Last week, I was in LA for the Variety Entertainment & Technology Summit as well as Digital Hollywood to participate on panels discussing the role social media insights and strategy play for the Media & Entertainment world. With these conferences just behind us and Mother’s Day just ahead this Sunday, I thought I would combine the two for the May installment of the Brand Passion Index, so I looked at moms and entertainment! Powered by the NetBase Insight Composer, I [...]

This may show my age and only make sense to women my age, but to this day, when I think of Lancôme, I still think of Isabella Rossellini. Something about the resonance of her classic beauty still compels me to buy their products. And whenever I see Brooke Shields, I still hear “nothing gets between me and my Calvin’s” in my head. Picking the right celebrity to represent your brand can be incredibly powerful – it builds brand passion and [...]

My husband brews beer at home (we have no fewer than sixty gallons at home right now) so one of his delicious brews or a glass of California Cab are usually my libation of choice. However, when my good friend Jason Falls is in town, I’ve been known to enjoy some whiskey or bourbon on the rocks. While I’m looking forward to some green beer and green clothing in celebration of St. Patrick’s Day, it only made sense to also [...]

With Valentine’s Day right around the corner, it simply wouldn’t be right to create a Brand Passion Index this month and not look at chocolate brands. I decided to look at a spectrum of brands when it comes to these sweet confections and chose eight brands from Hershey’s and Cadbury to more high-end names like Neuhaus. The final list came down to: Hershey’s, Godiva, Ghirardelli, Ferrero Rocher, Neuhaus, Cadbury, Lindt and Dove chocolate.   The insights were interesting, especially because sometimes [...]

Forget second screen – in my case there were 3 (TV, iPad, laptop – did you manage to include a couple more?). I’m not sure what this means for the attention span of Americans, but I think we are all headed for national ADD. The lights went out, but there were still some shining stars during tonight’s Super Bowl: first and foremost, Twitter topped over 24 million tweets, surpassing the Twitter activity during the November re-election of President Obama. Oreo [...]

As they do every year, the holidays got here way too quickly and this year I am turning to online shopping to get great gifts for family and friends in a fraction of the time. When I’m at a loss for what to get, food and wine always seems to be a great go-to, so I thought that this month I’d use NetBase to see what the social voice is saying about holiday shopping online. I’m a huge fan of [...]

I’ve never been much of a cake eater, but I’ve always loved to bake – usually from scratch, but I’ve been known to call in a favor to Betty Crocker now and then. Though icing and 3D spectacles aren’t my forte, when it comes to my kids’ birthdays I’ve made everything from Iron Man to Dora the Explorer to Elmo (you can make pretty much design anything on top of a cake with the combo of jelly beans and gum [...]

Throughout the course of this What Women Want series of BPIs, I’ve encountered several topics where I’ve had little (or nothing) to say on the topic – might I remind you of the time we covered bacon? So, FINALLY, a topic – and a food – that I could write about all day: sushi! I’ve dined on sushi everywhere from the fabulous Nobu in UK to my favorite mom-and-pop spot, Ganko Sushi  in San Carlos. From the looks of our [...]