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G.M. and the “Detroit Bailout Challenge.”

By
Steve Poppe
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0

Riffing on yesterday’s post, here’s what I fear. GM is cutting, cutting, cutting to show it deserves a bailout. To wit “In July G.M. announced plans to cut $10B in costs and raise $5B thought the sale of Hummer brand, and new borrowing. On Friday, the company said it would cut another $5B, including slowing production at 10 factories and cutting capital spending next year by $2.5B – a move that will delay the introduction of several new vehicles.” (Source NYT 11/08/08.)   

 

This type of stuff won’t win the What’s the Idea? “Detroit Bailout Challenge.” It’s numbers crunching accounting stuff.  No vision.  Speed up the delivery date of the Chevy Volt. Buy the Smart Car company from Mercedes. Cut production of all SUVs by 75%. Now you’d be talking.  Be bold and win the challenge. Peace. (Oh yeah, and go St. John’s Red Storm!)

 

Detroit Bailout Challenge

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 pic by Reuters 

I would love to have heard what went on in Washington yesterday as the heads of GM, Ford, Chrysler and the UAW sat in a room with congressional leaders asking for $25 billion in loans. The meeting lasted an hour and a half. After introductions, posturing and pictures, I’m sure the real meeting lasted less than an hour – not enough time to do anything. What a waste of plane fare.

 

The car guys were pleading their cases, no doubt, as to how the economy will be further hurt if the Big 3 are allowed to go out of business. Rather, they should have been explaining what they are going to do in real terms, not theory, to turn their product lines around.

 

Here’s my idea: the government should offer the loan to the car company that comes back with the best plan to change the way they do business and build cars. Winner takes all. Ask for all proposals by January 1st and let’s see what happens.


And could we get a few of auto geezers out of the room?  Have you ever seen such a geeze-fest?  Peace!

 

 

Barack’s Thank You Email.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 

What’s the idea with Barack Obama winning? Here’s a clue. This is an email he sent out to supporters upon hearing of his election. Note the time:

 

From: Barack Obama [mailto:info@barackobama.com]
Sent: Wednesday, November 05, 2008 12:11 AM
To: Terrence Last Name
Subject: How this happened

 Terrence —

I’m about to head to Grant Park to talk to everyone gathered there, but I wanted to write to you first.

We just made history.

And I don’t want you to forget how we did it.

You made history every single day during this campaign — every day you knocked on doors, made a donation, or talked to your family, friends, and neighbors about why you believe it’s time for change.

I want to thank all of you who gave your time, talent, and passion to this campaign.

We have a lot of work to do to get our country back on track, and I’ll be in touch soon about what comes next.

But I want to be very clear about one thing…

All of this happened because of you.

Thank you,

Barack

 

Remembering to say “thank you” is an important way to build loyalty. Peace!

U.S. News and World Report’s Syrupy Announcement

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 

What’s the idea with U.S. News and World Report? Are they trying to become a monthly newsweekly? Have they decided that becoming an online news property is their future? Or, have they decided to become a publishing organization specializing in rating colleges andhospitals? The answer is "yes" to all three questions. 

 

According to a recent internal memo that fell into the hands of the New York Times, written by president Bill Holiber and editor Brain Kelly, “the magazine was accelerating its plans to focus on Internet publishing and a handful of topics: national and world news and opinion, health, money and business, education and rankings and reviews.”

 

Try writing a branding brief on that.  Have you ever tasted fruit cocktail? That sweet syrupy concoction with pears, peaches, grapes and one other mystery fruit? Every element tastes the same. One taste: syrup. Mort Zuckerman should know better. This melange of media will turn to gunk. No idea here.

 

 

Campbell’s Vs. Progresso

By
Steve Poppe
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0

There’s an old fashioned war going on in the soup category between Campbell’s and Progresso thanks to Campbell’s Select Harvest brand extension. The Select Harvest line is made with all natural ingredients — notice they didn’t use the word “healthy.” Campbell’s is dinging Progresso for too much MSG and unnatural flavorings. 

 

Now playing defense, Progresso just published the results of a taste test which is a a sure sign the market is changing. In their latest ad they claim 7 of 10 prefer the taste of Progresso’s Chicken Noodle soup over Campbell’s Harvest Chicken with Egg Noodles.”  Well, duh. Unnatural, unhealthy and preservative-filled food often tastes better.  (I like regular Hellman’s Mayonnaise better than lite mayo, but I use the latter because it’s better for me.)  It takes a lot of R&D to be able to make a natural soup that tastes good, that tastes like the individual ingredients, and “does no harm.”

Campbell’s knows this and shouldn’t worry about taste tests at this juncture. They need to keep pushing the natural ingredients and working in the test kitchen to improve taste. Maybe use born-on dating to help keep the food fresh, or a new container. Douglas Conant, Campbell’s CEO, is onto something with this fresh and healthy approach…and he knows it. 

 

 

Social Web Usability

By
Steve Poppe
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5

 

 

For consumer web properties, especially the free ones of the social network/social media variety, usability is king.  I was employed by a company, Zude.com, that had a great online concept but poor execution when it came to usability.  People couldn’t figure out how to use us. 

 

I conducted some usability studies with college kids and found there are basically three types of users. Let’s call them: Know-hows, Diggers and See-yahs. Know-hows believe they know how to use any site and keep trying different things to get the answers, often bypassing the Help button. They scan the page overlooking instructional text boxes, assuming the answer is staring them in the face. Know-hows give up eventually, but rarely ask for help.  Diggers are the most analytical and once confronted with a non-intuitive site look for help immediately. If they can’t find help, they keep digging – taking it as a challenge. “The answer has to be here somewhere.” Diggers are relentless and will find the answers, but will not come back if the experience was too stupid or goofy.   And See-yahs, just have better things to do. They may try to figure you out two or three times but if they can’t, they leave.  See-yahs want intuitive and easy and if they don’t get it, they go they are better understood. Peace!

 


Barack’s informerical.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 

Two days ago, I suggested Barack Obama’s infomercial was a mistake. Well, the people have spoken and I was wrong. Over 33 million viewers tuned in to CBS, NBC, Fox and cable to watch. The media cost to air the informercial was about 3 million dollars, which I find hard to believe since a 30-second Super Bowl spot goes for $2 million+ and delivers less than twice the viewers.

 

Here’s the big question: Were the 33 million+ viewers Obama voters, John McCain voters, or undecideds? In marketing, new incremental volume is always an important measure.  Loyal customers need care and feeding but new customers are a key growth metric.  If Barack’s investment reached only his loyal followers then it probably wasn’t a great idea. But if the audience was a cross section of the population, as I suspect it was, then it was. (Can’t you just see some pro-McCain people quickly changing the channel as their spouses walked in the room?) Mea culpa. Peace!

 

Digital media by the pound.

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 

 

Not too long ago a friend told me an acquaintance offered him 20 gigs of music for his iPod for free.  Music by the pound. What kind of music? Who knew?   Apparently it didn’t matter.

With the announcement of the Netflix-TiVo’s marketing partnership, are movies by the pound not far behind? Digital media is out there in the ether, as we all know, and can be had for free. Google’s deal with book publishersthat shares revenue with writers and publishing houses for books viewed or downloaded is another example of media potentially seeping into the ether for free.   As art and commercial art become available for free over the net, we will have a paradigm shift. The music business is in the dumper. TV and movies will be next, then comes publishing.

 

So what do we do? Let me think on it a bit…and get back to you.    

 

 

Obama. Underdog or overdog?

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 
 

Barack Obama’s staff’s decision to run a half-hour infomercial tonight on the 4 broadcast television stations is a mistake. It takes him from underdog to overdog. All the American’s who listen to Sarah Palin go on about how the media handles Obama with kid gloves will have another arrow in their quiver. Unfairly, they will feel the networks are subsidizing Obama and it will make them angry, steeling their resolve against him. 

 

The populace may be tired of political ads, but it is certainly familiar with them as a campaign tool.  A roadblock half-hour infomercial, on the other hand, is a new and heavy-handed tactic. I’m sure the film will be pretty, the choreography and prose wonderful and inspiring, but it feels like a bull rush, heavy-spend tactic inappropriate for these difficult economic times. 

 

How about Senator Obama come out and cancel the show and note in a press release that all the money is going into a fund to kick-start his health program? That’s what an underdog would do.  Peace!

 

To Bail or Not To Bail…Detroit

By
Steve Poppe
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0

 

A quote from Andrew Ross Sorkin in today’s New York Times reads:

 

“To make a combined General Motors-Chrysler work – let alone flourish – the company would need to do everything that is impolitic. It would have to virtually break the U.A W., cut salaries and benefits, and lay off a lot of people, fast. Oh: and it would also have to make cars that people actually want to buy.”

 

The executive offices of all the Big 3 are filled with smarter men and women than me. MBAs up the wazoo, but not one these senior officers is a visionary. Yeah, they may show up at the Detroit Car Show with a newly designed fanny warmer or car that parks itself, but they missed the boat when it came to cars people wanted to buy – or would want to buy down the road.  Quarterly losses and market share shrinkage have been mounting for years. If you ask me, the only Big 3 property doing anything is Chevrolet. GM should plumb that group for ideas.

 

Were I the U.S. government, I’d wait until I heard some serious leadership coming from one of those offices in Detroit, backed by a real strategy, before I put them on the dole. Peace!

 

 

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