Observations on a Fire Escape
August 12, 2024
Indulge me. When I was very young, perhaps 5 or 6 years old, my family was visiting my grandparents in Brooklyn. At the time my family...
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Experience, Observation, Action
Problems Get Attention
July 12, 2024
Brand creativity and marketing will only be as successful as the problem definition itself. Problems get our attention. Great brands solve...
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What the totality can teach us about the digital industrial complex.
April 23, 2024
As community events go, the totality of the eclipse eclipsed more than the sun. It is estimated that more than 30 million people within the...
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Level Up, The Campaign for Wallace Turner Law
March 17, 2024
Wallace Turner Law is the first black, female-owned law firm in the Albany Capital region. It has been a great pleasure and honor to have...
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The Game Away from the Ball
February 20, 2024
The other day, I was listening to a popular marketing podcast. This was a post super bowl episode, and the topic was the commercials....
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Saint Rose; a lesson in differentiation.
January 20, 2024
According to Inside Higher Ed, The College of Saint Rose is not alone in the sinking ship of colleges floundering on the reefs of change....
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Invested in a feeling
December 17, 2023
Scrolling and clicking, clicking, and scrolling, the mobile economy is surely a boon to retail brands. Strong brands are not defined by...
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Aversion Control
October 17, 2023
One thing I’ve noticed in this semi-post pandemic work world is that despite demands by many companies that people return to the office,...
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The tension of observation
August 15, 2023
Observational tension is a tool of the storyteller, more often felt than discussed. Its subtle power renders a disquieting tone that...
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Old School Social Media
July 31, 2023
I’m hot but not uncomfortable, saved from the intensity of the sun by the occasional gusty breeze and the air that’s being conditioned...
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I don’t work, I take a hard pleasure.
July 19, 2023
A friend of Henri Cartier Bresson once said to him, “you do not work, you take a hard pleasure.” While I often feel I’m working very...
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ChatGTP and USP
June 28, 2023
If you know USP then you’ll not be surprised that Chat GTP delivers USP as one of the key elements of a successful advertising campaign....
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Fiction vs non-fiction brands
June 4, 2023
The rise of Ai and its impact on image making has me rethinking what it means to create photographic work. It’s true that images have...
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During an expanding economy everyone looks like a marketing genius.
May 4, 2023
Lately, the economic climate is beginning to feel a bit unsatisfactory. We’ve lived through and survived economic downturns before if...
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The loudness tactic by content makers is a fool’s game.
April 23, 2023
In my personal quest to make YouTube more enjoyable, here’s a tip to all of you content creators out there. There is such a thing as...
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User Experience Mindset
March 15, 2023
The most important context of user experience design is consumer mindset. Before we start pushing pixels around, we should be working hard...
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Slow-Motion Sickness
February 4, 2023
Asynchronous and disharmonious, the overuse of slow motion has become a sickness, a plague on the timeline of corporate video. Slow motion...
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Stewardship of a Legendary Brand
January 29, 2023
While in New York City, I took the opportunity to visit some old haunts. I hadn’t had the chance to step inside the renovated Hotel...
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Uninvited Guests
January 26, 2023
The air was blue with my rants as I discovered my site had been hacked. The blog section filled with spammy, fraudulent posts — from...
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Leave your creative team alone
December 14, 2022
Disrupting your creative team is a detriment to their productivity. You may not want to believe it, but it’s true. The agency...
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The ear is the avenue to the heart. -Voltaire
December 6, 2022
Here’s a challenge; find two pieces of content on the web, one with good quality audio and a poor image and the other with good image and...
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Negative Impressions
November 17, 2022
Allow me to rant about YouTube for a few minutes. I consume a lot of media via YouTube. I’m insatiably curious. I watch all kinds of...
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Lighting First Aid
November 13, 2022
One of the challenges that comes with the democratization of camera technology is that anyone who can afford a video camera or smart phone...
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The Archetypes of Social Media
November 1, 2022
When I founded Brandforming, I began to work with archetypes and their application to brands. The idea of brand as archetype was not...
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A camera is a tool for editing
October 25, 2022
I love light in all its many variations. I’ve walked into walls studying light as it falls on some object or person. It’s an...
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All media is exclusive media
October 14, 2022
There was a time when almost all media was inclusive. The old analogue days of 13 TV Channels, rooftop antennae, a handful of news...
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Deaf to Data
October 1, 2022
As some of you may be aware, I’m currently teaching at Skidmore College as the F. William Harder Chair Professor of Management and...
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Your lips are moving but I can’t hear what you are saying.
September 27, 2022
In the world of corporate content creation, it often happens that the work is evenly lit, the sound is good, and the music is canned....
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Segmentation Hurts
September 19, 2022
What was true during the American Revolution is still true today and applies equally well to the media. Better together. The hyperbolic...
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Backwards and in High Heels
September 9, 2022
I recently came across this wonderful quote attributed to Ann Richards, commenting on the talents of the famed dancer Ginger Rogers....
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Utilization and Labor
September 3, 2022
According to American labor leaders and pioneers, Labor Day celebrates the everyday men and women who work to create “all the...
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The Give and The Take
August 28, 2022
It was the second meeting. The first was a year ago. The client asked for the second meeting to discuss an update to their business...
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Caretakers vs Risktakers
August 21, 2022
To the untrained observer, walking a tightrope seems like a high-risk activity. To the well-trained acrobatic artist, the tightrope is a...
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Simplicity is recompense for years of effort.
August 14, 2022
The world will never be less chaotic than it is right now. That is so say, the complexity of life will continue to challenge us. In the...
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Saratoga Springs NY, a destination brand that’s got it all.
August 6, 2022
Saratoga Springs NY; A vibrant cultural scene and a main street so nice that it was emulated by Disney as one of its resorts; Disney’s...
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Truthiness can be tempting
July 31, 2022
When I put the camera on my shoulder and the brief is in my head, I’m looking for the truth. The deeper story, the stuff beyond mere...
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Customer retention through attrition
July 24, 2022
Brands such as Spectrum are, for all intents and purposes, monopolies. Their monopolistic stature affords them the illusion that they do...
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Constraint, the mother of invention.
July 18, 2022
Constraint was a formidable ingredient in the creation of a film I made in college. The film was a visually driven story of my childhood...
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Moldy Strawberries
July 9, 2022
Naming is one of the most important things you can do for your brand. A great name is memorable, easy to say, relatively short, and helps...
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Your brand story well told
January 18, 2022
Block, Light, Rehearse, Shoot. It’s happened before, technology democratizes an industry and craft suffers before it rises again. There...
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Words with Pictures, Skidmore College, F. William Harder Lecture
June 1, 2021
Part of my work at Skidmore College as the F. William Harder Chair Professor of Business Administration includes the recruitment and...
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The Obstacle is The Path
May 31, 2021
A brand is a problem solved. It’s as simple and as vexing as that. The obstacle for the customer is the obstacle for the brand. The...
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La Marca for French Vogue shot by Guy Bourdin.
March 11, 2021
La Marca shoes for French Vogue, photography Guy Bourdin. This is a campaign I worked on in the early 80’s. Mr. Bourdin, projected...
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I was a guest on the podcast Art Buyer For Hire with Ken Zane
November 3, 2020
Ken Zane’s show Art Buyer For Hire is about 45 minutes in length. During the show we touch on a range of topics from idea...
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I admit I hit the pause button
October 29, 2020
I stopped writing blog posts cold turkey. For a while I was really into writing them and then I wasn’t. It’s not that I wasn’t...
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Creativity is a process, but process is not creativity.
August 13, 2018
Agency process is a balancing act. Too little process, and an agency will eventually fail to deliver and will go broke in the process. Too...
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Unilever is a unifying force in the pursuit of value in advertising
July 31, 2018
Smart Brand Managers are forever scrutinizing the value they are gaining from their agencies. The ad industry is forever trying to...
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Habitat Clothes step into the future with confidence
July 30, 2018
Smart clients get smart work. Habitat Clothes is a great client. Hard working, hands-on, head in the clouds with feet on the ground....
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Killer Content
July 26, 2018
Are you creating killer content? Is your content engine in overdrive? A boiling, overheated, over expressed machine. Are you choking the...
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Photojournalists are the original social media experts
July 23, 2018
Long before social media, there were photojournalists whose work was shared across traditional media channels. The right instincts, in the...
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Using Blockchain to block fake news and protect your brand
July 16, 2018
Blockchain could save the media environment for brands. There has been much written about how blockchain might result in greater...
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Where should we put the camera?
July 9, 2018
When I first started working in the industry, I had a great experience, or I should say, set of experiences, that really enhanced my...
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The power of symbolism
July 2, 2018
Brand marks are invested with symbolism; meaning derived from perceived value, ambition and aspiration too. On this 4th of July I thought...
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Production, production, what’s your function?
June 25, 2018
Clients hire us to produce results. The work is a means to an end and the ultimate result is measured in sales. Not awareness in and of...
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Why worry about beauty?
June 6, 2018
As humans we are hard-wired to see and appreciate beauty. The impact of beauty has been studied and proven countless times. There is...
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Facebook and the privacy of your private parts
Does Facebook invade your privacy? Facebook and the Web, in more general terms, and other technologies have redefined what is possible in...
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The club of no authority
May 30, 2018
The problem with the word no…. is figuring out where it’s coming from. Turning no into yes is often a cat and mouse game with...
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The Craft of Teaching and the Teaching of Craft
My first year as The F. William Harder Chair Professor of Business Administration at Skidmore College has been a bit of a roller coaster....
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Bogged down in execution
May 17, 2018
Launch print for...
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Volpi Foods, a finely crafted Italian American brand
May 1, 2018
When Tim Urban calls, we listen. Tim is a seasoned media maven and chief commercial officer that enjoys and respects creativity anchored in...
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I’m going back to college. Here’s why:
July 19, 2017
For over a decade, I’ve been a regular guest speaker at Skidmore College in the classroom of Professor Christine Page. I’ve offered my...
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Monvieve graces the pages of Grace Ormonde
March 11, 2017
The Monvieve print campaign as featured in Grace Ormonde.
#MonvieveMoments #GraceOrmonde...
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The making of #MonvieveMoments
February 8, 2017
Luxury brands succeed by creating connections with their buyers through insights that leverage value against deep seated emotional needs....
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Italian fashion and collaborating with Michelangelo
May 15, 2016
In April Team Brandforming was on location in Florence Italy at the incredible Belmond, Villa San Michele, shooting our campaign for...
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Robot Love, the science behind computer science
Brandforming was on location at Carnegie Mellon filming a PSA for the Computer Science Teachers Association. We nicknamed the spot Robot...
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Take two for ideation
February 22, 2016
I took this picture of two espresso cups at one of our infamous creative rave sessions, this time we were in Miami cooking up some big...
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Human Brain Vs. Pharma TV Spots, An Unhealthy Alliance?
February 9, 2016
In the books Thinking Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman and The Master and his Emissary by Iain McGilchrist, the authors explore the...
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Seeing life as it truly is
January 8, 2016
In March of 2015 the legendary filmmaker Albert Maysles left this earth for the great beyond. In his lifetime he and his brother David, who...
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Voices from the back of the drawer
December 31, 2015
Reflections on mergers and IPO's in advertising...
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Global Awards, Luck, Trends and a Pirate Too
December 5, 2015
On Thursday night, December 3 we celebrated the best of Healthcare and Wellness Advertising with the Global Awards at The NY Academy of...
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Unstuck Yourself With Incongruity
November 19, 2015
When you are looking for something new and different and captivating, look to your right. When you are looking for something familiar and...
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The Ar+Work: creativity in the workplace.
October 10, 2015
This compilation video offers a nice snapshot into the connectivity we discovered between the creative pursuits of these artists and the...
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CLIO Awards, getting healthier all the time
For the first time in recent history the CLIO Awards integrated Healthcare into the overall show. As an Executive Jury participant, it...
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Creativity in the workplace…Part 3
September 20, 2015
It would be great to see more people expressing themselves through the arts, to put away fear and self-doubt and to create for the simple...
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Creativity in the workplace… Part 2
September 19, 2015
We all know the story about how creative we are as kids and by the time we’re adults most of us lose it all. The arts in our schools are...
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Creativity In The Workplace… Part 1
September 17, 2015
I was asked to curate an art show. I’ve never done this before. I leapt at the opportunity to get involved. Over lunch with...
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La Dolce Maserati, how sweet it is.
August 18, 2015
In late June Brandforming was in engaged by Maserati of Albany to help launch their dealership. There are currently only 18 dealerships...
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Hospital group heals their heads with their hearts
June 26, 2015
The nice people at the Clio Awards were kind enough to allow me to share news of my new creative agency and general point-of-view about...
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