Branding gets a bad rap.  I’ve always thought this was fascinating because – without branding – there would be little else in the world of consumption.  That’s because a “brand” can be defined as what a product, place or person means to you: it’s the place in the mind occupied by our real or anticipated experience with that person or thing.  And it drives many of our decisions. 

Think of it this way.  You get up in the morning.  The soap and toothpaste you use, the cereal you eat, the car you get into or the subway stairs you descend, the maker of your briefcase or backpack or handbag, the coffee shop you favor (or avoid), the newspaper you pick up, the particular vacation spot you research when you get to your desk: your real or perceived experience with each of these things drives your choices.  That’s brand.  You can’t (and don’t) live without it.  It’s all over, all the time.

And man, there’s a lot of competition.  And distraction.  And price pressure.  And etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.

So if this is the case, then it’s the job of a brand owner to create positive associations – a positive experience – associated with the person, place or thing in question.  Life is hard: great experiences are priceless and they’re something  you want to share with others.

Thanks to my Twitter compatriots David Ansett (@brandamentalist) and Story Worldwide (@storyworldwide), I came upon this wonderful NY-based company, Improv Everywhere,  which describes itself as an organization that “causes scenes of chaos and joy in public places.”

What does that mean, you ask?  It means that Improv Everywhere creates “missions” that create an attention-getting public event that creates positive buzz – a positive experience – that is very unexpected and equally as impactful.

Here’s one that got a lot of press in NYC: “Star Wars Subway Car” (if  you cannot see the video below, click HERE):

The one that made the biggest impression on me was “High Five Escalator.” The video was shot literally on the escalator/stairs of New York City’s E/V/6 subway stop at 53rd Street and Lexington Avenue.  Now, this stop is a friggin nightmare during the morning commute: you’re squished, it’s hot, it’s unpleasant… just a major potential misery at 8 or 8:30 in the morning.  But on this particular morning, a few Improv Everywhere “undercover agents” got 2,000 people to smile and give a “high five,” and many more just had a great experience on their way to work (if you cannot see the video below, click HERE):

Here’s an interview with Charlie Todd, the founder of 9-year-old “prank collective” Improv Everywhere (if you cannot see the video below, click HERE):

Improv Everywhere says that it takes on commercial clients only here and there, and that this is what allows them to keep doing what they’re doing.  But while Improv Everywhere “works to live,” if you will, hasn’t it cracked the very essence of the brand manager’s job?  What if your brand was associated with such a positive, memorable experience? 

This guy’s on to something.

P.S. I’ve signed up to be an Improv Everywhere undercover agent, so – the next time 200 people freeze in the middle of Grand Central – look around…

Yet another result of the flailing economy:  truly new brand launches are faltering while brand extensions are succeeding. 

In 2008, less than 10% of new products were “net new brands,” even though the pace of product introduction was about on par with the last five years. Take a look at the top food and non-food brand launches of last year:

If you remove the pharma/DTC products (which are in a psychic/regulatory/financial class all their own), all the products on these lists are extensions or reformulations.

In the best of times, launching a truly new product is extremely difficult and expensive.  Manufacturing, distribution, marketing – starting from scratch is daunting.  In a recession, success is even more difficult to achieve.

Then there’s the consumer psyche to consider: what are the monetary and non-monetary risks of trying something truly new?  Who hasn’t been curious enough about a new launch – let’s say something perishable that cannot be returned – to try it out?  But when money is scarce, the news is full of stories of imprudent spending and people are making trade-offs among the smallest of purchases, the price of “wasting” money suddenly becomes very high. I will feel foolish if I buy this and don’t like it when there are existing substitutes that I know are good enough.

The other thing that’s noticeable about these lists and others is that the “closest in” extensions win: an existing brand holds a space in the consumer’s mind, a range of functionality and messaging in which that brand has credibility.  Hershey’s can launch new candies, Porsche can introduce a “wireless racing wheel” for gaming, Mr. Clean can (sort of) try out the car washing business.

But a $1,200 Disney Sleeping Beauty fountain pen or Kellogg’s hip-hop streetwear? Not so much.

Pity the downtrodden marketing services community.  That bad economy-thingy appears to have smacked it right in the face.  No surprise.

And since price pressure should be no surprise, either, I’ve been startled by the snarly response emanating from the ad industry.  I’ve already forgotten a few instances I noticed recently, but the WSJ late last week offered an ok example.  In an article titled “Thrift Darkens [Ad] Industry’s Hopes,” Maurice Levy of Publicis sniffed, “The reality is that clients want more for less.  It’s something that is unfortunately becoming quite common.”

Is that right?  Really? Clients want more of the same quality work that you’ve been giving them all along for a lower price?  For some, this may be the case.  Then again, many of the large agencies in my experience became too big, spoiled and overpaid through the years.  Too many clients have been pithed by the senior staff, and left with inexperienced AEs.  You were supposed to fork over 15% just – I dunno, because.  Because advertising is magic.  Or whatever. 

Times used to be great, no question.  I’ve enjoyed some wonderful agency relationships and learned a lot of my craft from my partners in those shops and others.  We all have.  How many AdAge headlines have screamed about client cutbacks and layoffs in the last year?  More with less? I’d say there’s plenty of pain to go around.

AdAge really lit this match for me whenb I first read an editor’s reaction to a set of business decisions recently made by P&G: business decisions that - for a reason that cannot be justified -touched off a cascade of immature, naive and nasty remarks from this person’s bully pulpit.

According to this editorial, P&G’s decision puts the “still-moist notion that it’s possible to do interesting things for huge, unglamorous marketers” out of its misery.” That’s just embarrassing.  And my personal favorite – that the changes give ”the best talent yet another reason to leave the industry… buh-bye, innovators and creative geniuses” - is pathetic.  Wow: talk about turning on someone when times get difficult.  What does this solve?

The editorial concludes by toasting P&G for killing one of the “final drops of joy” (*gag*) left in the industry, and for making the business – and I quote – a “little bit shittier just because it can.”  I’m actually still appalled just typing these words weeks later.  This isn’t about freedom of the press: if the writer has her own blog, she should knock herself out.  But AdAge is a publication read by professionals and aspiring professionals on all sides of the business.  Such bitter statements are grossly unproductive and, frankly, more than a little silly.

I wonder if AdAge believes that this kind of vitriol will help the industry attract the ”creative geniuses” whose absence it so mourns.  I doubt it will.

The fact is that agencies and vendors work at the pleasure of clients and – in AdAge’s case - report on them.  I also believe it’s safe to say that both agency executives and marketing journalists fancy themselves articulate thought leaders… and they should be.  Clients would like them to be.  Throwing oneself on the ground and having an unattractive hissy fit helps no one and only makes a difficult time harder and needless (or at least more) contentious.

Grow up, people.

I have no idea if they’ll sell even one tampon, but P&G’s Tampax is the stealth sponsor of a series of viral videos that tell the story of a 16-year-old boy who wakes up with – uh – “girl parts.” And at least from an art point of view… they’re good. Click HERE if you do not see the ad below.

Leo Burnett created the campaign at Zack16.com.  Its big link to the brand thus far is when our hero, Zack, gets his first period in French class and sneaks into the girl’s bathroom looking for a Tampax vending machine.

P&G calls it “a learning lab out on the net” that’s “not very heavily branded at all.”  Hmm.  And so far the videos aren’t a huge hit, with about 10,000 views in the past week on YouTube and elsewhere. 

I really wanted to dislike this campaign and - if I were a P&G stockholder - I probably would.  I also wonder if the best way to pitch tampons to young women is with stories about young men baking brownies, but what do I know? I hope it sells something. 

In the meantime, I’m enjoying the work of a good copywriter and have started following Zack on Twitter at @ZackJohnson16.  He appears to be trying to figure out how to manage menstruating while at soccer camp.

 Note: the “hovers like a UFO” comment is from the Day 3 video.  Really – these are pretty humorous.

In January 2009, I started a new feature called “Tone Deaf Ad of the Week.” Since every financial services firm out there felt like it should advertise but had little to no idea what to say, there was a vast selection.

The first ad I picked on came from Bessemer Trust boasting the enormous headline, “We invest our money right alongside yours...”  First off, my portfolio is in the tank and you’ve kicked off an ad talking about yourself.  More importantly, hadn’t the gruesome Fall/Winter of 2008 proven that idiots and jerks may in fact invest their own money unwisely and take themselves down right along with you?  Next!

Next came yesterday, in fact, with a new full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal.  The headline? “Right now, you have two choices, sink or swim.”  Why yes, it’s about me, the investor, thank you.  And the text, while too long, is more thoughtful – more mindful of what’s occurred in the last several months.  The company still insists on that “we invest our money right alongside yours” thing but the ad is a solid player.

So hats off to Bessemer for having the most improved, formerly tone dead ad of the week.  Keep it up!

Each year, the Financial Communications Society (FCS) recognizes firms in various categories for excellence in financial services advertising, collateral and (now) digital.  You can read the press release announcing this year’s winners HERE.

There are two reasons I wanted to write a quick post on this event:

(1) FCS named two of my faves as Best In Show.  The first is American Express, which was named Best In Show – Corporate Image advertising for its Martin Scorcese-Tina Fey “Timeshare” (my label) ad.  The post I wrote about this ad is HERE.    The second is E*Trade which was selected Best In Show – Consumer Retail for its “Baby” campaign – and you know how much I love this campaign.  I first wrote after its premiere at the 2008 SuperBowl, then again this past January when the second round of ads came out (“I wanna punch the economy in the face“).  And E*Trade has kept it rolling with two more greats, Singing Baby and Golf. 

(2) It’s a walk down memory lane. 2009 is the 15th year FCS has given its Portfolio Awards.  1995 was the very first year – and my team won an award for our ChaseDirect launch campaign.  ChaseDirect was the U.S.’ first national direct bank (even before Bank One’s Wingspan, which many remember), and we won that night.  It was a business that we all felt passionately about and my team from Chase and Wells Rich Greene were there to celebrate. 

Congratulations to all of this year’s winners.

So yes, this is another post about Twitter.  What can I say?  It’s the fastest growing, probably weirdest social media phenom thus far, and I’ve been sucked in.

One of today’s interesting tweety tidbits is a quite lengthy email that Rupert Murdoch – sorry, I meant the Deputy Managing Editor at The Wall Street Journal – recently sent to employees outlining “do’s” and “don’ts” for employees on Twitter or otherwise engaged on the “social Web.”

It’s sort of a doozy.

Don’t ”friend” confidential sources, don’t criticize colleagues, and my favorite (verbatim): “Don’t engage in any impolite dialogue with those who may challenge your work — no matter how rude or provocative they may seem.”

Employees may cite (but not push) their own reporting and – well, that seems to be pretty much all they can do.  And even that rule, as you can see, comes with a murky qualification.

Some of the restrictions make perfect sense, such as not detailing how an article was edited.  Others are ripe for wrongful discharge lawsuits, such as the “don’t” that says you mustn’t recruit family or friends to promote your work.

In most instances, this particular restriction would be nearly impossible to dissect and prove.  If I retweet comments from a former colleague who then talks up my work, did I solicit that positive feedback?  And, I’m sorry:  if my mom claims that I’m just the cleverest person ever ever ever, there’s nothing I can do about it.

So I was thinking that the whole thing seemed very 1984… until I spotted a blog post detailing real tweets that some knuckleheads have posted on Twitter.  A sample (with all grammar errors intact):
- “I just got to work (Oracle) and I am doing as little as possible”
- “Huh, with my boss on twitter, maaaybe I should take down that sexy picture of her… but her reaction will be priceless!”
- “hate my job!! i want to tell my bosses how dumb they are and how meaningless this job is, then quit, and be happy!”
- “Workin… This job sucks worse then [sic] the economy!”

The title of this blog post? “TwitterFired: The Top Ten Tweets to Get You Fired.”

Huh.  Maybe The Wall Street Journal Twitter police knows what it’s doing.

Man, it’s a tough time to be a media company.  What with News Corp.’s operating income dropping 47% (99% in the newspaper business and 97% in the TV division) and both Arianna Huffington and Jeff Bewkes declaring the death of big media, what’s a media mogul - or budding mogul – to do?

One obvious answer IMHO should be an enhanced, more enlightened focus on women, because their behavior is changing and not enough advertisers and media companies appear to be keeping pace.  36% of women claim to be reading fewer magazines and 39% are spending less time reading newspapers.  These are consumers – moms, in particular – who control 85% of all household spending and are worth more than $2 trillion in US spend each year.  That’s “trillion” with a “t.” 

A lot of these women say they’re migrating online.  The fastest growing segment on Facebook is women age 40-50 in the home; moms aged 25-35 with at least one child are heavy online shoppers (see chart); and twitter moms showed Motrin who’s boss in November 2008.  “Power moms” are also increasingly focused on video, and even upload their own on a variety of topics at sites like NewBaby.com. 

The problem is, is anyone listening?

I am hyper-sensitive to market research that is somehow flawed, or lopsided, or misrepresents the group being tested.  I’ve written a few posts on this very topic – here’s one on galvanic skin response, and measuring brand affiliation and a relatively new post on how Fuqua and the AMA mixed and matched some concepts on a questionnaire that IMHO compromised (some unknown percentage of the) results.

I’m into (a) crafting effective research vehicles and (b) making sure I’m talking to the people I think I’m talking to.

So I found an article in The Wall Street Journal today very interesting.  In an online poll, Cosmogirl.com and the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unwanted Pregnancy recently found that 1 in 5 teenagers have shared nude or nearly-nude photos of themselves on cell phones or the Web.  The article’s author, Carl Blalik, points out how this statistic has taken on a life of its own in the media.  20% of our teenagers are engaging in this dangerous behavior!! GAH!

The problem is… probably not.  Long story short, the research firm the two entities hired surveyed teens and young adults who had previously signed up to take online polls and surveys.  To many, this means that the survey polled individuals already predisposed to being on the Web a lot and engaging in technology-oriented activities. Then there are questions about who even in that group responded: the environments in which those surveyed could be dramatically different, for example (an 18 year old living at home may be different from one at college who might be different from one who is working full-time).  The research company did not normalize for the multiple factors that could affect the integrity of the research… with the biggie being that it’s highly unlikely that responses from a random sample of all teens in the given age ranges were captured.

Fascinating!

No one tried to hijack the research, no one had ill intent – there are no bad guys here – but this kind of thing happens.  And if the flaw isn’t caught, results fly into the universe and end up on the news every night.

Here’s a real-time, personal example.  Yesterday, I received an email from a company I don’t know anything about called Advertiser Perceptions (and a reminder email today). The email asked me to click on a link to take a “Media Influencer” survey for which I would receive an honorarium of $20.  I do take online surveys here and there, and $20 bucks is OK, so I started the survey.   And it went on FOR-EV-ER.  That’s when I noticed that the cheery email copy said that the survey wouldn’t take more than 30 minutes.  30 minutes??  A half hour for $20 so a bunch of advertisers could figure out what to sell me?  No chance, no how, not going to happen.

So what kind of segmentation did Advertiser Perceptions do before they sent these emails?  Are they offering the same honorarium to an ad manager fresh out of college and a marketer with 20 years of experience?  I’d assume yes, and therein lies the garbage-in-garbage-out problem of the day.  If Advertiser Perceptions does not adjust for this bias, they’ll end up with a non-random sample of people who have the time and inclination to sit at their desks for 1/2 hour and take some third-party survey for $20.*

I can’t tell you exactly what that sample will look like, but I can guarantee it ain’t random or representative of the entire prospect list. 

And there you have it.  Caveat Emptor.  Ask questions.  Does something “sound right” to you?  Because maybe it is… and maybe it’s not.

It is a good thing that bank and investment advertising no longer touts high-higher-highest (!) returns, Morningstar stars, 40-something couples retiring to their house(s) in paradise, and the like.   Outside of just a few stalwarts, such as Vanguard with its measured point of view and Bogle-esque approach, many of the siren calls in the newspaper, on television and online had all begun to (or already did) sound and look the same.  That’s not effective.

Now we appear to have swung all the way to the other extreme.  Take a look at a list of advertisers, all crammed into today’s Wall Street Journal, along with text pulled verbatim from their ads:

MORGAN STANLEY:  “To find the smart investments today, you need to be world wise.”

MERRILL LYNCH (aka Bank of America):  “Seeing clearly.  Acting confidently.”   “With personal insight into your goals and an understanding of the market…” “…Find a smart place for your money.”

CME GROUP: “Rise Above the Risk.” “For more than a century CME Group has provided competitive, transparent and safe markets.” “…protect customers and ensure financial integrity by guaranteeing the performance of every transaction on our exchange.”

TD AMERITRADE: “There’s never been a better time for a second opinion.”

FIDELITY: “Guaranteed income you can live with.”

GLENMEDE: “There’s no substitute for safety and stability.”

PNC:  “…It’s also a way of doing business that has strength and stability at its very core.”

Safe, smart, transparent and guaranteed: these are the adjectives financial firms are now scrambling to use, as they adjust to our new reality  The problem is – well, it’s the same problem as before – if you sound like everyone else, the messages essentially melt into one and stakeholders become unable to distinguish one from the other.  If I held a focus group tonight, and scrambled the names of the above firms and the quoted text, I would challenge anyone to re-match the elements correctly.

I’ll also say this:  killing your ads’ effectiveness may, in fact, be the most benign result.  Worse?  Just as when every firm claimed great returns – which turned out to be untrue and, in some cases, unscrupulous – everyone claiming safety now looks equally unlikely and untrustworthy.

All of these brands are more and are capable of doing more: the “more” being the hard work needed to determine exactly what it is about the brand that is unique and distinguishable from the competition.*

Without doing this work, going out with a “safety” message isn’t safe at all.

* I am aware that many of the above firms are in different businesses and are not competitors per se.  It does not matter, because it does not matter to the public. For individual investors (and Congress…), too much of the same becomes one, amorphous perception.

Morgan_Stanley Ameritrade PNC Fiduciary_Trust_International Glenmede_Investment Fidelity CME_Group

Phew:  pharma advertising.

One of the mini-economies that is thriving in New York City is healthcare/pharma ad agencies.  Always have, always will.  You can imagine the regulatory knowledge, the stamina, the patience, the detail that must go into such work – or I can, at least.

Case in point… Bristol Myers Squibb recently pulled the ad on the right (if you cannot see the ad, click HERE.   The ad was part of a print campaign that suggested HIV/AIDS patients “ask your doctor” about drugs that may have a lower incidence of diarrhea (a common side effect of certain drugs).  The ad was yanked under pressure from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest non-profit HIV/AIDS organization in the US.

And while declaring the ad ”a blatant attempt to scare and mislead patients and… intimidate patients into switching to BMS’ own HIV/AIDS drugs,” the AHF is driving the point home with its own new parody ad, which it called a “public service announcement.”  The parody uses a similar image, with the words, “We don’t give a crap how you live as long as you buy our drug!” scrawled across the toilet.

The AHF says it sent a letter to BMS’s CEO last August asking the company to stop running “these types of advertisements,” but received no response.

As a total outsider, I can see that the ad clearly leverages fear to make its point.  But what are a drug company’s options?

A bit of research reveals that, in 2005, the AHF asked BMS to pull a campaign that the foundation claimed wasn’t serious enough: ads, the AHF claimed, that underplayed the risks of HIV.  A BMS ad showing two men playing backgammon on a beach under a headline of ”The Word on HIV: Fight HIV Your Way” was faulted as delivering the message that ”‘I don’t have to be that careful about getting HIV because I can go to the beach and pop pills.”

Let me be clear here:  (a) it’s a drug company’s job to get these messages right, and (b) they make millions of dollars on the sales of these drugs each and every year. 

But in a business that is all about life or death, about pain and caring and emotion, one could see how it might be difficult to balance all the messages required in a way that could satisfy all parties involved.
Bristol_Myers_Squibb drug_advertising pharmaceutical_advertising

The enormous matters of CEO and corporate trust and transparency - or the lack thereof – are everywhere these days.  The need for CEOs to be open and honest… to communicate with all of their stakeholders about what’s happening and what they’re doing to ensure their companies survive the recession.  Weber Shandwick, a very large PR agency that’s won many accolades, has taken a position at the front of the line on this topic.

Weber Shandwick has a practice called ReputationRx, and its site offers numerous press releases and papers, including “Seven Out of 10 Global Executives Fear For Their Corporate Reputations As Online Risks Grow” and ”Company Leaders Not Communicating To Employees On Financial Crisis.” The agency’s CEO, Harris Diamond, penned an Op-Ed for The Washington Times in October titled, “A crisis of confidence, The lost art of communication.”  Etc. etc.   The place takes reputation and open communication seriously.

So I had to laugh at the inadvertent comedic timing of a just-received business school event newsletter [verbatim] :

THE C.E.O. SERIES: MANAGING AND COMMUNICATING IN ECONOMIC CRISIS
Tuesday, 3/31/09 at 12:00pm
Harris Diamond, C.E.O. of Weber Shandwick Worldwide, will share his thoughts on communicating to stakeholders when your company is going through a rough patch. THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELLED!

After offering a trustmeister wince of sympathy (these things happen) all I can say is…

Come on: that’s funny.

Weber_Shandwick Columbia_Business_School

Readers know that I’m quite fond of a couple cartoonists and like to share their work once in awhile. On Stephanie Fierman – Marketing Mojo, it’s Tom Fishburne’s Brand Camp.  Here, it’s our funny friend David T. Jones and Adland. 

In a somewhat odd move today, Microsoft’s MSN launched a new celebrity site called Wonderwall.  One point of note is that the new site, launched in a very crowded space in which People.com has a vastly superior position, is the brainchild of Lloyd Braun.  We haven’t heard a whole lot from Braun, a lifetime TV exec, since he exited his job running “media” at Yahoo in 2006.

And, sidebar:  I put the word media in parentheses not to be snarky, but because no one ever really knew what that was.  Yahoo needed help and Braun, a very smart and talented guy, was available.  We can’t really know what happened, but Braun was either too big for Yahoo, or Yahoo was too irritating for Braun.  Either way, the result was the same and but a tiny, ephemeral embarrassment for him, if that. And on second thought, the episode probably raised Braun’s profile within Microsoft, so there you go.

Anyway, Wonderwall wuh?  I mean it’s seriously cool-looking, with it’s horizontally scrolling wall, huge, inviting pictures and a significantly visual feel: a piece of goodness one could happily expect from a Hollywood guy.

But Microsoft?  The place has not exactly been ground zero for online consumer content in the last, say, 10 years.  But the advantage of being, well, Microsoft is that they can continue to invest.  And they don’t bash us over the head with too much MSN branding on the site, which is nice.  If the site is a big success, there will be plenty of time to reassert the Microsoft/MSN nomenclature.

The revenue model revolves around advertising and, again, there’s crazy competition in this space, so we’ll see.  Next point of interest will be how well they promote and draw traffic to the site.  I hope to see them work the Hollywood access angle that Braun could potentially provide:  a few breaking news pieces at, say, www.twitter.com/wonderwall (which they may have to buy from someone who appears to own that username…) could get them big attention very quickly.

Microsoft MSN Wonderwall BraunBerman Lloyd_Braun

Picture this, ladies:

You are in Store #1.  You try a pair of shoes in the wrong size because you want to check the color, the heel, etc.  You want them.  So you wait ’til you are at the front of the line, at which time you ask a clerk to “check the computer” for the shoes in your size at any nearby stores.  She can’t tell, so she pulls out this big old-school binder and offers to call around.  She dials Store #2, gets put on hold, describes your shoes and then waits again until the clerk at Store #2 returns to say she does not have the shoes in your size. 

Or instead of dialing for dollars, you attempt to short-circuit the process and ask the clerk to print out the closest 3 or 4 stores that appear to have the shoes in your size.  You leave.  Then you call or stop by one of these stores yourself, only to find the shoes unavailable.

In this era of instant information and gratification, there’s definitely something wrong with this picture.

Enter Lucky magazine with a great new iPhone app.  Lucky At Your Service allows you to browse shoes or specify those you want by trend, brand, color and size, then it uses GPS or a zip code to serve up the stores in your area that have stock at that moment.  There’s still al little bit of this that’s sneaker brigade – the magazine hired a call center full of humans who will confirm your selection and actually set the shoes aside for you – but it’s still a step (ha!) in the right direction.

The magazine intends to broaden Lucky At Your Service’s selection beyond shoes in upcoming issues.

This is clearly useful for shoppers and great for Lucky as it tries to keep advertisers happy during an economic slump. Lucky and advertisers could ultimately try to clear sale inventory via the app, and cross-sell other types of items (panty hose with shoes, scarves with coats) that would “go with.”  Offers could be served to the entire subscription base or only a select number of individuals based on their past behavior, involvement with the magazine, credit bureau characteristics, etc.  There are a lot of opportunities here.

This is a nice example of local mobile search, too.

IF
by Rudyard Kipling (1895)

For President Barack Obama
—————————————————————————
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with wornout tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings – nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run -
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!

A study has been released by Wharton indicating that far fewer grocery purchases are impulse buys than prior research would indicate.  60% of trips to the supermarket contain no impulse purchases, and the elderly and HOHs that shop for larger families – in other words, shoppers most likely to be managing to a budget - make the fewest impulse buys.

What’s particularly interesting to me is that there appears to be an opportunity to customize (or at least test) messaging by “shopping style,” including whether a shopper considers herself “fast and efficient,” how a shopper obtains prices in advance of a store visit (e.g. newspaper vs. TV) and whether the person tends to shop during the week or on weekends.

All of this information is theoretically available to – or could be deduced by - grocers who run frequent shopper programs via card or fob; whether that information is actually captured in a usable form right now is another question entirely!
impulse_shopping Wharton

Just kidding.  I actually did do this once – and it was fun – but it was a more innocent time back then.  Now the cops won’t even let you leave to pee.  One must draw the line somewhere.

Here’s hoping that 2009 is your year.

It amuses me how the media sometimes appears to struggle to assign some form of magic to Wal-mart.

AdAge recently had a cover story on the chain that made the odd observation that Wal-mart benefits because most of its locations are in states where gas is cheap(er).  The article’s thesis is that falling gas prices have helped Wal-mart shoppers in part because the chain is concentrated in Midwestern and Southern states “where prices have fallen the most,” WSL throws in that declining gas prices benefit lower- and middle-income consumers the most.

Does this strike you as… grasping?  It certainly struck me that way or, at best, as something that deserved a one-sentence observation rather than a multi-thousand-word piece.  BJs, Kohls and any other large chain will benefit from the same falling prices.  If Wal-Mart has more stores in more depressed areas of the country, fine: but revelation?  Hardly.

Then in the same issue, there’s a very large article describing how some are blaming Wal-mart’s advertising for the trampling death of an employee in Valley Stream, NY on Black Friday.  As a more rational consultant points out, we don’t blame musicians when fans get hurt at concerts, or cereal makers when moms buy sugary cereals in the grocery store.  Not enough security outside the store?  Possibly.  But blaming “specific marketing techniques to specifically attract a large crowd and create… frenzy and mayhem?” That’s just weird.

It all goes in one bucket:  people struggling to uncover some piece of black magic that can account for Wal-mart’s performance.  Whether it’s the global phenomenon of falling gas prices or hypnotic post-Thanksgiving advertising, we need some explanation on a grand scale.

There’s no there there.  I’m the first to criticize Wal-mart, talk about Wal-mart, stay away from Wal-mart… but Wal-mart is just doing what it does best:  leverage real estate, buying clout and regressive employee policies to deliver low prices and lots of variety.  It’s not magic:  it’s just retailing.

Black Friday    Wal-mart

Every year, I go holiday card shopping on the day after Christmas and buy up lots of cards at 50% off.

I undershot this year. 

So Saturday night, I wandered into Papyrus and Kate’s Paperie along Third Avenue and began looking for the 2-3 additional boxes I needed.  Every box had cards visible from the front, and a plastic top whose edges sunk into the sides of the box.  Each plastic top was sealed to the box on at least two sides by sticky tape rounds.

Now there is no way that I’m going to choose a card without seeing both what it says and how it looks inside.  What if the type is ugly?  What if it has odd decorative thing-a-ma-jigs all around the words?  And sometimes the package doesn’t note what the inside of the card says at all, so you have to open the box to make sure it doesn’t say “Merry Christmas,” for example, when you’re going for 100% secular. 

This is not a big deal, but it did involve me slinking around, trying to hide behind displays while I slit the boxes’ little tape rounds… and then couldn’t fit the boxes back together.  I was leaving a slew of half-open boxes in my wake and did feel sort of bad about it.

The only thing I can say in my own defense is that I was not alone:  two employees at Kate’s appeared  to be fairly busy just following around and cleaning up after box-openers such as myself.

Why don’t cardmakers print the entire inside of the card on the back of the box, in color and to scale?  That way, you could flip over the box and see an exact shot of the inside panel.  No more having to open the boxes to check out the cards.

Some would still crack open the packages to check out paper quality, but this change would surely cut down on a lot of this activity.

It seems so obvious.  I’d be interested in learning whether there are a lot of other box-openers out there and whether the card companies have ever considered this.