"All on the Line," hosted by Joe Zee and airing on the Sundance Channel, has provided me with an amazing education on the business of fashion. The show features Zee, a prominent editor at Elle, and his efforts to help struggling fashion designers who are in financial and emotional dire straits.  He helps steer these creative souls to understand that they have to design for a particular target market.  Their business and livelihood is at stake.  So it is not hyperbolic to say that everything is "All on the Line."

Reading fashion magazines, blogs, and watching TV shows focusing on fashion are some of my favorite past times.  Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, Style with Elsa Klentch have all informed my fashion knowledge at some point.  But blogs have infiltrated my fashion conscience as well.  Manrepeller, The Sartorialist, The Coveteur and other blogs of its ilk are part of my daily web surfing routine.

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Columbo-philes  may hold the episode “Double Exposure,” in high esteem because it was Robert Culp’s final guest-starring role on the series, and that it was written by Stephen Cannell, icon to all mystery lovers.  But “Double Exposure” also marked one the first times subliminal cutting was used as an instrument of murder. (OK, The Manchurian Candidate comes to mind too, and I guess that’s more about brainwashing, but we’re not talking about that here).

In “Double Exposure,” Robert Culp’s character, Dr. Bart Kepple, is an expert on behavioral psychology, namely, subliminal manipulation.  His targeted victim, Victor Norris, is a client of Dr. Kepple, and employs Dr. Kepple’s firm to produce persuasive advertising campaigns.  At this point, Norris is planning on ending the agency-client relationship, which is not such good news to Dr. Kepple.  At first, Dr. Kepple tries to blackmail Norris with a past affair, but when that doesn’t work, he resorts to the insertion of subliminal cutting. Dr. Kepple orchestrates the murder during the screening of a motivational film held in a screening room.  Here’s how the murder goes down:

1.  Victor Norris chows down on extremely salty caviar, courtesy of Dr. Kepple.

2.  The theater’s temperature is increased to induce additional thirst.

3.  A subliminal cut of an ice-filled soda is flashed on the screen.

4.  Norris proceeds to leave the theater due to excessive thirst.

5.  Dr. Kepple shoots Norris as he takes a drink from the water fountain. Continue reading →

I was recently asked how I would integrate Google Plus into my marketing strategy.  Considering that brands were discouraged from joining Google Plus, it wasn’t a question that I spent much time contemplating.  But now that I’ve had time to think about strategy, there is much to share. But uh-uh-uh, one morsel at a time my friends.

An inordinate amount of strategy goes into determining what platforms should be used in pushing a marketing message.  Does your audience use Tumblr, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, the brand-new Pinterest, or Google Plus?  Spending time and energy pushing content on a social media platform that your demographic doesn’t frequent is a waste of your time and places seeds of doubt in the higher-ups who don’t understand that social media is a main traffic driver of customer loyalty and sales.  You don’t want to hear “see, I told ya so.”

But Google Plus is a buzz-worthy adversary to Facebook-at least in the marketing functionality department.  While strategy meetings are held to determine what content/subset of brands should be included on Facebook, Google Plus uses different circles to divide up content and interests.  So now, a brand can have one Google Plus page, and provide information tailored to the follower’s interest.  Awesome, right?

Minority Report (2002), the Phillip K.  Dick authored book-Steven Spielberg directed film, was a neo-noir sci-fi film featuring a noir hallmark: fatalism.  In this case, the protagonist, Captain John Anderton, played by Tom Cruise, must escape the Washington D.C. “PreCrime” Division, which uses future visions generated by three “precogs,” mutated humans with precognitive abilities, to stop murders.  Is he fated to be the murderer the “precogs” brand him to be, or can he escape his fate?  Besides the cat-and-mouse game between Cruise and Max Von Sydow(who I absolutely love in Hannah and Her Sisters), it’s also a glimpse into our advertising industry future.

In the midst of running through a shopping center, Anderton manages to shield his eyes from retail behavioral retargeting billboards that scan eyes a la a bar code.  You only thought this could exist in a sci-fi 1984 world, right? Dead wrong.

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Today’s teens spend an average of 10 hours a day using media; girls ages 11 to 14 are bombarded by some 500 advertisements each day. This is a generation that’s been reared on reality TV—watching bodies transformed on Extreme Makeover; faces taken apart and pieced back together on I Want a Famous Face.