Microtransactions and Beyond
By MARK PENN Published September 24, 2008 The two prep teams for the presidential debates are moving into high gear, readying their candidates for the ring, knowing the stakes are probably the highest since the Kennedy-Nixon face-offs played a decisive role in the 1960 election. The winner of Friday’s presidential […]
By MARK PENN Published September 17, 2008 The outcome of the 2008 election will, like the last two presidential campaigns, come down to a small number of voters in a few places. Yet those votes will be affected by big, overarching events such as the emergence of Republican vice presidential […]
By MARK PENN Published September 9, 2008 Here’s my post-convention take on the most important questions likely to decide the general election. Who won the conventions? No one — or everyone — won. The post-convention polls suggest that the party gatherings did not fundamentally change the race — this is […]
By MARK PENN Published September 1, 2008 As the Republicans get their turn this week at the GOP convention in St. Paul, Minn., they start out with a difficult — though not impossible — mountain to climb. Democratic nominee Barack Obama is getting his convention bump for his party confab […]
By MARK PENN Published August 25, 2008 For eight years, President Bill Clinton prepared America for the 21st century, restoring optimism and activism to the presidency, redefining America’s role in the world, funneling more money to the poor and underserved while balancing the budget and creating the foundation for the […]
By MARK PENN Published August 19, 2008 During the Super Bowl, the seventh game of the World Series and the “American Idol” finale, Americans can be counted on to sit in front of their television sets. The same is true of the quadrennial political conventions. America is a country that […]
By MARK PENN Published August 11, 2008 Clever negative advertising works. That is reality. The tactic meets with media and pundit disapproval and spawns accusations of negativity, but the reality is that a clever negative ad can be devastatingly effective. The 2008 presidential race is shaping up to be a […]
By MARK PENN Published August 4, 2008 In many recent presidential elections, Americans have had a choice: pick the candidate they think is a stronger leader or pick the candidate they believe is right on the issues. Almost always, they have chosen the stronger leader — even though they have […]
By MARK PENN Published July 29, 2008 Despite all the talk about this election being driven by the youth vote, America as a nation has never been older and the power of the senior vote has never been greater. In the relentless quest to find the soccer moms of this […]
At the 2008 Theatre Communications Group Conference in Denver, Microtrends co-author Kinney Zalesne spoke to the importance and emergence of microtrends. View the video on the Theatre Communications Group website
Mark Penn is the President and Managing Partner of The Stagwell Group, a private equity fund focused on the marketing services industry.