But can she make a venti Americano?
I think I’ve discovered the antidote to Starbucks’ sales struggles.
She is definitely not it.
School principals are, in fact, the CEOs of their businesses, and there are a lot of really, really bad ones out there. Like this one.
Magazines down. Again. Yawn.
The headlines about how much newspapers and magazines are hurting are so predicable now that they’re almost not worth mentioning. But today’s Publisher’s Information Bureau data, as reported in the New York Post, caught my attention anyway.
The bottom line is this. Q1-08 vs. Q1-07 — news, business, sports and entertainment titles are down, and lifestyle books are holding steady as a group, relatively speaking. These are broad brush takeaways — you’ll find exceptions. But directionally, that’s the trend. See for yourself here.
I’m sure there are some economic issues at play here, but the macro issue is unavoidable: if the news we want is time-sensitive (and isn’t it all?) we get it instantly. If you’re interested in Apple’s next generation i-Pod, you’ll have read all about it the day it’s launched and probably move on by the time a business magazine gets around to writing about it. Same goes for getting your Britney fix. Entertainment Weekly is going to tell us something about her that Perez Hilton didn’t report exactly 8 minutes after it happened? Unlikely.
On the other hand, lifestyle titles can still surprise us. Cooking, decorating, parenting tips –they’re not time-sensitive. I can pick up a Cooking Light from February 1998 and the articles are just as relevant today.
Which makes the weekly news magazine so, ahem – last week. And it’s a shame, because much of the commentary, at least in the news titles, is exceptionally smart and well written. (But check out Politico, and you’ll find you don’t really have to wait for that either.)
All Goofus, no Galant
Let me start by saying I have nothing against Highlights magazine. My older daughter loves it, and compared to what she’s watching on Nickelodeon, I’ll take an hour with Highlights any day.
But last night, Highlights called me. To sell me a puzzle book. During dinner. With my family, which includes a two-year old and a four-year old. The puzzle book, the woman on the phone tells me, is perfect for kids over six. “I don’t have kids over six,” I told her, trying to be politely dismissive. “Do you have any grandchildren over six?” she asked. What?
Here’s what I know. When we subscribed to Highlights, we gave them our kids’ ages, so we never should have been on their puzzle book list in the first place. And I know a lot of kids are having kids these days, but under the circumstances, there’s no medical miracle that would make me a grandparent.
I understand that the Do Not Call list allows companies I’ve done business with to call me. It means we have some kind of relationship. But, a) just because you can call me doesn’t mean you should, especially when you’re a family-oriented product and it’s the dinner hour, b) we both know you have less intrusive means of reaching me via mail and email, and c) you have information about me that should be used to customize how you sell to me.
Highlights struck out on all three. I think we’ll refrain from buying their puzzles until they solve some of their own.
In defense of cross-dressing
I had the opportunity to share my “I started in Account Management” story yesterday over lunch. I’m always amused by the reactions I get, but most of them fall into the same bucket: shock. The idea of switching from the account side to the creative side seems, to most people, to be the equivalent of converting from Orthodox Judaism to Southern Baptist.
Sometimes I wonder if it should be so shocking. When I was in Account Management, I was expected to convincingly present campaigns myself if I had to. And I often did. But how can you effectively present your company’s product if you don’t understand it, understand the inspiration behind it, know what the creatives were thinking, anticipate questions about the choices they made and so forth. You can’t.
On the flip side, how can you develop brilliant creative if you can’t engage clients in intelligent conversation about their business challenges and opportunities, their customers, their products. You can’t.
Certainly there’s a danger to a world of hybrids — we need experts in their disciplines, lest we become companies staffed with inch-deep, mile-wide generalists. But maybe we shouldn’t be so surprised when creatives become account folks or account folks become creatives. Maybe we should be surprised it doesn’t happen more often.
The torching of Olympic sponsorships
Sometimes the world of protest becomes so crowded and, frankly, ridiculous, that you can’t separate the wheat rallies from the chaff boycotts. But as people who make a living selling stuff, it’s worth taking a minute to consider that we’re in the middle of a growing international mutiny that, by early-August, could be the biggest brand sponsorship crisis we’ve ever seen.
Over the last few days, the Olympic torch has started its world-tour on the way to its home (resting place?) in Beijing. In London, it was met with chaos and disdain. In Paris, fire extinguishers (a nice way to protest human rights violations and French anti-smoking ordinances without switching props). Next stop, San Francisco – hardly a sanctuary for those who squelch basic freedoms.
Politically speaking, this is fascinating stuff. But not so for the likes of Coca-Cola and Samsung – two of the highest profile sponsors of the Relay. Nor for other Games sponsors, since one has to assume that the reaction to the torch will only be magnified when it comes time to march into a Communist stadium. Already there are calls for boycotts of the Opening Ceremonies. (Hillary joined that bandwagon today.) Might medal ceremonies be next? Closing ceremonies?
The athletes deserve our support — it’s not their fault that they are at the height of their athletic abilities in 2008.
Brands that support our athletes also deserve our support — without them, many athletes wouldn’t have the resources to earn their rightful place on the team.
But brands looking for a boost by attaching themselves to the Beijing Olympic goings-on?
Those marketing investments might just be torched.
I am feeling a bit faint.
Apparently I got into this blogging thing without reading the fine print. Please tell my family I love them.
OMG, WSJ is kewl. (J/K)
Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal: “Marketers Try to Be ‘Kewl’ With Text-Message Lingo“. The article highlights a new teenage girl-targeted campaign for a new line of Degree deodorant that highlight “OMG! Moments.” Says the president of MindShare Entertainment, which developed the campaign, “We wanted to show the teens that we understand them and know how they communicate with their friends.”
Wow. At last, a deodorant that understands me and my friends.
Here’s the quote I wish I’d read: “This product was designed for teenage girls with input from teenage girls. We don’t consider it news that the product’s voice is in line with theirs. If anything, we have to be careful not to push it too far — we want to be their deodorant, not their BFF.”
The article then highlights the (terrific) series of texting spots that BBDO did for AT&T.
BBDO’s Executive Creative Director says “I didn’t want to put the translations in the spot,” but she was overruled by AT&T and other folks at BBDO. Creatively, and maybe even strategically, she’s right. The subtitles may make the spot more watchable for parents, but telegraph to kids that “this spot isn’t really for you.” I have to wonder if they considered two versions — one without subtitles to run in dayparts when younger folks were more likely to watch TV, and one with subtitles for later in the evening or during morning prime for their parents.
Harvard-style creativity
Every once in a while it’s worth expanding the reading list beyond Creativity and CA. If you can get past all the finance gobbledygook, flip through a Harvard Business Review the next time you’re browsing at Barnes & Noble. Every once in a while you’ll stumble on a very relevant gem, like this interview with famed choreographer Twyla Tharp in the April 08 issue. An excerpt:
“What I’m trying to tell people is that they shouldn’t be held back by the great stuff other people have done. Brahms is the classic example here. He was a consummate musician, and because he was so respectful of the great composers and of Beethoven in particular, he could not get out his first symphony until he was in his mid-forties. What a waste of time was that, what a waste. And all because Brahms was totally intimidated. And you know what? There’s a kind of arrogance in that intimidation. We think that it has to do with modesty. To the contrary, it has to do with Brahms going, “Goddammit, my first symphony is not going to be better than Beethoven’s Ninth.” And excuse me, probably it’s not going to be, so why don’t you just do it and get on with things? Personally, I don’t worry about originality at all. Has anyone ever done what I’ve done before? Yeah, probably. But I’m not going to worry about it; I’m going to use it and get on with it.”
What are we selling again?
Here’s the new site for the Toyota Scion where you create your own Crest. So here’s a site that’s very well done creatively and will no doubt generate some serious quality time with the brand, but there’s nothing about the product. Not even a link to a Scion page on the Toyota site. Worth the investment? (On a side note, how about giving the user the option to buy a decal version of their Crest to put in the back window of their Scion?)
I’m supposed to have a point?
I’ve thought for a long time about writing a blog, because it’s clear to me that another blog is what the Internet needs badly. The question has been what kind of blog should I add to the wasteland.
I thought about writing a blog about life’s shenanigans when you have a Jewish mother and a Ya-Ya mother-in-law. But my wife believes there’s a whole brand of self-help books and stage plays waiting to be written around that combination and she’ll be damned if I give away the milk before we get to writing the cows. She has a point.
So instead, I’ll write about this BrainPong idea. (I’m not sure about the name. Read below.) As the subhead says, I’m a creative copywriter, and have an MBA. It’s like The Odd Couple lives in my temporal lobe. So when I see things happening in advertising or marketing or politics or the universe that erupts the classic back-and-forth action in my brains, I’ll comment. That’s all. I expect no more than 7 visitors.
Title insecurity.
I’ll be honest. I can’t decide whether or not I like the title of this blog. Then again, I can never decide whether or not I like anything I write. This is how I know I was meant to be a writer. Nonwriters wouldn’t care two wits about the title of their blog. They’d call it “My Blog,” post a paparazzi shot of Britney and call it a day. Well, I have bigger things in mind for this blog. Which I’ll get to as soon as I post my paparazzi shot of Britney:
There. This is officially a blog.
