks To Be Stripped Of Three Michelin Stars

It is hard to imagine the pressure a chef who has been given 3 coveted stars in the Michelin dining guide for 20 straight years must feel. For the first time, a renowned chef is asking to be let off the hook. Sébastien Bras wants “to be allowed to cook excellent food away from the frenzy of star ratings and the anxiety over Michelin’s anonymous food judges.” Though the guide hasn’t promised to remove him, I can’t help hoping they do. It is a sad thing when a creator has their talent buried un...

Panera CEO Dares Fast Food Execs To Eat Their Own Kids Meals

We have all heard the business cliché about eating your own dog food, but Panera CEO Ron Shaich took it a step further by daring execs at McDonald’s, Wendy’s and Burger King to actually eat their own kids meals for a week. The highly effective dare stunt is part of Panera’s ambitious announcement to offer every item on their menu (over 250 items) in a smaller portion for kids. His underlying argument is that companies should not be allowed to market to kids at all because so many brands do it...

Refugees Use Airbnb To Book Trump’s Childhood Home

When Oxfam learned that Trump’s childhood home in Queens, NY was available to book on Airbnb, they sent refugees to stay there and share their personal stories. The move was a brilliant piece of calculated PR that helped put a human face on the plight of refugees to reach legislators.  While the home has since been taken down from Airbnb, the campaign is a wonderful creative idea and a reminder that sometimes the most important thing might not be what you say, but where you choose to say it.

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Why More Men May Be “Marrying Up” In The Future

This week a few researchers published a demographic study which examined the effect of more highly educated women entering the “marriage market” and therefore creating more dual income households where women are the primary breadwinners. Rather than seeing this as triggering some sort of crisis of masculinity, the report concluded that this is likely to “lead to a faster improvement of the family standard of living for men.” Or put differently, “men are getting the benefit from women’s progre...

Did Blue Bottle Coffee “Sell Out” To Nestle?

Soon after hipster coffee brand Blue Bottle Coffee sold to Nestle, founder James Freeman gave this wonderfully candid interview where observes how the deal probably dragged on because lawyers get paid by the hour. When asked about the backlash on social, he rightly noted: “nobody grabs their telephone and opens up Twitter and types in all caps, ‘I’M GOING TO GIVE THIS THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT.’” The interview offered a glimmer of hope that Blue Bottle might, like Ben & Jerry’s, end up a belov...

How Netflix Lawyers Delight The Internet By Having A Sense Of Humor

Earlier this week when Netflix sent a surprisingly human cease and desist letter to the folks who decided to create a “Stranger Things” themed popup bar without permission, people offered credit to their lawyers. It seemed to me like a better example of something that happens all too rarely in business: a brand deciding what they stand for and asking their lawyers to bring that same personality to writing something as standard as a cease & desist letter.

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How Libraries Might Save Humanity’s Soul (Or At Least Preserve It)

We expect libraries to maintain an archive of humanity’s best thinking, but what if a library decided to put so-called “pulp fiction” on the shelves? The term refers to a category of cheaply printed books from the early 1900s about lust, sex, theft, betrayal and degradation that were so lowly regarded that most were “pulped” (destroyed) within a few years of printing. Yet this throwaway category of fiction does offer unique insights into our own “messy, fascinating and appalling” history wort...