September 28, 2005

Business Blog Book Tour #10: Darren Rovell’s “First In Thirst”

I’ve been reading a lot of biographies lately of fascinating, dramatic figures, like George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, TE Lawrence and have really loved being transported into their time and their story. Well, I just had a fascinating telephone conversation with Darren Rovell, author another such an interesting, dramatic and compelling biography, but this time it’s about, get this, a beverage – Gatorade. The book is called FIRST IN THIRST: How Gatorade Turned the Science of Sweat into a Cultural Phenomenon. But before I go into the discussion we had – which serves as stop number three in the Business Blog Book Tour #10 – let me say a few words about the book.

First, I was incredibly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. I am not much of an athlete or a sports fan (don’t chuckle too much, given that we wrote our own book heavily laden with sports metaphors) and the most I have used Gatorade for is to avoid dehydration after getting a parasite traveling in Asia, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. But I wasn’t kidding when I called this book a biography, and a damn good one at that. The story of the inventors, the sports teams, and the business people behind this amazing branding and cultural phenomenon had all the drama, characters and movement of a great biography, all the more compelling because it is so unconventional and unexpected. It is also very readable, you can tell that Mr. Rovell has had a lot of practice in his role at ESPN, capturing the action in punchy words that keep the reader turning the pages.

So go out and get a copy – click here or here. Also check out his blog.

Here’s is a quick summary of our conversation:

Marketing Playbook (MPB):
Darren, you know I really liked your book a lot but you have to admit is a bit unusual. What possessed you to write it in the first place?

Darren Rovell (DR):
You know I’m a brand history junky. I really love learning about how these things that we see and experience everyday in our loves came to be there in the first place. I am especially fascinated by what enters kids’ psyches, why and how. The battle for Kid’s heads fascinates me. And if you think about long term brands that have really hit kids’ radar and have stuck there successfully in this battle, three come to mind:

• McDonalds
• Nike
• And Gatorade.

Sure there is Coke and tons of books have been written about Coke and Nike and McDonalds, but I just could not figure out why no one had ever done this for Gatorade before.
And the more I dug into it the more I fell in love with the story. These guys are interesting. If they were boring it would have been harder, but they are actually true “characters” so it was fun. And they deserved to have their story out there as well.

MPB: Who did you write this book for?

DR:
Of course I wrote it for athletes who would like the story, love Gatorade and will like the story of the teams and players. And of course I wrote it for the business person who would love to deconstruct how such a powerful brand was built in such an obscure category. But I also wrote the book for regular folks who might just plain wonder how the heck their four year old kid knows about and asks for a strange colored, salty sports drink.

MPB:
You know my six year old is always demanding those little six packs of purple Gatorade. He thinks they’re cool.

DR:
It's funny, I got an email recently from a 45 year old mom who picked up the book. She is not a business person, not a sports fan, but she was just plain wondering why every male member of her family is drinking the stuff. I love that.

MPB:
As we discussed on of the things we are hung up on over here is what kind of play a company is running and how well they are doing at it. What would you say is, or has been, the Gatorade play?

DR:
In some ways this is a hard play to call. Internally, one of the things I admire is how much the Gatorade team acts like they are always in a life or death dragrace. They worry all the time about Powerade. They see them as the enemy and always want to make sure they are ahead. At the same time how can you really be in a dragrace when you have nearly "illegal" market share?

So in another way, they are acting like they are in a platform play, rising above the noise and continuing to grow the overall sports drink category.

Finally, at the same time, you could say they began by executing on a stealth strategy, focusing on an underserved, un-noticed subsegment of the market - non carbonated sports drinks and staying way under Coke's and others' radar for some time. Until now where the whole category of alternative, non carbonated beverages is a huge growth category of it's own - vitamin waters, bottled teas, and yeah, the giant business of bottled water. And yet somehow amidst all this Gatorade keeps growing.

MPB:
I want to talk about how they have pulled that off shortly, but one more second on the plays. You mentioned Powerade. How do they fit into this playing field?

DR:
That's pretty interesting. Powerade only recently got to 15% market share. And you can't really dragrace someone until you have at least that level of momentum behind you. But Powerade goes right after Gatorade all the time. They launched their new brand Option as a direct attack on Gatorade. "Not for jocks" and "80% fewer calories than Gatorade". Well, first, why tell people they aren't jocks in such a bald way, and second, while it may be 80% fewer calories than Gatorade, Option actually has 85% fewer calories than regular Powerade. Hmmm...

MPB: How is Gatorade responding/executing in all this?

DR:
This is one the things I really admire about the company. They are being smart. Although they may have a dragrace mentality internally, they are wise enough to know that taking such bait would only help their opponents. They are the leader. They never compare themselves. They do want to be the first in everything. But they will copy something if it makes sense and they have to.

MPB: An example?

DR:
Powerade was the first to come out with small containers for kids and Gatorade followed.

MPB:
You know Gatorade has come a long way. It was a salty drink for southern football players and now it's something my 6 year old begs me for. What's the secret? How'd did they do it?

DR:
It's almost a paradox. On the one hand, these guys are very disciplined, conservative and old fashioned. Unlike a lot of brands that try to change what they stand for all the time, Gatorade really wants to stick to its roots and keep continuity with what it has always stood for. They have always been about the aspiration that athletes can provide to all of us. They always will be. They have never varied this, they have never emphasized other benefits (like Doctors recommending it) or tried to shift their image to other hip, popular icons. They are adamant that there has never been any change to the formula (unlike Coke which faced all the problems of its back and forth shifts).

Yet at the same time, they have changed a ton and been incredibly creative. First, whatever they say about the formula, it does taste better. They only had 2 flavors until 1983 and now they have tons. In the last 5-7 years they have grown the variety of packaging options dramatically. Back when I was coming up, all you ever had was one big jug, one flavor in the house. Now there are tons of households with lots of bottles stacked in the pantry. Also, they have been great at exploiting the convenience store channel. They have more sales in convenience stores than in super markets. Brilliantly executed.

Another paradox is, despite the focus on athletes, the fact that most people drink Gatorade on a sedentary basis. Heck, only 15% of US households have a health club membership. And Gatorade sells way to much to only be targetting them.

MPB: When did this shift happen?

DR:
Well, back in the 80s, Gatorade was still a bit wierd, just for athletes. And you took pride in chugging it down after working up a sweat. It was sometime in the mid 1990's that the majority of people really started just drinking it, not when they were working out but because they liked it.

MPB:
Isn't this all a bit like Nike. That brand - which really is all about something, just as mundane - shoes - came to mean all these aspirational things to people. It started out as performance footwear and became an icon of cool. How would you compare the two?

DR:
No one has asked that before, but if you think about it the diffference goes back to that basic conservatism that I talked about.

Nike is constantly evolving it's technology. Yes Nike is still about athletes and stars. But it is always trying to be cutting edge and cooler and cooler. And it has done a lot more to stretch the brand into extentions and other apparel etc. You can argue whether all this has been great or not. Heck, for all the cool new technology, a lot of kids really just want their plain white Air Force Ones.

In constrast, for all the changes at Gatorade, from colors, to flavors, to sizes, to packaging (heck even to having a Gatorade Sports Science Institute to add some thought leadership and reinforce the "secret sauce"), Gatorade remains one of the few brands still truly rooted in its past. They don't want to change the basics.

MPB: And that sure seems to be working.

DR: Sure it. And I think it will keep doing so.

MPB: Thanks so much for your time. And good luck with your fascinating book.

DR: Thank you

Be sure to check out the other stops on the Business Blog Book Tour:

• Stop number 1 was Learned on Women.
• Stop number 2 was Brand Autopsy that even has a podcast.
• Stop number 4 is Slacker Manager
• And the last stop will be Josh Kaufman at the Personal MBA

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August 25, 2005

Marketing Manifestos

I like Change This. The whole idea of a place where you can find some communal inspiration and "call to arms" on doing things differently is cool. The manifestos there run the gambit from environmentalism to marriage to Ben and Jerry's. I took a quick cruise through "manifestos" about marketing. Below is a sampling:

Marketers of the world unite, you have nothing to loose but your production budget.

• The Customer Evangelist Manifesto by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba. There is a lot I love about this one that resonnates with a bunch of stuff we've been thinking about lately: marketing is not advertising, it is not budgets; word of mouth is key – but it comes not from stunts but from doing a great job; new customer acquisition may be sexy, but in the long term keeping and energizing existing is more profitable; and getting people (inside and outside the company) excited requires having a real cause (VISION is a big deal)
• Does ANYONE know how to Market? (and will anyone care?) By Chris Houchens. Given that we wrote a book, I was at first a bit uncomfortable with his call to "Find all the marketing business books you can. Throw them out. Rinse. Repeat." But I really agree that a lot of what you read is just extra noise and agree with Chris' emphasis that good marketing comes from YOU and that no one cares about marketing – they care about their lives (some ads feel like the only benefit is the entertainment value of the ad itself). Seperately read his recent blog entry on how bad marketing by committee ends up being (I know I've done it).
• Is the Truth the Next Big Truth? By Simon King and Piers Fawkes. Although, Thomas Jefferson once said, "The advertisement is the most truthful part of a newspaper" it seems that marketing lately has lost the whole idea of focusing on the reality of what you have to offer. So this manifesto is quite provokotive. It focuses on three truths: 1) business operations truth - exposing people to the wheels and gears of your business machine can have real benefits - see what Progressive insurance has done as an example; 2) brand history truth – all rather than denying your legasy both good and bad, acknowledge it first before trying to persuade, look at Microsoft's Dinosaur Puppets and Your Potential... vs. security concerns and trust concerns (conversely consider the fantastic impact of Scoble being open about Microsoft's issues and its competition); and 3) Yoga truth – pretty out there but I guess purity is good
• What is Open Source Marketing? By James Cherkoff. Some additional great thoughts about how real openness and interactivity and participation of customers can have huge power. See also his very good blog.
• Effective Product Managers Know Their Market By Steve Johnson & Barbara Nelson. Some very good tips for marketing folks to cut through all the “market research” mumbo jumbo and reach out deeply learn who their customer is.
• Do Less by the one and only Seth Godin. We couldn't agree more with his points that focus wins and tighter teams do more.
• LESS by Bruce Kasanoff. Makes a lot of sense to remove objectionable and meaningless obstacles from your customers path – true in product, in messaging, etc. Just look at Apple. I really like the idea of filling in this blank of what your customer might say: I want less __________.
• Guerrilla Marketing by Jay Conrad Levinson. A list of more or less crazy things you should look through to try breaking through directly to customers; and of course...
• The Hughtrain, by Hugh MacLeod. Just love the way this guy thinks. You have to look at Gaping Void. Believe in what in what you are selling. Sell that belief. Products are conversations. A brand is a place, not a thing. Write (copy) like you mean the words (see above that truth might be a good thing). And a bunch of good advice about what kind of job to have. It's up to you. Be Nice. Be Honest. Listen. HERE HERE!

Other Marketing Manifestos not on Change This include:

• The Talking Moose's Marketing Manifesto: using the courage of your convictions to get attention, maintain interest, arouse desire, and generate action?"
• Scoble's very good advice for a Viral Marketing Manifesto
• Seemingly picked up by the viral + buzz marketing association
• Pete Lerma's Mobile Marketing Manifesto (ways to use mobile telecom to reach customers)
• Sergio Zyman's Marketing Manifesto - who believes that CIOs/CEOs need to take a page from Marx and Engle's book and create a "document that will galvanize and unite your employees. It will tell them where they're going and help focus their energies."
• Of course the Cluetrain Manifesto
• And a pretty funny spoof called the Gluetrain Manifesto

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August 05, 2005

Congrats to Baidu

Lots of folks noted that their strategy could lead to an exciting stock price. Well here's the news:

Baidu.com posts biggest newcomer gain in 5 yrs China's largest Internet search company, Baidu.com Inc. (BIDU.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , rocketed on Friday on its U.S market debut, with its shares closing up 354 percent after surging as much as 460 percent in intraday trading. This was the biggest one day gain by a newly-listed company in five years.

Congrats Robin and Team!!

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July 21, 2005

The Fourth Place as a Blog

A while ago we wrote a piece called the Fourth Place about how the web, blogs, or web businesses should aspire to repeat what Starbucks has strived for as a Third Place outside of home and work.

And lo and behold, I run across this blog called the Fourth Place from a developer in London, who uses his site as just this sort of Forth Place because...

"Sometimes when there's a lot going on in your head its nice to get it out on paper. Paper's too old fashioned so this programmer does it online. I'm 24 living in London and thinking a lot about all kinds of things."

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Personal MBA

Josh Kaufman just launched a new site called the personal MBA. A really cool idea of building the resources you need to have your own MBA equivilent without spending a fortune. I like what this is doing. There are forums resources etc. Cool.

He also got his Personal MBA 40 approved as a Change This manifesto. Congrats and can't wait to see it come out.

This is an awesome list of books to read. And we are deeply flattered to be included.

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April 08, 2005

My apologies to the Sock Puppet

A few weeks ago I suggested that the Pets.com sock puppet was out of work. My apologies. I am way behind. He is alive and well. Sometime in 2002 Barnone auto finance bought the guy. Now he is back on TV doing spots and flirting with women. He even has his own personal news site.

Well, maybe some of those random ads I did are worth something on eBay and maybe we can find the MS Office PaperClip gainful employement as a spokesperson for H&R Block or something.

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March 30, 2005

Business Blogs We Like

You can look here to see our whole list of business blogs, but here is a list of recent discoveries. Boy, there is so much good stuff out there, it is awfully hard to keep up.

• Contact Factor: a weblog about how businesses should and shouldn't communicate.
• Marketing Catalyst: legal marketing
• Marketonomy: "Unforgetting the Laws of Marketing"
• Brand Recall: a collaborative blog about information-age marketing
• Josh Kaufman (inside his bald head)
• Troy Angrignon - Adventure Capitalist
• Marcom Blog: PR/Marcom mentoring
• Context Rules: about how context should guide our efforts.
• Marketing Roadmaps from Susan Getgood
• Hypocritical from Rick Turoczy

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March 10, 2005

Liars, cheats, quacks, spies and other noble professions

What do you do for a living? How do you feel about it? Well, if you're a business person and you've been reading the blogsphere lately you might begin to wonder.

First, it's bad enough that all the job titles in the world are getting distorted with gobbledegook like a "Certified Hotel Specialist" or "Customer Experience Agent."

But now even the regular old careers that we thought we understood are under duress:

• Marketing: did you know that all marketers are liars? According to Seth Godin's new book, if they are any good they had better be. So much for the first part of my career.
• Venture capital. I guess it comes as no surprise that Venture Capitalists trying to buy shares in your start-up are cheats no better than those who bought Manhattan for $28 worth of beads and trinkets. So much for the current part of my career.
• Sales: it seems that great salespeople are quack doctors. Just met with a salesperson whom I truly respect and he said that his job was to "Comfort the Afflicted and Afflict the Comfortable."
• Market research: these folks that we all used to rely on so much are no better than spies and voyuers who now want to read our minds with Neuromarketing (heck, even the sweet, lovable, innocent folks at Google are at it with desktop search.)

Gee whiz. Makes you wonder if you should bother getting up in the morning ;-)

NOT ME. I want to say I am proud of being part of all this. I just met with a company putting together the job description for their open head of marketing position. And it was inspiring. They described it as VP of Marketing for the American Dream. Being the chief preacher for entitlement to a better way. More on this company later - but I think they are on to something. For all of the above, if your product or service really is valuable and really is beneficial work hard to find the people who could benefit the most, then sing out, strong loud and proud. And add fuel to the fire to make it happen!

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March 06, 2005

An "Action" Figure for Everyone

Highlighted in today's New York Times, Happy Worker makes these terrific figures of super heroes we can all relate to:

• Geekman: with superpowers such as "ungodly coding abilities; opposite sex repulsion; analytical reasoning; ability to create technical acronyms; less than ideal personal hygiene routine" and vulnerabilities such as "wedgies; dodge balls; unknown questions of existence; girls of the Internet"
• Moneyman: with superpowers such as "Unearthly financial dexterity; loophole creation; fuzzy math and figure fudging; money bunny attraction" and vulnerabilities such as "Social situations; irrational exuberance; due diligence; depreciation; natural sunlight" and
• Bossman: whose superpowers include, "management might; schmoozing; big picture vision & revision; yes man magnetism; power tie collection; adding value; deliverable delivery" and vulnerabilities are "shareholders; analysis paralysis; total quality management; employee empowerment; action itemitis"

Would love to see what they make of some others characters such as marketing dude, art director, sales star and maybe even, god forbid, venture capitalist - what do they think of their superpowers and vulnerabilities.

Finally, one thing was noticably missing, women. Happy workers, bosses, moneypeople and geeks should come in female versions too, but also they should have some of their own unique characters (and not just Martha and Carly either).

Also, for some nice in action shots of geekman see here and a review of bossman click here.

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January 17, 2005

Love this

Given how many of us feel about our own PCs, wouldn't it fun to bash it a few times and have treats come out?

Via Moleskinerie

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January 13, 2005

Hughtrain on Change This

Just can't recommend this enough. Manefestos should shake you up. Think that is a hard thing to do in the topic of marketing, but Hugh sure does. Nice to see it in PDF.

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December 12, 2004

A Different Rule of Three

Recently ran across a very cool new site. It's called 43 Things from Robot Co-op. It is a sort of communal, massively multiplayer, wish list of all the hopes and dreams of its visitor/members. You enter yours and see how they match with others. The size of type grows with the popularity of the wish.

Interesting to see the common themes. In our book we are always harping on the rule of three (keep it simple - three buckets only of benefits, features, proof - otherwise people won't remember). Well, the same seems to apply to people's desires. 43 Thing co-creator Erik Benson notes that across the thousands of entries, there are three highly common themes:

1. be happy,
2. live simply, and
3. get laid

Interesting to see how yours match up (and given the last one it would also be interesting to know more about the participant population - e.g. their gender and how old/married/single they are).

Via Paul Kedrowsky

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Taglines for Marketing Playbook

We recently wrote about the decline of taglines. Pretty interesting, in the process we found one blog with eschewing taglines as it's tagline (sehr gut) and another approach - have a whole bunch of them.

So what the heck, even though we have kind of a tagline now - Taking the Mystery out of Marketing - I thought it would be fun to list out a bunch of alternatives. Here's my top of mind list:

• Lead, simply
• Look, Learn, Choose, Repeat
• Clear a Path
• Find the right gap and right way to fill it
• Tactics can kill you, strategy can save your life
• Strategy made simple
• Ask the obvious, do the needful
• Run plays or die
• Real people run plays
• Marketing is not “mystery meat”

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November 10, 2004

What is Marketing Anyway?

Brand Mantra hightlights and comments on the previous and revised AMA definitions of marketing.

• Old: "Marketing is the process of planning and executing conception, pricing, promotion and distribution of goods, ideas and services to create exchanges that satisfy individual and organizational goals."
• New: "Marketing is an organizational function and a set of processes for creating, communicating and delivering value to customers and for managing customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders."
  While I agree with Brand Mantra that the new definition allows for a bigger role for marketing (and God knows that it can feel pretty low down the totem pole in a tech company), I guess both definitions leave me a little cold and not very energized. Function, process, organization, those are all part of it I guess but they sure seem passive in the way they are worded. They seem like they are waiting for corporate management to give authority for the process, organization and functions.

This is an age old question and one that has continued come up in all our talks. Hell, to me marketing IS business. Why not be presumptive about it? Other than actually making the stuff marketing is what brings in the money, in the short and long run. That includes all forms of communications and relationships, and of course, without value there would not be sales for too long. But I’m on a simplicity kick. A friend said, marketing is what you do – the course you set, decisions you make and actions you take - to make sure sales happen, both in the short and the long term. How’s that?

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October 28, 2004

Ignition III

Just wanted to share the announcement that Ignition Partners just completed raising our third fund. It sure says a lot for the terrific entreprenuers we have the priviledge of working with. Suffice it to say, we are extremely happy to be part of this team and we are humbled and inspired by the awesome support we have received.

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October 27, 2004

Grommets That Grab You

Doug Mockett is one of my favorite sites. They are a great example of a very, very specific niche business that was born to be on the web. Tons of wierd selection of fasters, grommets, hooks, knobs etc. Ship anywhere. I think there is a big alternative to Walmart, EBay, Home Depot, and Best Buy and it is sites like these. They also have great customer service.

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October 23, 2004

Another Book - Watch for It

While we're in the midst of hyping our own book, thought we would mention someone else who is working on one.

Those of you who follow Hugh MacLeod's thought provoking, hard hittting, irreverant and sometimes slightly off-color Gaping Void, already know that he is working on his own book. If you don't, then check it out. We think it is cool.

He say's that it is based at least partly on his recent Change This manefesto entitled "How to Be Creative." You can download this PDF. I did and it is about a lot more than how to be creative. It's about how to be authentic, in business, in relationships, in life. It's challenging because it asks you to be bold and to be true to yourself but it's also realistic about being human, having faults and about how the real world will receive you.

Good show Hugh. Looking forward to the book.

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September 23, 2004

Eye Candy Can Help

OK. OK. We are always harping on about how it is more important to put strategy first (do your homework, pick your play, yadda, yadda), then do the communications and creative stuff. Well, sometimes just plain terrific, haunting, funny, memorable creative really can do the trick. Hip to Be Square is compiling a very nice archive of blog banner designs. Maybe sometime it is OK to judge a book or a blog by it's cover...

via Foe.

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September 17, 2004

Pens vs. Pencils

Just heard a totally apocryphal story from a friend:

"When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they quickly discovered the ballpoint pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat the problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 Billion to develop a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to 300C.

The Russians used a pencil."
The truth is that Fisher designed the pen for the astronauts, but didn't charge NASA for the design.

Frankly I don't care whether it's true or not and I don't see this as an opportunity to rant about government spending. I just love the story as a way to remind us all to keep our thinking simple. Sometimes seemingly daunting problems (like marketing strategy for instance) don't really have to be so mysterious and complicated. Just keep the goal in mind, think simply and execute.

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August 31, 2004

Why tech marketing fails

Take a look at this. Infectious Greed: Christensen on Why Tech Marketing Fails Christensen from Gartner focuses on the lack of disruptive technology as the main reason and that following consumer marketing examples is a dead end. I have to agree with Paul Kedrosky's counterpoint.

Frankly most marketing of any kind fails not because the product is not disruptive but because
1. it isnt actually better or ready for human consumption
2. the tech marketers have no idea what a "benefit" or how to communicate it to humans no matter how technical
3. they haven't mapped their competitive and customer landscape before they go off half cocked with a lot of undifferentiated "marketing."

End of sermon.

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August 26, 2004

Juxtipositions

One of the things that we heard over and over again while there was that there are two Chinas. One the new, flashy, rich, modern China you see in Shanghai and Beijing and the other the old, traditional, still often poor, more rural China. Here are some pics that really struck this dicotomy home.

New China Go Cart

Old China Go Cart

New China Mobile Game

Old China Mobile Game

New China Community

Old China Community

A Pause that Refreshes in New China...

... and old

And, finally, just too wierd. A friendly ogre and a great leader in the same theater...

(for some additional images see my other blog Zagula.com)

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August 16, 2004

Tallest building in China - sign of things to come?

Tons of impressions from our first day in Shanghai but one big one was The Jin Mao (kind of "golden growth") Tower. Stunning views of this huge, amazing city, but also of note was the photo review of all the worlds tallest buildings. Proud to say that three were in Chicago. But worty of note that all the US buildings were build at least 25 years ago vs. the remainder which were all in Asia.

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June 20, 2004

Writing well is hard to do good

Johnnie Moore's Weblog: Made me smile Having just finished writing a #@*$~! book, we had to smile at this terrific list too. Here's two of the best (and hardest to comply with): 15. Avoid slang. It sucks. 39. Last but not least, avoid clich�s like the plague. Seek viable alternatives.

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June 16, 2004

Just plain fun

debbie's blog - google doodle guy Isn't it great when your identity (brand relevance)is strong enough that you can play around with it. Click here for all of Google's fun/holiday logos through the years from Dennis Hwang.

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June 13, 2004

Salesforce.com will it happen?

More on the discussion of Salesforce.com communications and its IPO. Now Cliff Allen has posted a survey. Do you think the IPO will actually happen? Look on the left toolbar of Allen.com and vote. We'll look forward to hearing what people have to say.

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June 06, 2004

Finally, they see the light

BusinessPundit: Marketing, Marketing, Marketing Hey, we've always known that everything was marketing and marketing was everything ;-) But it's great to see that others are coming around. Seriously, it's great to see books like Kumar's Marketing as Strategy, that recognize the importance of marketing as a way of thinking and approaching problems rather than just a set of tactics. At the same time, Johnnie Moore highlights how much in reality ends up just being brow-beating from the CEO and cya from the marketing folks.

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May 20, 2004

Calls to action - the fun way

Seth's Blog: Why can't it be fun? I love this "Polka Dot" And hey, I went to school in Milwaukee and I'm Polish-American. It's fun, it's tempting and, as the Brave Combo knows, Polka's make you happy. Also reminds me of a bunch of early kid's PC games by Living Books that told simple stories, no action but whenever you clicked on a picture totally goofy things happened. Even though they are totally out of date, my kids still love to play them. If only more marketing messages had that kind of call to action.

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May 18, 2004

Confused about AT&T

The New York Times > Business > AT&T in Deal to Return to Wireless Market . Well actually the reverse of cool marketing, I have to say that I just can't understand what the AT&T playbook is. You sell all the growing parts of your business like the RBOCs and their digital access so they are your biggest competitors. Then, you buy a huge cable operation and then sell it at a loss just at a time when cable leads in broadband. Then, you buy McCaw Cellular take it from #1 to last in the market, sell it for a loss. Now all you have is the dying long distance business that VOIP is going to just trash. So, what's the next move, take the dead last carriers network and beging reselling that. I have to say, I'm not sure I understand the play here.

Posted by rich at 10:37 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Beyond "your logo here." Way beyond.

Boing Boing: I, T-shirt: wearable movie trailers at NextFest Another really interesting forray into going beyond standard broadcast media for reaching grabbing people. Pretty darn cool, movies on T Shirts. Talk about positioning. I've heard of people wearning thier hearts on thier sleeves, but now how about running your demo on your, ahem, chest. What's next? Maybe instead of blogging or posting listing on the web, you'll create a cool flash movie promoing your stuff and post it to specific, targetted people's clothes.

Posted by johnza at 08:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Had lunch with Jason Fried

Of 37 Signals a week ago. How refreshing. Great candid, discussion on good design vs. bad design, blogging as a marketing vehicle, the pros and cons of VC, architecture and more. These guys do a great job on clean simple design. They have a great project management product, called Basecamp with nice, simple straightforward positioning XYZs. It, itself is a fine example of blogs as marketing. The thing is taking off with their promotion entirely on the web and mostly from the blogsphere.

Posted by johnza at 05:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

May 17, 2004

Just plain cool - packaging as art as packaging

Boing Boing: Soup imitates art: Warhol-style Campbell's tomato soup on sale Not sure I can figure out the targetting for this new packaging promotion - contemporary art afficiandos who love non organic tomato soup? But I think it is awesome that Campbell had the sense of humor to launch commemorative soup cans in the Warhol style. I am definately getting some, to keep, not to eat.

Posted by johnza at 09:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack