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Save the people, save the world.

By
Steve Poppe
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Co-mingling with the few holiday ads in today’s New York Times are all these long copy ads by America’s corporate giants running on about how they are saving the people and the world. To wit. IBM is saving the people’s food supply through smart data collection and analysis. JP Morgan Chase’s “way forward” is by saving businesses and institutions through lines of credit. Exxon Mobil is saving the environment through conservative energy practices (yeah right). Kaiser Permanente, by reducing paper, is saving patient lives. (That one actually makes sense.) Some guy in Florida is saving us nutritionally by selling Honey Bell oranges. And Shell is saving the planet by getting us the “difficult oil.” Whew, I feel much better. Heroes all? 

Detroit and Wall Street Both Make Products

By
Steve Poppe
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0

What’s the idea with all these bailouts?

A lot has been written about the differences between the federal bailout of Detroit and that of the financial industry.  The automakers are being made to grovel and are under crazy scrutiny. The financial Machers (MAKH-ahs, for the non-Yiddish. It means big shots), not so much.  

Here’s the thing: both these industries made stuff the American people bought. Cars are made of steel, plastic and electronics.  Mortgages are made of paper. Both are high-end products — the two biggest investments consumers make, actually – and both were aggressively marketed. Since people kept buying them, companies kept selling them.

As to the predatory targeting of low-income families with toxic mortgages that didn’t require repayment for a year or two, that was beyond reasonable. But no one made people buy the freakin’ SUV de jour? That one’s on us.

Detroit’s problem was poor judgment mixed with a dram of stupidity.  The automakers just never looked through the windshield to the future. The problem with Wall Street and Charlotte was avarice.  They used creative product development, but it was predatory.  Both industries were greedy, but only one was downright mean-spirited. Peace!

 

Dell Now Selling Cheese Too.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

I received a Dell Christmas circular today, all 28 pages of it. The cover displayed a nice red Dell laptop, a mini-tower, printer, two green Christmas tree balls, a Canon camera and a Palm Treo (it was too small to actually tell). The mini-tower was priced at  $429, the laptop $649.

The inside folio displayed other inexpensive, low-margin products and the second spread was hawking a Microsoft Zune MP3 player, Tomtom GPS, Palm Treo and Canon EOS Rebel.  Not until you got to page 12 did you see a higher margin product and even that was under $1,000.

Sorry to keep dumping on Dell, a company I truly root for, but they need to focus on computers. (I think they finally got out of the TV business.) Dell needs to stop printing 28-page brochures pushing the “cheese” end of the product line and OOP (other people’s products) and start focusing on making the next iPod of the personal computer industry. Then market. Peace!

 

   

Detroit Bail-out Challenge – No Winner.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

A few weeks ago I issued a challenge that would reward one of Detroit’s Big 3 auto makers with all $25 billion in requested bailout funds. There was to be only one winner and that winner had to demonstrate it “got it” by presenting a plan for profitability. The challenge required each company show vision and commitment to smart design, resulting in vast improvements to natural resource consumption and reduced emissions.   

What Detroit came back with was a bigger hat (to put money in), lots of cuts, lots of sales (buh-bye Hummer, Saturn and Saab,) agreements to renegotiate with the UAW, plant closings and a lot of other below-the-line, cost-cutting initiatives. Oh yeah, they all said – probably in the last paragraph of the leave-behind – they “would accelerate their timetables to make more fuel efficient vehicles.” RUKiddingME?

Had GM come back with a plan in which they decided to keep scaled back versions of Cadillac, Saturn and GMC only, had Chrysler committed $8B to research and development of electric cars and charging devices, had Ford suggested buying Tata Motors, we may have had a horserace or a winner.

What we got were cost-cutting solutions. Solutions to win the hearts of congress. No future-forward ideas. Nada. No winner!

 

Facebook Looking For Caaaaaash.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Facebook had a big announcement yesterday about Connect, a service that will make it easier for groups of Facebook friends to leave Facebook, go to other sites to "do stuff,” the result of which will be a revenue share of ad dollars back to Facebook.  For instance, Facebook friends will be able to visit Hulu, watch a program together and share comments on Wall-to-Wall and it will monetize back to Facebook. Freakin’ goofy.

But here’s what’s even goofier. Facebook, who capitalized to the tune of $235 million last year, is now actually looking for more money.  Can you imagine? They need the money so they can figure out how to actually make money. It’s an internet property people! It is machines, smart software and people to grow and manage them.  And by the way, the smarter the software, the less people needed. More money isn’t going to solve the monetization issue.

Here’s a new title for you: Chief Monetization Officer. Facebook needs one and but quick. 

Cell Phones and Geico’s Next Business.

By
Steve Poppe
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0


Buying a cell phone is not easy.  It used to was (sic.) Not long ago they all pretty much did the same thing. You put one in your hand and liked the heft, the form, the look. There were Ericssons, Nokias and Motos. But now there are at least 10 hardware providers to choose from and so many models, shapes, sizes and features it makes your head spin. Even the kids can’t agree. They all have different phones. Where’s the Marlboro? The PBR? The Ed Hardy of phones?

And talk about feature creep? I can see taking pictures. That’s important, so long as you can zoom, which is a feature I can never seem to find. Change the resolution and the whiteness I can do, zoom I can’t.  Little videos are cool but I’m not likely to use them. I just want to upload my Reverend Al ringtone (from his 2004 convention speech,) text and be able to hear in a full duplex mode (still not available.)

Since no brand or manufacturer has really risen to the top and since no one model has captured the imagination of the public, the feature creep will continue, phones will get more expensive and the only winner will be Geico, who will be smart enough to come up with a consumer-friendly, cost-effective insurance plan for all the “losers.” I lost one to the washing machine recently. Peace!

PS. I’m buying the LG Chocolate 3 tonight.

CD sales vs. single songs.

By
Steve Poppe
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1

What’s the idea with CD revenue? Atlantic Records digital sales just exceeded CD sales. Revenue is growing from ringtones, ringbacks, licensing from TV shows and satellite radio. Revenue from expensive-to-press and expensive-to-distribute CDs is plunging. But as I’ve said before, the real rub for artists and the real villain in the reduction of music revenue is single song sales. If Lil Wayne only has 5 songs on your iPod, rather than 3 albums worth, you are missing out on the total Lil Wayne experience.  Plus you are more likely to burn out.

Smart artists like Kid Rock want you to buy the whole album. He’s got lots of stories to tell. Lots of rhymes. A fan who listens to all of “Rock and Roll Jesus, not just “All Summer Long,” will become a more loyal fan of Kid Rock. A more committed fan. A more viral fan. A drunk-dialing fan. A ticket buying fan. S/he knows what the record execs will know in about 2 years. (Record execs are a little slow, if you haven’t noticed.) Single song sales are killing the business.  Peace!

 

HP. Beep-beep.

By
Steve Poppe
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1

 

Hewlett-Packard’s purchase of EDS is beginning to make sense to me. The NY Times announced today that HP’s ProCurve corporate networking hardware unit is beginning to eat up some of Cisco System’s marketshare, albeit still with a long way to go (7% HP, 77% Cisco.)   It seems the EDS group may just act as a great sales conduit between its services customers and HP’s ProCurve networking gear. Services people, in order to be good, must really understand business and process and when they do it puts them in great position to recommend product. Accenture has made boat loads of money selling its own software recommended by its services people, why can’t HP can do the same?

Before Mark Hurd took over, HP was resting on laurels and ink cartridges. Its PC business was doing okay, but the company was quite sluggish. Carly Fiorina did not really understand the computer and peripherals business. HP just reported flat quarterly net income, but a revenue increase of 19%. In today’s economy? What does that tell you? It says “beep beep, company moving forward.”


What’s the Expression?

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 

In a brief created earlier in the year for a social media music product I wrote “a musician is never more in touch with his or her art than when performing on stage, looking into the eyes of fans.” You’ve heard the expression “You feel me?,” well, unless their vision sucks (physically or metaphorically) artists should be able to look into the eyes of fans and tell if the song is any good.  If it’s connecting. Even with an audience of suburban white kids, many of whom couldn’t find the beat in a James Brown song, an artist can tell.

This ability to “watch” the target is missing from much of marketing today. If creative teams, as they are coming up with words and pictures, envision the facial expressions of consumers hearing or seeing their messages, it will help them sell. It’s a projection exercise.  The strategic ideas (science) are hard enough to come up with, but the creative ideas that actually touch peoples’ souls (art) are where the money is. 

While I do my strategic rant about “What’s the idea?,” creative people should be asking themselves “What’s the expression?” And if they can’t visualize consumers’ responses to their selling messages — if it’s too hard — then they are writers and designers, not communicators. 

 

 

Social Graph, Tom Morello and Fronds.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 

Yesterday I posted (If I called it writing, I’d have to proof) about the social graph — the relationship between consumers tied together online. Today I am going to see The Nightwatchman. The Nightwatchman is Tom Morello, lead guitar player of Rage Against the Machine, who may be rock’s best guitar player. Mr. Morello, in his spare time, wanted to teach himself to sing, so he decided to take his guitar to small venues and book himself anonymously as The Nightwatchman.

With rock, Tom, and word-of-mouth being what they are, people started to catch on. Those linked by computer (MySpace and Facebook,) those linked by cell phone, and those linked by barstool and coffee couch began to discuss this phenom with the guitar and gritty voice and now he has an album and big tour.

This is a perfect example of the social graph working. Tom is cool, he’s the “haps,” and someone easy to recommend, but what about other product categories that might not be as “social?” Cold sore ointment? Drunk driving lawyers? Wrinkle cream? How likely are marketers of these products to use the social graph to generated sales? Surprisingly, more than you’d think. Someone I know had a medical problem that was not particularly good social conversation. So she went on anonymous message boards and learned lots. That was social. It was just anonymous social. Over time this type of social media will be a good place to meet recommenders and friends. Online friends. What should call online-only friends? Any ideas?  “Fronds?”  

 

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