We Are All Jealous of Casey Niestat

I might be late to the game, but it didn't occur to me who Casey Niestat was and what a big deal he is until I connected the face in a video I saw yesterday about "$13,238.86 left in a taxi" from the New York Times to the same face in a video I watched a while back called "Make It Count" for Nike Fuelband.

I thought the same thing after watching both videos--this guy is a storytelling genius. Watching his videos, you feel a weird mix of jealousy and admiration, where you're jealous he gets to travel the world and film his experiences, but you credit him for being able to leave you feeling slightly enlightened after a few minutes. I'm getting the sense he does a lot of branded or endorsed work, but at the same time, he doesn't let it get in the way of his storytelling (watch the Nike video below).

I'll probably watch Casey and his brother's HBO show The Niestat Brothers sometime soon i.e. after the Olympics, to get a sense of his other work.

If you have a few minutes and want to see why "video storytelling" is the best thing, if not the next best thing, watch the videos below:

Go Watch NASCAR

One thing I love about my job is discovering new markets and industries I otherwise would never know about, such as the mommy bloggers, small business owners and NASCAR FANS!! Tonight, I attended a reception hosted by the New York Times introducing a very unlikely partnership between the NYT, NASCAR, Tommy Baldwin Racing and Guy Fieri. NASCAR fans are brand-loyal, have a 50K+ average income and there's A LOT of them. The best part of the reception is Guy Fieri--he's hilarious, down-to-earth and cooked up some of his famous Cajun Chicken Alfredo.
I'm already a fan of fast cars, so this can't be a bad discovery can it?