Reposting: Why Don't Bad Ideas Ever Die?

I don't usually re-post ... but this is a terrific synopsis of the march of folly when it comes to economics.  Click here.

If Holidays Didn't Exist ... Retailers Would Invent Them

Holidays are wonderful retail opportunities.  Would you ever really think to get Aunt Matilda a gift if there wasn't an occasion that prompted your action?  Would you think to take your assistant out to lunch if there wasn't an "Administrative Assistants Day"?  Marketers have long understood the law of physics that says "a body at rest tends to stay at rest."  The same is true for good intentions.  Good intentions need a stimulus for action ... and that's where holidays often come in.

And that's why retailers have taken over holidays like Christmas and Valentines Day, which have their origins in religion or popular culture, but have become major retail events.  That's also why retailers have invented holidays like Administrative Assistant Day and Bosses Day. 

Of course, some retail events are more plausible than others.  Santa Claus has been associated with gifts for decades if not centuries.  And Valentine's Day is all about romance (and demonstrating romantic love has long been associated with gifts). 

The new genre of holidays and events actually have a proper name:  pseudo-events.  These are events that have been created and, incidentally, have become major retail occasions. 

I'm old enough to remember Super Bowl I.  It was an exciting event, but nothing like the Super Bowl is today.  Imagine what the Frito-Lay or Budweiser bottom line would look like without Super Bowl.  Those Super Bowl sales are really incremental ... and they are directly attributable to an event that has been created by the entertainment and advertising industries. 

So if you're looking to build sales, consider finding the trigger that will tip consumer dormancy into action.  It's best to build on a plausible platform (like Christmas or Valentines Day).  But you can create your own pseudo events as well.  In destination marketing, Festivals serve that purpose.  Aloha Week in Hawaii isn't something that Hawaiian natives developed - it was clearly created as a pseudo event.  However, it builds on an existing idea and makes an event out of it ... which, the destination hopes, will prompt people to travel and spend money.

The Changing Nature of Holidays

I haven't been posting lately because I've been so busy preparing for the holidays.  The college where I work essentially shuts down for the last two weeks of the year, which means all of the year end reports end up getting crammed into early December.  It seems that more and more businesses are closing for extended periods of time around the year end holidays.  And the holiday music is in the elevators earlier and earlier.  And retailers are becoming more and more dependent on holiday sales.  Which brings up an interesting question. 

When did "black Friday" sneak into consumer language?  Retailers have long referred to the day after Thanksgiving as "black Friday" among themselves because it is the day when the ink can turn from red to black.  But lately - in the last few years - "black Friday" has become part of the popular lexicon.  I checked newspaper and television ads around the end of November and many if not most of the ads used the term in communications aimed directly at consumers.  So, it seems the holidays have really turned the corner ... from a religious and family celebration to a massively retail event. 

I also remember in my early advertising career that it was an unspoken rule that Santa Claus was not a pitchman.  He could be seen enjoying a Coke.  Or he could be seen flying off in his sleigh.  But, overt selling was not something Santa did.  Those days are gone.  Santa is a shill and that's a shame.  I don't mind the retail aspects of the holidays at all, but retail shouldn't be the entire message.  There's something to be said for leaving at least a little of the magic in the holidays.

The Difficult Task of Focusing

I recently conducted a marketing training session.  Things went smoothly until we began the discussion of target selection.  There were different company stakeholders in the room and it seemed that each lobbied for a different marketing target that they wanted to add to the plan.

The problem, of course, is that by spreading yourself too thin ... well, you spread yourself too thin.  You risk taking limited resources and making the budgets even less effective.  I recall that when I was doing the marketing for Hawaii Pizza Hut, there were always store managers who wanted to spend money to attract sports teams ... or youth groups ... or other targets.  Don't get me wrong: these people eat pizza.  But, by adding them to the target list, we would have diminished the budget for our primary target: families with young children.

You can lose focus, too, by trying to promote too much of your product line.  I once had a contract with the Hawaii State Department of Agriculture.  They had a large budget - about $1 million - to promote the flower industry.  I suggested that we concentrate on one or two primary products which were well connected with Hawaii ... or promote the general idea of "flowers from Hawaii."  Instead, the department responded to pressure from the different grower groups.  They budgeted a little for anthuriums ... a little for protea ... a little for ginger ... a little for tropical foliage ... a little for ... well, you get the picture.  They took what was a meaningful budget and spread it way too thin.  Each of the stakeholders was happy because each got a little piece of the pie; but, the impact of the whole program was minimal.

Focus is one of those incredibly powerful ideas in business.  

   

Carpet Bombing as a Marketing Strategy

The 2012 election season is almost over - and you will hear a sigh of relief across the country on Wednesday November 7 when the pain of constant, negative messaging is finally over.

Because of changes in the regulations surrounding political advertising (particularly the "Citizens United" case), this year has been particularly obnoxious when it comes to political marketing.  By some accounts, the various groups supporting the presidential candidates will spend about a billion dollars on this election.  And that doesn't count the money spent on congressional and local races.

Carpet bombing destroys everything in its path

, sometimes even the target

Unfortunately, this flood of dollars has resulted in marketing that has adopted a "carpet bombing" strategy.  The advertising is reactive, disjointed, and anything-but-strategic.  The logic of carpet bombing is that if you throw enough explosives in the vicinity of the target, you might just get the target.  The problem is that there is tremendous waste and a lot of collateral damage.

The damage from this year's political carpet bombing is likely to be a loss of consumer interest in advertising messages.  The advertising for candidates could have been so much more effective - and palatable - if the campaign managers had followed the proven and effective tenets of marketing: develop a cohesive strategy that builds over time and presents the consumer with a clear and understandable benefit.

I believe good marketing could have provided the candidates with twice the impact for half the cost.

There's just not a lot of "bang for the buck" when it comes to carpet bombing. 

Customer Service Requires Critical Thinking

I've spent the last few days in a hotel in Asia where the prevailing low labor rates mean that the hotel has plenty of staff.  I know hotels in the US that would be astounded at the number of staff members deployed in the lobby, restaurants, and for housekeeping.  Even when I checked into the hotel at 3 a.m., there were three people at the front desk!

Hold on a second, though.  Don't be too envious of the ability to deploy squadrons of staffers to improve customer service.  It isn't just about the bodies - it's also about how the bodies are trained and about how they think about service. 

Here's what hit me. 

I was in the lobby waiting to meet some colleagues for breakfast.  One of the housekeeping staff was assigned the task of dry mopping the terrazzo floor.  He has super-task-oriented and focused on the job ... so much so that he didn't notice a McDonald's bag full of trash sitting in plain sight on one of the coffee tables. In fact, he carefully mopped under the table without noticing or disposing of the bag.

The lesson here is that customer service isn't just about completing set tasks with rote skills.  Like so many things in the service business it requires customer service training and critical thinking.    

Reading the Tea Leaves

I'm headed to Sri Lanka to do some seminars on tourism development.  That beautiful country is making a comeback after a brutal civil war that lasted more than two decades. 

In preparing for my talk, I was reflecting on tourism businesses that have been successful by reading their environment ... and developing products to respond to human needs just as they are bubbling up - not when everyone has jumped on the bandwagon. 

One example I'm using in the talk is Sandals Resorts and their development of destination weddings.  Astute observers of society would have noticed that since the 1960s societal values have changed when it comes to getting married.  There is cohabitation before marriage (largely unheard of in the 50s).  So the bride and groom, when they arrive at the ceremony, already have a lot of their household items.  Both the bride and groom are working now (not so in the 50s) so there's more income.  There's been a decline in the importance of religion in American life, so there's less of a need to be married in the family church or synagog.  Families are scattered, too so often there is no "central place" that is a logical wedding site. 

Sandals processed all this and started promoting "destination weddings" in its Caribbean Resorts.  They provide the romantic setting and the resort amenities.  And since there is more discretionary income with a late-marrying working couple, the costs can be covered.  And since the couple already has a lot of household items, money can be spent on travel. 

Sandals has even branded its product as "Weddingmoons."  The package includes all of the elements necessary for the couples' wedding and honeymoon ... and also the necessary travel and arrangements for the guests.   Amazingly, one recent statistic indicates that about 10% of all US weddings are now destination weddings.

Promoting destination weddings is a great way to reach a high spending customer with a product that reflects current social conditions. 

I wonder what other emerging social trends are out there that can be the basis for successful marketing solutions?