Art Silverman had a vendetta against popcorn. Silverman wanted to educate the public about the fact that a typical bag of movie popcorn has 37 grams of saturated fat, while the USDA recommends you have no more than 20 grams in an entire day. That’s important information. But instead of simply citing that surprising statistic, Silverman made Continue Reading...

Back in the 1940s, psychologists Fritz Heider and Marianne Simmel conducted an experiment. They showed study participants an animated film consisting of a rectangle with an opening, plus a circle and two triangles in motion. The participants were then asked to simply describe what they saw in the film. Before you keep reading, take a look at it Continue Reading...

“Hello, I’m a Mac.” “And I’m a PC.” You remember Apple’s “Get a Mac” series of commercials that ran from May 2006 to October 2009? The commercials were short vignettes featuring John Hodgman as the sweet-yet-bumbling PC and Justin Long as the creative, hip Mac. Those 66 short spots were named the best advertising campaign of the Continue Reading...

The words in the image above are how New York Times bestselling author Sally Hogshead sums up modern marketing. In my experience, she's absolutely correct. I'd argue that it's been that way for a long time, even though the context has changed dramatically. Here's a nearly century-old example to illustrate what I mean. In the 1920s, Schlitz Continue Reading...