Lairig Marketing

It’s Done. It’s Done. Again.

Here we are, once again, near the end of another calendar year. And the end of our blogging year.

Another 200 or so posts, with real marketing strategies assessed, points of view covered nowhere else, and predictions made that no one else would dare. In a year where 95% of the marketing industry’s attention was placed on Facebook, Twitter, Google (times five), iPads, Apple and P&G, Lairig Marketing took a run at just about everything else.

As proof, we challenge you to go back to Google’s blog search (odds are that’s how you got here in the first place) and type in “Lairig Marketing and [insert any marketer or marketing issue].” Chances are you’ll get lucky.

To toot our own horn(e), we were especially proud of the following:

• Predicting the Netflix collapse, almost to the day
• Getting the cord cutting story right, when no one else did
• Getting the paywall story right, when no one else did
• Calling the crest in private label growth
• Taking struggling brands like Campbell’s Soup, Martha Stewart, and Sears to the woodshed

Writing about this stuff every day is incredibly hard, especially when it flies in the face of conventional thinking. There’s way too much of the latter. And, we know for certain, there is little that a single tiny blog can do to successfully challenge it.

The pulse we’ll take over the near term are the comment sections on industry trade sites. Even though Facebook is now contaminating this part of the Web experience in addition to everything else it has touched, it will be interesting to see if more people comment and if their responses are less “huzzah” and more “I call bullsh*t.”

Lairig Marketing did it all year, on this blog and in the comments of MediaPost, Ad Age, et al. We are exhausted.

So we take your leave, once again using the immortal words and pictures of John Adams (actually the superb William Daniels playing John Adams in 1776): “It’s done. It’s done.”

Oh that we’ve done enough.

Your obedient,

Mayor Koch Moments #10 & #11 – How’m I Doin’?

Yikes, just three days to go before we close the books on the year. We need to finish off our look back at 2011 predictions. Here’s what Lairig Marketing predicted in December 2010 for October and November 2011:

October: “Associated Content announces it has published its one-millionth article that begins with the words ‘Five Reasons You Should...’ Demand Media immediately publishes a story ‘Five Reasons You Should Know We Reached a Million Five Reasons Stories First!’ ”

November: “The business press can’t keep up with the rash of stories about CEOs being dismissed, including one sweaty bald guy out west. Only one reporter discovers that not a single CMO was named as a CEO replacement.”

The first item was in jest, of course. Both of these garbage mills changed their form over 2011. Yahoo absorbed Associated Content into something it now calls Yahoo Voices. New name, same junk, however.

Here are three headlines from Yahoo Voices current top five Marketing articles:

• 31 Ways To Establish Yourself As An Expert
• 5 (!!!) Secrets of SEO Writing
• Choosing A Font For Your Blog

Hmmm. I wonder if Lairig Marketing’s font choice is where we went wrong.

Meanwhile, Demand Media continues to pull its junk together under sexy sounding brands such as LIVESTRONG (ALL CAPS !!!) and the ever-USELESS eHow. Even if DMD were to improve all this content, its craptastic navigation will prevent you from finding it.

As for our November prediction, we got it half right. The next Reality TV subgenre should focus on CEOs being shown the door – Yahoo, HP, BNY Mellon, Standard & Poor’s, Mercedes-Benz, Reader’s Digest, et al. But dammit to hell – how is Steve Ballmer still CEO of Microsoft?!?!?

Losses continue in MSFT’s “Online Services” division (as we’ve reported three times over the years) to the tune of TWO BILLION a year. The latest survey on Windows tablets says no one wants one. The Nokia smartphone partnership is a circus.

And Microsoft’s new ad campaign – “It’s a great time to be a family” – is light years out of touch with reality. Let’s start with the fact that less than half of U.S. households are now led by married couples. Then add the gluttonous portrayal in the TV spots of families buried under E-devices of every type. Tin ear.

How much longer will shareholders let this data point ride: stock price in 2003 = $25; stock price today = $25. Talk about money under a mattress.

When will Microsoft shareholders finally catch a little of that Monkey Boy Energy?

Mayor Koch Moment #9 – How’m I Doin’?

Here’s what Lairig Marketing predicted in December 2010, for September 2011:

“The privacy fowl-ups among Internet companies continues unabated throughout the year, then, in September, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Groupon and Amazon are all hacked by a foreign criminal syndicate. Detailed, private financial and personal data for Congressmen, CEOs, professional athletes and Hollywood celebrities are exposed. Internet traffic plummets to 50% of normal for two weeks.”

OK, so we were a little (!!!) paranoid, and as usual a couple months early. Last week, as you will know if you use Facebook, the latter was the victim of a “coordinated spam attack,” resulting in pornographic and violent images being randomly posted on users’ accounts.

Since I no longer use Facebook, the press says I missed out on images of “self-mutilation, bestiality, and doctored pictures of celebrities, such as Justin Bieber.” Oh, snap.

It would be easy to lay this all at the feet of the big networks and portals. Indeed, the FTC this year has pushed both Google and Facebook into 20-year agreements to play nice with our data. But that was just a finger in the dike.

The Interwebs are built on software code that cannot be protected from hacking. As we speak, shadowy figures are hard at work East Estonia and Uz-becki-becki-stan planning the next attack. You can read the reports yourself from Symantec/Ponemon, Cisco, AVG and others – the number of attacks on companies’ data systems is mindboggling. And the exponential increase in mobile data usage opens another big avenue of hacking opportunity.

Our prediction from last year was based on a belief that this tug-of-war could not continue forever without the good guys being hauled into the dirt. We still believe it. But for now, at least, marketers can count their lucky stars that they have been spared the hackers’ focus.

Which means there is time for contingency planning:

• What will you do if your marketing database is compromised?
• What will you do if your user-generated-content contest is hijacked?
• What will you do if your Facebook page or Twitter account is taken over?
• What will you do if someone bombs your site or landing pages?

This would be a great time to consider putting any in-house marketing systems into the cloud. One more brick in the wall against the bad guys, who you should believe will come after you in the next 12 months.

Don’t leave the light on for them.

Fast Follow-Up Friday #7: Suck, Stuck & Muck

Yeah, I know, it’s only Thursday. But our reader stats say you’ve all gone off the grid a few days early. So will we. Here, then, is our seventh and final Friday (er, Thursday) update on three prior Lairig Marketing posts.

Cracks In The DISH
Remember all the hoo-hah when so-called ad agency Victors & Spoils convinced satellite TV provider DISH Network to let it crowdsource a couple of TV ads? At the time we told you it was the wrong thing for DISH to do. Well, since the “free HD for life” astronaut spots aired last June, here are the new subscriber stats (aka “net additions”) for DISH:

Q3-2010: - 29,000
Q4-2010: - 152,000
Q1-2011: + 58,000
Q2-2011: - 135,000

Lest you think DISH is following a sucky industry trend, you should know that DIRECTV has grown like a weed all this time. Anyway, taking a quarter of a million subscribers away from DISH is not exactly the kind of ROI that the ad crowdsourcing CROWD was hoping for.

Saving Private Ryan…er, Private Label
While every other blogger is finally noticing private label’s growth, we were the only one to point out how these cheaper store brands are not exactly taking over the shopping cart, especially surprising given the state of the economy.

Almost to illustrate our point, the Private Label Manufacturing Association just released a study showing that a full basket of private label groceries would save you 35% on every shopping trip. So we’ll ask once again, with data like that, HOW COME PRIVATE LABEL’S SHARE OF CONSUMER SPENDING IS ONLY 25%?

Internet IPOs Are Bubblicious
While we all watch the stock market bounce around like a rubber ball, we thought it would be a nice time to check back in on our favorite content farm Demand Media. In fact, let’s add in Pandora and LinkedIn and call it the Bubble Index.

Here’s where each one stands in comparison to its IPO high:

• Demand Media: down 68%
• Pandora: down 49%
• LinkedIn: down 31%

Oops. Looks like someone forgot to tell Wall Street that they are supposed to buy the hype, not sell it.

Fast Follow-Up Friday #6: Trying, Prying & Sighing

[Reminder to daily readers: Hurricane Irene is now 99% on track to be a direct hit to the “country house,” so don’t be surprised if there’s nothing new here next Monday.]

Our sixth and next-to-last Friday “easy read” – a quick update on three prior Lairig Marketing posts.

About.com About To Get Better?
One day after we praised The New York Times for going forward with its paywall, we blasted its online information resource, About.com. Within days, Times management dumped the About CEO and made a few other senior management changes. We won’t take credit for that.

However, we will note that the site has been overhauled, addressing almost every criticism Lairig Marketing made. Except one – impossible as it might be to imagine, the site is even more loaded with display ads and text ads. Ad diarrhea.

That will solve the revenue problem at least. Not sure if users will still be about About, though.

Show Online Newspapers The Money
Speaking of both The New York Times and paywalls, expect to see more stories like this:

“Readers of MediaNews Group’s [23] … newspapers in California, Pennsylvania, New Mexico, Massachusetts and Vermont will pay for online content under a metered model starting [Aug 15], even if they are print subscribers.”

It is put up or shut up time for readers of online news.

Your Bore-ding Pass Awaits
We told you how sorry we would feel for whichever ad agency won the account of the newly merged United/Continental. It is now official. Our condolences to McGarry Bowen and staffers who get assigned to what will be the worst 18 months of your lives.

Let’s start a pool on what they’ll come up with as an insipid tagline for this stewpot of mismanagement.

How about “You Love to Fly and…It Blows” ?

Fast Follow-Up Friday #5:, Stinking, Blinking & Shrinking

Our fifth and second-from-last Friday “easy read” – a quick update on three prior Lairig Marketing posts.

Does Groupon Come In 3D ?!?
Maybe a coupon or two will help the struggling 3D TV industry. We told you back in mid-June not to believe the hype. Seems like even the hype is struggling now.

Retrevo.com, a consumer electronics shopping site, has been tracking the price difference between 3D TVs and regular HDTVs:

• Last fall: $900


• This spring: $400


• Fall forecast: $150

Hang on until next spring, when 3D sets are only $25 more than “2D” sets. They will also throw in enough free movies that you’ll have no reason left NOT to buy one.

“Prime Time, Prime Time, Prime Time…”
In the interests of proving our 2010 prediction that TV advertising is going up, (and not dying as idiot bloggers claim), we decided back in our May monthly wrap-up to cite companies launching “first ever” or “first in a long time” TV campaigns. Here are three more, out of dozens:

• Big Red Soda, returning to TV for the first time in 25 years – Texans will rejoice
• Panera Bread, with its first near-national TV campaign – And speaking of fresh…
• Freshpet, marketing its refrigerated pet food on TV for the first time ever – keep my cats away from the set!

By the way, TV advertising haters should read this quote from a Freshpet exec over and over and over: "We saw 30% sales lifts -- I mean sustained lifts -- with the television…”

Wherefore, “Big Box” Store?
We told you way back in February that the small-store format would soon take storm. It is now near-pandemic.

Tesco’s U.S. operation, Fresh & Easy, will shrink its already shrunk format by two-thirds, to 3000 square feet. The stores will use the “Express” moniker. Just like Walmart, who launched two Walmart Express shops early this month, and plans many more.

Walmart’s “express” version is one-tenth its traditional store size. The walls, and the ceilings, are closing in.

Fast Follow-Up Friday #4: Boozers, Choosers & Losers

Our fourth Friday “easy read” – a quick update on three prior Lairig Marketing posts.

Shop, Drink, Shop Some More
We wrote early last year about grocery chain Wegmans launch of an in-store pub. We predicted it wouldn’t spread very far, at Wegmans at least, which reminds us to do some follow-up in the fall.

Meanwhile, though, Whole Foods has gotten much more serious with its drink-while-you-shop experiments. This spring it launched in-store bars. Unlike Wegmans’ approach, Whole Foods is going all granola, emphasizing local beers and wine (someday, we’ll do a post on this overwrought trend of “local” alcohol – mehh).

It is so granola that Whole Foods is only testing the concept in west coast stores. Evidently even management can see that east coast shoppers are faking it.

Hulu Plus Is Plussed
Here is another one where Lairig Marketing stood alone in predicting success. While all the other “pundits” said a paid subscription to Hulu would be DOA and #fail or (whatever), we said it would succeed.

Over 1 million people have signed up. Hulu management is calling it a success. In fact, history will show that Hulu Plus was the wake-up call for satellites and cablers to get their “TV Everywhere” act together, which they all now have done.

For-Profit Schools To Be Outed As Fools
One of our most-read stories of 2011 is this one, about the sad state of online post-graduate education – and the even more sad state of a useless online-MBA recipient. The federal government did indeed finally take action, passing a law in June to tighten oversight on these scumbags (the schools, not the students).

It is working. Early this week the Feds uncovered an $11 BILLION fraud at an online sham called Education Management. Safe to say this won’t be the only one that gets cuffed. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

Fast Follow-Up Friday #3: Down, Around, And Out

Our third Friday “easy read” – a quick update on three prior Lairig Marketing posts.

“Shocking” News – Economy Sucks
Businesses raking in profits versus stocks dropping 5%+ in a single day. GDP so small you can hardly see it versus people running around acting very busy. Hard to know which shoe drops next?

Not if you read this blog. We warned you in early June about agency layoffs, and they are currently underway. Former students, now job hunting, write me every week about the frustrations in getting no phone or email response from “hirers.”

As we reach down into the double dip, clients and their agencies stare into the back half of the year and wonder how bad it will be. That’s the kind of environment where you should learn to love being a freelancer. Projects R Us.

Mercedes-Benz Shows Off Expert Cornering
Remember our “How Would You Save Smart” post back in the day? Mercedes-Benz, for some reason, threw the two-seater a lifeline. If you get the opportunity, walk to 11th Avenue between 53rd and 54th Streets, and take in the new Benz dealership. It’s like the Intrepid, only behind infinite walls of glass.

Then look in the southwest corner of the monstrous building. There, on the first floor, Mercedes-Benz gave Smart roughly 0.5% of the building square footage. Methinks the idea is to let the rich, after they lay down $150,000 for a CL-Class, pick up a little something for the kids.

Or else it is the strangest loss leader strategy the world has ever seen.

Stop Checking This Out
We railed against the concept of self-checkout here, especially with grocers like Tesco’s Fresh & Easy who don’t provide any other options.

Well, turns out Albertsons must read Lairig Marketing. A recent report said this:

“Beginning this month, Albertsons is removing the self-checkout lanes in all of its 217 stores…Our customers are our highest priority, and we want to provide them with an excellent experience…”

And more:

“Last month, Kroger removed the self-checkout lanes in its high-traffic store in Houston…”

What will finally put this issue of slow checkout to bed, and provide the best customer experience? The deployment of airport scanning equipment, of course.

Fast Follow-Up Friday #2: Walls, Mauls, And Falls

Our second Friday “easy read” – a quick update on three prior Lairig Marketing posts.

Higher And Higher, Brick By Brick
Do a Google search for “NY Times paywall will fail” and get billions of hits. Search for “NY Times paywall will succeed” and find only our post here. We referenced the business rationale for it yesterday, and are happy to report that The Times announced Monday it is up to nearly a quarter-million paid digital subs. Just another brick in the wall.

Cord Cutters Get Mauled
Sorry to toot again, but we were also the only one to refute the video cord cutting threat last winter. This week Fox took an axe to the dopes who say “I don’t need cable, I can get whatever I want on Hulu” by changing the window from TV air date to online access. EIGHT days, losers.

That’s going to make you pretty quiet around the water cooler when it comes to discussing this week’s episode of House.

Borders Goes Way, Way South
Another company featured in our “How Would You Save” series that went bankrupt soon after our post. But unlike Red Envelope and Sharper Image, Borders is not coming back. It couldn’t even give away a single store location, thus will be liquidated.

In his letter to employees citing what did the company in, Borders’ CEO didn’t acknowledge two self-inflicted fatal wounds – (a) letting Amazon be its e-retailer from 2001 until recently, and (b) its overextended bricks-and-mortar footprint. Too big, too many.

Too bad.

Fast Follow-Up Friday: Trains, Jobs, And Naughty Mobiles

Another new feature we’ll inaugurate for Lairig Marketing – a quick recap of three prior stories we’ve been working on.

Whoot Whoot, Thay It Is
Last year, we started a series called “Marketing Idea of the Month.” One featured an idea for doing a total advertising takeover of an Amtrak run. Ta da. Sungevity. a residential solar power company saw the light, if you will. Acela riders this month got it all – Sungevity posters, seatback signage, and sponsored WiFi. Sungevity can thank us later.

Keep That Powder Dry
We’ll put this one second so we don’t finish on a down note. Toward the end of June we said this in a post about small banks:

“…the second half of this year could see a step back for marketing – articles about marketing budget cuts and staff layoffs could be fairly common come late September.”

If you are following the business news (and good marketers do), you know trouble is afoot. Cisco, Lockheed Martin, even Goldman Sachs are showing thousands of workers the door. That’s on top of May Fed data that counted 1.7 million layoffs from the private sector.

Keep your head up, see everything, and make sure both your resume and your network are polished.

Earth To Razorfish. Hello?
I won’t embarrass the guy by naming him, but a digital “guru” from Razorfish got some unnecessary press in Adweek Tuesday for pronouncing that mobile ad spend would soon outpace TV advertising. Loyal readers know how I feel about that one. He should have been dragged off the stage and beaten with old Trac phones.

In fact, the IAB just released a survey showing that nearly 60% of marketers’ budget less than $50,000 for mobile advertising. At that level, our friend from RAZF is going to need 2.8 million companies to beat TV. Oooops. That is 40 times the number of companies in the U.S. with more than 250 employees.

The math is so easy. Why don’t more “gurus” do it?