Air France announced a new subsidiary targeting millennials, Joon. It apparently believes that millennials will select an airline based on branding and style, unlike everyone else who buys on price, convenience, and a reduced chance of being assaulted. The resulting announcement is as airy as a fresh-baked Parisian croissant. The Joon announcement is breathless My…
When it comes to your passion for the NBA, Nike knows it’s the uniforms that really excite you. They’ve given 110% in their superlative- and jargon-packed press release. My critique feels like a slam dunk; let me know if you think it’s an airball. Here’s yesterday’s Nike release. I’ve put the superlatives and other weasel…
Since thought leaders love the classic two-by-two matrix chart, it’s only fair to place them on one, based on the spreadability and provability of their ideas. I’ve defined thought leader this way: A thought leader is a person who has created a coherent body of ideas and is effective at communicating and spreading those ideas…
Whole Foods has loyal, upscale customers who might be nervous about its acquisition by Amazon, so the company sent people a reassuring letter by email. It’s one of the most vacuous communications I’ve ever read. Now that Amazon is buying Whole Foods, will the retailer focus on online buyers? Will it expand its selection, including…
My non-profit needs to build an online community with some very specific requirements and a completely new Web site. So I posted for help on Facebook. I got some great responses and some awful ones, which revealed a lot about the business netiquette of social media. While messages on Facebook are informal, they succeed only when they’re…
The Fyre Festival was an epic disaster. Organizers hyped the festival, set on an obscure island in the Bahamas, as “the next Coachella”; attendees got stranded with little food and shelter, no entertainment, and no easy way to escape. Who could have known? Anyone who read the pitch deck. It’s filled with un-words that have no…
Adam Jones, center fielder for the Baltimore Orioles, said fans at Fenway Park threw peanuts at him and shouted the n-word. The Red Sox — and many other prominent Boston figures — have not only apologized, but taken action. Take note: if your organization gets in trouble, this is a case study in how to respond properly. To…
It’s been a tough week for Juicero, a startup company that makes an internet-connected juicing machine. Some Bloomberg reporters figured out you could make juice from the juice packs without using the Juicero machine at all. The CEO’s response on Medium is completely ineffective, because he can only see the world from within his limited, Silicon-Valley…
President Trump, outraged by the use of nerve gas on civilians, launched 59 cruise missiles at the airfield that Bashar al-Assad uses in Syria. Then he made a statement justifying the action. It’s a case study in Trumpspeak — does the pileup in intensifying adjectives and adverbs make a statement more persuasive, or more suspect? In my…