Quick blast across the Sound for lunch in Oak Bluffs, the honky-tonkiest town on Martha’s Vineyard. Drank too much beer at the Offshore Ale Company then went fishing for bonito at Hedge Fence. Saw fish. They would not bite.
Month: September 2007
Whereabouts Week of September 17
September 17-21 – Cape Cod
September 22-26 – Vacation/Martha’s Vineyard
September 27 – NYC
September 28-30 Vacation
Deliberate irritation marketing
In the grocery store on Friday evening, right in the middle of the pre-weekend, pre-dinnertime crush, negotiating my cart down aisles cluttered with plodding, aimless shoppers, and there, in front of the meat case, was a long table/bin sort of thing filled with remaindered beach toys.
This obstacle was causing an incredible traffic jam of head-on confrontations, ooching and banging of handles. The complete assholishness of the table prompted me to stop, walk over, lift up one end and move the table out of the way. The aisle cleared, people were on their way.
This scheme was doubtlessly hatched by a grocery store consultant who wrote about “impediment” marketing techniques for Bain, the same jerk who came up with the astonishing insight that most people turn right when they enter a store, or the milk should be tucked in the back. The scheme was taught in a regional grocery store management seminar and became posted in the operations manual of the Northeastern Region, replete with diagrams, maps, traffic flow diagrams, and the wisdom to park the obstacle right in front of the meat.
This is the marketing consultant I was happy to defeat yesterday at Ikea, when my wife and I bought three bookshelves in about 15 minutes by swimming upstream and entering through the exit, through the checkout lines in reverse, and into the furniture warehouse without having to navigate a forest of candles and picture frames that greets every Ikea shopper who arrives looking for furniture-in-a-box but leaves with Lutefisk napkin rings and enough votive candles to power a cathedral for a month.
I get the whole “slow-em-down and up-the-attach-rate” model of marketing. This is why, when you authorize a new credit card, you get to hear a recitation by the customer service representative who tries to sell you credit report services, and lost card registration, and identity theft insurance.
In media, this is also known as jumping pages. Why blow a perfectly good story on one page? The reader may find it convenient to read it all in one place, but hey, “click here to continue” and tah-dah, another page view more ad impressions.
I guess, as I ramble, that the table in front of the meat was the retail equivalent of the pop-up ad or the interstitial. Get in the consumer’s face, force them to go around, and hope they are dumb enough to get distracted and on an impulse buy that ham.
I have a choice in grocery stores. One makes it aisles obstacle courses, the other does not. Guess which one I go to more often, even if it is a little farther away?
Will The Ad Slowdown Reach The Web? « GigaOM
Will The Ad Slowdown Reach The Web? « GigaOM
The housing boom hasn’t turned into a bust quite yet, but it is losing steam fast. In the meantime, the impact of the credit crunch is being felt in other areas of the U.S. economy, including advertising. A new report released today by TNS Media Intelligence shows that overall spending on advertising declined for the second quarter in a row.
Um, we’re seeing CPM and CPC auction prices spike. Sure, gross ad spend may be down, but it’s also migrating to online where there are a lot of dollars chasing a finite amount of opportunity. Heck, Forbes.com is quoting a $100 plus CPM for display. Try buying rich media/online video impressions. Nothing is cheap, yet top management wants to believe if it’s web it is cheap, measurable, easy and fast.
Only measurable applies.
Expat bloggers — my top four from China
China allegedly has the highest number of blogs in the world, and the highest ranked according to Technorati. I tend to focus on English voices blogging from within the country (because I can’t read nor speak Mandarin) and have four favorites I want to share. Some are marketing focused, some very funny, one is thought provoking, etc.. I am open to suggestions of other ex-pat blogs worth following.
My hat is off to these bloggers, particularly those blogging from inside the country, anyone who has tried to read, comment, or otherwise operate as a blogger with tools as diverse as Flickr to Technorati will attest to how hard and annoying it can be.
1. Will Moss: ImageThief. Moss is a PR pro now blogging from Shanghai. His work is syndicated by CNET Asia and he has been kind in his links to this blog in the past. He would be a top pick if I was asked who I would want to have dinner with during my next trip to China.
2. Kaiser Kuo: Ogilvy’s China Digital Watch. I almost did have dinner with Kaiser during my last trip, a meeting set up by our China marketing team. The man’s personal blog is very good, but his professional blog written for Ogilvy (our agency of record) is the best analysis of digital media trends. Period.
3. Michael Mann: Mann in China. Mike is a colleague running our production teams in Beijing. His diary of life as a twenty-something single guy in Beijing is very funny. His post about his driver — nicknamed “Dale” after Dale Earnhardt — is a classic
4. Rebecca MacKinnon: RConversation. Former CNN correspondent, now the leading voice on freedom of speech and expression issues for Chinese bloggers.
Kiva.org – Loans that change lives
Kiva.org – Loans that change lives
Public service announcement. Last spring I was introduced to Kiva.org by Bill Stevenson at Lenovo, the gentleman who manages the company’s social responsibility activities. Bill was passionate about Kiva — sort of the Napster of philanthropy and micro-finance. Here’s how it works. You go to Kiva.org, you open an account, you transfer $25 into your account, you review the loan applications from hundreds dozens of people in emerging markets, select one, and loan them the money
They pay you back, via Kiva, and once the loan is done, you get the money back in your account and then you can re-loan it to another entrepreneur.
Here’s who my loan is supporting, Lily Kindeka Biyela. She borrowed $1,000. I lent her $25
“Lily is 44 years old and a mother of two children, and she takes care of three others. Lily began her business in 1992. Over the years, Lily has acquired solid experience selling both kitchen utensils and charcoal. Through her determination and hard work, she has been able to build a loyal customer base that has begun to pre-order utensils. Lily is asking for a loan of $1000 to help increase her working capital and buy additional goods. This will enable her to generate additional profits, which will allow her business to grow and change.”
Lily has paid back half of my loan already. I think this is cool and regard Kiva as one of the most important web applications I have ever seen.
What I intend to be doing in two weeks …
Off to Martha’s Vineyard for ten days of fishing beginning 9.22 (with a one-day interruption to speak at an event in NYC).
“Opening day at the 2007 Martha’s Vineyard Striped Bass and Bluefish Derby was a smash, including the recording of a first day grand slam by Capt. Tom Langman of Menemsha likely a first day record. Derby president Ed Jerome said of the slam: “We don’t keep records for that but I don’t ever remember it happening on the first day. Certainly we’ve had one-day grand slams before but they are rare.””
The Derby is one of the most venerable fishing events in the world, and the subject of a great book that was recently republished, Reading the Water by the late Bob Post.
Corporate Journalism and the Benefits of Authenticity « Magnosticism
Corporate Journalism and the Benefits of Authenticity « Magnosticism
Rob O’Regan riffs on “corporate journalism.” This is where PR is headed.
“The content can take many forms: white papers (reported with real-person interviews, not made-up quotes), articles, blog posts, video, etc. – all the stuff you’d see on a typical media site. The content development work is also similar to traditional journalism: understand the target audience (customers vs. readers), identify the experts (internal and external), and get them to help you tell the story (through interviews or direct contributions). The result is more engaging, more believable marketing communications. (And it’s a good next career step for disgruntled, aging journalist types.)”
Chowder races
The yacht club pulled its dock and racing buoys out of the water on Labor Day weekend, but a good fleet of skiffs remains in the cove, ready to sail if the urge hits on an Indian Summer day. We raced Saturday and Sunday morning( and will try to do it again next weekend) very informal affairs with my son running the motorboat, Chris Jackson whistling the starting times, and moorings and channel cans standing in as turning marks.
Saturday was very windy, so we reefed — or shortened sail — and I had my step-sister from Beijing crewing for me. We finished in the middle of the ten boat fleet in the first race, and came in fat last in the second race because she urged me too close to the line and so I was over early and fouled another boat in the process, forcing me to perform the dreaded 720 maneuver (two consecutive circles) which is very, very hard and dangerous on a windy day.
Photo by Charles Lowell
Afterwards we met for chowder and beer on the bluff with agreement to return again on Sunday for another two races.
Once again Fisher was the race committee, but the wind was much lighter and everyone sailed without crew, expanding the fleet to 13 boats which was just enough to make it competitive and interesting.
In the first race I nailed the start and sailed to the left of the course, catching a very nice breeze, enough to round the first windward mark in first place, and again around the second reaching mark a comfortable six boat lengths ahead of the fleet. Alas, fat man and light wind conspired to throw the anchor over the stern and I finished that race in the middle of the fleet in sixth place.
The second race … let’s not go there. The abbreviation on the results sheet says it all: DFL. Dead Fat Last.
We’ll try again next weekend, and perhaps the weekend after that. Life is quiet here now, no one is around, Main Street goes minutes without a passing car, and everything from the flower gardens to the crickets seem to know fall is coming. I need to go dig up a perennial bed and level some footings for the chicken coop. Whereabouts this week:
Cotuit – 9.10
Cotuit-North Carolina – 9.11 (this is a bad day for me, for everyone for that matter, but I will try to not think about it as I fly out of Boston)
North Carolina – 9.11 to 9.14
Cotuit 9.15-16