Brand strategist Karen Kang puts the importance of personal reinvention bluntly: “Consider yourself a free agent—no one else is looking out for your best interests but yourself. You need to be crystal clear about who you are and the value you bring to a world where constant change is the only norm.” That’s the premise [...]
May 06, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features, Insights, Marketing | Tags: Apple, brand communications plan, brand strategy, BrandingPays, business school, Cake, change, companies of one, constant change, emotional value, Forbes, free agent, Genentech, hypercompetitive, icing, image, Intel, Karen Kang, Marketing, personal brand, personal branding, promotion, rational value, Regis McKenna, reinvention, reputation, self-marketing, Silicon Valley, values | Leave A Comment »
Havas PR North America is passionate about cause work—and we think that’s an understatement. In January, we were named to PR News’ CSR A-List for the second year in a row, for our long-term commitment to doing good work, especially our research into causes, our Baker’s Dozen initiative (donating $1 million in time for every [...]
Apr 08, 2013 | Categories:Agency News, CSR, Marketing, Media, PR | Tags: @havaspr, Baker's Dozen, breast cancer, cause, cause-related marketing, community, CSR, CSR A-List, Ford, good work, Havas PR North America, media coverage, nonprofit, One Young World, Pittsburgh, PR News CSR A-List, SABRE, Warriors in Pink | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] It used to be that receiving a CEO title—and the corner office and tufted-leather sofa that came with it—was the acme of professional success. It was the recognition of a lifetime of hard work, of moving up the ranks, of following the path to its pinnacle. Once you’d arrived there, where [...]
Mar 22, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features, Marketing | Tags: 20-something, ad sales, adventure, America's Cup, Arielle Patrice Scott, Bianca Bosker, Bill Gates, billionaire, brand, Bravo, cable TV, CEO, college, corner office, corporate, corporate brand, Daily Candy, daredevil, digital, dropout, entertainment, entrepreneur, entrepreneurship, Facebook, Fandango, fearlessness, female entrepreneur, Green Is Universal, hard work, Harvard, Healthy at NBCU, Henry Ford, Hispanics at NBCU, innovation, innovators, integrated media, InternshipIn, iVillage, kite surfing, Larry Ellison, Lean In, Marissa Mayer, Mark Zuckerberg, Marketing, mavericks, mobile, monetization, MTV, mun2, NBC Universal, Oxygen, personal brand, rebellion, revenue, Richard Branson, risk, risk taking, rule breaking, sailing, sexy, shareholders, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, social, spiritual growth, Sprout, Stanford, startup, Steve Jobs, Technology, telecommuting, Telemundo, the Huffington Post, Thiel Fellowship, title, TV One, Virgin, Walt Disney, women, Women at NBCU, Yahoo | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] Last weekend, I came across an interesting article in The New York Times about people who had Livestrong tattoos and how they felt about them now. The upshot is that most of them—at least most of the people quoted in the article—don’t have a great deal of regret. They got the [...]
Feb 21, 2013 | Categories:Brands, CSR, Fashion, Features, Marketing, Trends | Tags: Andrew Weil, Angelina Jolie, Ashley Olsen, Brad Pitt, brand identity, brand logo, brand names, branding, Brangelina, cancer, celebrity, celebrity brand, CFDA, cookware, crisis, Drew Barrymore, Emeril Lagasse, Fashion, Fergie, France, Gwen Stefani, identity, JKL, Just Keep Livin Foundation, Kardashian, L.A.M.B., Lance Armstrong, Lily Munster, Livestrong, Marilyn Monroe, Mary-Kate Olsen, Matthew McConaughey, Maxim, Megan Fox, Miraval, Parker rating, personal brand, personal branding, rosé, tattoo, The New York Times, The Row, Trends, typecast, Womenswear Designer of the Year, Yahoo | Leave A Comment »
With the rise of DogTV and gourmet pet chow, it was just a matter of time before we extended canine luxury to living quarters. High-end doggie daycare has been around for a while, but only recently have the offerings become so numerous. In Manhattan, there’s the Ruff Club, which prides itself on being both exclusive [...]
Feb 11, 2013 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Marketing, Trends | Tags: Animalle Mundo, doggie daycare, dogs, DogTV, luxury, Marketing, pet luxury, pets, Pierre hotel, Pooch Hotel, Ruff Club | Leave A Comment »
When you think of Mongolia, you probably don’t think of luxury retail, but thanks to an extremely lucrative and quickly expanding mining industry, perhaps you should. The sudden increase in wealth in the historically nomadic country has brought the likes of Burberry and Hugo Boss to the Mongolian capital of Ulan Bator, and the local [...]
Jan 16, 2013 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Marketing, Trends | Tags: A.T. Kearney’s Global Retail Development Index, Burberry, Cosmopolitan, Hugo Boss, Louis Vuitton, luxury, luxury retail, mining, Mongolia, retail, shopping, Ulan Bator | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] I recently got a humorous pitch from a real estate agent in New Hampshire, where, he wrote in his email, “there is a theme-branding wave that is part capricious, part serious business.” At first his proposal made me giggle, but then I saw how it reflects the ways in which personal branding [...]
Jan 15, 2013 | Categories:Brands, Features, Marketing, Politics | Tags: branding, Brands, community branding, corporate branding, freedom, identity, libertarian, liberty, Live Free or Die, Marketing, New Hampshire, PorcFest, porcupine, real estate, state | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on the Huffington Post.] This is the 12th in a series of 14 posts expanding on Salzman’s forecasts for 2013 in her annual trends report, a program of global communications group Havas Worldwide. This year’s book, What’s Next? What to Expect in 2013, was published on 12/12/12 and is available at 120MBooks.com. Salzman [...]
Jan 14, 2013 | Categories:Fashion, Features, Marketing, Trends | Tags: Aboriginal art, Apple, art, Australia, authentic, Avatar, Brazil, Carl Jung, criminal justice, culture, essentialism, Fashion, First Peoples, George Lucas, intellectual property, Joseph Campbell, Mardi Gras, native, Native American, Picasso, place, real, Star Wars, style, Trends, trendspotter, trendspotting, tribe, virtual, What's Next? | Leave A Comment »
Despite the roiling climate of an Arab Spring, two Middle Eastern countries still managed to make A.T. Kearney’s annual Global Retail Development Index. Boasting some remarkable retail and tourist attractions, such as the 1,200-store Dubai Mall that includes Michael Kors and Tom Ford, the United Arab Emirates’ seventh place on the index might not be [...]
Jan 09, 2013 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Marketing, Trends | Tags: A.T. Kearney’s annual Global Retail Development Index, Arab Spring, Dubai, Dubai Mall, luxury, Mall of the World, Michael Kors, Middle East, Middle East Retail Forum, Musca, Muscat Grand Mall, Oman, retail, shopping, Tom Ford, UAE | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on the Huffington Post.] This is the ninth in a series of 14 posts expanding on Salzman’s forecasts for 2013 in her annual trends report, a program of global communications group Havas Worldwide. This year’s book, What’s Next? What to Expect in 2013, was published on 12/12/12 and is available at 120MBooks.com. Salzman [...]
Jan 04, 2013 | Categories:Features, Marketing, Trends | Tags: Austin, Bilbao, Brooklyn, Burj Al Arab hotel, Cornwall, destination, Dubai, East London, Eden Project, Frank Gehry, Guggenheim Museum, Lord of the Rings, New Zealand, Pittsburgh, placemaking, places, Savannah, Trends, trendspotter, trendspotting, What's Next? | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] Reboots are the new New Year’s resolutions. And without question, the second decade of the 21st century will be the era of the reboot. The years from 2000 to 2010 saw cataclysmic shifts in everything from digital communication to the state of the economy to beliefs in American invulnerability. As we [...]
Jan 02, 2013 | Categories:Features, Marketing, Trends | Tags: 4 P's, American life, CastMedic Designs, economy, entrepreneurs, freelance, Havas PR North America, inventor, JayBeau Jones, life-work balance, mind and mood, New Year's resolutions, passion, Personal Branding Idea, place, priorities, profession, purpose, reboot, resolutions, StartupNation | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] To a certain extent—in this age of marketing ourselves, finding our niches and explaining how our distinctive personal backstories make for unique selling propositions—all our names are brand names. But some have gone above and way beyond. That’s especially true in the world of fashion, where some of the most iconic [...]
Dec 19, 2012 | Categories:Brands, Fashion, Features, Marketing, Trends | Tags: Alexander Wang, Balenciaga, brand, brand name, Brands, Chanel, CSR, Dita Von Teese, Donna Karan, entrepreneur, evolution, Fashion, Karl Lagerfeld, Kenneth Cole, Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Marketing, Martha Stewart, personal branding, personality, Ralph Lauren, risks, The New York Times, Tommy Hilfiger | Leave A Comment »
[Originally published on the blog of the Council of Public Relations Firms.] Great trendspotting creates great consumer marketing campaigns, terrific innovative new products and savvy newscrafting. I know: The most famous brands in the world have hired me over and over for my trendspotting methodology, ensuring that their multimillion-dollar (sometimes billion-dollar) ideas, products or services [...]
Dec 12, 2012 | Categories:Brands, Features, Marketing, PR, Trends | Tags: 120M Books, Brands, business, change, content, Council of Public Relations Firms, fatigue, Havas PR, Lady Gaga, Madonna, mancession, Martha Stewart, metrosexual, newscrafting, pattern recognition, Steve Jobs, the Kardashians, The New York Times, the prime crisis, Trends, trendsetters, trendspotter, trendspotting, weather, What's Next? | Leave A Comment »
With all the noise about mobile ads, it would be hard to blame you for just assuming print ads had died and gone to marketing heaven. But smartphone-interactive codes, specifically QR codes, have taken the traditional ad market by storm; more than 10 percent of ads in the top 100 magazines in the U.S. now [...]
Dec 12, 2012 | Categories:Advertising, Brainsnacks, Marketing, Technology, Trends | Tags: Advertising, codes, Guinness, Jossle, mobile, mobile apps, QR codes, smartphone | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] It’s not news that this is the Age of the Personal Brand. Never before have people of all stripes had to—or wanted to—work so hard to sell their own unique service proposition. Mostly that’s a good thing for workers and businesses, but lately it has started to seem that it might [...]
Dec 11, 2012 | Categories:Brands, Features, Marketing, Trends | Tags: accountant, career, Forbes.com, generalist, lawyer, Marketing, personal brand, personal branding, positioning, service, service practitioner, The New York Times Magazine, therapist | Leave A Comment »
Sometimes in life, without any real explanation, you happen to find your perfect match. That’s what happened when we reached out to Delete Blood Cancer, the world’s largest bone marrow donor center, as part of our 12 Days of Havas. Delete Blood Cancer was in the process of revamping its marketing approach with a new [...]
Dec 07, 2012 | Categories:CSR, Features, Health and Wellness, Marketing, PR, Social Media | Tags: 12 Days of Havas, blood cancer, bone marrow donor, Coty, Delete Blood Cancer, donor registry, Havas PR, Katharina Harf, Peter Harf | Leave A Comment »
If there is a bright side to the world’s economic struggles, it’s that it seems to have reminded everyone of the importance of saving money. ING Direct has led the banking industry in taking advantage of this savings boom with its tagline “Save Your Money” and by pushing its Orange Savings Account. The recent wave [...]
Dec 05, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Marketing, Trends | Tags: grocery auctions, ING Direct, LivingSocial, money, Orange savings account, Quidco, saving money, Schoola, Starbucks, the economy | Leave A Comment »
A few years ago, digital image programs basically meant Photoshop. But with the increasing number of picture-sharing sites like Imgur and Instagram, which now is now more popular on mobile devices than Twitter is, users have the freedom to manipulate and share photos like never before. This has led to a new type of storytelling, [...]
Nov 28, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Marketing, Social Media, Technology, Trends | Tags: digital images, Facebook, Facebook timeline, Fancy, Imgur, Instagram, mobile, photos, Photoshop, pictures, Pinterest, share, Social Media, storytelling, Twitter | Leave A Comment »
It seems as if not a day goes by that an unlucky patron finds something exceptionally off-putting in his fast-food meal. Fortunately, the fast-food industry has responded and begun moving in a pretty surprising direction for the business: quality. Industry leader McDonald’s has put out an ad campaign that focuses on its ingredients and puts [...]
Nov 07, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Health and Wellness, Marketing, Trends | Tags: all-natural, Chipotle, fast food, hormone-free, McDonald's, Quiznos, Wendy's | Leave A Comment »
No one used to love shopping in stores on Black Friday more than I did. It was a ritual that started with my mother on Thanksgiving morning, before the turkey and stuffing even made it into the oven. Getting the morning paper was like Christmas Day, with the anticipation of shopping. We’d map out our [...]
Nov 06, 2012 | Categories:Advertising, Features, Marketing, Media, Social Media, Technology | Tags: Amazon, Best Buy, Black Friday, cloud, Deloitte, holiday sales, holiday shopping, IBM, mobile, mobile apps, mobile shopping, National Retail Federation, online shopping, retail, retailer, shopping, shopping stampede, SOASTA, the economy | Leave A Comment »
Our CEO, Marian Salzman, said it best on Facebook a few days ago while trapped in her Connecticut home without electricity or water for her bathroom, and with the fire department on her property because of sparks from live wires: “On a morning like this, Saks trying to sell me Jimmy Choos and LivingSocial offering [...]
Nov 02, 2012 | Categories:Brands, CSR, Fashion, Features, Marketing, Media, PR, Social Media | Tags: American Apparel, Battery Park, Brands, Connecticut, Cov Charney, disaster, Duracell, East Coast, email, Hurricane Sandy, LivingSocial, Marian Salzman, New York City, Panera, Panera Bread, Racked, recovery, retail, retail stores, retailers, Saks Fifth Avenue, Sandy, Social Media, Twitter | Leave A Comment »
Childhood obesity is back in the spotlight after a new report called “Still Too Fat to Fight” said the “junk food sold in schools” is a “national security issue.” Targeting cafeteria lunches as the root of the child weight epidemic has become a growing movement after British chef Jamie Oliver displayed the depressing quality of [...]
Oct 27, 2012 | Categories:Brainsnacks, Health and Wellness, Marketing, Trends, Youth | Leave A Comment »
As a guy living in New York City and turning 30 next year, I spend a little more time at the gym, have a bit more seniority in my career and each day am further from caring about what Demi Lovato is up to. After all, I was raised on the real music of Britney [...]
Oct 23, 2012 | Categories:Features, Health and Wellness, Marketing, Trends, Youth | Tags: Britney Spears, Demi Lovato, Euromonitor International, gender, grooming, Madonna, male cosmetics, men, metrosexual, Sephora, skin care, South Korea | Leave A Comment »
[Originally posted on Forbes.com.] The words “business” and “business leader” often conjure up Dow Jones–size companies and the big names who lead them. We’re almost as fascinated by stars of big business as by stars of the big screen. And why not? A recent Forbes article pleading “Bring Back the Celebrity CEO” makes the case [...]
Oct 22, 2012 | Categories:Brands, Features, Health and Wellness, Marketing, Social Media, Technology, Trends | Tags: Amazon, apps, Bill Gates, blog, branding, Burnt Peaks, business, business leader, CEOs, Chris MacAskill, community, company brands, customers, Dollar Shave Club, Don MacAskill, Facebook, fitness, Forbes, Internet, iPhone, James Mairs, Jeff Bezos, King of Shaves, Meg Whitman, personal branding, personal brands, Phil Knight, purpose, Queen of Shaves, Richard Branson, RunKeeper, Silicon Valley, small businesses, SmugMug, Social Media, taking risks, Tony Hsieh, Twitter, Venture for America, Will King, Zappos | Leave A Comment »
