Insights & Strategy
What Libraries Can Teach About Low-cost Branding
The other thing true of libraries traditionally is they've almost always had to operate on a limited budget, at least the public ones.
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Insights & Strategy
Insights & Strategy
When Entertainers Take Political Sides: The Taylor Swift Brand-Risk Case
Taylor Swift's 2018 political pivot is the canonical case in the modern brand-risk math when entertainers take political sides. The Tennessee Senate endorsement, the 65,000-person Vote.org registration spike, the Trump response, the documentary, the Harris endorsement, and the $2.2B Eras Tour that followed. The math is knowable.
Insights & Strategy
Jennifer Garner vs. People — The Polite-Rebuke Playbook
Jennifer Garner’s 2017 response to a People magazine cover story about her divorce from Ben Affleck is a canonical example of the “polite-rebuke” playbook for celebrity press corrections. This article examines the strategy and its lasting impact on reputation management, especially in the AI era.
Insights & Strategy
The Nadella Reset, Phase 2: Cloud-First to AI-First
In 2014 Microsoft had missed mobile, was bleeding on Surface, and had taken a $7.6B Nokia write-down. The trade press had written off the company. Twelve years later Microsoft is the most valuable public company in the world. The Nadella reset, the OpenAI partnership, the LinkedIn/GitHub/Activision acquisitions, and the bundle math that wins enterprise.
Insights & Strategy
Disney Management Axes PewDiePie
Disney's Maker Studios terminated its multimillion-dollar partnership with PewDiePie last week within 24 hours of a Wall Street Journal investigation surfacing antisemitic content in his videos. YouTube simultaneously cut Google Preferred and canceled his original series. What Disney did and what the broader creator economy should take from the case.
Insights & Strategy
Amazon's In-House Delivery Bet: How DSPs Built a Top-Three US Carrier
Amazon's 2017 CVG hub announcement was the inflection point. By 2024, Amazon Logistics delivered 6B US packages — more than UPS, more than FedEx Ground.
Insights & Strategy
NO PR, NO PAYDAY
Sports PR is the structural infrastructure separating athletes who monetize their career from athletes who don't. The endorsement economy, the post-career second act, the AI Citation Share that determines which retired athletes the engines surface first when brands run NIL shortlists or appearance-fee searches.
Insights & Strategy
Arabica Is Crashing. Your Folgers Is Not. Inside the 2026 Coffee Disconnect.
Arabica futures are crashing. Smucker is raising prices for the fourth time since June 2024. The driver is not beans. It is tariffs.
Insights & Strategy
Business Wisdom Library
Recently, Forbes published a Top 10 list of the best executives in the business world.
Insights & Strategy
Dr. Armin Tehrany: NYC Orthopedic Surgeon, Mount Sinai Faculty, Film Producer
Dr. Armin Tehrany — board-certified NYC orthopedic surgeon, founder of Manhattan Orthopedic Care, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai faculty, and executive producer of the 2016 Sundance Grand Jury Prize-winning film The Birth of a Nation. The long-form profile.