November 2, 2016

Worth a Thousand Words: The Rise of the Visual Internet

For four years, I worked for the nation’s second largest hardware store co-op, with 3,600 stores around the world. As e-commerce manager, it was my job to build and maintain each store’s online identity and work with owners and managers to tell their stories online. When I would ask them to share what made them different, I usually heard long, detailed accounts of their history—how, for example, their father’s father started a business that survived for 30, 40, or 50 years. While all these stories were great, they did little to nothing to increase sales or bring people into the store.

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September 30, 2016

CAN A PERSON AGE 20 YEARS IN JUST THIRTY SECONDS?

That was the critical question Asher faced on a recent television commercial shoot for SUBWAY® Restaurants.

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November 4, 2015

The #1 YouTube Mistake Advertisers Make

I’m constantly amazed at the number of established brands that treat YouTube as an on-demand form of broadcast television. Spend any time browsing YouTube, and you’ll see their mistake repeatedly.

Your TV ad may be killer: beautifully shot, with witty copy and great music. But on YouTube, that matters only if your first five seconds are effective. Experienced YouTubers know why.

After the first five seconds, the link to “skip” becomes active. More often than not, I, and the majority of YouTubers, do exactly that and never give second thought to the ad we just left behind.

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