Vegans have grown a bad reputation because (or so the stereotype goes) they’d call out anyone eating meat — citing that meat is bad for animal welfare or climate reasons. They’re right, of course, but nobody wants to hear it. Yet like-minded businesses have sought to sell soy burgers or start ecological supermarkets, to take […]
Notes
Decline is inevitable, but misery isn’t
This morning I read Arthur C. Brooks’ article “Your Professional Decline Is Coming (Much) Sooner Than You Think” on The Atlantic. It’s packed with way more than you’d expect from a long article, and since I wish to absorb it all, I’ll leave a summary below here. — Memories of accomplishments don’t bring nearly as […]
Recycling is a massive red herring
Philip Morris launched Mission Winnow for a smoke free world, even though it’s nothing but a sloppy website with pointless terms like ‘passion’ and ‘innovation’. The Dutch Royal Airlines is going to make (a tiny bit) of kerosine from bio waste. Starbucks will ban straws (even though had already promised us a recycled cup for […]
Innovation isn’t flying cars or VR glasses
Last Saturday we found a new apartment in Shanghai through ZiRoom (自如). The app has zero flair and is pure efficiency. Through filters we narrowed down our options, listed on a map in north Shanghai (screenshots are just examples). Most apartments have 360° photographs. We got an appointment in 10 minutes, and later that evening […]
So what is branding? And what does it have to do with livestock? And what did king Solomon say about it?
Branding started a long time ago. We know that pots, two thousand years ago had their marker’s mark on it. That then, in time, became a mark of quality. If anyone wanted a good pot (see example), they had to go to MNOVIVS, obviously. The whole village knew that. The word branding originated much later, […]
Being the center of attention
My mom often told me about me handing out candy on my birthday in kindergarten: hands and plate stretched far out, and my head turned around because I was afraid to look at people. Being the center of attention frightens me. It’s an irrational fear, but a fear nonetheless. The fear isn’t gone, but what […]
Cruisers & cargo ships
In Amsterdam’s busiest shopping street is a big wooden door that opens into a corridor which leads into a church. Few shoppers notice the door, let alone pass it. But the transition is wonderful: you go from a crowded street, a cacophony, into the silence of a church, and leave the shopping street behind, if […]
Language is about people, and marketing is a language @ Inbound Marketing Forum in Shanghai
So today I gave this talk at the Inbound Marketing Forum in Shanghai — and I started off by saying I’m from this small town in the Netherlands and I don’t really understand many things in marketing. Like, how I don’t understand why my Dutch telecom provider is so keen to interact with me on […]
Marriage is a tree
Love isn’t like a flower, that withers every season. Love grows like a tree, branches upwards and roots downwards. One side ecstasy and fantasy, the other exposing our wounds and missing details. It grows both ways, it needs both opposite directions. And just like a tree, it leaves a ring for each year that passes. […]
Strategy is specific, specifics are semantics
There is a difference between probability and possibility, between rationality and reason, empathy and sympathy, between dogma and ideal, strategy and tactics, differentiation and distinctiveness, supplement and replacement, and efficiency and effectiveness. To some, even the difference between whiskey or whisky matters — as with butter and margarine, or Great Britain and the United Kingdom. […]