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    The Web’s Specialty.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    There’s a cool story in today’s New York Times about single-food restaurants. It stands to reason that enterprises of this type can only thrive if the food is excellent and the stores located in highly populated areas.  In NYC you can take out and, in some cases, eat in at a Mac and Cheese store or a meatball store. There are places that sell only mussels, only rice pudding, and only fried chicken. It’s a growing phenomenon. Specialization suggests focus; a focus on quality, ingredients, product and knowledge.

    In mid-town Manhattan, where there are probably a half million lunches served within walking distance of any high-rise, there are lots of options. So why not go to the best option; the place that specializes? The place that eats, breathe and sleeps its specialty. Forget me not that this type of store can scale well and have a supply chain with amazingly fat margin opportunities. That’s gravy at the gravy store.

    This is a key chapter in the story of the Web — and where the web is going.

    I’ve written before about “worldwide pricing” and the ability to search the world for the best prices.  Well, how about searching the world for the best quality? The ability to do so is a web app. And specialization and focus are the tools of that trade.

    We are bound by product and service mediocrity because of geographic and time limitations. And because of supply and demand.  Well, say buh-bye to these barriers.  Ima stop there and let you entrepreneurs ponder that for a while. Ponder, Ponder.  Peace!

    Coupons pollute the social stream.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    In the future, Groupon will be a powerhouse. (Right now it’s a power hose.)  

    My first email from Groupon arrived yesterday promoting Bubba’s Burrito Bar in not too far away Islip, NY.  Bubba’s offered me $7 off a purchase of $15.  I clicked through but the link was broken.  Stoked, because I’d been to Bubba’s and liked it very much, I wrote them a note about the link faux pas certainly will visit them soon, coupon or not.

    Today, Groupon emailed me a promotion for America Apparel.  Not exactly, where I shop. It’s email number two and already I see an email unsub in my future. So why with this targeting problem do I still expect Groupon to be a winner? 

    Focus.

    Groupon has some things to work out but the idea to encourage “group” promotions and group referral by geography is smart…and gaining traction.  Plus this is the right economy to be in the coupon business.  I gripe often that marketers are tainting social media by tossing coupons around Facebook and Twitter, etc. It’s too much. Groupon has the potential to be a cure for this boorish behavior. Coupons need to be sequestered but easily found — they do not need to be all over my social media stream. Period.

    If Groupon focuses solely on coupons and coupon users, they will evolve; especially if they pioneer the application of the social graph (relationship mapping of social friends) with coupon use and geo-targeting. Groupon will win this category because of focus.  And because couponing does not belong in the waters of the social stream. Peace!

    A Sign of Economic Life.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    It’s been a couple of years since Bernie Madoff pounded the NYC elite, making off with their summer homes — and until now, you could feel it in the pages of The New York Times.  Lots of ads disappeared. Then more ads. And finally more ads.  There was a big reduction in luxury goods advertising and the pages of the Times were no longer filled with Avedon-type photographs of beautiful men and women dressed and accoutered to die for.  Photos and ads were under-produced and unbecoming. Well, the ads in the Times are coming back — in number and refinement. And though some promise 30 and 40% off, advertisers are beginning to pump it up.

    I know, I know, it’s almost holiday season but you can smell change in the luxury goods market. Could it be the leadership shuffle in Washington and the wishful thinking of the tax-burdened?  Or has the string of Bernie been salved over?  How about the quarterly reports from retirement accounts reclaiming lost ground? Yes, yes and yes.  I’m no economist and I’m certainly not counting truck drivers in the truck stops along the highway, but at least in The New York Times the pages are beginning to show a bit more smile.  Peace.

    Loving Wal-Mart’s Free Shipping.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    “I love free shipping” was my wife’s response when I mentioned Wal-Mart’s newest offer on all website purchases this holiday season. 

    eCommerce is propping up the shipping business (US Postal Service, UPS and FedEx) and dinging the oil business.  Some economics student should plot U.S. online sales increases growth to barrels of oil consumed as a thesis topic.  When a consumer says “I love __________ (fill in the blank)” you need to pay attention. The wifus loves free shipping and she loves free returns – especially so, when the return label is already in the box. 

    This is how the return thing works: Outside in the garage is a second refrigerator.  On top of the fridge, spilling off in all directions, are boxes. The boxes are a few steps closer to the kitchen than the car.  To return a product, she walks to the garage, grabs a box and some Amazon bubble bags or newspaper, then returns to the kitchen where she assembles the box, labels it, grabs the packing tape out of the cupboard in the butler’s pantry – zip, zip and to the front door.  If it’s UPS or FedEx she may have to dial a telephone number or click-to-pick. Could that be any easier?  Easier than say, driving to a store, standing in line and doing the whole credit card thing?  

    This “I love free shipping” behavior, even as a trial at Wal-Mart may, as The New York Times declares, deliver a “knock-out punch.”  Not to Amazon, but to a number of smaller retailers with inelastic margins who can’t play this game.  Oh, it’s here to stay. So watch out.

    eCommerce makes every day Christmas day (insert your holiday here).  In store shopping, for its many positives, has more than its share of negatives; especially around the holidays. Wal-Mart is paying attention. What a marketing juggernaut. Peace!

    BBH’s Vaseline Intensive Rescue Work.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Unilever has launched a Vaseline Intensive Rescue campaign via Bartle Bogle Hegarty, NY.  It was conceived in a conference room, formed and nurtured through social media, and produced by a CPG company and ad agency. Excuse the pun, but BBH never uses a rough hand in its work so I’m surprised by what I’ve seen and read so far.

    According to a write-up in today’s NYT, BBH employed a web monitoring company to scour blogs and social networks for women with dry hands.  Smartly, they were looking for Posters rather than Pasters and found three who like to blog about mommy stuff and seem web-o-genic. But then they trotted out camera crews, writers, producers etc., in an effort to create “authentic” spokesperson stories. I smell 15 minutes (of fame).

    Social media campaigns works best when the spokesperson is not managed.  When they are real.  Melting Mama, for instance, is an example of a Poster who is real.  Kandee Johnson, make-up artist, is real.  These two have personal motivations that makes them compelling. Not a motivation, seeded, tilled and fertilized by a marketing engine.  BBH is better than this. It feels B team and formulaic. This is no “Prescribe the Nation” campaign – BBH’s brilliant work for Vaseline Clinical Therapy in 2008-9.  That was an idea with ballast. Peace!

    Me too. Three, Four, Five.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Twitter owned real time updates. Facebook mirrored it. AOL owned chat. Facebook copied it. Google owned search.  Facebook morphed it.  Foursquare developed check-ins.  Facebook parroted it. And Groupon owned coupon search. Facebook Places has mimicked it. 

    I worked at a social media start-up (Zude) for a tech savant who wanted to out-YouTube YouTube, out-DoubleClick DoubleClick and out-MySpace MySpace. What he had – what we had – was the “fastest, easiest way to build and manage a website,” supported by a unique drag-and-drop technology.  Sadly, the CTO didn’t want to perfect usability, rather, he wanted to be the best at everything. Hence, we were the best at nothing. 

    I’ve written about Google and its “culture of technological obesity” and it seems Facebook now is sharing that affliction.  You can’t be everything to everybody.  Do something well, stick to it, prefect it, then evolve it. But don’t keep stealing other people’s cheese.

    The more Facebook moves toward the middle of “all” web functionality the more overweight it becomes. My advice: Focus…and let other companies play too. Peace!

    Derivatives in Marketing

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I’m not sure I know what derivatives are in financial markets, but I sure know what they are in marketing…and there are two kinds: derivative creative and derivative context.  

    Derivative creative feels like an idea stolen. When you see or hear the idea, you think of another brand.  That’s bad. When an idea has a conscience tied to one brand, you must stay away.  Hack creatives make a living on this type of stuff. It smells like something bad in the fridge.

    Then there is derivative context.  This is smart creative.  It’s not as smart as something absolutely clean and un-owned, but it is smart nonetheless and doesn’t require bazillions to seed the idea with consumers. It’s smart because the idea comes pregnant with meaning the marketer doesn’t need to build.  If I say “Hot Tomato” is sounds like “Hot Potato” and contextualized makes one think of something too hot to hold.  (Okay, bad example, but it’s early in the morning.)

    Derivative creative bad. Derivative context good. Next! Peace.

    Eating Right is Big Business.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    You can tell the vitality of a marketing category by its advertising — and right now the retail grocery business is heating up.  With 17 percent of all US adolescents obese and the likelihood that for the first time in the history of our country children will grow up less healthy than their parents, the retail grocery business is finally beginning to innovate and in the right direction.

    Thumb through the ads in Progressive Grocer and you will see some with real claims. Real proof.  It’s easy to do good advertising when you have real innovation to sell.  Yeah, yeah there are still some charts and an ad or two with cheesy headlines (Hershey’s “Delivering Innovations Shopping Solutions”), but unlike the ads in a recent copy of CIO Magazine, crafted with stock art by internal market departments, the grocery trades are cranking out work with real stories. And you can tell that the ConAgra’s of the world are excited to be introducing lines of healthy steamed entrees.

    Feeding America more healthy, more affordable food (not usually used in the same sentence) is driving “what’s up” in the grocery business. It may not be a sexy category, like social media, or mobile phones, but it’s important and growing.  And in a few months all this trade advertising will move into the general media markets and feed (sorry) the general advertising business. Exciting!  Peace!

    A Site 4 Next Generation Business Leaders.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    High level departures.  Those of us in the business world are fascinated by them.  Who is being forced out at the Tribune Company?  Which chief software architect is leaving Microsoft?  What CEO is taking fire at one of the world’s largest web portal?  Companies with massive high level departures are seen as damaged companies. And markets move based on this type of intell.

    But what is the opposite of high level departures? Mid-level hires? The hiring of really smart people on their way up? Employees with a bullet, on top of their games, destined to change markets? Yup.  These mid-level executives, very much appreciated by their companies, don’t get celebrated publically. Oh, they want the notoriety but they keep their heads down.  Not blow-hard bloggers, they work their asses off, pay their dues, get smart on everyone else and wait for the payday.  By the time they get noticed in the press, they’ve already made their moves.  The human resources people and head hunters who find these people early on are the real heroes.

    We need a website that caters to this business segment.  It’s a perfect online community: active, aggressive, engaged. But anonymity is a key. Perhaps this community is sponsored by a recruitment company and all posts are anonymous.  Only the site owner can identify the participants. OnTheirWayUp.com?  It’s experiential not narrative…and the perfect place for mid-level over-achievers to get noticed early.  “I yike it,” as my kids used to say. Peace!

    Save a Cup.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

    On average, Americans use 159 gallons of water a day – more than 15 times that of the average person in the developing world.  Today is Blog Action Day and the topic is water.  Our overuse of water in America is. embarrassing.  My mother-in-law, who lives in North Carolina, is always talking of droughts.  Our lawn this year was a brown mess by summer’s end, because we chose to limit our watering.  (Our neighbors lawns looked fine.) That said, our upstairs toilet is huge, wasting more water per flush than it needs. Many are aware of their water-wasting and are beginning to do something about it.  In fact, we are legislating change but it’s really not enough.

    Just as I stopped taking brown paper bags and handfuls of napkins from delis years ago, I need to think more about flushing and ablutions and showering.  No brainer. What the future holds in store for us are two kinds of water in America: potable water and non-potable.   Non-potable water will be used to wash clothes, cars, flush toilets and water lawns.  It will probably be recycled water or slightly desalinated from the coast. The good stuff will be for drinking, cooking and brushing teeth. (And hopefully in the preparation of beer.)

    We have lots to do, so let’s start now.  If you’ve ever been really, really thirsty you know how special water is.  Please celebrate it and treat it as precious.  Save a cup today. Peace!

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