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I'm an analytics and data leader with a marketing and product mindset. I hold an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and a computer science degree from MIT. (More.) The views expressed on this site are my own.
Category Archives: Marketing
Today’s interesting posts from the feedreader
Bathroom blogging at Diva Marketing – when was the last time you thought about “the importance of bathrooms in the customer experience”? And how often do you judge an organization on its hygiene factors because they haven’t even gotten the … Continue reading
Coats aren’t miscellaneous, and the future of online store personalization
In Everything is Miscellaneous, David Weinberger’s thesis is that digital objects aren’t stuck with one type of organization. Instead of an item being on one particular shelf in a given store, items can be found by many different characteristics. Last … Continue reading
Posted in Marketing, Personalization Design
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Pay-what-you-want and a 4% conversion rate
There are advantages to being famous. Not many bands can challenge the whole worldview of the music industry with one act. Radiohead is releasing their new album in a rather unusual way: as a digital download for which fans can … Continue reading
Posted in Marketing, Publishing
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The year of the ebook, take n
Ebooks seem to be hot again, at least for slightly warm values of hot. I’ve seen more articles mentioning them in the past month than I had for quite a while before that. Most prominently, both the Washington Post and … Continue reading
Posted in Marketing, Publishing
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Failing to quarantine viral video
BBDO Netherlands, working for Chrysler, recently created a viral video ad for the new Dodge Nitro SUV. The ad showed the car electrocuting a dog. Chrysler was not pleased. (And they’ve had problems with BBDO Detroit’s ads before.) Chrysler apologized … Continue reading
Posted in Advertising, Marketing, Privacy, Video
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iTunes Next Big Thing: variable pricing
Well, Apple’s iTunes has finally given in to variable pricing pressure – a little bit. iTunes’s new “Next Big Thing” section lists albums for $5.99 and $6.99, instead of the normal $9.99. While it’s not the per-song variability the record … Continue reading
Posted in Marketing
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Creative optimizers and Yahoo SmartAds
Following up on the concerns about how to use Yahoo SmartAds, the answer is probably to use a souped-up creative optimizer, ideally hooked into the ad serving system itself. That way you can analyze your results and then show your … Continue reading
Posted in Advertising, Marketing, Personalization Design
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Ad as biopic
Just finished watching the (fabulous) Wimbledon final between Federer and Nadal. Aside from the amazing tennis (the one sport I turn on the TV to watch), I was fascinated by a great Nike ad, in a format I don’t remember … Continue reading
Posted in Advertising, Marketing
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Yahoo’s SmartAds launch – do we know how to use them?
Separate from all the hoopla this week about the iPhone, advertising has also made a leap forward. Yahoo has announced a system called SmartAds for on-the-fly composition of display ads – meaning a firm could set up an ad for … Continue reading
Posted in Advertising, Marketing, Personalization Design
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