Essay

How Sesame Street Revolutionized Product Development

In 2009, Sesame Street aired a short segment that starred buttoned-up muppets in grey suits and spread collars.

The first words kids hear in this piece are from the group’s fearless leader:

Four Concepts from 150 Years of Marketing

Back in 2013, Thomas Piketty published a controversial tome of a book called Capital in the 21st Century (if you haven’t read it yet, I highly recommend it). Early on in Capital, Piketty makes a provocative claim that goes as follows:

Bonzi Buddy: Riding the Hype Cycle of Targeted Advertising

Back in 2000, right around when a slew of fancy-pants startups followed each other off the dot-com cliff, an endearing purple gorilla began making his way onto the desktops of countless Internet users.

The FIFA Bump: How a Video Game Makes Music Go Viral

As our productivity begins to wane around 6pm on most evenings at the SocialRank office, we turn to FIFA 15 for a break. If addictiveness is an indicator of a great product, the world’s most popular sports video game might also be its…

How Drinking Bottled Water Became a Thing

From 2003 to 2010, the famously skeptical magician duo Penn & Teller hosted a Showtime series called Penn & Teller: Bullshit. During each 30-minute episode, the two magicians sought to “hunt down as many purveyors of bullshit” as possible. Since the series…

Surprise and Delight: What it is and Why marketers love it

Brands have been surprising and delighting their customers for centuries. Some better than others. But there’s no better way to turn customers into lifelong superfans than by catching them off-guard (surprise) in a positive…