For a long time marketing has been about piggybacking on other people’s content. You buy ads in newspapers, during tv shows, and on billboards (I guess scenery next to the highway is content?). At some point marketers realized that they could become the content creators–that’s what soap operas were originally about. Today social media has forced nearly every brand into content creation. Doing it right on all of the important platforms is really hard. That’s why Chute, a San Francisco, CA based company, has developed a “visual content engine for brands” that makes “it easy to keep pace with your customers and create compelling, fresh content to engage with your fans, build awareness and, ultimately, increase conversion.”
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New York City is the ultimate place to go shopping, but it can be extremely intimidating. Not only is hard to know where to go to find what you want (or get a deal), but a lot of the higher end stores can have attitude. If you want to take shopping in NYC seriously, you need professional help. That’s what Fashion Update offers. They’re a New York, NY based company that offers tours that will help you “find designer name merchandise for less than a fraction of the retail cost.” There’s also, apparently, a magazine with the same name that helps you track down bargains and an attached PR firm called In Your Face PR. To me the fashion tours are the most interesting business.
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The key to effective marketing and advertising is distilling a brand, product, or service into a simple message that the target customers can relate to. For some products that’s really easy, but there are plenty of markets where it gets really complicated–like healthcare and life sciences. If you’re a business in one of those industries, you can’t hire just any advertising agency. You need people who understand science but still excel at marketing… the kind of people who work at HDMZ. HDMZ is a Chicago, IL and San Francisco, CA based healthcare and life science marketing agency. They’ve been around since 1936, but they’ve kept up with the times by excelling at understanding their clients’ businesses.
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I always get confused by the terms modern and contemporary. To me they sound like they should mean the same thing, but they don’t–at least when you’re talking about art. Modern means that it was “produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s,” while contemporary means it was produced very recently. MOCA is the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and they are the only museum in L.A. that is entirely dedicated to contemporary art. Their definition includes works that date back to 1940, so I guess some of their contemporary art may also be modern art–though I definitely could be wrong about that.
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It still amazes me how much old media drives new media. If you’re already famous, you can almost instantly carry that fame over to social media. A show like Shark Tank can drive millions of dollars in online sales. And the right tv mention can crash a website. What I think is cool is that we’re starting to see the reverse happen. People who are famous on Youtube, Twitter, or Instagram are carrying that fame over to more traditional channels. In short, it’s all coming together, and marketers need to be ready for it. Fullscreen is a Los Angeles, CA based agency that is aiming to build “the first media company for the connected generation—together, right at the intersection of tech and entertainment.”
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Right now I have a shot at winning $1 billion. My bracket is 100% correct… though no games have been finished yet. In case you haven’t heard, Quicken Loans has put up that amount for anyone who gets a perfect bracket (and Warren Buffet backed it with one of his insurance businesses). It sounds like March Madness until you crunch the numbers. There is essentially zero chance that someone will win the prize, yet millions of people entered… and shared their information with Quicken Loans. That’s exactly why the Detroit, MI based company sponsored the contest. New leads are the lifeblood of a mortgage business, even if you’re already the “#1 online retail lender.”
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A year or two ago subscription boxes were the hot business model. Startups were finding anything they could to shove in a box and send to customers once a month for 20 bucks. Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of jewelry business pop up. Not fine jewelry, just designer stuff made from non-precious materials. You know why? Because the margins on those pieces are insane. The two business models actually fit together nicely, and that’s what RocksBox is taking advantage of. They’re a San Francisco, CA based company that lets you “experiment with different looks, discover the latest designers, wear new pieces all the time, and only buy the jewelry that you truly love.” It’s a little more like Netflix (the old DVD version) or Rent the Runway for jewelry than other subscription boxes, except for the fact that you can keep anything you like for 20% off retail.
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When a group of people or businesses have a shared interest, they often form an association. Even in extremely competitive markets, it can make sense to come together and work towards common goals. As a result, there’s an association for nearly every possible interest. The problem with associations is that they can be hard to manage–administration can drain a lot of resources. Why should every association build its own management structure when that can be outsourced? Kellen Company is “an employee-owned professional services company serving associations, companies and foundations” with offices in Atlanta, GA; New York, NY; Denver, CO; Chicago, IL; and Washington, D.C. They provide essential services so that associations can focus on the important stuff.
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Do any of you remember Flip cameras? They were all the rage for a few years, and then they got completely crushed by smartphones. Who would buy a standalone consumer level point and shoot or video camera when you already have something that offers comparable quality in your pocket? The only good reason that I can think of is that you’re worried you might destroy your phone. That’s where GoPro came in. They’re a San Mateo, CA based company that has built a huge business by offering “the world’s most versatile camera.” While other manufacturers were killing each other with battles over megapixels and size, GoPro was focusing on a niche market of users who wanted to be able to take their cameras on adventures. It turned out that it was a really big niche.
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I’ve been married nearly 9 months now. Slowly more and more people are asking, “When are you going to have kids?” Getting a puppy deflected a little bit of attention, but it’s only going to gain in intensity. If we do eventually give into the pressure, we’ll face a time in our lives that makes preparing for a puppy seem like nothing. That’s why it should be no surprise that the expecting parent market is absolutely huge. In fact, Destination Maternity Corporation, which is based in Philadelphia, PA, does $500 million in annual sales as “the world’s leading maternity apparel retailer.” Yes, a single company (albeit with quite a few brands) can generate half a billion dollars in revenue selling clothes for pregnant women.
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While having the baby boomers leave the workforce should be a good thing for our generation in terms of employment outcomes, the mass retirement will likely bring new challenges. As people age they not only head more healthcare, but they also need more care in general. Sometimes that can be provided by families, but sometimes it needs to be done by professionals. Relias Learning is a Cary, NC based company that educates those professionals by offering “online training to senior care, health and human services, corrections, and intellectual and developmental disabilities organizations.”
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I’ve always thought that it was weird that big companies use one agency for advertising on tv, another for PR, another for interactive, and probably three more for other types of marketing. We’re seeing more and more “integrated” agencies, but what that means depends on the agency. Tierney is a Philadelphia, PA based agency that does advertising, PR, media, interactive, crisis management, and branding. Their tagline is “Divisions, yes. Divided, no.” They’ve been doing it this way for a long time, so it’s not like they slapped a bunch of independent pieces together and called it integrated.
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At this time last year, Amy and I were in the thick of wedding planning. Part of me is relieved that it’s in the past (because the wedding was awesome), but I also kind of miss it. We were lucky to have an amazing wedding planner who proposed great ideas and narrowed down the early decisions for us to make them manageable. Before we got to that point, though, we had to do our “homework.” That meant looking through all kinds of books and magazines to mark what we liked and what we didn’t like. It was a bit old fashioned, but it worked. Loverly is a New York, NY based company that brings that process online. It’s “a one-stop-shop for wedding planning where brides and grooms find ideas, people to hire and things to buy.”
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I pretty much shut down if I have to deal with paper documents. Luckily, in my line of business, almost everything happens online. While at one time I thought it might be a good idea for me to pursue law as a career option, I’m really glad I didn’t. Dealing with all of those documents–even if they were digitized–would drive me nuts. The good news for lawyers that kCura makes things a little more manageable. They’re a Chicago, IL based company that “develops web-based e-discovery applications for managing large volumes of electronic evidence during litigation or investigations.” The software is called Relativity, and it’s a web-based app that makes managing evidence way easier.
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Non-profits typically exist to make the world a better place. What that means varies by organization, but our government recognizes that a wide variety of causes should be supported with tax-exempt status. By definition a non-profit’s goals are non-financial, but that doesn’t mean that finances don’t matter. GuideStar is a Williamsburg, VA and Washington, DC based organization that aims to “revolutionize philanthropy by providing information that advances transparency, enables users to make better decisions, and encourages charitable giving.” Unlike Charity Navigator, they don’t rate or rank non-profits. Instead, GuideStar “collects, organizes, and presents the information you want in an easy-to-understand format while remaining neutral.”
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There’s no doubt that health and fitness are the most popular categories for New Year’s resolutions, but many people also want to improve themselves in the areas of education, finance, and careers. It seems easy at first–if you make better decisions, you’ll be better–but good decision making can be really hard. Tree.com is a company that aims to be the place “where good decisions start.” The Charlotte, NC based company operates a portfolio of brands and businesses that can help you whether you’re “buying or selling a home, financing a new car, sending a child to college or shopping around for a new credit card.”
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My New Year’s Eve has been the same for the past 9 years. I’ve never celebrated in a big city, but from what I hear, it’s awesome… until you realize it’s 2 AM, 12 degrees, and you’re a long way from your nice warm bed. You made the smart decision to leave your car at home, but now what? Everybody in the city is trying to get home at the same time, and every cab that drives seems to be full. You’ll probably die of hypothermia before you can hail a cab, so you might as well use an app to find a ride. Uber can get you a black car or a cab, but their “surge pricing” will make it hurt. If there’s a time to try Lyft, it’s tonight (though Lyft has its own surge pricing called “Prime Time Tips”). They are a San Francisco, CA based company that offers “on-demand ridesharing” in nearly 20 cities across the country. They call it “your friend with a car.”
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Have you ever heard the saying “You don’t know shit from Shinola!”? I haven’t heard it since I was a kid, and back then I had no idea what it meant. Today I learned that Shinola was a brand of shoe wax. The company went out of business more than 50 years ago, but a group of people still saw value in the brand. They bought it and turned Shinola into a company that is all about bringing back the strength of American manufacturing. Right now the Detroit, MI based “startup with the resources of a well-established corporation” is producing watches, bicycles, leather, and journals. By taking an iconic but defunct brand and turning it into something new and thriving in a city like Detroit, Shinola is making a huge statement about what they think American Made should mean.
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When it comes to search engines, rankings are based on a wide variety of factors. Having content relevant to the query is probably the most important thing, but right after that comes links. Sites and pages with more incoming links (especially from sites and pages that have lots of incoming links) tend to rank better. Wikipedia gets a ton of links from all over the web, and as a result their pages rank well in almost every search result for which they have relevant content. They don’t even have to worry about getting links to rank well, they just do. But lots of smaller sites struggle to reach a wider audience through search engines because acquiring links can be really hard–especially in certain niches. TextLinkBrokers is a Mesa, AZ based company that services the “needs of professional SEM agencies and individuals looking for high quality link development.” In other words, they help site owners get more links.
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I grew up in Fairfield County, Connecticut. If it’s not the preppiest place on earth, it’s pretty close. And in case that wasn’t enough, I went to a private school where wearing a blazer was required. I thought that wearing pink pants and pants with little animals on them was totally normal. Working for Orvis in Vermont for a few summers only reinforced that feeling (and gave me a sweet discount on buying more of said merchandise). It wasn’t until I moved to Chicago that I started to tone it down a bit (I still don’t own a pair of jeans though). But what if you wanted to go the opposite direction? What if you moved from Chicago to Connecticut and wanted to fit in? You’d have to shop at Lilly Pulitzer. They are a King of Prussia, PA based fashion brand and retailer (with dozens of locations across the country) that is known for its over the top, colorful prints.
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When I was a kid trick-or-treating was a failure if I didn’t reach double digits. I’m not talking about pieces of candy. I’m talking pounds. I laughed at the kids with the jack-o-lantern candy basket. Amateurs. Any real kid would use a backpack, an oversized pillowcase, or–better yet–both. There’s nothing better than getting home, pouring all your candy on the floor, and looking at the majesty of it all. It’s hard to recreate that feeling as an adult, but I kind of get it when I walk into Dylan’s Candy Bar. They are a New York, NY based retailer (with stores in Miami Beach and LA as well) that has merged “the worlds of art, fashion and pop culture with candy” to build “the world’s largest confectionary emporium and lifestyle brand.” Oddly enough, they don’t seem to dedicate much attention to Halloween, but I guess you don’t have to when your brand is all candy all the time.
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There are a few kids who I knew growing up that ended up playing professional sports. For one it was destiny. His dad was a pretty good MLB player whose cousins played in the NFL. Despite the pedigree and signing an NFL contract, I don’t think my friend ever got in a game. Another kid (with a crazy intense dad who got banned from coaching in at least one local league) played a few years of minor league baseball. However, the most successful pro athlete that I knew growing up was a kid who I never would have expected to make it. He never struck me as super athletic, but he ended up being extremely good at lacrosse. In fact, he has already won a Major League Lacrosse Championship and made an All Star Team. It may not be one of the four major sports leagues, but it’s a serious league with serious growth potential (lacrosse keeps getting more popular). While the league is headquartered in Brighton, MA, it has teams in Boston, MA; Charlotte, NC; Annapolis, MD; Denver, CO; Hamilton, ON; Hempstead, NY; Columbus, OH; and Rochester, NY.
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My wife’s first job was as a management consultant. It came with lots of travel and a serious expense account. When you’re running thousands of dollars in expenses through your credit card on a weekly basis, you need to be savvy about how you do it. Not only will it help you keep your credit clean, but you can earn all kinds of rewards and perks, so opening a business bank account and a personal one will help you with your finance. Luckily for Amy, she worked with a bunch of huge nerds. They had already put in the hours to figure out the optimal decisions for a typical consultant, and they put together documents detailing the pros and cons of every possible option (which credit cards to get, which loyalty programs to use, where to stay, and much more). While your situation probably won’t be as extreme, it’s still important to make the right personal finance decisions. If you don’t have nerdy co-workers, you can go to NerdWallet. They’re a San Francisco, CA based company that “empowers consumers to make better decisions about their personal finances, travel plans, health bills, or higher education.” NerdWallet does all of the research, and you just have to make the choices that best fit your lifestyle
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When you look at a bunch of advertising and communications agencies, you start to see a lot of the same words. They all claim to excel in areas like strategy, creative, and insights. You’ll often see the word innovation used, but it’s not always listed as a core competency. One word that I wasn’t expecting to see on an agency’s capabilities page is “culinary,” but that’s the exact word I found on the Sterling-Rice Group What We Do page. They are a Boulder, CO based “strategy, innovation, and communications firm that grows businesses and builds brands in considerable ways,” and they clearly have separated themselves from the pack by being total foodies in addition to everything else that they are.
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While yesterday’s organization’s name was a play on Rhodes Scholar, Road Scholar has no affiliation with The University of Oxford. Today’s company does. The Oxford University Press is not only a department of the University, but it is also “the world’s largest university press with the widest global presence.” You can trace its origins all the way back to 1478; however, their U.S. presence only dates to 1896. Oxford University Press now has two offices stateside–one in New York, NY, and the other in Cary, NC (there other offices all around the world). They both play a big part in furthering “the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide.”
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Every business has to make a decision about what kind of payments they’ll accept. Some take cash only, many accept credit cards, and some even accept local currencies like Ithaca Hours. Typically, making it easy for customers to pay you is a good business decision (unless you’re one of those scummy companies that loves to tack on late fees). Unfortunately for some businesses, accepting payments isn’t always easy. This is especially true for certain industries like online gaming, dating, and rewards. Paymentwall is a San Francisco, CA based company that offers “the leading digital payments platform for globally monetizing digital goods and services.” They offer payment options for over 100 locations in more than 25 languages (and offices in Berlin, Kiev, Istanbul, and Manila) with options including “credit card, debit card, mobile payments, land-line payments, prepaid cards, ATM, terminal transactions, bank transfers, direct bills” and more.
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Yesterday we looked at SocialCode, an agency that specializes in social media marketing for huge brands. Today’s company does similar kinds of work, but at a higher level. We’re talking about things ranging “from media relations and corporate communications strategies to flawless event execution.” The company is called HL Group, and they’re based in New York, NY. It was “founded in 2001 by Hamilton South and Lynn Tesoro,” two industry professionals who decided to out on their own. HL Group has seen exceptional growth since, and they now work across a wide array of industries including fashion, retail, beauty, consumer products, technology, home design, travel and more.
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I never pictured myself doing yoga, but one day my back started hurting. My mom told me to see her trainer and do a yoga session with her. It wasn’t some magical cure-all like some people might claim, but it definitely helped. I ended up really liking the physical part (stretching and bodyweight exercise), but the rest just isn’t for me; however, it is for a lot of people. Yoga has exploded in popularity, and now pretty much anyone who wants to can claim to be a yoga instructor. Yoga Alliance is an Arlington, VA non-profit that exists “to sustain and support the field of yoga.” They do this by “by providing the public with a registry of teachers and schools whose training meets our standards, and by supporting yoga teachers, schools and studios in their work as yoga professionals.”
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While I’ve been getting much better about making healthy food choices, sometimes it’s impossible to resist a burger, fries, and a milkshake. It’s hard to find a more efficient, yet enjoyable way to consume calories. If you’re going to do it, you need to do it right–and that means going to Shake Shack (we’re getting one in Chicago soon!). It may sound like a dive, but it’s actually run by the same restaurant group that runs one of New York City’s best restaurants (Gramercy Tavern) and used to run one of the world’s best restaurants (Eleven Madison Park). The company is called Union Square Hospitality Group, and they’re based in New York, NY. They have restaurants that fill every niche, and they’re all excellent. I’ve been to a couple of them (with multiple visits to Shake Shack), and I’ve always enjoyed my meal.
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If you’re taking your job search seriously, you’ve probably read at least one article that advised you to start monitoring your personal brand online. Most people who spend time doing this face the sad reality that nobody is talking about them. Still, it’s nice to get a notification when your name does pop up. For many brands this kind of tracking is a necessity. The tools that you or I might use can’t keep up with the volume, and that’s why Brandwatch has grown so quickly. They’re a Brighton, UK based company with a growing New York, NY office that is “all about monitoring what people say about your brand, products, competitors, industry or any related topics.” If someone is saying it on a publicly accessible website, they’ll find it.
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