I just got a note from my Financial Adviser that said, "Thank you for your business." I was surprised how those simple words made me feel so good. It's easy to get too focused on getting things done and forget to thank not only your customers, but also those around you.
That said, thank you, dear readers, for allowing me to speak my mind and for participating in this dialogue.
The holidays are always a time to reflect on where I've been and where I'm going. My friends at Nau just pointed me to a wonderfully inspiring video they've created about Dee and her dream House.
Yesterday the snow fell fast and furiously in Boulder, piling up to over 30 inches on the ground. I was planning to do a little Christmas shopping after work yesterday. Unfortunately, most of the stores were closed by 2. The thought occurred to me that many small retailers might miss out on important last minute sales.
Well this morning, nothing opened. Around 3 I decided to get out and see if I could get at least a little bit of shopping done. All of the local retailers were still closed. Yet, there was Target, open as usual. And, it was packed.
It makes me wonder how many dollars where taken away from the local Boulder retailers and, instead, spent at national chains, like Target. I know for me it totaled $74.31. These days, there is so much pressure on local merchants between the value channel retailers, like Target, and Internet retailers the last thing they need is a big snow storm. It's a good reminder that some things still can't be controlled.
As a former magazine owner I was intrigued to see the Wall Street Journal’s coverage of Conde Nast’s efforts to engage girls with their new Flip.com. Flip is supposed to be a social networking site focused around the ability to create multi-media scrap books.
While I applaud Conde’s effort (disclosure: I sold three of my magazines to Conde in 1998) I wonder if it isn’t too little of an effort, too late. Magazines have notoriously set their editors, writers and photographers on a pedestal – did you see The Devil Wears Prada? – and cast the readers as lost souls hanging on every fashion spread.
Do you hear that sucking sound? That’s the sound of readers leaving. They have gotten tired of this one-way conversation and have decided to have a conversation on their own, one they can participate in with their peers. Sorry, Conde the magazine game, as we know it, is over. The kids have the keys to the pool house and you’re not invited to the party.
Not unlike any middleman, magazines (like other old media) served the purpose of making a market more efficient by connecting two different groups of people, advertisers and readers. Now, advertisers and readers can have their own conversation with out the magazine being involved.
If magazines can survive, and I hope they will, they will need to slash their budgets and staffs and realize that the new paradigm will be one based on the analogy of an iceberg. While a magazine might be the visible representation of a subject it is only a reflection of the dynamic conversation that is happening below the surface, between all members of the community, including advertisers and readers.
The real question is, do magazine publishers have the courage and the humility to reinvent themselves? Only time will tell.
I was in San Jose yesterday for a taping of BizwiseTV. The show represents a new and innovative way for Cisco Systems to have a conversation with their customers. I really enjoyed being apart of the conversation.
While I arrived at the San Jose airport I needed a small chocolate fix. So, I went for my standby in these situations, M&Ms. As I looked around for some all I could find was the King-size package. Yep, it seems that Mars must want me to be Biggie-sized, not giving me an option to buy the standard-sized M&M package. I also noticed that now the King-size package is called the “Share and Tear Size.” Yeah, right! As if I’m going to share my M&Ms.
I get the whole Super-size mentality. Mars certainly makes more money. But for me, as a customer, I was disgusted. No wonder it’s hard for people to avoid weight problems, heart disease, cancer, etc. It’s hard enough to eat healthy on the road without having the options to eat a little less.
Now, I’ve lost a little respect for one of my favorite brands because I was given no choice. The “Share and Tear Size” is just too much of a good thing. In order to win me back Mars needs to give me options.
Is your brand dishing out too much of a good thing? Would your customers be happier if you offered them less?
Although Timberland announced their "Nutritional Label" at the beginning of the year, I just ran across an ad with the label and was intrigued.
Timberland's plan is to place a “nutritional label” on each shoe box that will educate consumers about the product they are purchasing, including where it was manufactured, how it was produced, and its effect on the environment and the community.
One of the things I really like about Timberland's idea is that it takes something that we are all familiar with, the nutritional label on food, and changes the context of it. Wouldn't it be wonderful if everything we bought had such a label that could help us, as consumers, understand what impact our purchases have on the world.
Will this label effort help evolve the sustainability conversation in a way that makes it more relevant to consumers?
As Rocketboom's Amanda Congdon starts her new gig at ABCNews.com, will she become the voice of the prod-gen, where everyone wants to be a producer of content in the cultural conversation? Heaven knows we need an editor to help us sort through all flood of information.
As mentioned in my first post entitled, The Art of Bad Advertising, where Goodby plays up Anhueser-Busch's purchase of Rolling Rock. Here's the funny "fictional bumbling A-B marketing executive apologizing for the ads and marketing decisions he's made."
A friend emailed me a copy of Bob Garfield's Advertising Age column entitled, "Haggar, Crispin flush decency down the toilet." Here's a quote:
What in God's name is wrong with you people? Can you possibly imagine that gross-out vigilante justice is the way to advertise cheap pants, or anything else? Has this red-hot agency so bought into the myth of its own infallibility that it can abuse the audience, and the brand, with impunity?
Once again, no answer required. Nor is there any need to rationalize the behavior with the campaign's psychology. Don't worry. We get the psychology.
Haggar sells to the Middle American, the unpretentious, meat-and-potatoes, un-froufrou guy with a large-screen TV in his living room and no books that don't have embossed foil covers. He works very hard managing the Wal-Mart and has no patience for rich guys or slackers. At night, he sits in his La-Z-Boy watching Lou Dobbs and Spike. In 1994, he went to the polls and voted in the Republican majority. Didn't help. That was 12 years ago, and he's still pissed. Dragging his ass to work at 6:30 a.m. to do the heavy lifting so a bunch of trust-fund brats and illegal aliens can get a free ride.
But he does face the public every day, and he needs a comfortable slack with a sharp crease and plenty of room at the waist.
So why not press all his hot buttons while simultaneously displaying the features of affordable trousers to go handsomely with his collection of white-on-white half-sleeve shirts?
That's the strategy, and if sound strategy were the only criterion, this campaign would be top-drawer. But that's not the only criterion. Note that, for terrorists, say, blowing up a restaurant is a sound strategy. Cold comfort to the victims.
By the way, if the comparison to terrorism is maybe extreme, it is also not accidental. This kind of stunt is itself a form of soft-core terrorism. In the name of stoking the anger of a few, it celebrates lawlessness and violence, portrays perceived enemies as contemptible caricatures who deserve what they get and, ultimately, claims millions of innocent victims.
Wow! Bob has a strong opinion. As a middle-aged guy myself, I enjoyed the ads. Before seeing them I had no idea who Haggar was, as a brand. The brand had absolutely no point of view. And, wasn't even interesting enough to be apart of the cultural conversation. Good or bad, it's now a part of the conversation. Now that they are in the conversation, Haggar can start to get somewhere.