I once knew a man who sold hotdogs. He had inherited the recipe from his parents, made each one by had and used to sell them on a busy street corner for 25¢ each. At the end of the day he took his earning home, paid his bills and reinvested the balance in his business.

Because people loved the man and his hotdogs, sales grew quickly. One day the man had saved up enough to build the restaurant of his dreams. It was located at the same corner where he sold his first hotdog 20 years ago. Now the man could sell his wonderful hotdogs all day, and all night long. To ensure he could sell all the hotdogs he produced, he advertised.

Everywhere. 

All the time. 

And people came from miles around to buy his hotdogs.

On the day the man’s oldest son left for college, the man who sold hotdogs stood in front of his beautiful restaurant and cried.

• He cried because he was happy.
• He cried because he was thankful for the hotdog recipe that his parent’s had given him; it had enabled his family to prosper.
• He cried because he was grateful for the long line-up of people that the advertising brought to his restaurant every day.

One spring morning six years later, the old man’s son returned from college, looked around, then sat his father down. He explained to his father that there was a war on, that people were not spending money the way they used to, and that the recession, which was projected to follow, promised hard times for almost everyone. His son told him to stop wasting his hard-earned money on advertising.

No more TV, newspaper, radio or outdoor billboard ads.

And no more big search lights on the roof all night long. O.K. Dad?

All that shit has to stop right now.

The old man thought; “My Son must be right. He just came back from college where he studied business, marketing and economics for six years. What do I know? I’m just an old man that loves to sell hotdogs.”

That night the big rooftop searchlight was turned off for the first time in 20 years. 

The next day all of the advertising contracts were cancelled.

And the next week sales fell for the first time in 30 years.

Each night when the man who sold hotdogs went to bed he thanked God for his many, many blessings;  especially for the safe return of his son and his amazing business foresight.

The Harry Rosen brand is over sixty years old now. Because it served my father’s generation so well it now serves my generation as well as two younger generations of customers as well. Harry Rosen has rightfully earned gobs of valuable brand equity in the Toronto area with their reputation for superior apparel and service. This is a smart little brand that has its shit together.

But now this.

A really dumb banner above their entrance that really says: "we're under new, stupid and inexperienced (brand and ad agency) management".

While the message is all wrong I bet the price was perfect.

HINT: when you’re working with intergenerational brands, you need to review the brand's design and copy across all relevant generations – as though you're working with different languages. In this case what may be considered profound to a younger generation is bullshit to an older one.

My dog Charlie could be a real prima donna at times. Charlie was pretty happy with the stuff we found along the way, but he wasn't immune to bling. There was a guy in one of the parks we used to go to. He liked to buy his Setter the cheap + chearful squeeky balls, boomerangs and other toys that are available at the local dollar stores. When Charlie saw them he dropped what he had and chased after the Setter's blingy toy-de-jour. Worst of all - whe he finally got it, Charlie would chew it up on no time while the Setter and his owner looked on in disgust or frustration.

I'll let you decide if there's a lesson here.

My take-away is this: display your bling at your peril because you might just loose it - which is O.K. as long as you're not too attached to it.

One of my Gurus taught me that it's O.K. to desire the good things in life so long as you don't covet them and become attached to them.

Kind of like now: those who sweat the losses in the stock market are worse off than those who embrace the rise and fall of the market and enjoy, rather than worry about, the ride.

Recently I went to the washroom at my local Honda dealership and was intrigued by the floor under the urinal. While I’m very accustomed to seeing urine on the floor below and beside the urinal because many men can’t or won’t aim – and also used to the smell, this solution is a first.

It makes me wonder in a few ways:

1.  How frustrated did the business owner get and for how long before resorting to this (rather expensive solution)? Note: Below the grate there’s a drain so-that the urine that drips onto the grate and the pan below can be rinsed away easily.

2.  Does the grate encourage men to be more considerate and aim, or more indifferent – and just piss on the floor?

3.  In marketing, and life, all we say and do helps people form a more positive or more negative opinion of us. What does the need for this kind of drastic urinal hygiene solution say about this Honda Dealership’s owner, staff and patrons?   

Deep-fake dubs can modify or change an 

actor’s original film and TV performances.

A new start-up is helping TV shows and films effortlessly reach new markets around the world. Customers feed the company’s software with video from a film or TV show along with dubbed dialogue recorded by humans. Machine learning models then create new lip movements that match the translated speech and pastes them onto the actor’s head. The results aren’t 100% flawless (yet), but they are pretty good. What makes this technology particularly interesting is its potential to scale. These deep-fake dubs offer tremendous value for money: they’re cheap and quick to create, especially when compared to the cost of full remakes. And, with the advent of global streaming platforms like Netflix, Disney Plus, and Amazon Prime Video, it’s easier than ever for such legitimate and illegitimate dubbs to reach international markets. 

The Wall Street Journal recently highlighted, reported that the demand for streaming services in the US is saturated + companies are looking abroad for future growth. In the first quarter of 2021, for example, 89 percent of new Netflix users came from outside the US and Canada. To create shows with domestic and international viewer appeal you can now roll out versions with local V/O that seem more authentic because the deep-fake dubs preserve, to some degree, the performance of the original actors. The dubs are more sensitive to the facial expressions of the performers, retaining their emotion and line delivery.

My concerns are these. 

Like all other technology that makes something faster or cheaper to make, or replicate, this deep-fake dub technology will quickly get better and cheaper. 

The machine learning aspect scares me because the goal of that learning is to make the deep-fake invisible (to the human eye and brain).  

Once that happens this technology will be embraced and used by unscrupulous people to coerce, confuse and steal from groups and individuals. What is now being done with robo-calls will be done on video platforms like zoom™.