Originally published on Euro RSCG Worldwide PR’s Thinking Campaigns blog.
We already know the world has gone hyperlocal—from rooftop gardens to online deals for everything from facials near your home to ceviche dinners close to your office on LivingSocial, Groupon and Dealtificate. The media industry is no exception, and right now I’m watching the Patch.com model as a symbolic nod to where the future of media is most certainly headed.
I saw this firsthand a few weeks ago, as the final results [...]

My mother has a saying for when reality is shocking or disturbing…she says “people are going outta their minds.” And, as much as I hate to say it, I am starting to agree.
I just got home from a Long Island high school dance/kickline competition, third one I have been to this year. One of the several dance categories at these contests is hip-hop. At this particular event, four teams performed to the Lil’ Jon song “Get Outta Your Mind,” which [...]

It has been a while since we’ve heard people talk about “the death of advertising.” A few years back, the birth of social media and interactive marketing had ad watchers sounding the death knell, but we now know that although advertising (and media in general) has changed, the ad biz has certainly not disappeared—and is not going to.
But what is emerging and shaking things up is a new creative class of people who might not necessarily work within our industry [...]

“In 2011, we’ll have a serial epic of public postings in which ‘I’ and ‘my’ feature; postings by and about our very selves, even if we’re just reflecting on what we wear or whom we admire. I’ve spotted this trend and called it mycasting, and it could be as revolutionary as the printing press must have seemed to the pulpit.” —Marian Salzman, president of Euro RSCG Worldwide PR, in “Public Mycasting System.”
What will next year look like for social media [...]

Oh. My. God. Becky, look at her butt.
Actually, don’t. Stop checking out the bubble-licious booty in this ad and reread the text…come on, focus this time! “Ambassador” is spelled wrong. (Focus a little more intensely, and you might even catch that “has” should be “have” and both “thats” should have apostrophes.)
How could Nike publish an ad with such a Kardashian-size spelling error? And why does this ad feel so familiar?
Well, actually, Nike isn’t responsible for the typo because the ad [...]

Being new to trendspotting, I felt a little out of place at this year’s WorldFuture 2010 conference, put on by the World Future Society—as if I was the only person not developing some type of artificially intelligent machine in my basement. But I soon realized that there is a lot to learn and understand now that could help us gain a better grasp on what will happen in the years to come.
Climate Change
Two seminars were [...]

It’s a truism that hardly bears repeating that technology and the infinite choice it has fostered have turned the old one-to-many communications model on its head. That’s a fact for advertising, where it’s laughable to imagine businesses being able to survive simply by broadcasting their brand messages to captive audiences. It’s a fact for pop culture, as a generation that all grew up watching “Seinfeld” and “Friends” together realizes that their children will have no such shared, universal touchstones.
And it’s [...]

As marketers work around the clock to leverage the newest social media platform, I can’t help but reflect on my first uses of social media. I’m a firm believer that you can’t evolve or grow without knowing your roots and learning from your past—and I realize now that in my past, I was engaged in social media before there was such a thing as “social media.”
It was about 13 years ago when I created my first site—a “Power Rangers” fan [...]

The newest internet celebrity isn’t a smoking baby, nor is it middle-aged mousy woman with an incredible singing voice. Meet Zach Anner, a self-described “wheelchair-bound lady magnet,” who is winning hearts as he competes for a chance to host his own talk show on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN).
Zach’s contest entry gives his own personal hilarious take on his disability, calling cerebral palsy the “sexiest of the palsies” and discusses his dream to host a travel show for people who [...]

“A return to first principles in a republic is sometimes caused by the simple virtues of one man … His good example has such an influence that the good men strive to imitate him, and the wicked are ashamed to lead a life so contrary to his example.” – Niccolo Machiavelli (Italian philosopher and writer, 1469-1527)
No matter times or places, “influence” has always been the Holy Grail. The social media revolution raised this notion to a new level: Almost everything [...]