davemel37

Short term changes have little to do with long term brand recognition and value.

I've studied branding extensively and I think, if he loses, his presidential run will still be a net win for him and his brand once the political fallout falls out of the news cycle.

edit: changes nothing to little

I don't think you can make judgement calls from short term things like the examples you gave.

His brand recognition is way up throughout the world and my experience tells me that the negative view will not translate into his business brands once his political brand is not front and center.

This is definitely the case...but he doesnt even need the new audience or the new venture. His entire empire is built on a name that is getting billions in free press.

The worst thing to happen to a famous brand is not bad press but rather becoming irrelevant and falling out of discussion.

Even if the Trump political brand crashes and burns, the broader trump brand of success and money just gets stronger...

This election was the ultimate win win for Trump.

This is why he can take all the risks he is taking, he has nothing to lose...which is the ultimate trump card!

Edit: spelling correction

This should be upvoted to the top! Definitely more than some story about turn of the century dancers :)

I heard a story about Pepsi (dont recall the names), where an executive made a decisiom that lost them 10 Million dollars. The CEO called the executive into his office... The executive shuffled into the office, head down, and meekly said, I guess you called me in here to fire me." To which the CEO replied, "FIRE YOU?! I just spent $10,000,000 educating you!

Two important points.

>It's not like Apple does this kind of thing every day

1. Just because you don't hear about it doesn't mean it doesn't happen all the time to less known developers with no public voice.

2. What's his incentive not to take the out Apple offered him? If he was guilty & had no problem lying, why the heck wouldn't he grab the opportunity to be reinstated?

The only rational incentive to hold his ground is if he actually believes he is in the right. Which indicates that his story is likely true.

I agree that he could just as easily be lying, but the series of events and decisions fit much better with a guy who feels hurt and in the right, versus a guy who has no problem lying and being dishonest publicly.

Edit: spelling correction

I do agree that he could totally be lying...but that doesn't seem to be Apples belief or they wouldn't reinstate him.

Also, if he really was guilty, why would he poke the bear after apple agreed to reinstate him...why not apologize and get off scott free.

It appears to me like both sides agreed to a set of facts and now its just a matter of setting the record straight. No one seems to want to admit fault and they are being childish about that since its in both of their interests to do so.

I dont know who is dealing with this on Apples side...but its a mistake to think brands, executives, employees and even PR agencies dont get emotional and react from a bruised ego.

I bet the PR costs exceed the actual damage in this case. If they were really afraid of damage, they wouldnt come out swinging, they would simply apologize for banning the account and the public would forgive them instantly.

Both sides are acting against their own interests IMO.

The gist of this point is the debate around banning guns from people on the terrorist watch list. One side insists that if they are bad enough to watch, we shouldn't let them buy guns (this is Apples stance that since our arbitrary system linked them, that suddenly makes him guilty.) and the people on the other side, insist that since there is no due process to being added to the terrorist watch list, it is a way to bypass a constitutional right (which is a valid point, whats to stop the government from arbitrarily adding people to these lists and stopping them from buying guns.

Regardless of which side of the argument you lean towards, they can both legitimately believe they are 100% in the right.

>"We didn't just arbitrarily ban the account, it was involved in manipulating our reviews"

>anti-fraud team does the right thing

That's not what happened though. What happened is that Apple has their internal tools to link fraudulent accounts, to keep out bad actors, and this "good" account got caught in that web. You can just as easily argue that he didn't actually do anything wrong. After all, if he did Apple wouldn't even consider reinstating him. The fact that Apple linked the accounts internally doesn't actually point to any guilt or wrongdoing...It could even be pointed to Apple's policies arbitrarily hurting the little guy.

I can see both sides very clearly and I can see a middle ground very clearly. The only thing stopping this from being resolved is "bruised egos" on both sides.

Edit: Added in second quote

This whole story just comes off as a bunch of bruised egos too proud to get out of their own way.

They both agree in principle that DASH should be reinstated, and clearly it being reinstated is in both sides best interests.

Why Does Apple NEED an acknowledgment that they didn't do anything wrong? What difference would it make?

Why can't Kapeli just acknowledge that he was associated with a bad actor in Apple's system.

I get the idea of integrity, but I get the idea of self-preservation a little more...Especially when reality is subjective and your perspective might not be the only sincerely held belief.

I will never understand the people too principled to just SAY SORRY even if you believe you are in the right. Are you so principled that you can't even acknowledge the existence of a potential conflicting view point, at least enough to admit you might be wrong, when its clearly in your best interest to just own up, and move on...even if you aren't sincere in your apology!

Edit: I can maybe understand a prisoner refusing to admit to a crime they didn't commit to a parole board despite contrition being a key to getting released...but at some point of serving a life sentence, you have to kick into self preservation mode and just admit to wrongdoing, and spend your free years atoning for your lie.

The amount of power Companies like Apple, Google, Facebook and others have to completely destroy and make businesses, makes me wonder if there should be some internet arbitration court to at least let people present their case to a third party. I get the companies would never want to give up this power and I get that every country has their own court system and laws...

This is more a middle ground, for people caught in the cross hairs to present their case. Maybe like WIPO arbitration for trademark domains.

Just to add to this, for me at least, It's more the car rental market than the taxi market that Uber disrupted.

>I have never really seen the numbers that show it might be be better value.

I think people misunderstand the function of PR vs. Advertising.

PR is a way to build credibility through third party validation. Advertising is how you convert that credibility into sales.

They both have their time and place and you really need both to build a big brand.

If you run PR as your only marketing, you will be disappointed by the lack of direct sales and quantifiable ROI it drives.

If you run advertising without PR (or other third party validation) you will get frustrated with how expensive your cost per acquisition is from advertising.

>If everyone thought like that'd it'd be a race towards some pretty unethical and/or immoral behaviours.

Strategies like this have been around for decades, yet somehow most people are NOT willing to put in the extra work to execute on it.

Donny Deutsch did something similar, "Donny pitched a TV account, Tri-State Pontiac dealers. (Just to get into the pitch, Donny sent car parts to the home of the Pontiac rep. He sent a fender with a note that read, “We’ll cover your rear end.” http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/features/n_8669/

There was that fellow who ran linkedin ads to get investors attention to get into Angelpad http://thehustle.co/the-linkedin-hack-that-made-me-120000

8 Years ago I was trying to get an interview at Neo@Ogilvy as a search marketer. I sent my resume several times with no results. I spent the extra time to really think about what would make me stand out and I designed my resume to look like a search results page and got a call from them within 10 hours of applying. This was because the key to advertising design is imagery that supports the message. It demonstrated my appreciation of the nuances of effective advertising.

Direct mail marketers have been promoting Lumpy Mail or 3D Mail as a way to make sure your mailer gets noticed, opened, and read. (i.e. putting bulky thinks in the mail so It can't be put on the bottom of a junk mail pile.)

These are not really even hacks, it is one of the rules of the game. If you go the extra mile demonstrating you care enough to stand out, you earned the attention you get.

I don't think these tactics are a slippery slope at all. It's no different than Sam Altman flying across the country to meet a company (that didnt want to meet with him) that was about to sign with a competitor, or PokerShare.com training a Chimp to play poker and bring it on tour.

There is a world of difference between being clever and being unethical.

Edit: Grammar

Paul Graham said he started viaweb because he didn't want to be poor anymore. I guess poor can be relative.

I dont know PG personally and I don't know the young adults you teach, so I can only speak in generalities, but the scenario you painted can just as easily mint a determined person who takes all sorts of risks because, "What do they have to lose?!"

I guess what I'm trying to say is that only a fraction of people are entrepreneurs and those people usually have certain ways to view the world that the majority of people don't...So, when you observe this fear in your prodigies, maybe that fear is about proportionate to the general population and while the specific fear might be different, the willingness to view the world in away that allows risk taking in entreprenuership might have nothing to do with specific backgrounds but rather specific personalities and perspectives.

All i'll say is that in this case, where he was applying for a marketing position, he wasnt breaking rules, he was proving his qualifications for the job.

The broader discussion is outside my realm of expertise.

Honestly, that boils down to how you frame and perceive (and teach)risk more than anything else.

If they perceive stability in a $100k job and perceive startups as risking that opportunity, they will be afraid...it has nothing to do with where they came from.

Edit: Also, if you really think about it...those kids are already breaking the rules by learning to code and not accepting their upbringing as determining their fate. They are breaking all sorts of cultural rules.

I think you are making some pretty broad assumptions about a whole bunch of things.

First, this very article is about an immigrant, with no status, money or connections, creating opportunity for himself.

Obviously, I am gonna be somewhat biased by my own upbringing, so I can't be truly objective (other than knowing that I grew up in a vastly different upbringing that the folks you describe, yet still feel there are some rules that should be broken and others that shouldn't be crossed.

My only two points I would make are:

1. YC Funds a pretty diverse crowd from all over the world if I understand correctly (I have no direct knowledge.)

2. Founding a successful startup isn't for everyone, and maybe it favors some over others due to life circumstances, but that doesn't change the reality that to innovate and succeed, you might need that "naughty" mentality, regardless of whether it came from a place of privilege or not.

Finally, In my experience, persistence is by far a more important trait for success than almost anything else, and the most driven, focused, persistent people are often the ones that fought against all odds to break free from their underprivileged circumstances, much like the immigrant you described. I am not sure they feel a need to play by arbitrary rules or not, but even if they do, they often rise above through sheer force of will...and often that persistence, and will power brings them to do things that open doors by ignoring propriety and breaking down barriers and limitations that live in their head more than anywhere else.

I might be biased about all sorts of privilege and might be blind to the class bias you refer to, I do not know...but my gut and experience tell me that individuals and their personal decisions matter much more than their class and circumstances. (Not discounting those other factors, just discounting the role they actually play in reality relative their own choices and of course colored by my own bias.)

>So say sleeping with people from HR is ok?

Do you really equate sleeping with HR to getting noticed by delivering donuts to executives?

I want to point you to Paul Graham's essay about what they look for in Founders. Specifically, "They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter."

http://www.paulgraham.com/founders.html 4. Naughtiness

Though the most successful founders are usually good people, they tend to have a piratical gleam in their eye. They're not Goody Two-Shoes type good. Morally, they care about getting the big questions right, but not about observing proprieties. That's why I'd use the word naughty rather than evil. They delight in breaking rules, but not rules that matter. This quality may be redundant though; it may be implied by imagination.

Sam Altman of Loopt is one of the most successful alumni, so we asked him what question we could put on the Y Combinator application that would help us discover more people like him. He said to ask about a time when they'd hacked something to their advantage—hacked in the sense of beating the system, not breaking into computers. It has become one of the questions we pay most attention to when judging applications.

First, he was applying for a marketing position. A position that demands creativity and the ability to stand out and be noticed...so, essentially he proved himself with this gimmick. In other words, this wasnt just a gimmick but rather a demonstration of his skills.

It just like an engineer getting interviewed after finding a bug in your code.

On a more critical note, applying for a job is a zero sum game. Only one person gets hired. If you are more concerned with rules and respecting other applications by not standing out, you are just playing the game poorly. Your job as an applicant is to a)get noticed and b)beat out everyone else for the job.

All this is to say that if followong the rules are so important in your organization, this guy is a bad fit. If it requires scrappiness, creativity, and "hacker" mentality, it is a perfect fit.

In this case, as a marketer, it was brilliant!

I think a fundamental way to think about on demand is that the worker/service provider/driver is the real customer not the end user.

So, if you are uber and the only trust factors are solved by technology (i.e. where the driver is and how soon theyll get to you) it can create a new class of workers.

if you are in skilled home services, trust is built by the provider not the platform, so the only current value is lead generation for the worker...which doesnt require a platform.

The argument of this post is that there is an opportunity in home services for a platform to really cater to the service providers in a way that they always want to transact on the platform and thay they can use to manage and grow their steady customers...with on demand being the leadgen side of the platform.

This is just another way of framing what the article states. Which is that retention will be low in home services because both the homeowner and the contractor prefer direct relationships over using a platform for future work. (i.e. any high trust offering is not a good fit for the current uber model due to low retention.)

I'm sorry. It was wrong to call you arrogant or lazy and I apologize.

You might be right about other companies making those same assumptions...I would love to understand more about their thought process. When you started with adwords, did you consider hiring a pro or run a few searches for beginner tips or did you just follow the onboarding to get started? I am not asking to prove a point, I am asking to get an idea about what a newbie might assume when getting started with Adwords.

I would never try to fix my cars engine on my own, nor would I fix my sewer line. I would probably atleast watch a youtube video before changing my oil...I genuinely want to understand what people think when they assume they can run adwords on their own without researching how to do it effectively?

Honestly, I stand by my position and advice.

Broad match is really not a default in the traditional sense...it is a default if you are too lazy/arrogant/dumb to understand how Google serves ads in the most basic way before flipping the switch on.

If you are too lazy to google Adwords Beginner or read Googles getting started documentation, you only have yourself to blame. Understanding match types is absolute fundamentals day one stuff.

Yes, if you want to be completely blind, you get backed into a default, but you only have yourself to blame if that happens...it is so fundamental and easy to discover that I just cant reconcile a rational scenario with not knowing enough to not end up defaulting to broad match with no idea that there is even a thing called match types.

Edit: just to add to this, I was being literal when I mentioned 2 minutes...it literally does not take more than 2 minutes to learn how Google matches ads to queries...

Edit2: I realize I am being a little defensive and unforgiving. The truth is, I can see plenty of people making this mistake...just assuming that its super easy to advertise...I guess I get a little emotional because its such a easy thing to learn. Its like my mom asking me a technical question that I simply Google and tell her the answer...she could have easily googled it herself :) understandable but frustrating!

> included as well not so closely related variants like synonyms and related searches, given that you said it meant "plural to singular."

That is not true except with broad match. you are confusing broad match with close variant matching. close Variant matching on phrase and exact match only triggers really close variants, like I indicated. There are also adwords scripts that give you even more control http://www.brainlabsdigital.com/adwords-scripts-reversing-th...

As far as broad match being default. I suppose you are technically right... However, anyone that gives control to Google about how they spend your money is begging to lose money.

Never ever ever use the default settings of an ad platform...it's basically inviting them to take all your money without showing results.

I apologize for using a harsh tone in my criticism. You are right, if you dont do some preparation and research in advance, you will likely waste money on adwords.

There are great ways to make sure you dont waste money, like using different match types, writing very relevant ads that qualify people so the wrong people wont click and using negative keywords.

Its a good idea to Google, "Adwords beginner (tips, guide, pitfalls, mistakes)" any of these will surface great info. to get you started on the right foot.

I somewhat agree with your point about the tone. I will apologize after writing this.

(Edit: Your post has me confused because you start off talking about tone and than you fail to take your own advice about reasonable discourse.)

Your assumptions however are way off...I would never criticize someone for something remotely excusable, but advertising on Google without taking 2 minutes or less to learn something as fundamental as match types is about as reckless as buying a rolex on the streets from a guy on a manhattan street corner and than feeling ripped off...Some things, like match types, fit into the category of reckless despite how easy you want to think running Adwords is.

My frustration is that so many people waste so much money on digital advertising because "they think they can do it themselves."

This specific guy was sharing advice warning people about adwords wasting his money. Adwords didnt waste him a penny, his unwillingness to do less than 2 minutes of preperation or asking a pro led to that...

Even with over a decade experience, I still learn new things about Adwords almost daily...The idea that people think that its simple and they can run it themselves is frustrating, but to not even know about match types, I cant think of any excuse that justifies it short of arrogance and/or laziness.

Adwords is an auction. When my competitors choose to waste money, My costs get driven up. It hurts everyone but Google...so take the 2 seconds to read up on how to do it or dont complain and tell the world it doesnt work.

Or ask me, Im happy to help with basic strategy for free, its in my best interest for my competitors to run advertising that is accountable to a bottom line and thay doesnt compete in irrelevant query auctions.

A big factor in how much you pay for every click is quality score. The likely biggest factor in quality score is your relative click through rate for the position (i.e. Google wants to show the ad that gets clicked more because it makes them more revenue, if you get clicked 10% of the time for a keyword in position 2 and your competitor gets clicked 8% of the time, Google wants to show your ad and even gives you a discount of sorts on the click via higher quality score.)

So, if you google your keywords to see how your ad appears, you have 2 choices. Click on your ad, which will cost you money or dont click and lower your click through rate which can lower your quality score, especially if you do it often.

The issue of polluting data is that now your agency or whoever is managing your SEM sees either a lower click through rate if your dont click or a lower conversion rate if you do click and will make optimization decisions without knowing how many searches were you.

Google has an ad preview tool in Adwords to let you check without impacting your data.

In the greater scheme of things, if its a high volume query, the harm is minimal, but if its a high value term with low search volume (i.e. a big ticket local service) it can really hurt you.

I can just as easily argue that branded search closes the sale at the bottom of the funnel and that generic search contributes to that sale...so without multi click attribution in the mix, its not fair to give credit to organic for cannibalized sales...etc... my point is really that there is room to argue both ways and without advanced attribution...someone somewhere is not getting the credit they earned.