Rohit Bhargava's Blog, page 99

The Lost Choir on Thanksgiving

It is Thanksgiving day and you’re probably thinking about food. Or spending time with family. But one thing you won’t be able to avoid is hearing about all the great retail deals. Thanks to early store openings and a relentless marketing machine promoting all the deals – there is a growing backlash against the commercialization of the holiday. No matter how you feel about it, the fact is that the “thankful” part of Thanksgiving has never been easier to forget.

So before celebrating and talking...

How the Power of Fear Helped Revolution Become a Breakout TV Show

If there is one thing that the media industry proves year after year, it’s that it is dangerous to get attached to a new TV show. Every year audience favourites get cancelled by unforgiving network executives making decisions on short term ratings instead of long term potential. They use existing popular shows to lead into the new shows and make sure to skip any commercial breaks or opportunities to shift your gaze from the show you love to the new one they hope you’ll at least like. Yet desp...

4 Common Advice Clichés Entrepreneurs Hear (And Why You Should Ignore Them)

If it seems like everyone has some advice to share about being an entrepreneur, it is because they do. The trouble often starts from trying to figure out what advice to really pay attention to. The method most of us use is to look at someone’s track record. If they have started or sold a business, they probably know what they are talking about – right? Well, not so fast. What worked for someone in launching their business may be the exactly wrong advice for you. The world changes fast, and in...

8 Ways Arts Organizations Can Be More Human

When I was 17 years old, I wanted to be a playwright. Deciding that I was going to try and learn from within, I landed an internship at the well known Studio Theater in Washington DC. It was 1992, and they were producing a show called Spunk – which adapted several short stories from Zora Neale Hurston. A big part of my job was to help with ushering – which is basically helping people to find their seats. And after my job was complete each night, I would watch the production. I must have seen...

Why Obama Won – A Visual Slideshow

The Myth Of The Undecided Voter

Picture this: your football team is down by two touchdowns and there is only a minute left in the game. Statistically, you know it’s almost impossible that your team will win … but you watch anyway. Of course you might be a diehard fan never willing to give up, but there is another force at work here. The broadcasters calling the game are all talking about how the losing team might actually win. They are sharing obscure statistics of the unlikely comeback that your team had back in 1984. It c...

12 Powerful Ideas On Creativity & Business From The PSFK Conference

Groucho Marx once quipped, “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.” I always feel his sentiment just a little bit everytime I agree to speak at any event because I am passionate about trying to share the stage with people much smarter than I am. So when Piers Fawkes invited me to speak at the latest installment of his well regarded PSFK conference, I thought immediately of Marx’s words. But then he told me I would only have ten minutes, as most of the other speakers...

What Hurricane Sandy Can Teach You About Timing

My trash cans are inside my garage. That’s one of just a few precautions they are telling everyone on the East Coast to take in preparation for Hurricane Sandy making landfall in just a few hours. The storm has dominated TV news reports for the last several days and is already historic in not so good ways. It is also the perfect reminder that most of your pre-scripted marketing you have may backfire when the world shifts around you.

Earlier this year concert promoter Live Nation got into troub...

5 World Changing Ways To Avoid BS And Be More Believable

I was on a short flight from NY back to DC yesterday and opened a copy of the NY Times to find a full page ad with the simple declaration “Marketing is BS.” Beneath that attention-grabbing headline, Adobe called this “Myth #1″ as part of their campaign to speak to marketers and business people about how to measure results more effectively. The ad was targeted to marketers, but it has an unintended side effect … a lot of people agree with the so-called myth.

Despite working in marketing for mor...

How Much Time Does Creativity Really Take?

What if Usain Bolt charged per hour to watch him race? It’s a ridiculous thought, of course. Yet we all know that the only reason he is able to run 100 meters in less than ten seconds is because of years of preparation. He has spent a lifetime training to be able to do what he is best at faster than anyone else. How many of us are the same way? I spend hours every week just reading about new marketing ideas and campaigns. I study new reports and studies of human behaviour. Why do I do all thi...