In last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine, Wired Magazine contributing editor Guy Wolf profiled self-trackers — individuals who track their daily habits, whatever they may be — in The Data Driven Life.  Wolf acknowledges that people have long tracked their behavior — e.g., recording checks, noting their weight, caloric intake and output, etc.  But, in the past, that tracking was done by paper and pen. And, it was private.  Now, self-trackers have no shortage of web and mobile applications and devices that allow them to not only digitally record … Read more

Yesterday, tipped off by a tweet from Geoff Livingston, I learned about USA Today’s latest iteration of its What America Wants brand campaign: #AmericaWants Hashtag Campaign.  The  paper is offering a one day, full size color ad in its weekday (Monday-Thursday) print edition, valued at $189,400 to a charity that receives the most tweets to the line:  ”#americawants (insert charity name) to win a full page ad in USA Today.”

The campaign is a mix of brand and cause marketing: it is reinforcing through its proscribed tweet script its trade campaign while simultaneously attempting to tap into American’s desire to … Read more

The other night while watching CBS’s “The Good Wife,” I saw Apple’s newest iPhone television spot, “First Steps.” In the storyline, a young mother is talking about her child’s first steps, which she then records and sends to her mother and grandfather. The tagline, “We would never have shared all that without the iPhone,” brilliantly signals key multi-generational benefits of the 3GS iPhones: capturing and sharing important family milestones…. Read more