Adam Hanft
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Adam Hanft is an American brand strategist who also writes and speaks on business and cultural trends for a variety of print, television and online media. His blog SpinSeason.com, which analyzes politics in a cultural context, is a partner blog of Salon.com. A
Phi Beta Kappa The Phi Beta Kappa Society () is the oldest academic honor society in the United States, and the most prestigious, due in part to its long history and academic selectivity. Phi Beta Kappa aims to promote and advocate excellence in the liberal a ...
graduate of New York University's College of Arts and Sciences, Hanft serves on the Board of Directors of
Scotts Miracle-Gro Scotts LawnService was a subdivision of The Scotts Miracle-Gro Company, an United States, American multinational corporation headquartered in Marysville, Ohio. History and overview Scotts LawnService was founded in 1998, with the acquisition of E ...
, the world's largest marketer of branded consumer lawn and garden products. He is also a strategic adviser to Conduit, Israel's largest Internet company, LaunchBox digital, an early stage venture capital firm; to Luminoso, a text analytics firm that was incubated in the MIT Media Lab; and to Keas, a provider of wellness solutions using game mechanics. Obama for America cited Hanft as an early "tech leader" who endorsed Obama in his 2008 run for office. He went on to be an unpaid digital adviser to the campaign. Hanft also advised the FCC on its "Future of Media" initiative.


Strategy and brand consulting

Hanft founded Hanft Projects in 2010 as a strategic consultancy that develops marketing and communication solutions for consumer brands and business-to-business companies, as well as consulting and venture firms. The firm's clients have included McKinsey, Microsoft, Conduit, Barnes & Noble, Match.com, Citysearch, Vinfolio, Aviary, borro, City Light Capital and Ribbit Capital.


Advertising career

Hanft is a copywriter who started as a comedy writer, working for
Garry Marshall Garry Kent Marshall (November 13, 1934 – July 19, 2016) was an American filmmaker and actor. He started his career in the 1960s writing for ''The Lucy Show'' and ''The Dick Van Dyke Show'' before he developed Neil Simon's 1965 play ''The Odd Co ...
. Hanft has worked at Jack Tinker & Partners, and Wells Rich Greene (WRG), where he wrote the "Flick Your Bic" advertising campaign, named one of the 50 best campaigns of all time by Entertainment Weekly. Hanft left WRG in 1980, and started Slater Hanft Martin, which eventually became Hanft Unlimited, Inc. The ''New York Times'' described the firm as "A small advertising agency that is every large agency's nightmare." Hanft's clients have included
Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...
,
Procter & Gamble The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/consumer hea ...
,MediaPost Publications Match.com Retools Image In New Campaign 12/28/2006
Match.com, and Chemistry.com, for which the firm won an Effie for marketing effectiveness in 2008. He also created and orchestrated the $60MM 'It's Okay to Look' campaign for Match.com.


Saddam Hussein

In 1992, Hanft's agency referenced
Saddam Hussein Saddam Hussein ( ; ar, صدام حسين, Ṣaddām Ḥusayn; 28 April 1937 – 30 December 2006) was an Iraqi politician who served as the fifth president of Iraq from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003. A leading member of the revolution ...
in an advertisement for a client that delivered financial information. The advertisement was headlined "History has shown what happens when one source controls all the information." An Iraqi diplomat protested.


Journalism and cultural criticism

Hanft writes on a variety of political and cultural subjects for media that include The Daily Beast, Salon, Huffington Post, CNN, Wired, The Atlantic and
AOL AOL (stylized as Aol., formerly a company known as AOL Inc. and originally known as America Online) is an American web portal and online service provider based in New York City. It is a brand marketed by the current incarnation of Yahoo (2017 ...
News. He has also been a frequent commentator on public radio's ''Marketplace'', and has appeared regularly on TV including ''The Daily Show''. For five years he wrote the back-page column "Grist" for ''Inc.'' magazine, where he served as a Contributing Editor and Marketer-in-Chief.


''Dictionary of the Future''

Published in 2001 and co-written with
Faith Popcorn Faith Popcorn (born Faith Plotkin, May 11, 1943) is a futurist, author, and founder and CEO of marketing consulting firm BrainReserve. She has written three best selling books:''The Popcorn Report'' (1991), ''Clicking'' (1996), and ''EVEolution'' (2 ...
, ''Dictionary of the Future'' is described a collection of words and terms that have not yet entered mainstream dictionaries. ''Wired'' called the book a "memetic encyclopedia of what's to come, an engaging crash course in bleeding-edge ideas and debatable issues". Many of the concepts and predictions published in "Dictionary of the Future" went on to become culturally-relevant phenomena, including: free-range children; ego-surfing; Internet sentiment research; infographic design; locouture (local fashion); crowd-sourced new products combat drones; data fasts, and "online learning experts" as a job of the future.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hanft, Adam Year of birth missing (living people) Living people American bloggers American consulting businesspeople American copywriters New York University alumni Place of birth missing (living people)