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    Barack and Hilary. Hillary and Barack.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    If you have been watching any of the democratic debates lately you have been treated to some serious sparing between Senators Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Nobody really likes the mudslinging which often results in a draw, but I have to wonder why so much time is reserved for this sort of McNasty campaigning? And why does the media focus on it so?
     
    Here’s my take. As nasty as it is, and as petty as some of the points and counterpoints are, I think it gives us a view into the candidates under pressure. Do they remain cool? Do they stumble? Do they loose sight of their strategic vision or do they get embroiled in the tactical piss-fest? Who looks ready to crack, America ask. All other policy things being relatively equal, I look to these moments to help me understand who acts “presidential” under pressure and who is wired best to handle the pressure-packed job.
     

    The Super Bowl is killing Budweiser.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Each year Anheuser Busch invests more and more money in Super Bowl ads. They are convinced it works. And why should they think otherwise? Over the past 10 years AB has earned the top spot more than any other brand in USA Today’s Super Bowl Ad Meter. 


    How else does AB measure the success of these commercials? Here’s what they say: “Likeability” of the ads, increased sales and market share, “making our selling system excited,” and, lastly, “making consumers feel we are the leader in the category.” With the exception of sales and market share these metrics are drivel. Anheuser Busch beer sales are down. Bud Light is successful, but the rest of the portfolio is lagging. 

    Do you know what really excites employees and distributors? Sales. Crazy sale. Perceptions of leadership, likeability and company excitement are second tier metrics for companies whose sales are dropping.  AB needs to do better job of blocking and tackling, focusing, and refining its core message.  It needs to stop spending 6 months each year on the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl is killing Budweiser. 

    Here’s what I remember about Anheuser Busch Super Bowl advertising over the last 5 years: dalmations, clydedales, big fire trucks and snow. I’m not feeling it Mr. Busch.

    Where have all the business ads gone?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    I’m not saying the economy is bad and I daren’t use the “r” word, but in all my years of reading the New York Times Business section I don’t ever recall thumbing through an issue without ads. Perhaps September 12, 2001.  Today’s business section had not one page of display advertising. Not a half page. Not a quarter. Oon-gots (I apologize to my Italian readers for the spelling.)
     
    Actually, there are three postage size ads touting churches and a cigar-size ad selling a book about the bull market, but that’s it. If businesses aren’t investing in advertising in arguably America’s greatest newspaper, we are in a serious downturn.   

    Fifth Generation Systems Takes $5.3 Million Series B

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    source: TechCrunch

    United College Fund.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    When my daughter was very young she came home from school one day and referred to a girl in her class by the color of her dress, her height, where she sat and assorted other descriptors. The girls was black. We are white. My daughter never used skin color to describe the girl. She hadn’t yet been polluted.

     
    The United Negro College Fund has recently undergone an extensive re-branding effort through which it will dial down, but not eliminate, the word negro. Only the initials will be used in the logo U.N.C.F.  
     
    I admit to not knowing first hand how black people feel about the word, though with the heightened use of African American and People of Color the last couple of decades I’m going to go out on a limb and say negro doesn’t own favored status.
     
    Hayes Roth and Interbrand gave the UNCF bad counsel by allowing use the word negro in its official legal name. If we need to define people by skin pigment, and frankly I don’t believe we do, I would suggest contemporizing the name using more accepted terms such as: black, African American or people of color. I can never see myself looking a black man or woman in the face and referring to them as negro. That’s the litmus for me. Am I wrong? 
     

    Plumbers Hiney at Apple?

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Steve Jobs made two big announcements yesterday at Macworld Expo, Apple’s annual technology tradeshow. The first was about a new notebook called the MacBook Air. The new MacBook was delivered to the stage in an interoffice-size envelope demonstrating its amazingly thin profile. Great theater. 

    http://news.zdnet.com/2422-13568_22-183698.html

    The other big announcement was an iTunes movie distribution service, which will turn out to be a mistake if you ask me.

     

    Apple is a technology company. An electronics and design company. Getting into media and media distribution dilutes the company’s core competency. I know, I know — Apple is making some nice coin with iTunes, but it is truly reducing the focus of the management team. Each year Apple spends more and more money managing lawyers and biz-dev people – money that would be better served going into product development.  

     

    Will the cult that is Apple start to see some cracks? A quote from the New York Times today on the new movie service reads “But the risk for Apple is that consumers may not like the limits placed on their movie viewing,” a point referring to the amount of time in which renters must view the movie before it times out.  Apple has always been about expanding capability, not creating limits. Steve Jobs knows this. That’s why the iPhone was such a success. Creating limits for consumers is where the cracks begin. Nice computer. Movie business? Not so much.

     

     

    Music industry medicine.

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    Memo to the music industry.

     
    It’s no surprise that the music industry is in the dumps. 2007 CD sales were at 1994 levels. Here’s what needs to happen: Sony, Universal, EMI, and Warner need to keep selling CDs. They also need to keep selling music digitally, but at reduced prices, because the distribution of those songs is so inexpensive.  Here’s the kicker: they need to sell albums. No single songs.  If you buy Kid Rock’s new album, you must buy the whole album, not just your favorite song. Selling single songs is the fastest way to create a “one hit wonder.”  And for more entrenched musicians, selling one great song, which will be played over and over is the fastes way to create burn out. 
     
    Get rid of the single song sales, cut the price of the digital album, and the overall business will pick up.    
     

    Sorry Joe

    By
    Steve Poppe
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     Joe Nocera, a business writer for the New York Times with some serious marketing smarts, wrote Saturday that Starbucks Howard Schultz (who has reclaimed the reigns at Starbucks) doesn’t get it. Mr. Nocera thinks big changes need to be made in order for the ship to be righted. I disagree.

     
    The original vision of Starbucks is still strong and so long as the store growth is slowed and properly managed Starbucks will return to a growth stock.
     
    What’s so cool about Starbucks today is that kids are really digging the experience. They are making road trips at night to Starbucks and if you happen to frequent Starbucks near a high school, you’ll note that the place is flooded with teens at lunchtime and after the final bell.
     
    If Mr. Schultz figures this out, and I’m sure he will, and he caters to this growing segment in an elegant, soft-handed manner, he will kick some serious retail butt. This a “growth” not a “harvest” market segment. 

    Mr. Nocera also thinks the Starbucks international growth plans are not a good idea.  Here, too, I disagree. Starbucks is seen as a “cool” American brand. In a world that is increasingly growing tired of the American commercial way, Starbucks remains an icon that holds positive sway.

     

    Global Shopping

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0

     Apple was recently sued in Britain for selling songs in iTunes at an inflated price to that of the rest of Europe. (A song in the U.K. cost the equivalent of US$1.57.) 

     
    I ask you, in the digital age when purchasing digital assets, what is to keep a person in the U.K. from paying $.99 for a song in America if it costs more then half again that price in England? The currency.
     
    This flattening of the world when it comes to purchasing digital assets is going to create great demand for some sort of global currency exchange or, perhaps, even a new global currency (the world-o?.)  
     
    If Pay-Pal figures this out, or some smart bank, we’ll be shopping all over the world easier than shopping in our own town – and saving world-os. (Let’s save the tax discussion for a future blog.)
     

    Welcome back Schultz

    By
    Steve Poppe
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    0
    I love Starbucks. I go there every morning for my grande non-fat latte. Howard Schultz is putting himself back in charge of Starbucks because the business has started to show signs of underperformance. It is seeing its first “dings” after many years of astonishing – Harvard business case — growth. The slowing of sales is generally attributed to overbuilding of stores and McDonalds coffee product (new and planned.)  
     
    Starbucks store build out has probably been too fast, (remember Krispy Kreme?) so Mr. Shultz plan to slow store growth is a good one. And cutting underperforming stores is also a smart move. Either the demographics and geographics support the Starbuck’s experience or not. But McDonalds? And its new espresso bar? I think not. The Starbuck’s core customer doesn’t want to smell Egg McMuffins and canola oil potatoes thingies while waiting for their Ethiopian blends. Not a competitor. Please.
     
    Starbucks might consider offering a “value” coffee-of-the-day to staunch the migration of people on a weekly budget, but please don’t be worried about Mickey Dees.
     
    Mr. Schultz will do just fine. Welcome back.
     
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