Atomic Tango

Avoidng the BACN Purge: An E-Newsletter Done Right

July 14th, 2010 · Case Studies, How To Tips

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango LLC + Incorrigible BACN Addict

I have few addictions, but I confess to loving me some bacon. I’ve tempered my addiction somewhat by subbing in turkey bacon, but that’s like seeking a buzz off light beer. It’s possible but hardly as satisfying.

Same thing goes for most e-newsletters. I think they’re going to be great, so I subscribe to a whole slew of them. Yet every morning the first thing I do when I check my email is delete almost every single one.

There’s a term for e-newsletters that we subscribe to but never read: “bacn” — which is a step above that other four-letter word, spam.

So what separates e-newsletters we read from bacn we don’t? [Read more →]

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Nailed It: “Pearls Before Swine” Captures Us Hopeless Weboholics

May 24th, 2010 · Random Observations

I don’t usually share comic strips, but this one hit too close to home…
Pearls Before Swine

Coincidentally, Wired magazine just published a related (albeit much more scientific) article about how “The Web Shatters Focus, Rewires Brains.”

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Whale Fail: How Callous Marketing Busted The Hump

May 23rd, 2010 · Case Studies

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango LLC + No Fan of Captain Ahab

Whale Fail

image by McAuliflower, Brownie Points Blog (click image to see the full original)

How do you go from being one of the hottest restaurants in town to being completely out of business in just weeks? Simply follow the example of The Hump, a trendy sushi bar in Santa Monica, CA, that shut down after being busted for selling whale meat.

That’s right: someone there actually said, “Mmm, beautiful, intelligent and endangered species — let’s eat it.”

[Read more →]

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Business Journal Makeover: Enter the Harvard Obviousness Review

May 15th, 2010 · Media Review

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango LLC & Business Lit Connoisseur

Note: The following is meant to be satirical. The author has no affiliation with the Harvard Business Review or any idea what its editors could possibly be thinking.

Today's Harvard Business Review

HBR: Gettin' in touch with a new generation of business readers.

For 88 years, the Harvard Business Review has been the authoritative voice of critical business thinkers, featuring such legendary thought leaders as Peter Drucker, Theordore Levitt and Michael Porter, and popularizing such paradigm-shattering concepts as the glass ceiling, marketing myopia and the balanced scorecard.

Well, enough of that… [Read more →]

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Pullin’ a Godin: Behold the Cheeseburger POV

March 14th, 2010 · How To Tips

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango LLC + Practicing Metaphor Engineer

She Can Haz Cheezburger!

OK, sometimes it's a bit of a stretch...

Looks like it’s over for us marketing strategists.

No, I’m not saying that there’s no more need for marketing strategy. If you look at the anemic brands of most banks, airlines and Web 2.0 startups, you’ll see that the need for marketing is growing faster than Rush Limbaugh at a cheesecake bake-off.

But the opportunity to develop a revolutionary new marketing strategy may have passed. Sure, we marketers can still develop new tactics based on new mediums and new markets, but the big picture strategies have apparently all been done. Even worse, they’re now being recycled… [Read more →]

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A Walk Down Memory 6th Street: My Vintage SXSW Ad

March 8th, 2010 · Atomic Tango News, Random Observations

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango LLC + former Record Industry Adman

Funny to see all the young ones chattin’ away on the Twitter ’bout this year’s South-by-Southwest festival, aka SXSW.

What used to be just a good ol’ fashioned music fest in the unvarnished heart of Austin is now this slicked-up multimedia shindig known as much — or even more — for its interactive media than its music. Seems to me that the latte-sippers are now outnumbering the Shiner Bock drinkers. The times they sure have a’changed… [Read more →]

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Not Clear On The Concept: Dell’s “Green” Ink

March 7th, 2010 · Random Observations

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango LLC & Ink-Devouring Eco Junkie

I have a love-hate relationship with my Canon MP500 printer. Love because it prints out professional looking photos. Hate because its insatiable thirst for ink is robbing me dry, like NYPD cops in a perfume warehouse. [Read more →]

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“Bank Run”: It’s an iPhone App. It’s an Interactive Movie. It’s All the Above.

February 27th, 2010 · Atomic Tango News, Media Review

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango & “Bank Run” Consigliere

Full Disclosure: The following post is about one of my clients at Atomic Tango…

Bank Run site - home of the iPhone App and Interactive Movie

Imagine waking up and finding yourself strapped to a chair. Standing over you is a strange man swinging a large golf club. He keeps asking you menacing questions, but you have no idea what he’s talking about. Frustrated by your lack of answers, he decides to take a massive swing at a spot right between your eyes… How do you escape?

Well, there’s an App for that… [Read more →]

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Doing Good isn’t Good Enough: Cold Reality for Social Entrepreneurs

February 21st, 2010 · How To Tips, Random Observations

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango LLC & Social Entrepreneurship Instructor

Heart? Who needs a heart? I've got a great bottom line...

Some people just don’t get it.

I’m not talking about the willfully ignorant knuckle-draggers on the Texas State Board of Education. (They’re so beyond not getting it, they’ve gone full primordial.) I’m talking about the highly educated, wealth exuding finance execs who impersonated the Tin Man at a recent conference I attended… [Read more →]

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Marketing Mix-Up: Being Treated Like Lois Lane

February 16th, 2010 · Marketing 101

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder & Fusion Director of Atomic Tango LLC

Lois & Clark

What's even harder to believe is that this show is already 17 years old.

The hardest part to believe about “Superman” isn’t that a man can fly with no physical means of propulsion. It’s that Lois Lane, a reporter, can’t tell that Superman and Clark Kent are the same guy because of a pair of glasses. (Perhaps she needed a pair of her own.)

Lois’ lack of, um, vision is captured in an episode of the TV series “Lois & Clark,” wherein the time traveler Tempus gives her the low-down… [Read more →]

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