Award-Winning Blog


Which Big Mac Ad Do You Prefer?

Old school Big Mac marketers would sell a Big Mac… By hiring an agency to come up with a clever, “emotional” ad.  Like this one. This ad would be shown to the McDonald’s rewards customers in email and on social. It would be aimed at anyone on mobile doing a search for “fast food near […]

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Is Your Writing Edited?

Nancy Gibbs, former editor in chief of Time magazine, often quipped, “every word has to earn its place in a sentence, every sentence has to earn its place in a paragraph, and every idea has to earn its place in a text.” And it turns out we’re not very good at deleting when we edit.  One study […]

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Is Your Charity Playing Soccer or Basketball?

In The Numbers Game the authors analyzed soccer teams and determined it’s a weak-link sport, the path to success comes not from investing more in top players but shoring up your weakest ones.  Basketball is the opposite, a strong-link sport, you need a superstar or two to have any chance. Science is or should be a […]

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Deceptive? Manipulative? Brilliant? Destructive? You Decide.

           The post-Labor Day tide of political email is on the rise and, if the past is prologue, will reach its high water mark a year from now then very slowly ebb  toward Election Day 2024.              This growing digital dog-pile, excreted by local, state and federal candidates and PACs, will […]

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No Heavy Lifting

We’re taking the day off in deference to our U.S. readers coping with the official end of summer after a long Labor Day weekend. Enjoy … and welcome back to the grind! Kevin and Roger

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Japanese Taxes, Premiums and Unintended Consequences

The Japanese can take free welding lessons near Mt. Fuji or test drive a Porsche or serve as mayor for a day.  The catch?  Give these locales some of your tax dollars. Japan has cooked a system letting taxpayers redirect some of their local taxes to towns or cities where they don’t live—and receive a […]

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