Mary Schmidt Marketing Troubleshooter

The results are in and Gourmet is out. As a long-time subscriber, I’m both disappointed and perplexed. The magazine has been around for over 60 years and it’s a one-word trusted brand for quality, interesting writing (at least to me and my friends who are also bemoaning the news).

Back when I first read the news that CN had retained McKinsey Company to “help” – I groaned. Great. Another big consulting company riding to the rescue. Loads of time-consuming “confidential interviews with staff.” Powerpoint Pontificating to the CEO and his direct reports, restating the obvious for the oblivious (McKinsey was hired, in part, to review the luxury publishers’ spending)…Lots of deep, deep thinking…resulting in binders with (oh-ah!) pie charts…and (I’m sure) reams of beautifully formatted spreadsheets produced by freshly minted MBAs.

I’d bet a goodly chunk of dinero that the decision to drop Gourmet was based solely on its production costs, as validated by those beautiful spreadsheets. Of course, CN remains committed to “the brand” (!?!) From the internal memo:

Gourmet magazine will cease monthly publication, but we will remain committed to the brand, retaining Gourmet’s book publishing and television programming, and Gourmet recipes on Epicurious.com…

In the coming weeks, we hope to announce initiatives to develop digital versions of our brands that will make use of new devices and distribution channels.

Well, that should be interesting to watch, in a “horrified bystander at a car crash” sort of way.

Of course, we can be grateful for small mercies. Apparently, Anna Wintour at Vogue won’t have to give up her car service. And, there are a lot fewer “big consulting companies” these days. (That should tell us something right there, shouldn’t it?)

I wonder how much real marketing evaluation and work could have been done with McKinsey’s fee?

Cable channel SciFi is now – TA-DA! – SyFy.

*Sigh* Why? Well, apparently they wanted to be less geeky and appeal more to a broader audience, including women.

“What we love about this is we hopefully get the best of both worlds,” Mr. Howe said. “We’ll get the heritage and the track record of success, and we’ll build off of that to build a broader, more open and accessible and relatable and human-friendly brand.”

Now, it did make sense when AIG – for example – scrambled to change their name. Given the climate of the country, pretty much anything would be better. However…a logo isn’t a brand. (It’s still the same company back there, doing whatever they do…)

“The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular,” said TV historian Tim Brooks, who helped launch Sci Fi Channel when he worked at USA Network.”

What marketing mastermind pitched SyFy? Same programming, words sounds the same. I have to actually see the words before I know there’s any difference. So???? Seems us femmes are now supposed to flock. Well, at least they didn’t paint the logo pink…

“Imagine Greater” indeed. How about imagining better programming? Oh, there I go again…

P.S. SyFy? SciFi? Bring back Ben Browder and Claudia Black teamed in pretty much anything. (This geek knows it’s too much to hope for a resurrected Farscape.)

P.P.S. I don’t have a basement…;-)…Now, I’ve got to go tape my glasses back together again…

Tags: marketing, marketing troubleshooting, branding, brands, SyFy

I’ve always wondered what the Chinese must think as they make things like truck balls and hats that (literally) look like a pile of crap. “Man, these silly Americans will buy ANYTHING!…Hey, wait a minute, we keep loaning money to these idiots…”

The other day I was browsing the aisles of Talin Market, a locally-owned, wonderfully eclectic supermarket – with foods and items for all over the world. As I was happily pondering the miscellany in the kitchen equipment section…I happened onto the Rachael Ray Garbage Bowl. Yes, I could buy my very own plastic bowl, “branded” by RR. According to the blog post announcing it back in 2007:

“Okay Garbage Bowl fans, happy times are coming. According to HFN, Rachael Ray has teamed up with to tabletop and giftware manufacturer Precidio Inc. to create a line of melamine and acrylic tableware.”

Garbage Bowl fans??? (I can practically hear the snickers from China now…)

Now, I actually like Ms. Ray; I even watch her cooking show on occasion. (For those of you who don’t – she always has a designated garbage bowl on the counter for all those scraps and such. Makes it faster and easier to put a meal together.) But, little did I know that my using a plain ol’ mixing bowl for the potato peelings is insufficient. Nooo…I really should have an OFFICIAL garbage bowl.

Another case of product line extension (and some marketers) run amok. And slapping someone’s name on something doesn’t guarantee success. (Ed McMahon vodka anyone? May he rest in peace.)

(And isn’t it nice they show the bowl with – um – garbage in it so we don’t get confused?)

Tags: marketing, marketing troubleshooting, product development, branding, product line extensions

I’d say yes. And, maybe the era of the mega-corporations is over. (Discuss amongst yourselves…will it even be possible for the machines another GM to rise? In today’s flattened world, is it even desirable? Does the upcoming/evolving creative class want or need a old-time corporate structure? I know what I think…)

But…let’s get back to what I intended to be a short post on over-expansion. Starbucks is currently spending millions on new advertising, and doing their best to leverage/plug into social media (They’ve got a lot of Facebook fans, but does that translate into sales? I can’t buy coffee virtually.)

I’d not-so-humbly submit that their core problem remains over-expansion. And, as part of that expansion, they had “dumbed down” their brand….trying to attract all kinds of new customers…making it “easier” for the baristas to make a cup…selling music…(they’ve since gone back to in-store bean grinding, a good thing.)

From the article: “..The full-page newspaper ads go to some length to describe how Starbucks selects only the best 3 percent of beans and roasts them until they pop twice, and gives its part-time workers health insurance.

Starbucks chose the copy-filled ads, which were popular in the 1960s and 1970s, because it wanted to put its full story out, Mr. Davenport said. ‘Even if you cruise by and don’t stop to read every word, the net impression is, ‘Wow, Starbucks has a lot to say about coffee.’ That might not be the right strategy for young people, said Richard Honack, a professor of marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern. Unlike Starbucks’ older customers, ‘Generation Y goes to Starbucks for the Internet, the music, a place to hang out,’ he said. ‘Selling them the coffee and where the coffee comes from? I just don’t know if that’s a good idea.’”

I’m not Gen Y. I love to read. I love coffee. I skip right over those full-page ads (yawn…I already know Starbucks) and I make my own coffee.

I give Starbucks credit for trying…wonder if all those tweets that are supposedly happening will translate into dollars? Interesting to watch, in any event.

Related Posts:
This Is Not Your Mother’s Instant Coffee

Tags: marketing, marketing troubleshooting, customer service, Starbucks, Starbucks advertising, branding

Well, it happens. People refer to me as “Mary Smith” sometimes too. People make mistakes. However, we shouldn’t make it any harder for each other than it already is, given the amount of data we all carry around in our increasingly crammed brains.

For example, I have no right to get huffy if I decide to spell my name MaRe’ and somebody types mare.

In naming your company (or product) – don’t get too cute. I really don’t have the bandwidth to remember you’ve gotten creative in spelling, capitalization or punctuation, especially in an otherwise mundane, common phrase or word (such as Mary.) This can also make it much harder for people to remember you, much less find you online, even when they want to.

Further, it’s not other people’s job to know, remember (or care) why you insist they always use the full name of your company. So what if there was a similar company with part of your name and you want to avoid confusion. Not your customers’ responsibility to keep track of such things.

(Yes, if you’re paying a creative agency for help, they should know the correct spelling, etc…but if they’re responsible professionals, they’ll also strongly discourage you from getting too cute. And, they’ll do some research re potential confusions and conflicts before locking in on a URL or “official” name. You want people to remember you, not feel like they’re back sweatin’ it out at the fourth grade spelling bee.)

Be grateful people remember you, even if they may get the name slightly wrong. (As I am. Mary. Mare. Mar. Smith. Schmidt. Whatever. With a name that’s the German equivalent of the most favored “I’m cheating on my spouse” motel registration alias, I’m glad to be memorable at all.)

Yours,
MaRe’ Sshm-IDTe’ THE! Marketing Troubleshooter, The Woman Not The Guy In The UK. (and, remember ALL Caps on “THE” and never call me simply a “marketing troubleshooter” I don’t want to be confused with “the guy.” NEIGHHHH!)

Tags: marketing, marketing troubleshooting, emarketing, social media, entrepreneur sanity check

As I say, “Everything you do is marketing” but often people only think of marketing with the small “m” – the fun stuff such as logos and “creative” ads...and they spend waste big bucks on it. (”We’ll run a great ad campaign to increase our sales!” Never mind that the product developers weren’t asked if the product could actually do what the ad claims…or that nobody ever talked to a real, live customer.)

Marketing on the other hand is – well – everything. You plan…you review…you test…you do both best and worst case scenarios for funding…you talk to customers…you listen to them…you build an integrated, multi-phased business/marketing plan, with the “fun” stuff supporting and reinforcing the business goals. (Then, you do the hard work, implementation and course corrections.)

So, what’s the difference between a marketer and a Marketer?

When viewing an entrepreneur’s investor presentation and his slide about competitive positioning:

m: “You need to change the font; Times-Roman is too old-fashioned. And, add some pop with an image; there’s lots of cool stock photos out there.”

M: “Just how are you better than your competitors? And, can you sustain that advantage?”

In reviewing the business plan:

m: “You need to brand your company!” (Never mind the company is Two Guys and a Dog, and they don’t even have a company yet.) Typically said by a small m-er who – surprise! – does logos and overpriced “identity packages” (oh boy! stationary and biz cards; we’ll set the world on fire now!) and calls it “branding.”

M: “Where’s your product road map? How are you going to meet the milestones? What are the critical inter dependencies? What happens if one of you gets sick? Your dog can’t write code.”

In reviewing the “go to market” plan:

m: “Let’s start with a press release we’ll blast out to thousands! We need to get a good ‘industry leader’ quote from the CEO.” (Remember, the CEO is one of the two guys, with no company and no product…they’re not leading anything right now.)

M: “Where’s your target market analysis? ‘Advertising in airline magazines’ and ‘nationwide PR campaign’ doesn’t fit your budget or technology industry sector.” (There are potentially 10 mega-customers for the 2G&D’s leading/screaming/bleeding edge tech component in a highly specialized industry.)

In talking with a small biz about their existing marketing:

m: “I’ll rewrite that Yellow Pages ad for you! You need a headline!”

M: “Why are you even in the Yellow Pages? Your target customers don’t go there. Let’s look at how you can really reach them, for a lot less money.”

In reviewing a small biz “marketing” problems:

m: You need to run a lot more radio ads.

M: You’ve got more than enough business. You need to fire your family. Your overhead is way too high.

You also see a lot of woefully outdated textbook marketing tactics (traditional PR, direct mail to purchased lists, print ads) when entrepreneurs get “free” help from MBA students. Not the students‘ fault, they’re using their book learning…and their speadsheets are things of beauty…but…

(Don’t get me wrong – good, effective creative work is hard work…but good creative people also don’t presume to be experts in other aspects of marketing, such as technology commercialization. Just as I don’t presume to be a graphics design pro. I’ve got a list of scary smart people I call for that.)

Related Posts:
The Boring Bits of Marketing
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Tags: marketing, marketing troubleshooting, product development, product development troubleshootingentrepreneur sanity check, business development

Headline: Dining Options Slip on Icy Economy “Major changes are taking place on Albuquerque’s restaurant menu…publicly traded national chains such as California Pizza Kitchen, P.F. Chang’s Chinese Bistro and Cheesecake Factory were off 7 percent or more on comparable units in the fourth quarter of 2008.”

Mr. Chang doesn’t exist. The KFC colonel has long been dead (“cool” logos and “rebranding” aside…) Dave left the Wendy’s building years ago. I’ve never liked the idea of a “Cheesecake Factory.”

Economy aside, the chains have an inherent problem – there’s no real personal connection. They can spend gazillions on advertising to create and maintain an image – but what’s behind the image?
(Remember when Starbucks didn’t advertise?)

A terrific ad campaign can fail when you first step into the restaurant’s door, with the hostess more concerned with texting than seating people (Honey, I get you’re young and oh-so-popular, but I’m the one who ultimately pays your salary.)…when the tables are full of dirty dishes…when the food – despite celebrity chef pitches – turns out to be “dumbed down” mediocrity…when the restrooms are filthy…when the place smells like dirty carpet (the now defunct Abq Bennigan’s)…when the highest level of contact is the manager, who has limited power and even less emotional investment.

Of course, locally-owned places can have all these problems and more…but many don’t. So, many of them are staying busy, even in these tough times. I know, for example, that if the usually immaculate restroom at Slate Street Cafe was a mess…I could tell Myra, the owner, right then…and she’d take care of it, right then. (She’s seemingly always there, doing everything from seating people to cooking to washing dishes.) I know that if my martini at Mykonos wasn’t right that Jim would re-make it, no questions asked. I know that if my salad at Flying Star (a locally-owned chain) wasn’t up to par, I could tell them and they’d do something about it. I know the people…and I care about them…and I keep going back.

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Tags: customer service, marketing, marketing troubleshooting, customer loyalty, Albuquerque restaurants

…says Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO, in announcing the new Starbucks instant, Via Ready Brew.

No, Mr. Schulz, it’s not. That’d be Taster’s Choice. I’ve tried giving Mom the fancy stuff (single-serving bags I brought back from London, etc.) and she won’t drink it. She’s a Taster’s Choice devotee.

So, here are the challenges for Starbucks:

1. Will people who really love coffee buy the instant? You can make “real” coffee almost as quickly as instant. I do it every morning with hot water and a french press. It’s by far the best cup in town – and cheaper per serving. I get about 50 cups for about 7 bucks (Trader Joe’s beans.) 12 packets of Via cost $9.95.

2. Will people who like instant buy Starbucks? Is the Starbucks brand strong enough to attract instant coffee drinkers? (Who, by definition, aren’t exactly coffee connoisseurs…sorry, Mom.)

3. Will the true Starbucks devotees even try the instant?

3. Is the lower price point a draw for the Starbucks loyalists who are cutting back on the java bucks? Would they even drink instant – regardless of what it’s called – “soluble” by SB or the same ol’ freeze-dried stuff?

And – isn’t Starbucks more about the experience than the coffee anyway?

We’ll see. It’s easy for me to armchair quarterback – ultimately the customers will decide. You marketers out there: Is SB “devaluing their brand?” Discuss amongst yourselves. I’m headed to the kitchen to refill my cup with Dark French Roast (not SB.)

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Tags: Starbucks, marketing, marketing troubleshooting, Starbucks Via, branding

Example: The “O” in Obama.

In driving around town I’m still seeing a lot of Obama bumper stickers (even some yard signs.) The “O” is alive and well, whatever the political reality. Then, there’s the occasional “NObama.”

Three Things:

1. The “O” isn’t Obama’s brand. It’s catchy. It got a lot of attention. It’s a symbol of a lot of “brand loyalty.” The MAN is the brand – good or bad, depending on your perspective.

2. Those “creative” NOBama stickers didn’t/don’t work. Aside from the obvious (he won) – I hate to tell you folks who just won’t admit he won – but at first and even second glance, you look like Obama supporters. So, you’re actually reinforcing the brand. Cute idea, but the actual design doesn’t work well, particularly on a small sign on a moving vehicle. The round logo jumps right out. The “N” – even though it’s red – not so much. Yet another case of something that looks good on the computer screen often doesn’t translate well into the real world (bumper stickers, bill boards, brochures, etc.)

3. The taste of a product is something advertising can never change. Pepsi jumped on the bandwagon with their look-alike logo (they must have spent a fortune on Inauguration Day commercials) – and I give them credit for some creative commercials, but I still LOATHE Pepsi.

P.S. And just what is it with us Americans? An English friend marvels at our obsession with putting our sentiments on our vehicles…which should also give us pause. Who sees you driving around? Getting out of your car? What is your choice of signs saying about you? If I read some snide bumper sticker on my way in to meet with you – I may be disinclined to listen, much less buy.

Tags: advertising, marketing, marketing troubleshooting, logo design, branding

The search pretty much says it all. “Loading” should NOT be a top result.

My nomination (so far) for worst web site of 2009: Campari. Black screens, tons of videos (loading, loading, loading, loading), moving target navigation….what if I simply want to view cocktail recipes? Nope, you gotta wait for this video to load, while listening to the oh-so-hip music. (aarrgghhh)

“Web System?” “Sharing Red Passion?” Tough to get involved or passionate if I’m staring at a black screen, waiting for my selection to load.

Campari and soda, with fresh lime is my “new” cocktail of choice, but the web site…well…excellent example of “more money than sense” web site planning.

I can practically hear the creative agency telling Campari all about how this “enhances and reinforces the brand.” Um, yes, but what about what the site visitor wants?

P.S. I’m buying Campari in spite of the ad campaign with Jessica Alba…and the ridiculous airbrushing to make her look even thinner. I get they’re looking to attract the young, “hip” market, but why must they continue to perpetuate the unrealistic, unattainable body image? Ms. Alba’s hips are already small enough. Good grief.

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Tags: web sites, advertising, web design, emarketing, marketing, marketing troubleshooting, Campari, branding