Posts tagged new york times
It’s all About the Story, Even with Sake
012 months ago
by Eric Hoffman
in article
I admit that I’m not a true connoisseur of Sake, although I have sampled more than a few varieties, I do actually really like the chilled sparkling option. But, a recent story in the New York Times about Sake really connected to me. The story is about how top Japanese restaurants in Las Vegas have turned to the backstory behind their top shelf Sakes to sell multi-thousand dollar bottles of the stuff to their top-shelf clientele. Now, I’m sure there probably aren’t a lot of ski resorts that are going to be in the market to sell pricey bottles of Sake, I think that many of the same lessons could apply to how they sell their product. Here’s the heart of the article to me:
When restaurants in Las Vegas and elsewhere tell Henry Sidel, president of the Joto Sake distribution company in Manhattan, that they need something more expensive to impress their upscale clientele, he finds that a crucial selling point is a good yarn about how the sake was made.
“There are no brands if there aren’t stories,” Mr. Sidel said the other day in his office on Morton Street in Greenwich Village. “With our portfolio, I’ve focused on brands that have stories.”
Isn’t that what people are looking for in what they buy? This is certainly what Chrysler was shooting for in their recent “Imported from Detroit” Superbowl ad…what are other good examples of using story in marketing?
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Sundance Review – Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times
01 year ago
by Eric Hoffman
in review
The Sundance Film Festival is a a wonderful and eclectic film festival, featuring independent films, which is held every January in my hometown of Park City. It’s a diversion from our regular winter activities and each festival brings a unique slate of films which may never be seen outside of the festival circuit. Some films are incredibly good, some not quite as much, but it’s always an interesting experience to mingle with the PIBs (people in black) and attend a screening or two. This year, the film I made it to was one that had some real intrigue for me with this intriguing introductions:
With the Internet surpassing print as our main news source, newspapers going bankrupt, and outlets focusing on content they claim audiences (or is it advertisers?) want. Page One chronicles the media industry’s transformation and assesses the high stakes for democracy if in-depth investigative reporting becomes extinct.
The film was called, “Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times” and while the film did seem to cover a variety of stories over the course of a year in the New York Times newsroom, it seemed more focused on addressing the shift in how news that we read is created, disseminated and consumed. I personally browse to and read the Times online practically every morning online, but I also work in the new media environment that is the challenge to the continued existence of the old “Gray Lady”.
Like practically every newspaper, the Times has been struggling to find ways to bolster flagging revenues and while part of that involves hard to swallow layoffs, the other is balancing the editorial and journalistic processes that have laid the foundation for the reputation that the publication justly deserves, with the ever accelerating news cycle that rewards speed over all else. One of the man protagonists in the newsroom is the gruff and thoroughly entertaining journalist , David Carr. On the one hand Carr is the consummate journalist and defender of what the Times represents; however he also is a staunch realist who can see the shift that has happened in the way the American public consumes media and it truly was interesting to hear him remark in the Q&A about how he has come to embrace Twitter.
While the film that does meander off onto tangents in places, it remains true to showing The New York Times is as an institution that is still very much relevant and it is rapidly evolving to hopefully be able to continue to exist as a viable news organization. I for one hope it does as I believe quite strongly that the insight and breadth of coverage available there cannot be found otherwise online or offline. I’ve heard that this film has been picked up for distribution, and while the topic of journalism and new media might be resonate for everyone, I think most regular readers of this blog would definitely find the movie to be of interest, so I would recommend heading out to check it out.
Enough of my blathering, here’s the film’s director, Andrew Rossi describing his film:
Should a Ski Resort be a “No-Tech” Zone?
61 year ago
by Eric Hoffman
in article
As an interactive marketer, I feel like I spend hours upon hours pondering apps and other interactive items that could add value to skiers and riders on the mountain. However, a recent New York Times article, “Your Brain on Computers – Attached to Technology and Paying a Price” prompted me to wonder if perhaps the mountains are a place that shouldn’t enable our always connected addiction to technology? To clarify, does is it in some way devalue the outdoor mountain experience of skiing and snowboarding if a resort is encouraging guests to pull out their mobile device and in the words of the article, “our ability to focus is being undermined by bursts of information.” Or, as one of the people in the article says of her husband, “‘It seems like he can no longer be fully in the moment.”
The closing paragraphs of the story further the point:
Mr. Nass at Stanford thinks the ultimate risk of heavy technology use is that it diminishes empathy by limiting how much people engage with one another, even in the same room.
“The way we become more human is by paying attention to each other,” he said. “It shows how much you care.”
That empathy, Mr. Nass said, is essential to the human condition. “We are at an inflection point,” he said. “A significant fraction of people’s experiences are now fragmented.”
Obviously, a ski resort can’t shut down the cell services that provide data and voice services, but does it do itself a disservice by unintentionally providing a negative (an incentive to use technology) in an otherwise oasis away from technology. What do you think?
To wit, I just saw another story on this same topic on CNN titled, “Is the internet making us quick but shallow?” this is certainly an interesting topic to ponder.
