Milkshake Duck – The phrase so famous you never heard of it. Australia’s Macquarie Dictionary has awarded “milkshake duck” its 2017 word of the year. On June 12, 2016, Australian cartoonist Ben Ward tweeted it to describe our tendency to foist instant celebrity on some person and its inevitable backlash. In Ward’s tweet, the cuddly duck is accused […]
Mobile phones have become an extension of ourselves. How often you check your phone depends on when you were born… Were you born in the 1980s and 1990s? You probably get anxious if you haven’t checked your phone in 15 minutes. Those born between 1965 and 1979 are more relaxed. Only 42% tend to get uneasy […]
Here are some gems for a real world marketing directory. Content calendar What we’ll do if everything works perfectly, you pay on time and nobody has a day off. Content. Lorem ipsum Polyfilla to anyone except the harmless drudge who has to write it. Best Practice. What everyone else pretends to do. Or, […]
Well, this guy nailed it. Can you describe YOUR startup in one sentence? The one-sentence startup pitch or high concept pitch is easily mocked. In fact, there’s a Facebook group dedicated to doing just that. Members suggest hilarious one-sentence descriptions for real (and how-it-not-a-thing) companies. Most pitches follow the “Tinder for____” formula: A […]
Want to foster more creative brainstorming? Embrace your embarrassing side. An experiment looked into whether groups could be pre-loaded for better brainstorming. 93 managers were randomly assigned to three-person teams. Half of the groups were told to share embarrassing stories; half talked about times they had felt pride. Embarrassing Brainstorming No cheating. The anecdotes had to be […]
When you let your mind wander, you engage a brain circuit called the “default mode network” (DMN) . Dipping into our deep storehouse of memories, ideas, and emotions plugs us into our DMN. Which was thought of as our “Mostly Do Nothing” circuit. Until recently. Turns out, the “resting” DMN uses 20% of the body’s […]
Billboard advertising and New Jersey just got a little weirder. New Jersey radio station, WFMU-FM, just put up a billboard featuring Justin Bieber, Rihanna and, uh, Charles Manson on busy Route 280 in Newark. The station is in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign to choose and fund its “first (and last)” billboard advertising. As they […]
What price your data soul Verizon is betting that price of your data soul is a shot at free concert tickets, Uber rides or Apple Music tune. A new loyalty program will apparently shower you with “experiences you won’t stop talking about” and “rewards you really, really want”. All you have to do is spend […]
Like we needed it. People are turning to the internet for some fairly basic grown up tasks. Google has launched a new site that visualizes which”how to…” questions people are asking. The most popular searches worldwide: how to tie a tie how to kiss how to get pregnant how to lose weight how to draw […]
Want to appear smart in meetings with minimal effort? Without further delay, let’s put a horn on that donkey and call it a unicorn. The Dominator Ask open ended questions that require no knowledge whatsoever on your part but will certainly eat up at least 20 minutes of meeting time. Try: Have you considered the […]
Irn Bru is the world’s most popular soft drink (that isn’t Coca-Cola). Irn Bru showed its true-blue Scottishness by tweeting a cheeky graphic of the global dominance of Coca-Cola. Scotland is the blue bit – favouring home-grown fizzy ginger Irn-Bru. One (very Scottish) explanation is that : Irn-bru uses a colouring called ‘sunset yellow’ that is […]
Weird company names are banned by the Chinese State Administration for Industry and Commerce. The 33 new guidelines include a section outlawing overly long-winded names. No longer will company names consist of sentences, paragraphs, or even short novellas. Sounds over the top? Maybe you’re not familiar with the northern Chinese condom company ‘Uncle Niu’. Deep breath. […]
Did they take his VRginity – and integrity? Last week, Reddit user vaskemaskine posted in the gaming subreddit: “Made my delivery driver’s night by showing him VR for the first time.” Reddit seems to think it was weird. Literally: “Wine. Big Mac. Invite delivery guy in. Take photo of him while he can’t see. Post to interweb. Weird.” […]
A Chinese restaurant has gotten in trouble for offering discounts based on bra size. The Qianjiang Evening Post reports local complaints about the above poster for the Trendy Shrimp restaurant. One complaint said it was “vulgar advertising” and “discriminatory towards women”. The posters have already been removed. Trendy Shrimp general manager Lan Shenggang tells it straight […]
A neural network system has learned to name craft beer from a huge dataset extracted from BeerAdvocate.com. Credit: Lewis and Quark Researcher and electrical engineer Janelle Shane has already trained AI to name kittens, metal bands, Pokemon, paint colors, and more. The AI-generated craft beer names vary from likely, to weirdly impressive, to bet-level […]
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