Paul Harvey died this weekend. There are any number of finely worded obituaries you can read about the man whose “rest of the stories” and “good days” punctuated the breakfast tables of my childhood. What I think should be noted is that this 90-year old, who was often cited as the oldest living radio personality and one of the most effective pitchmen ever, was really quite progressive. It occurred to me as I thought back on his show that Paul Harvey was blogging before there were blogs. His daily news and comments with segues to commercial content, all packaged by his folksy delivery — you could have transcribed it and probably have had a great blog but you’d have missed the author’s voice and unmistakable inflection. Plus he respected advertising, famously quipping, “I am fiercely loyal to those willing to put their money where my mouth is.” Good day, indeed.
Good Day
Nick Westergaard is a strategist, speaker, educator, and author of Brand Now: How to Stand Out in a Crowded, Distracted World and Get Scrappy: Smarter Digital Marketing for Businesses Big and Small. He is the Chief Brand Strategist at Brand Driven Digital, an educator at the University of Iowa, and host of the On Brand podcast. More about Nick.
