Media Category

by Freddy J. Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango LLC & Freelance Dreamer So “Inception” is this action-packed, visually stunning film that appears real. Too real. Indeed, although the premise is based on dreams, it isn’t very… well, dreamlike. Who has linear dreams that are essentially action films? Whose dreams appear shot from a third-person perspective with scenes that don’t involve them? Dreams are usually visualized from a first-person P.O.V., with the person dreaming involved in all the action. But forget the technical side — I don’t have to tell youRead More

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango + 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. For nearly a century, 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

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango + Practicing Metaphor Engineer… Looks like it’s over for us marketing strategists. Now I’m not saying 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 newRead More

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango + “Bank Run” Consigliere… (Full Disclosure: The following post is about one of my clients at Atomic Tango.) 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 anRead More

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango + Marketing Demonologist… It was brilliant. Not the film, but the marketing campaign that turned a $15,000 amateur horror flick into a $100 million box office smash. The problem? Serious anticipointment…Read More

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango + Diehard Newspaper Reader; photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash… It’s tough watching an old friend slowly die. Even tougher knowing that you’re helping to knock him off. Before you go calling 911, the old friend I’m referring to is my daily newspaper. For decades, I’ve started every day with my sports and business pages while downing pure Colombian full-caf. Whenever I miss my morning coffee-n-paper jumpstart combo, I find myself fluttering through the rest of the day like a fat pigeonRead More

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango + Not An Actor But A Guy Who Played One On Stage… Hollywood is experiencing a “Freaky Friday”: in the 1976 movie, a mother and daughter magically swap bodies. After a series of icky moments milked for laughs, they predictably come to understand each other. Now, unpredictably, the entire movie industry is experiencing a similar switcheroo… A-list celebrities are failing to lure fans, reports the L.A. Times, while top movies are starring relative unknowns: The stars are not twinkling bright this summer.Read More

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango + Hater of All Things Double Ungood… Orwell is not only spinning in his grave, he must be doing triple salchows. Amazon kindled a web-wide furor this morning when it yanked digital copies of two books from users’ Kindles: George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm…Read More

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango & Stake Holder Analyst… I finally got around to watching the first season of “True Blood” — yeah, I know,  I’m a total TV slacker — but I survived only four episodes. “True Blood” begins with an intriguing level of satire that quickly devolves into soap operatics and — worse — boring stereotypes. Creator Alan Ball cleverly uses vampires to symbolize the coming out of the LGBT community, but his vampires are clichéd, smug, and brooding. Rather than being high-minded immortals espousingRead More

by Freddy Tran Nager, Founder of Atomic Tango + Guy Who Enjoys Wine, Film, and Advertising — Separately… So I’m flipping through the Calendar section of the L.A. Times print edition. (Only in Hollywood is the entertainment section of the major newspaper called the “Calendar.” That’s right, we don’t do anything else in this town but entertain or be entertained.) My eye caught the full-page ad for new movie Tetro. The ad brims over with critical raves, with the first quote proclaiming “Francis Ford Coppola, 70, has returned to hisRead More