best of 2009

People hate year end lists.

But at the end of each year that I have blogged, I have done a list of top / favorite posts from the previous year. You can peruse previous years here: [2005] [2006] [2007] [2008]

I basically do the year end list for two reasons:

1. Me. I enjoy going back in the archives and rediscovering posts I had forgotten. Doing the year end list also helps me organize each year’s good stuff from my not-so-good stuff
2. You. New readers that joined later in the year may not have waded back through the archives. Or regulars may have missed one of these.

The criteria for the list? Some got lots of traffic or lots of commentary. And some are just ones that I really like.

• In terms of traffic, comments, tweets, etc, Do as they say, not as they do was the biggest post of the year. Basically, it affirms the fact that ad agency web sites stink.
• I did fewer speaking engagements in 2009 because companies were bringing in fewer speakers or canceling meetings altogether. In fact, I wrote a post suggesting that people cancel their meeting.
• Ah, the economy. Companies not only decided to kill off knowledge picked up from meetings, but also knee-jerked into a fear based marketing strategy during tough economic times.
• But didn’t you know you no longer have to spend money on marketing? Just talk to the kids on that MyFace thing for free! Just watch out for your company’s looming social media disaster.
• After they knee-jerked and destroyed their premium brand, I offered Starbucks some budget conscious marketing ideas
• In November, British Airways flew me to London and I brought back some thoughts about international marketing.
• A short post about the little things.
• Don’t make me hurt you. Stop using these stupid ad and marketing phrases.

In 2010, I hope to write more posts more here and cut back on writing what could be a good post here in 140 characters on Twitter instead. Either way, I’m sure that there will be more posts here in 2010 because my writing time will no longer be solely devoted to Brand Zeitgeist which, after several delays (mostly caused by me), will be published this Spring.

As always, thank you for reading, commenting on, and spreading the ideas that I publish here.