Lairig Marketing

Reader To Reporter: “Please Raise The Bar“

The marketing trade press is mostly a conduit for warmed over press releases with no fact checking nor follow-up reporting. Lairig Marketing flags as many of the dubious items we can, and exposes them to our tiny but hot spotlight.

Why we are the only ones to do so is a mystery.

And why the ones that border on pure fiction are never called out is a mysterious enigmatic riddle.

Case in point #1: In April, Fast Company pumped (pimped?) an announcement by Barclaycard that its new “Ring” MasterCard was "the first social [sic] credit card to be designed and built through the power of community crowdsourcing."

Then the writer-at-large added his own words: “That sounds unlike any other credit card ever heard of.”

A little research, and he would have said this: “That sounds just like the new Priority Club Select Visa Card that Lairig Marketing told its readers about two full years ago. So, that means Barclaycard’s claim of being the first is fictional.”

You can get the truth from our story here (scroll to bottom of article), and straight from the horse’s mouth in much more detail here.

Case in point #2: eMarketer says 1 out of every 4 people ON THE PLANET will be “socializing on online networks” by 2014. It gets there by extrapolating from the number of current Internet users who claim to visit a social network AT LEAST ONCE A MONTH.

Fiction based on fiction. Fiction squared.

How does going on Facebook (or claiming to) just once over the course of a full 30 days qualify as being “social” ? This is like going to the gym once a month and calling that being “healthy.” It just might be the lowest bar for human interaction ever set.

Yet people eat this fiction up buffet style. Too distracted to see how low the bar on truth has been set.

Skechers – No Agency, No Ethics

Another story we sat on for a few days doing some extra digging.

First the facts: Middle of last week, Skechers settled with the FTC, agreeing to pay $40 million so it wouldn’t have to go through the public embarrassment of trying to prove its bogus claims over the past couple of years that its “Shape-up” sneakers help you lose weight, grow muscles, reverse baldness and eliminate world hunger.

Lairig Marketing wanted to know: What professional advertising/marketing agency would sink low enough to be a part of such behavior? To sit there during customer research reviews and creative briefings, and not say “This is bullsh&t.”

No way any agency would do this.

We were right. It took us a while to determine that Skechers did this work on its own.

It puts this interview excerpt from Ad Age last year with then-CMO Leonard Armato into a new perspective:

Ad Age: Skechers has yet to hire a formal agency of record. Why…?
Mr. Armato: “…because we are intimately familiar with the Skechers brand and all the unique value propositions associated with products that we develop.”

We now know that “intimately familiar” and “unique value propositions” are synonyms for “hoodwinking.”

But give Armato credit. Consumers bought Skecher’s Shape-ups and Tone-ups by the closet-load, nearly a billion dollars, proving once again our theory that most consumers will believe anything.

Two interesting post-scripts. First, Armato left just two weeks before the Skechers sh*t hit the FTC’s fan, to become the chairman of a sports marketing agency. Pretty sneakery.

Second, for whatever reason, Skechers decided to work with a real, external ad agency for its 2012 Super Bowl spot featuring its six-month-old GOrun shoe. Coincidentally or not, this year’s ad was voted third best, beating last year’s in-house Kim Kardisaster spot by 45 places.

Skecher’s GoRUN agency, Los Angeles-based Siltanen & Partners, is “blue chip” all the way.

We have a feeling the Siltanen team will ensure what the public will see and hear about GOrun will be “shaped up,” not “made up.”

More “Brand Authenticity” Writ Grande

The social media and brand gurus must be eating up the Walmart Mexico bribery scandal. “Oh my, Walmart should have been upfront about its business practices in Mexico all along, and asking its Facebook fans for input on how best to work with Mexican officials.”

One of our most read posts was this one: “Brand Authenticity – Bullsh&t On A Stick.” The Walmart “scandal” gives us reason to update the point made then – there is no such thing as brand authenticity.

But let’s look at two others first. Start with Best Buy, one of the most touted brands vis-à-vis proper use of social media. Which ipso facto makes it an “authentic brand.” Yet, Best Buy’s CEO, now ex-CEO Brian Dunn, gets caught canoodling with the help.

It must have been something to see. Dunn with his pants around his ankles watching HP’s ex-CEO Mark Hurd go through the wringer for the exact same thing, yet obviously believing the Best Buy board wouldn’t ever know.

How “authentic” is the Best Buy brand now?

Or how about Goldman Sachs? Thanks to The New York Times Nicholas Kristof, we now know that Goldman was invested in a company that runs Backpage, the number-one enabler of sex trafficking of children and young adults in the U.S.

Makes the Goldman brand sound even worse than that chap who wrote his pissy exit letter a month ago.

So, back to Walmart. Doing business in Mexico the way all business gets done in Mexico. And China. And Russia. The only problem with this stuff is when you get caught.

There is business reality, usually quite ugly. And there are brands, built on lofty perceptions.

Never the twain shall meet.

No Longer A Green Light For “Green” ?

Way back in the day, we wrote a post about “Green marketing,” whereby companies tout their products or their corporate selves as being concerned about, and active in, environmental matters.

At that time, near the end of 2010, pundits were sensing some consumer pushback. How could people NOT do business with “Green” companies, they wondered? Even pay a premium price to do so?

We posited that brands weren’t targeting the marketplace properly – instead of focusing on early adopters and having them help spread the word, they were blasting the entire population.

A year-and-a-half later, where are we?

A Boston agency by the name of Cone Communications just did a survey of 1000 adults, and found interesting nuggets like these:

- Only 44% said they believe marketers’ environmental messages…yet…
- More than 80% would believe a “green” symbol or certification of some sort on a product’s package…while…
- Only 25% care about the “green” details on how a product is manufactured

Which implies that marketers are overthinking this “Green” thing by half.

On the other hand, consumers aren’t. Cone also found out in its survey that 42% of people still won’t pay a premium just because a product claims it is good for the environment (or at least won’t damage the world).

That 42% is about what you would expect at this juncture. But we think that might be the peak. In our original post, we said the “Green” window of opportunity was small. It seems to be nearly closed now.

For illustration, how many of you knew this Sunday is Earth Day? For the scant few who knew, how many of you are observing it in some special way?

To make it less personal, let’s look at the greenest industrial company on earth – GE (see “Ecomagination”). Not a word about Earth Day on its website or its Facebook page.

Not even on Twitter. Which is ironic, seeing as how GE could have done it without wasting a lot of “characters.”

Guy Kawasaki – Marketing’s “Golden” “Guru”

After two upbeat posts in a row, we are feeling especially cranky. So ornery that we are going to cancel today’s traditional “Fast Follow-Up Friday” and instead take the piss out of one of Marketing’s top-five gurus. This is not to be confused with “taking the piss,” a favorite phrase of George Parker’s, which means “to take liberties.”

We take no liberties when dissecting the phenomenon known as Guy Kawasaki, as he has taken them all for himself.

As background, Kawasaki’s claim to fame are the six years he spent at Apple, first from 1983 to 1987 as a “Software Evangelist,” then from 1995 to 1997 as “Chief Evangelist.” Again, no liberties taken here – this is real. In fact, this is how Kawasaki describes the latter role:

“My job description was to protect and preserve the Macintosh cult by doing whatever I had to do.”

In addition to running a venture capital portfolio of many Silicon Valley-ish companies, Kawasaki has spent the ensuing years aggregating other people’s stuff. To wit:

- Established “Alltop,” a site that scrapes dozens of well-known blogs and sites into a crude directory.
- Established “Truemors,” a collection of the “most interesting stories” handpicked by "truemorists" around the world.
- Recently knocked out his tenth book, titled “Enchantment,” a busman’s tour of existing material that starts at Dale Carnegie and ends up nowhere (unless you don’t know what a proper handshake is).
- Churns out articles for American Express’s OPEN forum that are basically one-sentence introductions to the work and words of others (with fawning “Great post, Guy!” comments pouring in…WTF?).
- Auto-pushes roughly five tweets per hour, 90% of them pointing to someone else’s nonsense (example: “USDA to announce food recalls by Twitter”).

An admitted front-runner, who has twisted the Midas phrase to define himself as “Whatever is gold, Guy touches.”

For all of this and more, Guy Kawasaki is rewarded with 646,824 Twitter followers, within spitting distance of the #1000-ranking Un Curioso Dato (whatever that is). A master of the “self-promotion” part of marketing, still introduced as “former Apple evangelist” which as noted above is FIFTEEN YEARS AGO, guest speaking nearly 75+ times per year at an estimated $40k+ per, the rest of the time given over to interviews.

And what a doozy from Inc.com, repeated on Business Insider at the beginning of this week. Here are key excerpts:

- “You really can't spend money on social media unless you really try.”
- “It's very difficult to create goals and strategies for something…if you're not familiar with [it]…”
- “The start of all great marketing is to have a great product.”
- “I love that you can edit your posts and comments [on Google+] after you've posted…I edit almost every one I do.”
- “My recommendation for SEO is very simple. It’s Write Good Stuff.”

If you believe any of this flip batshit, then you have learned firsthand Guy Kawasaki’s biggest marketing lesson. You have been enchanted. You have been evangelized. You have been converted.

Not least of all – you have been aggregated.

In Batteries We Trust

We can send men to the moon. We can, apparently, send a spaceship to Mercury and guide its orbit instantly FROM HERE.

We can send someone’s voice to you NO MATTER WHERE YOU ARE. And your voice can be sent back to them, in an instant, no matter where THEY are.

But we can’t do sh&t with batteries. They don’t last any appreciable, additional length of time than 50 years ago.

As consumers, we don’t seem to care. We throw 3 billion of them away every year. And replace them with 3 billion more.

We tolerate “battery paralysis.” How many Christmases have been ruined because of the lack of batteries? Who was the horrible prick that invented the phrase “batteries not included”?

The 3 billion doesn’t even include the modern-day stuff that is built into the products we use. That hand vacuum you recharge? Ever notice that after getting a good 20 minutes out of a full charge in the first year, it then quickly drops off to about 10 minutes, and steadily loses a minute per month from there?

Do you do anything other than tailor your clean-ups around the shortened time, sprinting around the living room before your ten minutes is up?

Anyone have a laptop battery that really lasted as long as claimed, even on day one? Within six months, the battery holds a charge for about 33 minutes. By end of year one, you spend your day running around town looking for a Starbucks that has not yet CEMENTED UP ITS ELECTRICAL OUTLETS (a story for another day).

So where does this put us with the emerging electric automobile? Which, oddly, doesn’t leverage any new "electric" technology – but is simply a chassis full of HUNDREDS OF OLD-STYLE BATTERIES.

They call it “range anxiety” – an EV driver’s fear that the car isn’t going to make it as far as the next nonstandard charging outlet.

What if these batteries end up performing like the ones in the hand vac? Or the laptop?

What if drivers find out they can never achieve the promised 100-mile range on a single charge, from day one? What if, during year two, they start to notice the car acting like a laptop, unable to last more than 50% of claimed duration?

How far will EV drivers compromise? “Yep, we own one of those. Of course, we only use it to go to the end of the driveway to get the mail, but we feel really good about helping to save the planet.”

And you thought those semi-annual laptop recycling events in your hometown were a hoot.

You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Capital None: Five Times Nothing Is Nothing

Jerry Stiller is a hoot. He could sell a Big Mac to a vegan. But he signed up for a pretty shady deal with Capital One last September.

If you live in an area with Capital One retail branches, you can’t miss the “5X” spots in which Stiller stars. The easy part here is exposing the bank’s borderline ethics.

First, Capital One states you will “always” earn five times the average national savings rate. That is a batch of bullsh&t. The interest percentage you will earn is set and fixed on day one, for a full 365 days. If the national average doubles six months from now, well, no soup for you.

Second, the fine print. You can get the “5X” rate for putting a measly $500 in your new Capital One checking account (note to existing Cap One customers – ha ha, thanks for being loyal, you can only get 1X). However, the fine print says if you don’t increase your daily balance to $5000 (that would be 10X, but would make for a lousy TV spot) within just two months, you instantly go from 5X to 1X.

This was a simple campaign for Cap One to create. Interest rates are near zero, and because of our excellent economy, aren’t going to rise significantly before this time next year.

So, if that was the easy part, what is everyone else missing?

That all this marketing by the few remaining large banks is wasted money. As we wrote during the $5 Bank of America fiasco, most Americans are married to their current bank due to laziness. That BofA blinked so fast on the debit card fee wins them the “Wussy Marketer Award” for 2011.

The CEOs of Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and Capital One could huddle and agree to stop all marketing. It would devastate the ad industry, but the savings would drop directly into the CEOs’ fat wallets.

And nothing would change. New customers would still walk right in, basing their choice on branch proximity and ubiquity, and corporate scale (= false sense of security).

The best strategy for banks is the “Place” P. That’s why Chase and Citi are falling over themselves to make any deal for branch space in New York City’s Hell Kitchen, where 50-story apartment buildings are popping up like so many dandelions on a warm spring day. Trust me, when one of the banks reaches 11th Avenue, you will read about it in The New York Times.

Until then, we can enjoy the Jerry Stiller Capital One spots. They are 5X funnier than any ads the other guys run.

Benetton & Wodka Advertising – Shock & Flaw

Here is an extract from a presidential candidate’s platform:

“…we have decided, through this campaign, to give widespread visibility to an ideal notion of tolerance and invite the citizens of every country to reflect on how hatred arises particularly from fear of 'the other’…”

Just kidding. That’s actually from the website of Italian apparel retailer Benetton. Every few years, the company gins up some controversy through distasteful imagery in print and out-of-home marketing.

This go-round, its “anti-hatred” campaign managed to piss off even the Vatican. Benetton was compelled to pull its photo-shopped ad of the Pope kissing a Muslim cleric. An altar boy could have predicted that outcome.

Some might defend Benetton by saying it has established itself as a lifestyle brand, for people attracted to global causes and outspokenness. Lest you think that translates to a growing, highly profitable brand, consider this:

Benetton annual sales have come in almost on the nose at 2-billion euros every year, for the past five years. Profit margin has been 5% each year, plus or minus a couple tenths. This is the mark of a boring brand.

Wonder how well it would do if it focused its marketing on its product.

Meanwhile, a campaign controversy that didn’t get as much press as Benetton’s came and went last week. Polish vodka maker Wodka got itself into a stew with the Jewish ADL for a billboard that, in so many words, said Jews are cheap: “Christmas Quality, Hanukkah Pricing.”

So much for Benetton’s “anti-hatred” vision for the world.

This is of a piece for Wodka, who has hit this theme with high-minded stuff like "Hooker Pricing” and “Newark Pricing." That same altar boy could have told Wodka's execs that this one wasn’t going to fly. The billboards were replaced in less than 24 hours.

All vodka is the same, except for price and branding. For Wodka to go all Benetton on a positioning of cheap is about as dumb as you can get.

Sort of like “Affordable Product, Polish Marketing.”

Wired Takes Blogging To A New Level – The Basement

It has taken a while, but publishers and marketers are discovering just how hard it is to maintain a successful blog. The Web, like any other thing consumers interact with, is a popularity contest. Good, thoughtful content doesn’t win. It doesn’t even matter. Nearly impossible to make money at it if you’re not one of the popular ones.

The answer? Sell out.

But like all things Web, first dress it up with a douchey term: “conversational media.” Social media gurus with too much time on their hands, but I digress.

Recently, Wired magazine launched a "conversational media blog” called Cloudline. Sponsored by IBM. You will recognize that name as one of the biggest cloud vendors around. With a “line” of cloud products and services to sell.

The right-hand rail of Wired’s Cloudline blog is all IBM content. Basically, IBM has brought its IBM.com cloud content page over to Wired. Soon, we will also see full blog posts written by IBM employees.

A blatant show of commercialism.

But back to that “conversational media” thing. Since no one will define it, I’m left to think everyone is referring to the comments section of a post as “conversation.” Which is really a f&cked up way to look at it.

Here’s an analog analogue to this digital conversation meme: I go to the town square and make a speech from a soapbox. I finish and walk away. One by one, three people get up on the soapbox and blurt some inanity, in response to my speech or maybe not, to the crowd. I come wandering back. Someone whispers in my ear what was said. I laugh and go home.

It might be media, but it ain’t no conversation.

For grins, Lairig Marketing will track the number and sentiment of comments on Cloudline and report back periodically.

Irony or what? Wired’s Editor in Chief is Chris Anderson, who we dished on for his unworkable treatises on “Long Tail” and “Free.” In its ride to the basement of blogging, Cloudline debunks both.

will.i.am: what.a.scam

How did you do it…
Get Ad Age to publish your advertising manifesto…
Written in word bursts…
Style over substance…
Like your music…
Tonight’s gonna be a good night (repeat 100 times)…
I guess it was supposed to reflect the new “conversation” style…
Where one piles on derivative non sequitur after non sequitur…
That is redundant by the way…
Like this sentence you wrote…
“twitter is a physical representation of collective consciousness where you can tap into the consciousness of millions”…
Anyway, not really…
Twitter is collective narcissism…
You wrote 675 words overall…
And not a single thought that was new for the marketing industry…
“…your brand need[s] to be a part of the connection…”
Really? Hadn’t heard that one before…
And this one was a classic…
“today…to have a business…you need to go where the people are”…
Who builds a business where the people aren’t?…
Worse, though, is that so much you wrote…
Or think…
Is wrong…
Like “the ones that are prospering don't have commercials but still succeed”…
Which, by the way, is another redundancy…
Tonight’s gonna be a good night (repeat 500 times)…
Anyway, Apple spends hundreds of millions of dollars on TV ads…
Thought you might like to know that…
Decrying TV ads sounds funny coming from a (disastrous) Super Bowl halftime act…
Your payoff (finally) is that brands should build communities…
Nonprofits, maybe…
But profitable brands should sell shit…
But deep down you know this…
How else to explain this press release from Intel last month…
“Sunday night’s Emmy Awards marks the U.S. debut of Intel’s latest TV commercial…
The first scored by will.i.am”…
I would call you a hypocrite…
Intel calls you its “director of creative innovation”…
Once again, redundant…
Tonight’s gonna be a good night…
Repeat a billion times…
Then fade out…
Please.