And for a little light hearted humor, me at the Olympics

Yesterday I really got a big dose of how life can change, quickly. While writing a blog article a plane literally crashed into a shopping mall 1 mile from my house. All died on the plane.

To add insult to injury (if that’s even possible) the plane was run by the Angel Pilots’ Network. Those not familiar with them they fly really sick people for free to get better medical care. On board this plane was a cancer patient and family.

You can read more on the fatal crash here?and here.

Life’s short, embrace it.

Until it bites you on the ass.

Let’s see, so far in two days we’ve learned the Chinese used computer generated “fireworks” to make the opening ceremony look better on TV…

Then?pulled a Milli Vanilli by using a “cuter” girl to lip sync for the non “cute girl”. Sad.

The Chinese have spent somewhere around 50 Million for the perfect brand image. Imagine all that money going down the drain because they just couldn’t be honest.

What are your thoughts? Okay to fake it for the good of the show?

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There is quite some buzz from the word of mouth marketing people over TOMS Shoes. John Moore at Brand Autopsy’s headline is “Newest Poster Child For Word Of Mouth” and Church of the Customer says “Customer Evangelism Case Study“.

Here’s the skinny. TOMS Shoes makes some alpargatas (espadrille-type shoes), which are really low cost. Then they sell them to you but when you buy a pair TOMS donates to shoeless children in third-world countries. Each time a pair is sold, someone gets a free pair.

Sounds good right?

Now for my cynical spin on it.

The shoes are probably less than $5/pair to make. But let’s use $5 for a nice round number. TOMS sells the shoes for about $50 each to us. Then donates the free pair at their cost. So if my math is correct they lose $10 in actually cost plus cost for freight out to Africa.

But let’s just use $10 as a nice round number. TOMS Shoes then makes $40 per sale for a cheaply made shoe, that’s even uglier than Crocs (if you can imagine that). Add to that the fact that the shoe won’t last very long for kids in Africa. People in non third world countries buy them because they are different (some may say fahionable) not because they are sturdy.? These kids in Africa will rip through these cheap shoes quick.

TOMS has sold 200,000 pairs making 8 million dollars by my rough numbers.

So is the owner of TOMS,?Blake Mycoskie a real do-gooder making a HUGE profit or is he a smart marketing guy?banking on?Kool-Aid drinking people that?will buy into his marketing?gimmick?

What say you?

As my loyal readers know I often disagree with things Seth Godin says. I haven’t purchased any of his books but do read his blog. For the most part his blog has been pretty mundane as of late?but then he posted an article on being lucky. This caught my attention immediately.

The name of the article is “The Difficult Choice”. Check it out.

Sit back people because everything Seth says in this post is solid and the truth. If I had a nickel for every time a poor boy like me was referred to as lucky, well…I’d be even richer than I am today.

It’s funny how someone like me can be SO lucky all the time. Look folks, it ain’t luck. I’ve been responsible for all my luck but sometimes it’s easier for people that haven’t accomplished what they want to call other people lucky. Seth’s not lucky.

Like Seth I take big time risks. Some fail miserably (no one ever calls me lucky then) and some pay big dividends.

When 911 came we lost 75% of our business. Almost all our clients got laid off from their companies. What did I do? I closed down the office and gave everyone the opportunity to work virtually from their homes. This saved me tremendous capital expenditures and it made the employee’s who stayed much happier. Was it luck? It was a big risk for sure that paid off. I made my luck. and in return my employee’s are the happiest they’ve ever been.

So the next time you question someone’s success whether it be a company or individual remember one thing. It’s a lot easier to call someone else lucky than take the chance at making your own luck.

It’s Monday AM, I’ve consumed cup of Joe #1?and I’m ready to go.

Spike Jones at Brains on Fire writes an interesting article on Chick-Fil-A. I’ve personally never eaten at?or even seen a Chick-Fil-A restaurant so I can’t possibly post on the topic of how good they are. But they have annual sales over 2 billion so things can’t be bad huh?

I can say that the name itself is really confusing to me. Anyone know where they came up with the name?

Anyways Spike goes on to tout the things that make them great. And here’s part of the rub. Spike, like many word of mouth marketing companies?promote this research called the “Net Promoter Score“. Here’s what?the Net Promoter Score is:

To calculate your company’s Net Promoter Score (NPS), take the percentage of customers who are promoters (those who are highly likely to recommend your company or products), and subtract the percentage who are detractors (those who are less likely to recommend your company or products). The equation below is how to calculate a company’s NPS.

% of Promoters – % of Detractors = Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Now we’ve been conducting statistical research for over 15 years. Both quantitative and qualitative. Stuff with meat on the bones. Why these word of mouth marketing companies are backing this very simplistic,?voodoo math is beyond me. It’s literally one question. That my friend is not?information (or lack of)?I want to bank on. But a lot of the word of mouth marketing people like Spike (who calls?Chick-Fil-A’s score “Rockstar Status”)?are really behind it? I’m really surprised that anyone could get behind a 1 question analysis.

Now I’m not saying the Net Promoter Score is all bad. I think it would make a great additional question to a more in-depth research initiative. It could help support a finding or be part of a finding. But it can’t alone BE the finding.

Read what other “non word of mouth” people have to say here:

http://www.crm-guru.com/net-promoter-score-good-tool-or-too-simple.php

http://customerexperiencematrix.blogspot.com/2007/07/more-attacks-on-net-promoter-score.html

http://www.atypon-link.com/AMA/doi/pdf/10.1509/jmkg.71.3.39

Then Spike goes on to say that Chick-Fil-A had 333,689 mentions in blogs. So I searched the next crappiest competitor, Burger King: 609,000 mentions,?and Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC): 2.7 million mentions?so Chick-Fil-A is no big thing when it comes to blog mentions (by the way a lot of those mentions could be negative). Again it seems like these new?word of mouth marketing people use blogs as a crutch for measuring?performance.

Then Spike was kind enough to mention that there were 1120 YouTube videos on Chick-Fil-A,?although he neglected to say that a majority of those videos are from the Chick-Fil-A Bowl Game. I did the same search on YouTube?for KFC and found 12,300 videos (not all good for sure) which is considerably more. He then touts the 8300 flickr photos (KFC has 35,000).

The funniest number he reports is the amount of tweets on twitter. Apparently there?has been?”numerous”?tweets but what Spike neglects to say is that this number includes any tweet with the word “chick” in it. Like the many tweets that said “I was watching this chick flick”. Imagine how many tweets that have the word “chick” in it?

So according to Spike Jones at Brains on Fire it seems to have a good company?you need a lot of blog mentions (whether they are good or bad), a ton of tweets with any part of your name in the actual tweet, a?bunch of flickr photos, some YouTube videos (preferably of a big bowl game you sponsor)?and a good Net Promoter Score, one equivalent to “Rockstar Status”.

That’s a?BIG serving of unicorns, rose petals?and pixie dust. Suddenly I feel like frolicking.

Here’s what I have to say, anyone pushing the Net promoter Score and or the amount of blog mentions to conclude how good a company?is, is… well,?scary. I do not and will not ever recommend the Net Promoter Score as the only research to be conducted.

What Chick-Fil-A does right is apparently serve good quality fast food. So there’s the hook. They have a good product and apparently deliver great service. It’s a nice alternative to KFC and their fat pill. Bingo. You don’t need some fantasy land Net Promoter Score or blog mentions?for that do you?

Sounds like they’ve done some really good branding over the years and are dedicated to their brand identity of the best quality chicken in their space.

I love Monday mornings!

I don’t often write about Starbucks (because everyone and their brother already does) but I’m going to share a difference of views between John Moore (marketing guy)?and Andy Sernovitz (word of mouth guy).

Starbucks has just come out with in my branding opinion another loser marketing?gimmick. It’s called the Treat Receipt:

If you buy some of their coffee in the morning you can come back after lunch for a $2 treat. My thoughts are this belongs in the trash like their $1 cup of coffee. These types of gimmicks are ruining the Starbucks brand.

John Moore at Brand Autopsy wasn’t too happy (read about it here)?and we all know John as a Starbucks expert of sorts.

On the other hand Andy Sernovitz says:

Guess what happens? Everyone is walking around the office saying “Hey, anyone want a Starbucks coupon?”

See the difference between the way John thinks (big picture) versus the way Andy thinks (gimmicks). I’m with John on this one. Gimmicks can ruin a brand identity and image. Stay focused and true to your brand….always.

Verizon is part of a union. Not the type of union that takes pride in providing good service, the type that wants more, more, more. They’re going to strike.

I’m obviously not a fan of Unions. But none the less here’s my take on Verizon and their branding. They suck. The end.

A big part of the reason they suck are their union employee’s that don’t give a rats ass as to the service they provide. Have you called and been put on hold for over 20 minutes? I have. Have you been hung up on?when you complain? I have. Have you scheduled service only to find out they were never coming that day? I have.

Verizon sucks. Their employee’s don’t care or have any commitment to the customer. They do however REALLY care about the health care benefits and pay they receive. If I were Verizon I would make the Union take responsibility for the end product they provide. Why not write in to the new package?something that says:

Customer service level to be over 90% approval?or there is a reduction in pay or bonus. Then those lazy Union people who take cigarette breaks every 15 minutes might actually care about their work?

Maybe then instead of on hold for 20 minutes I’d be on hold for 1 minute. Verizon, please, please make good service part of the new package. I beg of you.

Have you seen the new commercial for RubyTuesday Restaurants? If not click here.

Here’s the gist of it:

RubyTuesday’s is changing. They’re switching the lamps, uniforms and more importantly going from round plates to square plates (give me a break). Looks like they’re trying to be a little more upscale. I wonder if the food won’t taste like a brick now?

Here’s the deal, switching decor and uniforms gets you, um…no where. RubyTuesday is known for its family dining, not being upscale. Why not make the brand identity more about the family. Family and value is the target demographic for RubyTuesday, especially in this economy.

I imagine prices have also increased. I still see the same old salad bar? The brand seems schizophrenic. Any thoughts on RubyTuesday?

I’ve never shopped at Baby Genius. I’ve never heard of them until yesterday. So why the mad props?

My best Friend Scott (yea, same name) told me about a story that I thought was fantastic. One of Scott’s co-workers had twins. So Scott originally went to Amazon to buy a couple of baby gifts. But, unfortunately none of the Amazon suppliers provided gift wrapping (hard to believe).

So Scott found Baby Genius and orderd two of the same gift. A day later Scott had a message to call Baby Genius regarding his order. When he touched base with them the man told Scott that one of the products was not as good as the other and didn’t want to ship it out as he thought they might be for twins (how cool is that?).

So instead he offered an upgrade at no additional cost so that both babies would get the same toy, both in good shape.

Now although I’m a big Amazon fan I’m pretty sure that type of service would have never happened.

More on Baby Genius here:

Tom just released a cool YouTube vid on marketing and magic. Check it out:

I said that in my post here with Best Buy. Look don’t say one thing and do another folks. In today’s blog world you will be found out. Just be honest, thanks Tom!

Okay folks, here’s your chance to really make fun of me, Mr. Kahuna.

On April 8th I bought tickets through Ticketmaster to see Poison, Dokken and Sebastian Bach (formerly of Skid Row). Yea, damn it, I love hair bands and the 80′s!

Anyway I like the really good seats so I bought the VIP tickets. This is the package that is included:

The name of the package is, um, er…

Ride The Wind

?????????????????? ticket located in the first 10 Rows from the stage

?????????????????? Exclusive Poison T-shirt

?????????????????? Copy of the new Poison DVD

?????????????????? Exclusive Poison Bandana

?????????????????? Set of official Poison guitar picks

?????????????????? Ticket package BONUS! Two lucky fans will be upgraded to the Poison “I Want Action” package

My wife and I were really excited about the Poison Bandanas!

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But we did get right up front and that was the goal. Anyways… the merchandise for the Ride The Wind Package was to be received by moi 4-6 weeks after the order date. The concert is Thursday August 7th. Today is Wednesday August 6th…. bubkis.

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I called last week and was told it was shipped on July 25th (some 3 1/2 months after the order) and I was to receive IN TIME for the show. Nope, nada.

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What a way to treat one of 30 people who will be attending this show! I hate Ticketmaster.

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Please feel free to comment below, I have broad shoulders.

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Here’s?a?video that I may make all new clients watch before starting a naming project.

Congress Struggles To Come Up With Cool Name For Anti-Drug Initiative

Would you tell your brain surgeon how to operate? Would you tell an attorney how to litigate? Why do clients feel so compelled in art direction/naming? Isn’t that why they hire us?

Disney’s profits are down, so they raised prices….the end.

Read about it here. What?should Disney do? Here’s what I would have done.

1. Not raise prices during a recession. Raise them all you want, people have less disposable income! Make them $5000 per ticket, we ain’t coming.

2. Be creative. Offer different money generating services to those who have bought the already grossly overpriced tickets.

3. If you are set on price increases spread them out in a lot of different places.?$1 increase in parking, .50 increase for a hot dog, etc.

4. Whatever you do do not say what your spokesman said:

Disney parks spokeswoman Lisa Haines said the price change reflects the entertainment value the company provides to customers.

Wow, can I have another helping of bull crap please! The price increase represents Disney’s arrogance and stupidity.

Rant over.

I hate flying. I’m what you’d call an “anxious” flyer.?In other?words I need at least 5 drinks to walk on a plane. But JetBlue changed all that for me. Comfortable seats with TV’s, great service and all the snacks I could eat. Genius, I say, genius.

Now they’ve hopped on board with the other airlines by charging $7 for a pillow and blanket. Read that crap here. Man, they really squandered an opportunity. Just be honest.

Instead of the bull crap their PR people are pushing (read the pile of stinking lies below):

“Replacing our old, recycled pillows and blankets with this state-of-the-art, high quality take-home kit is an eco conscious, health conscious and customer conscious decision,” said Brett Muney, JetBlue’s general manager for product development. “We are constantly seeking ways to enhance the in-flight experience for our customers.”

They could have spun it this way:

As everyone knows fuel prices are hitting everyone extremely hard. At JetBlue we’ve tried very hard to keep our level of pricing competitive but there just comes a time when we have to stop losing money and pass on some of the increases in fuel cost. Rather than pass an all out price increase we’ve decided to do something beneficial to our service and product.

JetBlue will be replacing our old, recycled pillows and blankets with this state-of-the-art, high quality take-home kit is an eco conscious, health conscious and customer conscious package,” said Brett Muney, JetBlue’s general manager for product development. “We are constantly seeking ways to enhance the in-flight experience for our customers.”

The cost of the new pillows and blankets will be $7. In effort to once again be different JetBlue has partnered with Bed, Bath and Beyond and will supply a $5 coupon in each kit.

Thank you for your patronage. JetBlue.

That’s what I want to see JetBlue. Not a big pile of crappy lies.

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Just received this unsolicited email:

Hi Scott,

I hope you’re doing well.

Thought you and your readers might enjoy this video clip of Gary Busey, a pitchman for Boston-based GotVMail’s virtual phone system, talking about saving Grizzly bears that’s spreading virally.

Erik Arvidson

GotVMail Communications, LLC

197 First Ave., Suite 200

Needham, MA 02494

617.395.5700, ext. 721

800.820.8210, ext. 721

erik.arvidson@gotvmail.com

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Now here’s my take.

First, if you’re going to send me an email to look at something and write on it give me some details on you and your company. Like why GotVMail is using demented, whacked, weird?Gary Busey as your spokesman? Is the answer because he’s cheap?

I’ve seen these videos and I actually feel sorry for Gary Busey. But why in god’s name does GotVMail want to be associated with him? How does that leverage what their brand identity is (whatever that is)? Doing videos that “spread virally” are only good if they tell the story of the brand in some way. These videos are just cheesy eye candy that people laugh at. But not in a good way.

Erik, I’m being completely honest with you and since I don’t know you please take this as constructive criticism. It’s just my opinion of course.

Darn, there goes another blog reader! Does anyone disagree with my assessment?

You have a superstar salesperson on your team.?This salesperson?brought your company the biggest client you have and consistently delivers for you way above their?sales?quota. This salesperson is the best salesperson you’ve ever had as a company.

One day the salesperson says it’s time for?them to retire and spend more time with?their family. So you throw the salesperson a big party and wish them well with many thanks for all they’ve done for the company.

Then 7 months later your superstar salesperson decides to come back. The clients are thrilled with the news but you’ve already hired someone else. A rookie, young salesperson with no proven track record. This rookie interviewed well but has no real experience.

Do you take the superstar salesperson back, knowing they still have the goods to easily beat quota and please the clients (the people that really matter) or do you stick with the rookie and look to the future?

For God sakes Green Bay…He’s Brett Favre

I know I call out some people on my blog with a?BIG dose of my opinion?but there are a few blogs I really, really?dig (in no particular order).

1. Dim Bulb: Jonathan Salem Baskin is one smart, witty guy. If you haven’t found his blog yet click here. Although we?sometimes have different opinions his thinking is really great and unique. I look forward to his daily read in my Google reader.

2. Brand Mix: Martin Bishop is a true branding guy (even if he does have a funny accent). He works for that little up and coming company….Landor. Check out his site here.

3. Brandflakes For Breakfast: Darryl Ohrt writes a very witty blog and has quickly become one of my favorites. Check out their site here.

So far I haven’t picked on everybody, just ask these guys. Thought it might be?time for some positive vibrations!?Otherwise my wife and mother would be the only people to?still love me!

p.s. Go visit these blogs I’m sure you’ll like them.