July 15th 2024
I started out trying to understand a fraudulent fundraising appeal sent to my mother-in-law, found my way to their federal filings and eventually to Richard Viguerie, America’s Founding Father of Fundraising Grift. What did *you* do on your summer holiday?
October 25th 2017
Congratulations to my colleagues and everyone who helped create the Hospital Digital Experience (HDX-15) report, which has won recognition from the eHealthcare Leadership Awards as a best annual or special report. Its rare when an industry gives an award to an agency for marketing within it, but that’s what Useful Arts is about – the challenge for brands to stand for something more.
March 3rd 2013
I’ve been seeing quite a few agencies claiming to be “anti-agencies”. There are lots of reasons why the agency business model should evolve, but new ways of creating value rarely start with positioning.
November 6th 2012
A recent Ad Age article proclaimed that freelancers are a happy and well paid lot, and that they’re a hot new trend on Madison Avenue. However, when you scratch the surface of their research, it’s clear that permanent freelancing brings as much instability to agencies as those stepping-up for extended temporary work.
November 18th 2010
The MITX Digital Marketing awards recognize agency and brand efforts in 25+ categories, plus “Best of” awards for Boston’s top interactive talent. These are my friends and industry.
July 23rd 2010
When you partner with a firm, their weaknesses become yours. So reading an agency and its stress points is a client-side survival skill. With that in mind, last month I connected the stories of three Boston-area interactive agencies, each of which diversified from selling services to products: BigBad Interactive, Magic Hour and Fable Vision. To […]
June 10th 2010
Last week, buying lead management companies was all the rage. Now Marin Software, a Paid Search (SEM) Marketing Platform, completed another financing round, bringing in $11 million. (That’s $33 million for them to date.) And SEM agency iCrossing has been purchased by Hearst Media for a reported $325 million. The deal could increase to more than […]
June 9th 2010
This is the story of three talented, scrappy agencies who did great client work, and who each tried to transition to selling products instead of services and engagements. It represents one way that agencies are remaking their business models. Magic Hour In the 1990s when I met them, Magic Hour Communications was a group of […]
The future of digital experiences will be built by strategists who grasp the full array of emerging business, social, and technical models. Specialties in user experience, branding, application design, and data science are laying the foundation for richer user experiences and business models breakthrough products and revenue based marketing.
UsefulArts is a soapbox to discuss the front line of digital experience, and the agencies and platforms that enable it. Digital business needs a cadre of leaders who can connect c-level enterprise thinking with the ways these new interaction models can help organizations to matter more to their most important stakeholders.