Maybe Branding Isn’t Dead

In the wake of all the noise about everything going digital, everything being measurable on the Internet and demands for accountable ROI comes this story via the Wall Street Journal: "Starbucks Posts Decline in U.S. Store Traffic, Plans Ad Campaign."

An ad campaign. To increase awareness. How retro! They're going to use TV ads-you know, mass market, branding, all that. Sheesh, why aren't they grinding out interstitial EyeBlaster BrainBurst SoulSucker pop-up ads on all the kewl internet video sites?

Isn't that what everyone is supposed to do? Apparently not.

Maybe we're ready to move beyond the "Revenge of the Sock Puppet" phase of anti-branding. You remember the sock puppet mascot for pets.com? The lesson absorbed by VCs and CFOs everywhere in 2001 was, "Don't do anything even resembling branding, look what followed in the wake of the Super Bowl advertising for pets.com." Of course, it had nothing to do with their business model or the recession. Lots of targeted branding efforts were just thrown out with the bathwater. Branding somehow meant "Super Bowl ads." For years afterwards I met with marketers who said either the venture capitalists or their CFO said, "Yes you can spend millions of dollars, but don't you dare advertise for awareness or brand-building." I wonder if the marketers would ever turn around and say to the CFO, "you can run A/P and A/R but don't you dare use a spreadsheet!"

In this case, it appears as if Starbucks CEO Jim Donald is letting the marketers do what they were hired to do: marketing. As quoted in the Journal, Donald says Starbucks is getting into television advertising because "as we grow our stores, we're trying to reach out to this broader audience that maybe [has] not had a chance to experience Starbucks." I call that building awareness. The old-fashioned way.

Mary Berner

Nice article in October Folio: on Mary Berner, new CEO of Reader's Digest. Among the sacred cows she has slain is a ban on back cover advertising on Reader's Digest itself (I wouldn't know, tending to read about the latest celebrity suicide/20 pounds gained/bad haircut/breakup/hookup/20 pounds lost/new baby news in People when standing at the checkout line).

Reader's Digest with no back cover ad??? What WERE they thinking. Mary Berner had the reader's surveyed - predictably, they could care less. That's gotta be $2 million/year easy.

And come to think of it, what about all those midwestern Reiman publications with NO ads in them! Would the readers mind if a few ads for cranberry sauce or Jolly Green Giant peas were tossed in there. By golly, no!!

What do you think?? $50-75 million in two years?

What sacred cows do YOU have in your company? My favorite I hear these days is "we don't use print!" (Hah, you wondered how long it would take me to get onto THIS subject!).

as John Cleese says to the pet store owner in The Dead Parrot Sketch

"WHAT KIND OF TALK IS THAT?!!"

Why don't you use print?

Did it suddenly stop working?

Did someone tell you awareness and brand preference and demand don't matter anymore???

More (lot's more) on this later

But meanwhile, on Reader's Digest:

Way to go Mary Berner!

The US Open and Media

Ok Ok so I know what you're asking: what does the last post have to do with anything beyond the fact that Ted is an avid tennis player/fan? Here's the point:

Brands get all the breaks.

Federer, by far the world's biggest and most imposing tennis-playing "Brand," is said to win some matches in the locker room - meaning, the opponent concludes before even walking out on the court that they have no chance. Or when faced with the prospect of beating Federer, one chokes. Federer gets the break.

For years, McGraw-Hill got the break. Then Cahners. Then it was Ziff-Davis, IDG and CMP. People defer to brands and icons. Faced with the terrifying choice between an icon like Dr. Dobbs and the merely 7-year old SD Times, some buyers just buy the more well-known entity.

Which means we have to be better - much better - than well-known companies like CMP, Z-D and IDG. Got a long way to go, but each year we get a few more breaks (like how about those Puerto Rico Industrial Relations Board ads.....).

IMS figures just came out. August SD Times ad pages were up 16 over last year. Dobb's was flat.

this was a bit more ramble-y than it started out to be.

US Open Final Notes

"Choke-ovich"

Yes I made that up probably with about 500 other people independently.

Poor Novak was cruising with the confidence of a 20 year-old who knew no fear. But then when he was up 40-0 with three set points the Fed Factor crept in. Filled with the enormity of the situation and steady play by Federer (note to Tennis Week: please limit your description of him as "the Swiss stylist" to once per article) and he wilted.

And that's why we watch. While they play the game at a higher level.....they're just like us

Farms and Non-farms

Item in the WSJ today (pushed to me by e-mail, btw):


WSJ NEWS ALERT: Nonfarm Payrolls Surge by 180,000 in March; Jobless Rate Falls

"U.S. payrolls surged by 180,000 jobs in March, and the unemployment rate fell to 4.4%, increasing the chance of consumer-driven ecomnomic growth and lowering the likelihood of any near-term cut in interest rates. Outside of manufacturing, payroll gains were broadly based, with construction and services posting healthy increases. Previous months' employment increases, meanwhile, were revised up."


This is a number to watch - at conference for trade show CEOs I attended last month an economist with an impressive 20-year track record compared leading indicators and this one - along with availablity of credit - is one of the most relaible for projecting the strength of the economy over the next 6 months - a forward indicator

So, the economy looks good for next 6 months! (But, couldn't we kinda feel that anyway?)


Snarky comment:

Now....aren't virtually all payrolls "nonfarm" these days? If non-farm is meant to remove seasonality I wonder if they also remove "non-retail" in December, when temp payrolls surge.

Farms.

Snort.

The Process of Mulling

I like to mull things over. There are the urgent things which must be done right away or "today." Or this week, at least. Then there are The Important. These are things that are really important (hence the name) but since they are not urgent, they often never get done. When they do get done, typically you have to sweep all the urgent things off the desk and go into a cone of silence to focus on the Important Task. On my Important list is learning how to make cooler powerpoint presentations - has been for years.

There is another even more important category of things to do and these I call Background Tasks and I mull them over. These are things like what next market to attack, or, should we renew our lease, or should I commit to playing the guitar again. Broadly, this is a category of directional impulses and things I might want to do later (thus moving onto a list) or...might not. I'm mulling them over.

The process of mental cud-chewing is greatly aided by reading print magazines and newspapers. They expose me to things that are not urgent, and maybe not even important - YET.

This morning I was reading Inc. Magazine and read an article on expanding globally - what to do and what not to do when opening a global office. I ripped it out and brought it to work and put it in a file. We have no intention of opening offices overseas today and have barely discussed it. BUT someday we may. And if so I will go find that article.

Now, Joel Sposky would say that when deciding to open an office in Bangalore I can just google for info at that point. And I am sure I would. BUT, what reading that article gave me was an idea - the article told of 6 different ways to open an office internationally - maybe it's not that hard after all....something to think about....to mull.

I would never ever have gotten this idea from the Internet. Never ever. I wouldn't look for it. So, I wouldn't find it. Internet is for "search. Print is for "find"

All us old-timers are realizing the discovery-power of print and are talking about it. I wonder when the younger generation will figure that out?

Why Print Matters - NY Times Coverage of "Democrat" win

Check out the the "above the fold" half of the NY Times yesterday and you'll see something you'll never get from the Internet - nor should you expect to. It's a "picture" in words, type size and photo of what happened yesterday and what it means. Look at the carefully chosen, examined, edited and finally selected-for-press WORDS. Look at the subheads. Each word has been CRAFTED in terms of selection, emphasis, placement, meaning, position etc to convey a statement - to convey meaning. Even WHICH stories are here, above the fold make a statement of emphasis. "Democrats Turn War Into an Ally" - Beautiful.

It's synthesis, selection, prioritization, distillation. It's meaning.

This is not the purpose nor the ability of the Internet. The Internet is the world's greatest directory. If you know what you want...you can search and find it. Unless you want insight and interpretation. Unless you think there just may be some value in "discovering" something you didn't know you were looking for....

As for news, the Internet has to be constantly updating itself - that's what it's for and there is value there. Instead of interpretation we get blurt-ation. The facts unfold more quickly than anywhere unless you want to stay glued to the tube as they follow OJ's white bronco. The Internet news sites are not going to leave the important stories "in place" like the printed Times above becuase the Internet is about the now. The next story comes in and * poof * the other sotries fade real quick (unless you know what you want and use a search engine)

But that constant updating does not give us persepective. It's all served up with equal gravitas - no BIG HEADLINE. No stand-back and take-it-all-in understanding. Sure there are columns and blogs and words on The Internet. But a search engine is not an editor. The Internet is not for browsing, for discovery, for insight and understanding.

Harrumph.