Category : Thinking

How Jeff Weiner of LinkedIn got hired for an internship.

Someone just told me a great story about an intern she interviewed as a favor, about twenty years ago, who went on to be the CEO of LinkedIn, Jeff Weiner.

He was in business school at the time. She had already hired all the interns she could for the season. And, anyway, in their short interview, he hadn’t impressed her much.

She wanted to get him out of her office. She tried to usher him out.

“I’m sorry, I just don’t have any intern positions left for this summer.”

He said, “I have just one question.”

“O.K.” she said, “Shoot.”

“Do you have a five year plan?”

“A five year plan?! I have a plan for today.”

“If you hire me, I will write your five year plan.”

She hired him. He wrote her plan. It worked. He went on to great things, and no one was surprised, least of all her.

Great question. Great offer. Great career.

Don’s Drive In – Unconscious Brand Lessons of My Youth

If you want to learn how to build a juggernaut of a brand through inspiring action, you could do a lot worse than to learn from the example of the late Don Roth, founder and proprietor of the sadly also late Don’s Drive In at the border of Livingston and Short Hills, New Jersey.

My grandmother lived for many years just a couple of blocks from Don’s, so I had the delicious experience of imbibing the phenomenon from a very impressionable age.

Some will say Don’s was just a restaurant. Hah! Don’s was a mega-brand in the area. Though Don and his namesake have been gone for years, so great is the demand for his food that several other food services in the area claim to sell “Don’s” burgers and other items.

I could tell you more, but you’ll learn so much from this article about the heart, soul, and work-ethic of a true brand-building genius. Enjoy!

Mines & Mixers – A Social Marketing Strategy Metaphor.

Think of your social marketing strategy as one of mixers and mines.

Mixers, as in parties. You wouldn’t walk into a cocktail party, and immediately start selling your product or service, would you?

Imagine this in real life – this is clearly a strategy with diminishing returns. Why? Because you would get invited to fewer and fewer parties, right?

So, what do you do at a mixer? You get interested in people. You make some small talk, sure. You’re entertaining or interesting, up to a point. But mostly, you’re social.

You:
1) Get interested in other people, and share their interests.
2) Help others get heard, connected, and social.
3) Meet the people you want to meet, and let them get familiar with you.

Note that none of this looks or feels like selling, but of course one major reason we participate in the social networks is to sell – we just don’t act like the bore spouting product benefits over cocktails.

When you connect with people around genuine interest in their genuine interests, most of them will become interested in you. That’s where the mines come in. (more…)

Why I don’t have a proudest moment. And neither should you.

By Chris Hansen, Sr. Copywriter at DiMassimo Goldstein

Earlier this week, I was asked to write a blog post describing my proudest moment while under the employ of DiMassimo Goldstein.

I couldn’t do it.

That’s not to say that I haven’t had my fair share of achievements and attaboys. Far from it. I’ve helped win new business pitches, created award-winning campaigns, swayed clients into buying great work, and all the other stuff that’s so frequently celebrated and glamorized in this business.

Who cares?

Seriously. Who gives a damn?

The way I look at it, as soon as you point to a singular moment as your crowning achievement, complacency starts to set in. You surrender to your own ego. You accept where the bar has been set and unwittingly say, “This is the best I can do.”

I’m not ready to settle so quickly.

DiMassimo Goldstein on the AMC Series, The Pitch

Spoiler Alert — We Win!

Many have asked to see this episode of the AMC docu-reality series, The Pitch, featuring DiMassimo Goldstein competing with an all-woman agency for a female-targeted brand, C Wonder.

Here you go:

http://vimeo.com/43933475

Serving Up The Spicy Brand.

This is the era of the spicy brand. It wasn’t always this way.

Marketing in America used to be a competition of blandnesses. A rust to the white bread bottom of the enormous American pyramid. Wonder bread. Hellman’s Mayonnaise. Campbell’s Tomato Soup. Hamburgers. American Cheese.

Then, the goal was to be the lead brand, the big, boring category leader. The Morton’s of Salt.

And not just in food. In everything. American’s wanted the real thing, and the real thing was generally bland and acceptable to the most people.

They wanted Ivory, Ford, General Motors.

To be exotic was the danger. To be niche was to be invisible. But, today spice is what it’s all about.

Today, the spicy brand is everything.

The spicy airline: Virgin America

Spicy razors: Dollar Shave Club

Spicy Grocery Store: FreshDirect

Spicy Shoe Story: Zappos

Spicy Rental Car: ZipCar

Spicy Cab: Uber

Spicy Fast Food: Chipotle

Of course, with the non-food brands, the spice is in their actions. They are strong, piquant and sometimes a little bit risqué, never bland.

I look at the above list, and I see some incredibly spicy brands, and I see some others that can be taken down by spicier competition.

Let’s do it.

Research Associate Reworked

Paul Alberta

Alisa Shine, Research Associate at DiMassimo Goldstein

Once upon a time but not too long ago, I received my masters in clinical psychology and was subsequently hired as a biomedical informatics research associate right after.  ‘Biomedical what?’ I thought at first, and which countless people have asked me as well.  So I learned about the interdisciplinary world of biomedical informatics, and it was…meh.  Just meh.  I soon became dissatisfied with academics overall, and so I left, unsure about what to do next career-wise.

So I tried being a lay-about, then a club promoter, and then a growth analyst at a startup.  Nothing seemed to be working out.  I felt rather dejected, but what I think was really happening was I just didn’t know what I wanted to do when I grew up, and NYC prices told me I better grow up fast.

A friend of mine working at an ad agency called DiMassimo Goldstein suggested I intern under him thinking I would be a good fit for some research work.  I thought, ‘Why not?  I’ll have no idea what I’m doing but I’ll learn.”

…and learn I did.  I’m still learning new things everyday here.  However, now, I feel like I’m some big shot digital strategist instead of just a research associate.  I am the master of Twitter and mother of finding the latest ad tech, and that’s definitely a step above being a lay-about.  More importantly, I feel part of something larger and more harmonious, which was missing from my previous experiences.  At DiMassimo Goldstein, the only time I’m truly dissatisfied is when I’m looking for more work to accomplish.

Since working here, I’ve been able to clear my head of lackluster academics and insecurities about what to do next on my career path.  Finally, I feel like a grownup, and that I know what I want to do in life (for which my rent and bills thanks me).  Now I just reflect: ‘Biomedical what?’