Tom Ruwitch
Remember that movie with Mel Gibson playing a male chauvinist pig who magically acquires the superpower to “hear” women’s thoughts? I just heard a real-life version of that story. Both the real-life and Hollywood versions reveal a ton about marketing. The real-life story features a marketing guy named Ben Settle who, like Gibson’s character, has…
Read MoreImagine there’s no Facebook. It’s easy if you try. No tweets……or REtweets. Pinterest? Say goodbye. You may say I’m a dreamer. But… …Really… …Imagine a world without social media. Then what? What would you do next? How would you connect with prospects? What would you say? Without memes… …without some pithy <280-character comment… …without likes and shares? What if…
Read MoreBack in the 1990s, Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise were Hollywood’s IT couple. A fairy-tale marriage. Three movies together — including a really creepy one called “Eyes Wide Shut” and this: When their love was shining brightly, Nicole dished out a few dozen bucks to the International Star Registry. She chose a twinkly little star…
Read MoreHappy National Screenwriters Day. (Yeah, that’s a thing). Last night, to get into the holiday spirit, I picked up my copy of “Story – Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting” by Robert McKee. Great book — especially if you want to be a screenwriter. Marketers swear by it, too… …especially ones who understand…
Read MoreBack in April, I made a Spotify playlist for my 23-year-old daughter, Maddie. She lived on High Street in Denver. I named the playlist “Shelter in Place on High Street – Volume 1.” In the letter I sent with the playlist, I wrote, “…sharing music is sharing love. It’s about connecting.” I imagined she and…
Read MoreDuring my down time last week, I read this essay by Ann Patchett, published in the January 2021 issue of Harper’s Magazine. Ann Patchett is a writer whose books I like. And she’s a business owner whose bookstore I love. She opened Parnassus Books on the south side of Nashville in 2011… …because the city’s…
Read MoreI was browsing through some of my favorite old marketing training discs the other day and came across one by Dave Dee… …whom I still listen to today. Back in 2007 Dave offered some unconventional advice about how to write better emails: Watch Regis Philbin on television, Dave advised. I don’t recall what I thought about…
Read MoreThe war between the Superpowers has begun. Not a traditional war with guns and tanks and airplanes, mind you. This is a war between two digital Superpowers — Facebook and Apple. Apple fired the first shot when it announced recently that iPhone owners will soon have to give explicit permission before apps can track their…
Read MoreI woke yesterday at 5 a.m. because I had to finish a proposal that I’d promised to send to a prospect by start-of-business Monday. I was knocking it out steadily when… …Google broke. You probably heard the news: Around 5:30 a.m. CST, Google suffered a worldwide outage. Google Drive stalled. Gmail gave out. YouTube tanked. …
Read MoreMy business is growing so I’m hiring. Last night I posted a job opening for a software developer to assist with several projects. I described the projects, but only in vague terms. Applications flooded my inbox. Most applicants told me they had EVERYTHING it takes to tackle the projects. One applicant, Noah, said this: “Let’s discuss more…
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