This is an advertisement for the 2008 Media and Money Conference being held this month in New York.  I’ve seen this full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal, Adweek and Mediaweek (which makes sense since the prestigious powwow is run jointly by Dow Jones and Nielsen). 

What if anything do you notice about it?

Since the only think you may notice is that I should stop trying to take pictures with my Q, I’ll just spill:  of the 24 keynote speakers and panelists, only one is a woman.Now, as a businesswoman I am accustomed to seeing a split of something less than that reflected in the general U.S. population, but I found this to be noticeably skewed.  At the conference’s website there is an updated list of 33 panelists and 3 are women (slightly better than this ad’s 1:18 panelist ratio).

I am remarking on this not because I typically notice such things, but because I typically do not:  except when the disparity is as odd as this one. 

Neither of the sponsoring companies is making any sort of negative statement as to the relevance of women in media here,  but they both unintentionally compelled a target attendee/potential speaker to stop studying the conference dates and, instead, start counting photographs.

Media and Money Conference

SF:MOGD’s friend Richard Laermer will hopefully get a new wave of interest in his book, 2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade, now that McGraw-Hill Professional has made the entire book available online for free.  Read 2011 HERE.

Laermer wrote a post last month for The Huffington Post, “Why Book Publishing Is Dead (Part One),” in which he offers some interesting observations from the writer’s end of the publishing equation.  Naturally, Laermer proposes that publishing houses use the Internet and social media to their advantage by publishing and promoting select books on the Web for free, making chapters available online with micropayment capability and so on.

He’s right, of course.  By making non-bestselling books available for free -and building a promotional plan around it – a publishing company could generate publicity and sales for itself and their author.  But getting on the Web 2.0 bandwagon is very far down the broken value chain of book publishing:  the enormous advances, screwed-up distribution, exorbitantly expensive return policies, collapsing retail channel, rise in online used book sales…  It’s a shrinking industry populated by a lot of fearful people.  New York Magazine recently published a lengthy but good piece, ingnominiously titled “The End,” that I would recommend to anyone interested in or curious about the business. 

So back to Laermer’s free book.  Where is the search advertising?  Where is the syndication?  Where’s the Facebook and LinkedIn interfaces? Where is the 2011 Twitter?

Sadly, I guess I’ve answered all of my own questions.  Richard:  if you’re listening, a YouTube series of you counting down all 70+ predictions – in your own special way – would be wild…  Just a thought.

2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade    Richard Laermer

As SF:MOGD readers know, I recently despaired regarding Microsoft’s decision to use Jerry Seinfeld in its new advertising.  I love Seinfeld, but just didn’t get the connection.

Apparently I wasn’t alone.

After two ads, Seinfeld is gone and Microsoft may have introduced its loveliest, most striking advertising in years under the banner, “I’m A PC.” Check out one of the commercials:

Yes, they’ve even co-opted Apple’s “I’m a Mac,” but the ads are so interesting that – while you are aware of this – it doesn’t matter.  It’s a risky move that might have made the monolith look desperate but, instead, it pays off.

Crispin Porter & Bogusky claims that Seinfeld was always intended to be in just a couple “teaser” ads; who knows if that’s true or not.  The new work is terrific, and the Seinfeld ads make for great viewing on YouTube.
 

Microsoft advertising     Crispin Porter & Bogusky     Microsoft Seinfeld      

Hotels have prompted a couple of my rants lately – like HERE and HERE.  Both of these posts posit that hotels seem to talk a lot about things that aren’t the things guests most care about.

Unfortunately, Extended Stay America has taken this trend to a new low.

The chain’s new advertising emphasizes the idea that you will be “so relaxed,” you’ll feel comfortable farting anytime you like.  I’m sorry:  should I have given you some sort of lead-in to that??  See for yourself:

Why, why, why?

It’s particularly funny to me that Bob Garfield thinks these ads won’t generate much awareness not because they’re disgusting, but because – assuming Extended Stay was going for gross – they didn’t go far enough!  Ah, so tragic. And ironic.

Lesson: if you’re going to deliberately take it to the edge, make sure you push it all the way over.
 
Extended Stay America    Advertising Age    Bob Garfield advertising

Many years ago, I was responsible for Citibank’s credit card loyalty program, Free Gifts.  Not dissimilar to existing programs today, Free Gifts permitted a cardholder to collect points for various activities and redeem them for stuff:  TVs, small appliances, radios and the like.  Today, there are entire websites devoted to helping consumers sift through these programs to find the ones that best suit their needs, and consumers are fairly jaded in terms of finding real value.

With a recent offer, Visa may have cracked the, uh, “value” barrier.

This past summer, Visa offered private toilets to Visa Signature cardmembers attending a music and arts festival in California.  Cardholders gained entry to the ”VIP Signature Lounge” by showing a valid event ticket and their Visa card.

This may, as Springwise.com suggests, be an example of sympvertising: coined by Trendwatching.com, the phrase means to infuse advertising with a true acknowledgement and reflection of the target consumer’s pain points, whether they be falling stock prices, losing a house… or facing the terrifying spectre of using the average smelly porta-potty.

I could go either way on this one.  On the one hand, it’s a clever offer that reflects a typically overlooked and genuine need attendees face at an outdoor event.  It also has absolutely nothing to do with Visa’s core benefits and is unlikely to be remembered.

At the very least, it certainly gives new meaning to Visa’s former tagline ”It’s everywhere you want to be.”

Most people think that comic book fans are all single men who either live in their parents’ basements and/or have entire rooms filled with action figures.  

It’s not true. Some of them are married (budumbum!). 

But seriously folks… I’m not going to share proprietary research here, but chicks are a growth business in the comics world.  I met plenty of great women during my years at DC Comics who love comics and graphic novels, and manga has only fueled female awareness in the US.   Several recent superhero movies, such as Ironman and The Dark Knight, have also featured storylines and characters that made them watchable for a widening swath of women.

So it’s only sensible that Marvel would come out with an updated line of Halloween costumes for women.  This is a really smart, fun idea that will bring new customers into the fold and get devotees to ditch their handmade Spider-Girl costumes in favor of a “real” one.  One-third of adults say they plan to buy costumes for themselves this year, with 62.5% of women saying they plan to celebrate the holiday vs. 54.7% of men.  and the witch thing is so old-school.

The costumes will not only sell, but they also give Marvel additional moderately-priced SKUs to position at mass retail.

Marvel Comics

“What’s in a name?” asked the Bard. Quite a lot, I’d say.

Girdle? Now it’s shapewear.

Bad loans? Nonperforming assets.

New York City’s 110th Street? Central Park North.

Used? Pre-owned.

And so on. A little slight-of-word can help things go down just a little easier.

I came upon this wonderful idea on the Web: Toronto’s art-savvy Gladstone Hotel recently launched a series of weeknight dance parties for the old and/or tired and/or lazy among us. The party begins every Wednesday night at 7:30pm and ends promptly at 10pm – “so you can go home, watch ‘Law and Order’ and go to BED,” according to the hotel’s website.    The weekly event even has its own Facebook group, which is fun.  And admission is free.

This is brilliant. First, there are definitely people who would love to have even a fraction of the fun they used to have during the week (or ever, perhaps), but kids or work get in the way of decent partying. 10pm is quite a civilized hour. It’s also wonderful for the hotel and its bar, both of whom can generate additional liquor and food (and room?) sales in the dead of mid-week.  More folks see and experience the hotel and are likely to return or recommend it to others.  It’s good for restaurants in the area, taxi companies, etc.  Gladstone might want to see if corporations would want to sponsor the parties or offer goodie bags.

They had me at hello.

Then I got to the name: Granny Boots. GRANNY BOOTS! As in, “Throw in your teeth, grab your Icy Hot and meet me at Granny Boots…”

Help! If you are going to do such a good job at making me feel young and semi-alive, don’t blow it by reminding me that I am closer to granny-dom than graduation!

Or am I asking too much of a dance party? Don’t answer that.

Gladstone Hotel

eMarketer reported today on an Ipsos study that claims affluent people spend the most time online.  Specifically, Ipsos says that heads of households with annual HH incomes of $250,000 or more spend 6 more hours on the Web each week than do users whose HH income fall between $100,000 and $150,000.

This may in fact be true, but claims like this only tell a surface story – and confuse independent and dependent variables.

Let’s assume that Ipsos’ observation is correct.  Consider the reasons that wealthier individuals spend more time on the Internet.  After all, is it plausible that simply having money makes you more likely to surf?  It’s more likely to be tied to a mix of underlying factors that, when taken together, are more predictive of web use.

* Where do the affluent live?  Do they tend to live in more urban/web-savvy locations, i.e. are they more likely to naturally find themselves in an environment where the Web is present?

* What level of schooling do the affluent reach?  Are they more likely to have post-graduate degrees?

* Were the affluent raised in homes where the Internet was more available?

* Did Ipsos normalize for age?

* Did Ipsos normalize for profession and work environment?

* What is the ethnic breakdown of the respondents in the study?  eMarketer has separately reported that 68.6 percent of non-Hispanic whites are currently on the Web, along with 74.8 percent of Asian-Americans and 53.8 percent of African-Americans.  It matters (though this idea may also be better explained by education, place of origin, access to computers, etc.).

In November 2007, Northwestern University found statistical relevance between a college student’s choice of social networking sites (such as MySpace and Facebook) and her race, ethnicity and parents’ education.  But what if a not-so-careful study instead concluded a causal effect between attendance at a certain school and social network popularity?  It’s not so hard to imagine.

Always use a critical eye when assessing data. Look deeper.

Ipsos  eMarketer

It seems possible that the bottled water phenomenon is finally losing steam.

Brand Keys recently conducted a survey of more than 25,000 consumers indicating that the most important attribute sought by an individual buying bottled water is “value.”  As a marketing executive and student of consumer behavior for over 20 years, I do not necessarily believe this.  Convenience and – for the higher-end brands such as Voss and Fiji - status have both reigned as key purchase drivers since bottled water took off in the 1990s.  While 25% of the bottled water sold in the United States is re-processed tap water (including the two largest brands, Pepsi’s Aquafina and Coca-Cola’s Dasani), bottled water has been sold as everything from a healthy choice to a fashion accessory.  So I absolutely do not believe that “value” is historically a top criterion for purchase.

I don’t think that consumers are lying.  I think that the prism of mores through which individuals now view bottled water has fundamental changed, based primarily on the recession and, secondarily, the green movement.  Efforts such as Mark DiMassimo’s and Eric Yaverbaum’s Tappening have done a tremendous job of not only pointing out the absurdity of bottled water (“Being charged for water is like being charged for gravity,” says Dimassimo), but also the profound environmental waste and damage associated with its consumption.  The pictures accompanying this post are from Tappening’s first ad campaign.

So how have manufacturers reacted?  Pepsi and Coke are discounting like crazy and refocusing their efforts on “enhanced water” such as SoBe Life Water and sugary VitaminWater, respectively.  While these companies’ bottled water sales dried up in the first half of 2008, then enhanced water category grew by 18.4%.

Will bottled water sales come back?  Tappening’s Dimassimo says no, that a cultural shift has taken hold just as price sensitivity is reaching its highest point:  the “perfect storm,” as it were, for those trying to discourage bottled water sales.  “Bottled water is… environmental wastefulness… and it’s caught in the same storm as Starbucks” he says. ”  It felt good to be a little extravagant a few years ago.  Now it doesn’t feel good to waste money.”

Mark Dimassimo    Eric Yaverbaum   Aquafina    Dasani    Tappening    bottled water

September is the big month for fashion magazines.  The cover of this month’s Bazaar shouts “1207 New Looks!” and Vogue is 798 pages long.  Every year I get out a wheelbarrow and tote them home.  It can take a month to get through them, but it’s a fun tradition.

Much of the entertainment value comes from the advertisers, who sometimes try to seem a little sexier, a little whackier, a little more avant-garde in these annual issues.

So I guess that’s what Perrier was going for with its “Riskier” ad, but is demonstrating the use of electrical products in the bathtub all they could muster?? 

It certainly does give a whole new meaning to the dangers of bottled water…

Bazaar  Vogue  Perrier  fashion 

I am flying today.  Continental flight from EWR.  I didn’t plan it, but I’m not sorry, either.

I lost two colleagues and friends on this day 7 years ago.  Many lost much much more.  It’s a good time to tell people how much you appreciate and love them.   Do it today.

I don’t feel like I have an extraordinary number of bad hotel experiences… Maybe I just have high expectations?

A couple of weeks ago, I blogged about the Westin ad campaign that has pretty much nothing to do with the true expectations of hotel guests.  Westin’s “This is how it should feel” just makes me feel nauseous, etc..  Now comes a Sheraton partnership with Microsoft.

Sheraton’s Boston, Chicago, NYC, San Francisco and Seattle hotels are now featuring Microsoft’s Surface technology on 30-inch displays in their lobbies.  Guest can use their hands and various gestures to access all kinds of information about the local area including restaurants, shopping and transportation.  Multiple guests can use the interface simultaneously.

.

To me, this is a lot of work.  If I’m traveling on business I’m not interested, or… that’s what a concierge is for.  And if I’m traveling for pleasure and I haven’t already figured out most of what I plan to do, I’m in trouble.

I don’t know.  I didn’t have as visceral a reaction to this stunt as I did to Westin’s campaign, because Sheraton isn’t making any weird claims about existence beyond its golden doors and it’s just a little fun thing (that I doubt Sheraton paid much if anything for).

I just (still) wish that hotels would focus on core customer service factors: a good bed, putting me farther away from the ice machine and non-nicked furniture.  And clean bathrooms.  And good mirrors.  And icy A/C.  OK, I’ll stop.

When an endorsement is (a) highly valuable to all or a majority of your core audience, (b) likely to hold its value and (c) not likely to get in trouble, it’s a beautiful thing.

So it is with General Mills garnering a Weight Watchers endorsement like no other for its expanding line of Progresso Light soups:  Weight Watchers assigned a “zero” rating to the line last year.

Weight Watchers’ system assigns point values to foods; foods typically low in fat and high in fiber get low point values.  You can eat a lot of these foods and still lose weight.  A dieter is assigned a target daily point value and must keep his/her meals and snacks within this limit.

So a “zero” for a food that is tasty, filling and easy to prepare is a big deal.  Since launching in 2007, the Light line has generated $77 million in sales.  New ads will try to reach men by touting these benefits, plus the Weight Watchers factor.

Progresso   Weight Watchers

Google had its application for incorporation approved 10 years ago this past Sunday.  The New York Times created a short “Bits” column comparing Google to Microsoft, which was incorporated in 1975 – nearly 35 years ago.

The column is a marvel based solely on sheer size of the numbers it throws up:

• Revenue per hour in the last 4 quarters:  Google $2.2 mil, Microsoft $6.9 mil
• Total employees as of June 2008:  Google 19,604,  Microsoft 89,809
• Total revenue in last 4 quarters:  Google $19.6 billion, Microsoft at age 10 (in current dollars)  $279 mil

I think the piece is quite lopsided, however: a true case of comparing apples and oranges.  Google’s first 10 years took place in an Internet-driven world quite different from the one in which Bill Gates lived in 1975:  exponential growth is considerably faster and cheaper to achieve today.  How many computers were even in use from 1975-1985 (when Microsoft was selling us DOS – remember that)? The two companies are also in materially different businesses:  as one reader pointed out, the criteria the writer chose lean toward Google success.  Where are the comparisons re. operating system installs, desktop productivity B2B software purchases or corporate network sales revenue?

And finally, Microsoft is still very much alive and we’re still talking about it 33 years after its birth.  While I curse Microsoft Office 2007 every day as I try to figure out how to do something in Excel or Powerpoint (“*&!^, where is “Undo??”), the company is still highly relevant to me, my friends and my colleagues.  Based on the lifecyle of AOL and Yahoo, will we still be saying the same about Google in 2031?

 Google 10 years   Microsoft

What on Earth is going on at Sears Holdings?

I admit it.  Back in 2003 and 2004, I was reading articles about brilliant activist shareholder and financier Edward Lampert and thinking about the fun, challenge and money that could be mine if I worked for his $9 billion private investment fund, ESL.   I try to remind myself that, at the time, everyone was pretty much thinking the same thing.   In a long, mostly-glowing 2004 profile, BusinessWeek wondered whether the savvy businessman was our “next Warren Buffett.”  In 2006, Fortune raved about Lampert, knighting him ”the best investor of his generation” and the “Steve Jobs of the investing world.”

And now?  Not so much.

He bought the once-bankrupt Kmart and used the free cash flow to purchase Sears.  Even for the struggling retail industry, the combined entity – Sears Holdings - has been in a weird tailspin every since.   Poor results, a total and utter online dissection of Lampert’s conduct (“In a quarter where the dismal is the norm, Eddie Lampert went out and basically told everyone to go f*&k themselves”) and claims of manipulated, “squishy” earnings reports.  

And as for a warning bell specific to this blog, Kmart, Sears and Sears Holdings all have their top marketing spots open.  Sears Holdings’ Chief Marketing Officer, Maureen McGuire, announced her departure due to “personal reasons” two weeks ago (and two weeks ahead of Sears’ announcing its second fiscal quarter results).  Her resignation comes just two months after Kmart’s own CMO, Bill Stewart, left – also for ”personal reasons.”

To have three choice CMO jobs go wanting in this kind of market?  That is truly ominous.  Let’s assume Lampert is still the genius that he once was.  I am not a stockholder – so I can afford to not be angry – but I am perplexed.

ESL Lampert   Sears Holdings   Kmart   Edward Lampert   Sears CMO

Facebook appears to be selling virtual gifts like crazy. 

What’s a virtual gift?  It’s an image of something (a birthday cake, a beer, a rose, a bottle of champagne) that you can send to a fellow Facebooker for his or her birthday, new job or… just because.  The image is then posted to the recipient’s Facebook profile, and the gift giver can specify whether her name and message are visible to the public or only to the recipient.

Lightspeed Venture Partners is now estimating that 10% of Facebook’s revenue ($35 million) comes from the sale of these virtual gifts.  In assessing what seems to sell the best, Lightspeed says that holiday-themed gifts are a bonanza in November and December and account for 40% of the year’s sales.  They have also observed that 80% of all sales are made off the first visible page of gifts.

I suppose none of this should be a huge surprise:

• At a price of $1 for something that is delivered instantly, it’s a nice ADD-like way to wish someone a happy birthday, or an even easier way to suck up to someone you’ve neglected.

• Holidays – big pain.  Very few people have the time or energy to send (real) cards anymore.  And, frankly, after factoring in the cost of a good card and the stamp, $1 isn’t too bad.

• We ride in herds.  Wisdom of crowds, and all that.  If it’s not on the first result page of Google – or on the first page of Facebook virtual gifts – forget it.

$35 million for tiny images that cost Facebook essentially zero is impressive.  I believe I’ve given Facebook $20-30 myself for the privilege of sending little blue robots and flowers now and then.

Facebook   Virtual gift

Based on a survey of 3,000 consumers, Colloquy is reporting that a store’s physical environment is the most important predictor in determining whether a consumer will recommend the store to others.  “Quality Product” and Value for Money” come next.  And while these top 3 factors cluster very close to the top, a consumer will drive out of her way for a great shopping experience: store environment is more than twice as important as the store having a convenient location.

That’s pretty amazing, but – it’s like I always say – a brand/company must do the basics well before a consumer can give it emotional “permission” to do anything else.  This research result shows how profound this effect can be.  Maybe you make jeans, and you spend 100% of your time making sure your jeans are the very best before moving on to jackets.  But if your store stinks, you can forget about selling anything.

Colloquy has recently released the Retail Loyalty Index as part of a white paper that can be found here.

retail loyalty index    store loyalty