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Think Bigger.

June 3, 2010 in Marketing | 0 Comments

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 1 in 3 American adults is obese. Excuse the pun, but that’s a huge market.  Are airlines doing anything about it?  Yep, seatbelt extenders.  On a plane in coach when the person in front of you puts back their seat, if you have a big belly, you can’t open your laptop. You can’t open your laptop if you have a medium belly.

Besides clothing there are a ton of products that can be redesigned to fit the big form person. Beach chairs, lawn chairs, living room chairs.  Moving theaters should provide adequate seating for larger adults. Big is big business…just ask NBC.

Wal-Mart or JC Penny’s would be smart to create a store brand catering to the big. Peace! 

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The Future. G.E. G.M. Healthcare.

December 16, 2009 in Marketing | 0 Comments

No dopes G.E.  Jeffrey R. Immelt announced to shareholders Tuesday his strategy to focus on two business sectors: healthcare and energy. By divesting of NBC Entertainment and paring back G.E. Capital, he’s amassing a war chest of $26B for 2010 (I love saying twenty ten) so that G.E. can put some serious Benjamins against Energy 2.0. 

Had Mr. Immelt done this 20 months ago, G.E. would have been in a much better place today but shareholders would have balked and he may have been ousted.  Even if you can see the future, it’s still the future.  The American car industry needed to make a bold move – focusing on more energy efficient gasless cars – 4 years ago but didn’t have the nerve. You just know there were nerds and young engineer types (without vesting) walking the halls of corporate car companies pleading for carbon neutral, low energy cars back then. But the car guys didn’t want to be first to push the plug.  So now we have to wait for the Chevy Volt and when it does arrive, it won’t be available in great numbers. (Mistake.)

The future isn’t going anywhere.  It can be predicted.  Humans and human behavior, short of a mutation or two, are pretty easy to understand. Maslow was right.  What’s holding up healthcare reform right now is capitalism, a touch of greed, and the inability to see the future. It will get done, but there will be bandages along the way.

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NBC Promotes Jeff Gaspin

July 28, 2009 in Marketing | 0 Comments

Barry Diller selected the wrong guy. Ben Silverman, on whose watch NBC stoked the fires of its reputation with “America’s Biggest Loser,” “The Apprentice” and retread “Knight Rider,” has not been renewed and will embark on a new venture with Barry Diller. Moving into Mr. Silverman’s slot as head of programming at NBC is Jeff Gaspin, the cable executive responsible for USA Network and Bravo. Mr. Gaspin has been aiding and abetting some of the cooler new programs in my book.

 

This is a very good move. Mr. Silverman, a self-professed rock star, needed to be a TV programming star…and wasn’t.  NBC, like ABC and CBS, has been a real dog lately. Reality shows are so God-awful that people can’t tune away fast enough. I don’t subscribe to HBO but watched an episode of “Hung” on CastTV yesterday and there was more brilliance and drama in one 5 minute segment than on a full week’s worth of NBC (now that ER is off the air). The best people on TV – the most interesting people on TV – are, indeed, “characters.” They are welcome and they are real. That is what viewers want to watch today. Real, not reality shows. Not fabricated individuals with high Q scores. Mr. Gaspin sees this and will shake it up come January. Peace!

 

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Is NBC Heroes Losing It?

October 14, 2008 in Marketing | 0 Comments

I’m not sure what it was about Heroes, NBC’s 3 year old hit of show, but I’ve never found it too easy to watch. Having had the opportunity to do some promotional work with Hayden Panettiere, one of its stars, and having been sold by some fans I made an effort to watch and admit to being mildly attracted. But after watching the first 2-hour episode this year, it confirmed my initial feelings. I’m done.  Hayden is a major talent and going to have some wonderful success, but Heroes is running out of steam.

 

Part of the problem is the airways are being flooded with these sci-fi type of shows. Burn out is around the corner.  It started with Lost, I believe. That said, my favorite show in the genre, in its second year, is “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” on FOX.  Summer Glau’s Cameron is the coolest, most brilliantly acted character on TV.  This kid’s got more acting chops than anyone I’ve seen in years. Amazing!

 

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Are TV shows the new CD?

May 27, 2008 in Marketing | 0 Comments

Fast forward a couple of years and listen in on what the network executives are saying: “The only way we can make money off of TV shows is though cast appearances, tee-shirt sales and residuals paid for Internet mash-ups of our show.” Sound familiar? It should. That’s what music executives have been saying about their business thanks to the decline of CD sales due to free music downloads. 
 
As TV shows become downloadable, portable and copy-able, one can expect ad revenue to continue to drop. TV shows are 1s and 0s, just like music, and they will be pirated. TV execs better get on the stick. They had better learn from their music industry brethren. Are you listening ABC, NBC, CBS?

 

 

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