We remember beauty.
We remember new.
We remember rich.
We remember melody.
We remember funny.
We remember nature.
We remember poetry.
We remember pain.
We remember educators.
We remember warmth.
We remember charity.
We remember happy.
We remember love.
We remember triumph.
These are the things we remember.
These are the things consumers remember.
(I post this planning piece once a year, lest I forget.)
Penske. If not today…
I was very sad to read Roger Penske has dropped his plan to buy the Saturn Corporation from General Motors. My bet was that Mr. Penske, who has a record of automotive turnarounds, was going to have great success with Saturn. That bet was placed upon the idea that a lot of NASCAR enthusiasts and “car heads” know Mr. Penske and admire him. Admiring someone who actually knows a thing or two about a carburetor, driving at high speeds, and what a garage looks like at 2 A.M. under a hanging light bulb is way different than trying to feel affinity with a company run by “phone guy” walking around a gleaming showroom in a Hermes suit.
One of the reasons I got into brand planning was to answer the question “Why will a rural head of household with a annual earned income of $25,000, spend hard earned cash on premium motor oil for the family truck and then go in and eat chicken gizzards for dinner?” (Fried gizzards are actually quite good, if you must know.) It’s about brands (claims, supports and demonstrations).
There are lots of American’s who trust Mr. Penske. They would buy a car from him sight unseen. He is real. He is an expert. He’s not a paid pitchman. He commands market share.
Mr. Penske will be back. My guess is he will have an electric car offering and it will rock our world. Peace!
In my last post I mentioned how digital agencies are offshoring video production work to make it affordable to version TV and Internet ads for multiple target audiences — a strategy that mirrors direct marketers one-to-one mantra. Versioning may be lucky enough to have some successes but on balance it is a flawed strategy.
Good brand planning attempts to find a single voice and idea for its selling stories. Coke is refreshment. MySpace is friends.
The fact that a TV commercial costs over $350,000 to make today, makes it an imperative that marketers and ad agencies agree on a single selling idea. L’Oreal hair care used to take close to a full year to prepare a TV ad with Heather Locklear. The dress had to be perfect, the staircase just right, etc. Ads, in many cases, were works of art. But with 20+ versions of an ad running, the quality of the idea must suffer.
Developing versioned ads, the production of which is handled offshore, with multiple scripts written by God knows whom and casting handled by committee, spells disaster.
DentBetty.com is an exciting example of supply and demand in reverse. Car owners post dent and ding photos to the site so car repair shops can provide competitive estimates. Ain’t the Web grand? When body shops compete, you win! (DentBetty is in Beta and not available everywhere, but has bust-a-move upside.) Currently free until they prime the user pump, DentBetty has a business model that will be mimicked across the Web benefiting both consumers and wired entrepreneurs. As my kids used to say “I yike it.”
Which brings us to AOL. Huh? AOL’s new shtick is to become the single greatest source of advertising supported content on the Web. (They should leave off the advertising supported part of their mission; it’s irrelevant and brand-limiting.) You might think being a content provider is being in the supply business — and it is — but as AOL uses that content to analyze and learn about online behaviors, it will find itself in a better positionto create new, un-thought of content. And if it develops new online inventions and conventions, like DentBetty, will attain revenue heights not yet seen. Content is king for sure, but it is not always one way. User generated content isn’t just text and party pics. Peace!
In brand planning we spend a lot of time thinking. And when you are in a thoughtful, brain-forward business you also tend to think about yourself and your job. A recent discussion in our business is about imposter syndrome. Joey Covington, member of the Jefferson Airplane sang, “Sittin’ around thinking, thinking and a thinking and it didn’t do me so good.” So, my advice to planners is don’t overthink, it can cause consternation.
Imposter syndrome may be real but it’s not a brand planner thing. Not unless you let it. Imposter syndrome among brand planners happens when you’re boiling down your information and have to make some decisions about the key value and the packaging of that value. “Who am I to make such decisions, you might ask.” But then you just need to nut-up and commit.
This hit home for me yesterday when searching “Pearl Jam’s first concert” on YouTube, which actually was Mookie Blaylock’s first concert. (Brand issue.) Pearl Jam went on stage that first time and committed. Were they imposters? You tell me. Did they feel like imposters? Maybe. Certainly, some may have. But look how that turned out. The show was a little rough around the edges but there were some transcendent moments.
Don’t second guess yourself. Commit. Learn. Correct. Experiment. And love thyself. And if you don’t, get some therapy. Like the rest of the world.
Peace.
The current outbreak of salmonella poisoning in the peanut and peanut butter industry is an example of lax government oversight that will only get worse. Remember the milk crisis in China? The tainted jalapeno pepper/salsa problem last year? Bad farmed salmon from South America? Mad cow disease in American cattle?
The NY Times today did an excellent piece on the Peter Pan peanut butter salmonella mess, which started with a family-owned processing plant in Blakely, GA. Workers weren’t paid good wages, temps were used, roofs leaked, rodent schmoo on the floor and government safety inspectors who were over-stretched. A recipe for disaster.
This type of thing, though certainly not rampant, is happening all over. As company profits dry up and workers let go — and as the government eases up oversight due to lack of funds – food safety problem will multiply.
And can’t you just see a bunch of marketers stepping into the breach, segmenting the market with premium food brands that tout higher levels of quality control under the guise of “pure-natural,” or “healthiest choice” or some such — by inference, positioning regular store brands as for the other class of shopper. Whole Foods, to a degree, is already catering to these up-market consumers.
The government needs to step up here and pump some serious stimulus money into cleaning up the food industry. Let’s put the search for the car czar on hold and clean up a food plant or two first. Food safety before car bail-out.
