Goodnight Detroit

It just wouldn't do to leave Detroit without some passing comment (especially the week before it is in the news as the host the NFL's Superbowl).

Now it has to be said that if you are a family of 4, there are a lot worse places to live than the Detroit Area. Bloomfield Hills is one of the richest zip codes in the US, but even outside of that area there are good state schools, a diverse multi cultural population and good universities.

All of these are ingredients to economic and cultural success if we are to believe Richard Florida. And there is a vein of culture, with a healthy music scene if you seek it out and some decent local art (plenty of galleries, but lots of crap).

Unfortunately a lot of what people sense of Detroit is true, and this ultimately will (imho)lead to its continued downfall. Lets start with the fact that Detroit itself is so drastically than the Oakland county suburbs I describe above. When Eminem "outed" Papa Doc in 8 mile he was alluding to the massive divide between the Rennaisance Center (home to GM) and the nurned out building and slums that are 5 blocks away.

This degree of inequality is not an equilibrium and will either start to get better (as people try and invest in the city) or just get worse and descend into violence - as has happened in the past. The total lack of diversity in the economy there makes me sense that this will get worse before it gets better. People seem to have little confidence in the future and there is the seem feel about the place that the Titanic must have had when the band kept playing.

Interestingly, I also did not get a sense that there was a lot of entrepreneurial activity. No one I met was talking about this little company or that. The culture of big companies and their pace has likely conditioned the way people behave, and even the droves of Michigan returnees (people who have lived on one of the coasts or Chicago and come back for the pace of life and the cheap real estate) cannot change this.

All of this is conjecture and opinion of course, but the current unemplyment rate is 7% vs 4.9% nationally. That gap has not changed for a while. Something tells me it won't.

Will the last person leaving please turn the lights out.

going west

we've been on the run
driving in the sun
looking out for number one
California here we come, right back where we started from
Hustlers grab your guns
your shadow weighs a ton
driving down the 101 California here we come
right back where we started from
California here we come

Goodbye Detroit. Hello San Francisco.

The Lewis clan (for all sorts of reasons) are moving to the city by the Bay. Lets just say lifelong dreams, a love of wine and sunshine were big motivating factors. Although the blog description and title change a bit, the content won't. I am still in the 'burbs and determined to contast the mid-west experience with that of the more "happening" West Coast.

And just to bring it all down to earth, Aidan (my 5 year old son's), biggest question about this move was: "can we stay in an Embnassy Suites?" Damn advertising.

not so dinosaur

This year the oldest of the 78 million baby boomers will turn 60. What are 78 million people going to do in retirement? I know there are a lot of golf courses in the US, but surely not that many! Will the divorce rate go up as couples go through the (what I'm told is understandable) strain of spending all day with each other?

The fact is that the most countries are very unprepared for this coming wave of retirement, as are most marketers. A lot of planners are guilty of ignoring the older market unless their brand specifically targets it. Yet they are very influential (guiding not just the course of governments, but also their children and grandchildren). Which is a shame because this is one audience that is generally very easy to speak to us, spending time and in general, sharing tyheir thoughts.

Many boomers are, however, not just going tp sit around playing canasta, mah jong and other stereotypes of the Florida retirement community (all of which, after careful personal research, I have found to be true). Many are going to come back into the workforce in one way or another ( and sites like Dinosaur Exchange are going to help). But will this help or hinder society? It is new ideas that fuel cthe change necessary to progress. Will having an older workforce who sit around for longer at the top, sop change? Or will it encourage more young people to start their own companies, and to let the invisible hand sort it out in the wash?

Bad Manning

Walking through Krogers yesterday I was shocked out of my usual shopping reverie (in whihc I repeat the list of things I have to get ad infinitum so my wife doesn't raise hell if/when I forgot something). As you can see from the above, it was not a good shock.

Even if you like the NFL (and I don't mind it), it is more than a little off putting to have Manning Sr. grinning inanely at you while thinking about what kind of milk to buy. In fact the photo and display is so bad (and creepy) it actually made me mad at Kraft. Then worst of all, I saw that in order of the Superbowl they had decided to plaster this photo on all of their brand displays!!



Now, to be very charitable, Kraft may need some credit for trying to make an effort at retail and put up a big display. But then again, how or why The Manning are connected with Cheese Nips or any Nabisco/Kraft snack food is beyond me. This seems to be just shameless, old fashioned marketing that treats the consumer as if they are an idiot. And a bad job of it at that.

On the same shopping trip, I saw that V8 had set up a "taste one" display. Good, basic, idea - give away the product and let people make up their own minds. The only problem was that they guy doing the sampling was the anti-thesis of V8 - unhealthy, unsavory etc.

In these cases, only Yiddish can express how one feels: Oy Ve!

employee media

I'm posting an article that Anthony (from Red Sky Insights) and I have written about why employees should be thought of as brand's most important media, but how to frequently that aspect of employee relations is ignored. I would be very interested to hear people's comments.

In essence, our argument is as follows. Much of the conversation about media has involved talk about the demise of the 30 second spot, the need to diversify media usage etc. But they key consumer truth that we need to constantly focus on is the overall cynicism or frustration with corporate marketing (and corporatism), and the renewed focus on real experience. Word of mouth, community, product design, what you see in a store: these are the things that truly build brands - media and communications only help amplify the message.

Yet very few companies are truly training or incenting employees to deliver brands. Those companies that do, reap the benefits. Whole Foods, Starbucks and others did not need to spend a large amount of money on advertising, because word of the in store experience spread like wildfire. An in-store experience formulated entirely by employees, who are motivated by the traingin they receive and the culture that surrounds them. Other companies have to constantly compensate for their in store experience with price deals and advertising that feels forced (are you really "loving it" when you go to a McDonalds).

I do not think this is something most people would disagree with. But it is an area very few people make an effort to address. To often it involves major culture change and the need to rally an entire organization around a brand. Imagine that :)

ready for battle

I'm in shock - this blog has been short lsited for best planning/theorist blog on the battle of the ad blogs site. (you have to scroll down a bit to vote).

If I'm short listed then maybe someone is reading this and will actually go and vote for me (come on..we all have egos to stroke).

Or maybe they could only find a few planners who actually blog :)

artic monkeys

The Artic Monkeys are the new "it" band in the UK. They've been hailed by editors of such tomes as NME ( who called them "the most influential musicians of their generation") and were even on Radio 4's Today program.

But what is most interesting to me is some of the ways they got this big. They have consistently given away their brand (content) - offering free downloads of their music from their website. On the website, the band actually talks to you in their trade mark, very direct, Northern Lad, in your face style.

In short, they offer a complete experience that is very refreshing and give the brand away (instead of trying to control it). Sounds like good marketing, even if the music is shite.

Rock and a hard place Part II

This guys said it a lot better !!!

"In the new mainstream, then, it is no longer a question of physically possessing a brand but of experiencing it positively as part of my set of values. What really counts is intangible. If, on the other hand, the product affords me only 'low interest', then I want to save money and pay a low price."
- David Bosshart, Gottlieb Duttweiler Institut

Courtesy of Hidden Persuader

Rock and a hard place

With Wal-Mart squeezing their margins and mass media marketing become less and less effective at creating consumer pull, what's a packaged goods brand to do? How do they create the brand experiences and marketing innovations that are needed to succeed?

The previous strategy was one of constant "innovation". The only problem was that the innovations were small and therefore relatively meaningless to people. On top of that there were so many of them that the endless line extensions have helped contribute to the clutter on the supermarket shelf and the media landscape. So now, there are 56 flavors of your shampoo, but in a world where you need to prioritize and focus on what matters, you don't care.

This is something that struck me the other day and came up again in a conversation with Chip Walker from energy BBDO . Chip's point fo view was that we will end up with named commodities (the way Morton;s salt is now in the US). Longevity, market penetration and salience will help drive gorwth. And while this fits with a very "Ehrenbergian" view of marketing, i can't help think that there are alternatives.

One strategy is vertical expansion: by the grocery chain (lets face they are in as much trouble as Wal-Mart). That gives you a marketing environment to work in that is more direct than TV and allows you to create brand experiences for the product. Another is content - if P&G created the first soad opera why can't it create the next? And finally, there are alternative distribution alliances: if you are a motor oil company you want to do a deal to become the exclusive supplier for a brand of car (and maybe even convince the manufacturer to promise consumers free oil changes). Why can't Tide do the same thing with Whirlpool?

Ideally, for consumers, you would also see some thinning of the market. There are probably to many brands for people to deal with. Having people exit the market would raise margins, thin out other industries (like grocery chains) and possibly decrease ad clutter (ok, a lot of people in advertising might be unemployed, but that could happen anyway).

So why haven't I mentioned the obvious one - online? Because there are very few brands that can produce compelling experiences online and sustain that traffic. You can produce online events and sponsor them, but how do you reconnect it to product such as laundry powder or plastic wrap, and link it to the brand? It is just another form of salience. There are a few exceptions I can think of: baby food or other baby products, for example, whether there is a huge amount of information seeking by consumers. there a brand can provide value in many different ways.

Another obvious one is even marketing - but can you have a wash in or shower in for those products. Again, mass BBQ cooks outs for KC masterpiece are fun, but with brand's margins being so thin, this may not be realistic.

So are we going to see some well knwon brands bite the bullet? What do you think?

web-fficiency

Even though its 2006 already (happy new year by the way), I wanted to write about the last month I have spent helping to set up Red Sky. We have been focusing on helping a current client, a healthcare consulting organization, launch a new brands positioning, as well as ready a marketing push for Red Sky and seek out new clients.

The most amazing thing about the last month is the degree to which I have been able to work with my business over the web, despite having a business partner in different cities. For example, I have been:

1. Printing business cards using online printing
2. Using Skype for incoming and outgoing calls, as well as video calling
3. Ordering banners for clients online
4. Working with a designer despite never meeting her.

This is on top of the travel booking, book ordering etc. that the average punter keeps doing. Having been part of a dot com startup during the last boom/bust, I feel as if the web is far more powerful now than it was back then. You can truly be a free agent, working remotely and efficiently with people.

This is not just the result of a bigger web, better programming or new technology, In fact, most of the things I have been doing are not that new. The difference is that sites are designed better, customer service is actually avaliable and that poor sites have been edged out. It is as if the web needed to mature and not move at the much vaunted "web-speed" in order to actually work better. For example, VOIP was around 5 or 6 years ago, but Skype has made it so simple that my children are calling on it.

That html has, in effect, democratized the means of production is still important. It increase the ability of people to start their own business, decreases the amount of capital necessary etc. It just seems that those people taking the plunge are thinking it through a little more and are taking the time to hone offerings to what consumers want.