Lairig Marketing

WD-40: The 55th Time Is A Charm

We can argue for months about who is responsible for product packaging - marketing, product engineering, etc. - but hopefully we’d agree on these things:
- Product usage is a key part of the brand experience
- Customers are a great source of ideas for packaging improvement

Funny then, what WD-40 got away with all these years.

For those who have never been near a tool bench, WD-40 is a lubricant in a spray can. In what probably seemed like an innovative touch in the late 1950s, the can included a red plastic straw taped to the outside for jobs needing a focused stream or access to tight quarters in order to free up rusty screws, bolts, etc.

Unfortunately, you needed the touch of a surgeon and the patience of Job to get at the straw, assemble it into the spray nozzle, and retape it to the side of the can when done. Invariably, folks would just lay the straw somewhere close. Half of them would lose the straw. Half would end up with a surplus.

So the many die-hard WD-40 fans suffered silently, years on end? Apparently not. WD-40 just launched the Smart Straw (trademarked!), which affixes the old red straw permanently to the nozzle. You will not be surprised to know you can “learn more” at http://www.wd40.com/.

Here’s where it gets nutty:
"For 55 years, the only consistent product complaint with WD-40 has revolved around consumers and trade professionals losing the little red straw," said Garry Ridge, president/CEO…”

I imagine management’s response to straw complaints in the early days would be something that might make Dick Cheney proud. What I can’t imagine is what was said, all of a sudden, in year 50...“Damn that’s the 50th time in a row now. Think we should look into doing something about it?” ?!?!?

Most brands are nowhere near as strong as WD-40 to survive ignoring customer input for 50-plus years. The steps to understanding how products contribute (or detract from) brand experience are essential, and really pretty simple:
- Familiarize YOURSELF with the product (how many creatives, account execs, consultants, etc., are working for a client right now whose product they’ve never actually used?)
- Watch how customers use it
- Gather up and analyze all product input - customer service records, complaint letters, lost-customer interviews, etc.
- Weigh product usage issues against other brand experience drivers
- Address any product issue that ranks in the top five

Now, if someone could just design a way to reset the clock in a car radio that didn’t require three hands, one elbow, a knee and a rabbit’s foot…

Shhhh. Pilots Sleeping. Do Not Disturb.

An item about air travel in the recent “Green Issue” of The New York Times Magazine caught my eye. Not because of the damage jets due to the environment (duh), but because the story mentioned a forecast I’ve seen elsewhere that I still don’t believe - namely, air traffic will increase 60% by 2025.

At face value it seems logical to forecast a consumer-driven industry’s growth by taking the annual increase in population and levering it up by some fudge factor. But there are a few constraints the statisticians overlooked. In 2025 there won‘t be:
- 60% more airports
- 60% more runways
- 60% more airplanes, or the equivalent seat capacity
- 60% more pilots
- 60% more airline employees or managers
- 60% more air traffic controllers
- 60% more FAA computer system capacity
- 60% more FAA inspectors
- 60% more space near the airport for parking or rental cars

Five airlines have gone out of business already this year. Neither Boeing nor Airbus can get their new gigunda planes out of production. The FAA can’t guarantee flight-worthy aircraft. The Big Six would rather mothball planes and curtail routes. When oil gets to $150 a barrel, who will fund the industry?

Oh, and one other thing. It’s difficult to find two pilots who will stay awake for a 40-minute flight at 9 AM in beautiful Hawaii. Listen to this air traffic controller keep her composure while trying to hail these now-fired nudnicks:
http://kgmb9.com/main/content/view/4803/40/
She should get some sort of medal.

The airline industry is within five to ten years of its breaking point. At present, its rallying cry is “Maximum discomfort that you will pay for because we are not your worst option. We are close to worst. But not the worst. And anyway we blame it all on the government.”

If you are in, or related to, the air travel industry, develop a list of early warning signs (you can already note and check off “pilots sleeping on short hops”), so you can adapt before it’s too late.

And if you are in, or related to, the bus and rental car industries, start brainstorming ideas that are better than “no worse than the airlines.” Think ZipCar-plus. Think “why does bus seating have to mimic that of airplanes?” Think “how does John Madden do it?!?”

I would have mentioned the railroad industry as another alternative, but this country squandered its passenger-train assets years ago.

I Want My TommyTV

If old-school music executives didn’t have enough on their minds, with album sales down, P2P up, and MySpace-like deals left and right, what kind of slap in the face would this be?

“U.S. fashion company Tommy Hilfiger and Sony BMG are teaming up to launch TommyTV (www.tommytv.com), a fashion and music TV website…[the site] will show live performances by established and new artists sponsored by Tommy Hilfiger, exclusive interviews and backstage footage.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSL1674095320080416

Can TrumpMusicTV be far behind?

We can argue the exact date when music stopped being an end, and became a means to an end. But for marketers, the music game is at fever pitch. The “end”? Having your brand aligned with a specific genre of music.

With a seemingly infinite supply of artists, there are many opportunities for marketers to get in on the action, many “means to the end.” One of the more popular ways mimics the idea behind TV shows such as American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, et al. Hence, talent shows for live bands are being launched, fast and furious.

Even TommyTV:
“…the site [will] also host the Hilfiger Auditions, an online competition where young artists can showcase their talent.”

Here’s another, by LG Electronics, in an attempt to build some cell phone cred among youth. It is teaming with Alloy Media at http://www.rallyformusic.com/, where amateur musicians can upload videos and be judged by their peers. The top four vote getters will face off in New York this summer for a chance at a $15,000 grand-prize.

If there is a benchmark for this, I would venture it’s been set by Jamie Lamm, who birthed something called Fearless Music TV a few years ago, as an adjunct to his commercial production business. The current format involves airing seven up-and-coming bands in live studio performances each week, then driving viewers to http://www.fearlessmusic.tv/ to watch more video and vote for their favorite bands. Heavy on the music, light on the marketing, and zero bullshit. Check your local listings (the show is syndicated in over 30 major markets).

If you are a marketer and not doing something with music yet, you’ll be joining late to the party. So don’t rush in, and don’t worry about doing something new. Just do something well. Music and B.S. are a bad match.

Researching Your Research

Everyone can do research nowadays. Just pop onto the Web, enter some keywords. Voila. Done. Yet marketing strategy founded on bad research can be like the proverbial house of cards.

The Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA surveys the nations’s entering freshmen every year. This year more than 270,000 claimed, as you might imagine, to be big Internet users. Only 39%, however, said they frequently evaluate the information they obtained. These are your future account planners, junior consulting analysts, media planners, etc.

Before they come on board, start keeping an eye on things, using some simple guidelines.

Definitions
This one is best illustrated by my favorite, U.S. cell phone users. You will constantly hear the number 255 million, since it’s so easy to find on the home page of a major trade association, http://www.ctia.org/. It seemed high to me, and when I contacted the head researcher there, he admitted the number is for subscriptions not subscribers. The real number of people who have cell phones is more like 215 million. (I’m currently awaiting a response from The New York Times to my request for a correction on this from the April 13th "Week in Review.")

Other examples in this category to double check are households vs. individuals, visits vs. visitors, total population vs. Internet users. Very important when sizing market opportunities.

Percentages
Studies frequently reference market growth. Be careful. For example, a report might say that a company went from 10% share to 11% and therefore had 10% growth (1 divide by 10). Misleading, and easily misinterpreted.

Other examples in this category are (a) surveys that allow multiple answers (where the total response can be well over 100%), and (b) “incomplete” studies, where you are shown results that add up to less than 100% (and making you wonder why the respondents’ other choices are being hidden!).

Reality
I’ve posted some examples in the past, one a study claiming 75% of the country “was interested in genealogy,” another that over 40% of people have watched a full episode of a TV show on the Internet.

Use my “rule of 20” as quick validation. Ask 5 friends, 5 co-workers, 5 family members, and 5 citizens (bus driver, deli clerk, fruit stand vendor, etc.). See how close you come. Especially when you see one of those studies claiming a high percentage of people interact with advertising messages on cell phones. !!!

To be sure, this is not an exhaustive list. And it doesn’t even begin to delve into another dangerous area known as “interpretive research,“ where the data source not only supplies information but also its meaning. This can be deadly if you follow it blindly. I’ll do a post on that one next month.

Caveat researcher.

Opinions Are Like Starbucks. Everyone’s Got One.

Who gets more attention in marketing than Starbucks? Howard Schultz could fart and the whole world would be there for analysis. “Was he facing east or west?” “Was that fair trade gas?”

Way back in January, I posted about how I’d like to see Starbucks make communications a key part of its marketing strategy, especially in the face of aggressive competition from Dunkin Donuts and McDonald’s. I’ve sat idly by, through store redesign, barista training, and launch of an online suggestion box. Now, finally, Starbucks has undertaken some real customer communication.

And AdAge craps all over it.
http://adage.com/article?article_id=126536

The headline: “Starbucks Seeks Jolt From Another Mass Tactic.” The theme: Starbucks has sold its soul by couponing. Was AdAge being controversial to attract readership? I doubt it, since the “experts” AdAge tapped implied Starbucks was spinning out of control.

Let’s start with a guy I’ve quoted before, anonymously, to protect his innocence. Here’s Robert Passikoff, president of Brand Keys. "I think it's desperation."

No Bob, it’s Pike Place, a new coffee. Couponing a new product is a commonly accepted marketing practice.

Next up, Wall Street. RBC Capital Markets Larry Miller: "Any time you discount, you impair your pricing power…Starbucks is doing it in a somewhat secretive way…If they were going to discount lattes in a very public sense…” Putting coupons in national newspapers (for straight-up coffee, not lattes) is no way to keep something secret, Larry. Space prevents me from detailing how Miller struck out swinging on his three points.

Then, the King of All Metaphors, Seth Godin. Try and parse this:
"On the other hand, if we're going to say, 'No one goes to Starbucks anymore; it's too crowded,' they end up with a doughnut strategy. You lose the core and get left with fluffy stuff on the outside that fades away pretty fast.”
Cue Seinfeld and Costanza.

Remarkably, AdAge sought commentary from a former McDonald's CMO. Yet his supportive train of thought didn’t find its way into the story’s headline. “McDonald's offered Free Coffee Mondays in the Chicago area during its premium-coffee rollout, which increased trial, and coffee sales ultimately soared.”

Starbucks has millions of customers, and has begun the difficult task of reaching out. Store redesign, etc., will be for naught if no one can be influenced to come back in. Couponing was a smart first step. What follows, I expect, will be smarter.

One of us - AdAge or me - will have gotten this story wrong.

Clean Coal Ad Lays A Lump Of, Er, Coal

The American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity (ACCCE), is in heavy rotation with a television commercial in support of coal as a viable energy alternative. At its core, the campaign makes sense. It represents an industry fighting back against the burgeoning “green” movement, which has already played a part in the cancellation of many new coal plants.

But execution, in terms of how ACCE delivers its message, blows.

The 60-second commercial features seven articulate fellow citizens working the following script. Each line represents a scene; each letter represents one of the seven people.

“I believe in the future. [a]
In the future. [b]
I believe in protecting the environment. [c]
I believe in energy independence. [d]
I believe that meeting a challenge… [e]
Brings out the best in us. [f]
I believe. [b]
I believe we can use American energy resources. [c]
I believe we can limit green house gases. [b]
We will do this. [e]
I believe in technology…pause…I believe. [g]
We will do this. [d]
I believe we will do this. [f]
With new technologies we can reduce green house gas emissions and keep energy costs affordable. [e]
We will do this. [c]
We will do this. [a]
I believe. [d]
I believe in American ingenuity. [f]
I believe we can do it. [b]
Music [g] [f] [d]
I believe it can happen. I believe. [e]
I believe. [f]
I believe.” [a]

Excluding ten seconds of narration at the end, we have 115 words, of which the phrase “I believe” is repeated SEVENTEEN times (30% of the script) and the phrase “We will do this” is repeated FIVE times (20%).

I hear Dick Cheney has asked that a tape of the commercial be sent to Gitmo.

Here are some ideas on how to improve delivery of a better message.
- Use subject matter experts. Don’t BS us with citizen testimonials. We need education, not brainwashing.
- Don‘t use “I.” This is a “we” problem. (See Gore, Al.)
- Keep it to one or two messaging points. You somehow jammed NINE different themes into the 20 seconds when you weren’t chanting.
- If you can‘t get your theme across without repeating yourself, consider a new copywriting team. Or a new theme.

At the very least, before you approve your next ad, watch/listen five times in a row. If you would rather stab yourself in the eye with a pen than see/hear it a sixth time, don’t approve it.

You can try this experiment (without the pen) for the ACCCE spot here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_5OrJVR_Vc

How Would You Save Sears?

For this month’s “save” candidate, let’s pick a company that isn’t days away from bankruptcy (like previous "How Would You Saves" The Sharper Image and RedEnvelope). Sears presents a challenge nonetheless, given its leadership, organizational miasma, and financial performance.

Since we are focused on marketing, let’s ignore Sears Holdings chairman and chief financial engineer Eddie Lampert’s frequent, tectonic changes in strategy (management, store formats, etc.).

Let’s also set aside the Kmart side of the coin. Bringing in that stand-alone-store business was one massive hedge against the mall format of Sears, and it is a testament to someone somewhere that Kmart itself hasn’t gone down the drain.

Sears performance problems go beyond the current recession. It has essentially been running in place for two-plus years. Comp-store sales are down, margins are off, debt remains high, and the stock…well, just look for yourself at this one-year 50% haircut:

There is a plus in this story - the Sears brand. In business since the late 1800s with retail stores opened in 1925, you’d be hard-pressed to find any U.S.-born person over 35 years of age who hasn’t had a transaction with Sears. And if the transaction was before 1995, it was probably positive.

So let’s go with a very salvageable brand, and keep the focus on the 860 Sears mall locations.

Branding
In one year we have had “Where It Begins,” then “Wish,” now a website with a couple of “Reimagine You” buttons. I’m dizzy.

Go back to “Where it Begins” and find a way to insert the idea/word “family.” The good old USofA could use a company that stands for family. Sears always has.

Product Line
Firm up ownership of the space between Kmart and Target, leveraging the strengths in appliances and hardware. Dump adult apparel - all of it - into Kmart. Add five fresh “services” (the portraits stuff is beyond tired). For example, the mall may not be the best place for health services (in-store clinics, etc.), but you’d be the only trusted source in the building.

Retail Events
With adult apparel gone, use that space to host in-store events a la Home Depot. Stress family-oriented activities that align with the product (and new services) lines.

Endorsers
Sign up real, earthy people. Forget the fru-fru celebrities. Interview every hot shot landscaper, gardener, mechanic, and tool guy or gal you can find.

Marketing Communications
This is not a business that’s going to survive on the Web alone. Get people into the store. Keep the circulars short, simple and clean. Promote the new services and daily in-store events. Promise “one big thing on sale every day.” Cross-sell like mad.

On Wall Street they often say “too big to fail.” On Main Street, Sears is too good to fail.

Per CMO Council: Sales Hates Marketing. Zzzzzz...

I won’t rag on the CMO Council as bad as I did last time. Still, you can file its Channel Performance Outlook 2008 under “Old News.”
http://www.cmocouncil.org/news/pr/2008/040108.asp

At the very least, the Council is to be applauded for periodic looks into the technology industry’s multi-tiered distribution channel. For most marketers it is difficult enough to influence end users directly. Imagine the challenge to also influence a layer of channel partners (such as resellers) in order to help them connect with the ultimate end user.

Here is a sampling of what the CMO Council says 500+ technology dealers, resellers, and distributors are dissatisfied with:
- Vendors as a valuable source of leads
- Quality of leads from vendors
- Effectiveness of vendors’ marketing campaigns
[Note: a vendor is the highest level in the channel, such as IBM, Cisco, HP]

This is “old news” because these results were just as likely five, ten or fifteen years ago. I’ll eat my hat if anyone in the channel is surprised. And it’s not a stretch to think you could get similar results by surveying any sales person in any organization, with or without a channel of distribution.

It boils down to what may well be an immutable law of business: Sales doesn’t get Marketing.

Let’s illustrate Marketing's challenge, using a typical, long, technology decision-making cycle. Marketing runs a branding campaign to get 10,000 people aware of the product. More-specific marketing influences 5000 of those to consider the company. More marketing moves 2000 to the preference stage. Qualification processes narrow those down to 100. These “qualified leads” are handed over to Sales. And each channel partner will get much fewer, only its share of the total lead pool.

The greatest levels of dissatisfaction with this Marketing process will arise where there is:
- Impatience for letting the marketing cycle align with the purchasing cycle
- Poor guidance on how, and how many, leads will be allocated to the channel
- Disagreement on the definition of a “qualified” lead
- Lack of accountability in tracking disposition of every lead

The CMO Council concludes that vendors must work more closely with the channel blah blah blah. Too bad it doesn’t acknowledge that these efforts have been ongoing, at great expense, for years on end. The lack of success is not for lack of trying.

Address the four issues two paragraphs up, and we won’t need any more of these silly surveys.

America’s Most Wanted - “Social Media” Pioneer

UPDATE:
In my closing to the original post, I said "The show is closing in on its 1000th capture, and I’ll wager that milestone will be struck within ten days." Excuse me while I pat myself on the back. It's done. #1000 - identified by an amw.com visitor 3 hours before the criminal's episode even aired! Hats off to everyone at America's Most Wanted on its 1000th capture! Here's to 1000 more.
http://www.amw.com/Fugitives/brief.cfm?id=52753

ORIGINAL POST:
About a year ago, a company by the name of Hitwise came out with a list of the Top Ten network TV shows as measured by Internet traffic.

[A quick aside - for all you privacy nutcases out there, wouldn’t you be surprised to know that a handful of ISPs send your search data to Hitwise EVERY DAY for analysis.]

I remember how even Hitwise expressed surprise that one of the top-ranked shows was America’s Most Wanted. Since then, the show’s website continues to be a top-five finisher week in and week out.

If you are a lunatic, fanatical viewer of AMW as I am, you know not to be surprised. The show got its start in 1988, and was a rarity in promoting an 800# as its “call to action,” specifically for viewers to leave tips on featured criminals. Of course, anyone today watching American Idol or similar “voting” shows would wonder “what’s the big deal about that?”

In the late 90s, AMW set up a clunky website which allowed people to leave tips online. The site was mentioned each Saturday night broadcast as an alternative to the 800#, again a rarity at the time for any television show.

The site was redesigned (if memory serves) early 2000s, with more interactive features added over time, and referred to repeatedly during broadcast. Let’s be honest - America's Most Wanted's web site (http://www.amw.com/) will win no awards for design, navigation, or performance (just try and use that “back” button). But it has taken a run at just about every social media tactic out there, some of them long before “Web 2.0“: e-mail newsletters, discussion forums, online video, blogs and widgets.

For a show that only draws enough TV households to place in the 50s via Nielsen measurement each week, it is amazing that over a twenty-year history AMW has averaged one capture per week. I’ll proffer that the site has played a major role.

The moral of this story? Sometimes you don’t have to be pretty to be “social.” And sometimes a grind-it-out strategy works, if you’re not afraid to try. Nor afraid to fail.

You’ll hear a lot about America’s Most Wanted soon. The show is closing in on its 1000th capture, and I’ll wager that milestone will be struck within ten days.

You can have your Facebook. I’ll take America’s Most Wanted, a thousand times over.

Video Can Be Such A Gas !

I was half-kidding yesterday when I said you should pick your nose with one hand while pumping gas with the other. Instead, if you are lucky enough to live in one of the 400 U.S. cities that has one, you can watch television on a “gas pump screen.”

The system is the handiwork of Gas Station Television (gstv.com), “the premier digital video network featuring CBS News and entertainment, ESPN sports and local market weather that reaches customers at the pump while they're on-the-go.” GSTV is smack in the middle of an American Idol-type contest, looking to cast someone as the main “personality” of the network.

If you are brave enough, submit your 30-second video audition to http://www.beabroadcastar.com/ by May 4th. Or if you just want to play the part of Simon Cowell, go to the site after May 11th and vote.

Sadly, though, not everyone wants to be a video star. A project I’m currently working on involves a client with annual revenues near $10 billion. Every time I bring up the idea of using online video as a marketing tool to engage site visitors, I’m met with a chorus of naysayers. “Would take forever to get agreement on messaging.” “Would never get through legal.” “Not clear on the ROI.“ On and on.

This is really no different than the podcasting post of March 6th.
Jot down a script, grab a few employees or customers or whoever, rent a decent camera, and shoot. Edit, upload, done.

Just for comparison purposes, I decided to check out the small business arena, in a very non-statistically-significant manner. I went to ChannelWeb’s “Fast Growth 100” and picked the first company I saw over $100 million in revenue. Turns out it was NWN Corporation (http://www.nwnit.com/). And guess what? You are greeted on the site by a video of the CEO.

Better yet, the company features two “success stories” done in video format. I needed to watch only the first thirty seconds of one of them to determine “this is how you do it, dam*it!” Well done, NWN.

A client 100 times NWN’s size, no interest in sight. I guess I’ll go pump some gas. And pick my nose while I’m at it.