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NOVEMBER 18, 2008
The Argyle Cruiser
When I was in high school, I shopped at the Gap… a lot. Most of the kids in my high school did. It was actually considered a “hip” store in 1995. I’m not exactly sure when or why I stopped shopping there – maybe it was because my style changed over the years and Gap’s didn’t – but, apparently, I’m not the only one. A recent article in The New York Times discussed the troubles Gap is facing, and questions whether the clothing company, famous for its holiday commercials, has lost its edge.
I think that Gap’s troubles extend beyond losing its edge; it appears to have lost its focus too. One thing is for sure: when I was a Gap shopper, the chain was not attempting to sell $6,000 Vespas or $500 bicycles!
Last year, Gap partnered with Vespa to offer consumers the “Crazy Stripe” Vespa LX50 for $6,000. And this year, I suppose in an attempt to be “greener”, it decided to partner with Electra bikes and sell “The Gap Argyle Cruiser” – an actual bicycle with a blue argyle pattern – for $499. Wait…what?! I don’t get it. I mean, I’m all for companies branching out, reinventing themselves, and being open to change, but this just doesn’t make sense to me. A bicycle does not scream “logical extension of a clothing brand” to me.
At TMG, we believe that the most important thing a company can do is listen to consumers, in order to design and offer products and services that meet their wants and needs. I’m not so sure that Gap is listening. What do you think? “The Argyle Cruiser” - good idea or bad idea?
NOVEMBER 5, 2008
An Apology Goes A Long Way
I really like JetBlue. Not just because of the comfortable seats, in-flight DirectTV, or even because of the cool events the company sponsors (although I was lucky enough to have one hosted near me recently). I like them because of this:
Subject: Our Apologies…
Earlier this afternoon, I had received a JetBlue promotional email - a fairly regular occurrence as part of my membership in the company’s frequent flier program, TruBlue. I thought the subject line was great and suited JetBlue’s typical, laid-back style. But, when I was opened it, I was disappointed to see who it was addressed to:
Subject: It’s been awhile… we miss you.
I initially wondered if the company was making some bizarre attempt to be cute & random by addressing to me as ”Soandso”. (Some marketing can be a little out there.) But, the “Mr.” confirmed that there was no way this email was meant for me. I’m not particularly sensitive, but this lack of personalization bothered me - and evidently it bothered a few other people as well. I immediately shared the email with my co-workers, looked up the email address of a friend who works with the company, and contemplated sending him an note about it.
That is until I checked my email again and found the apology.
Maybe it’s because I’m still coming out the election day haze - a time when we all were bombarded with messages revealing alleged secrets and half-truths - but I find this prompt apology incredibly refreshing. Received just about an hour and half after the Mr. Soandso message, email #2 was simple and refreshingly straightforward: We screwed up and we’re sorry for it.
I don’t always expect companies to be perfect, but sadly, I do expect that most companies would try to cover tracks and bury mistakes. That is why acts of honesty and transparency stand out. You’re having a hard time? Tell us. You messed up? Admit it.
Because in most cases, we’ll like you even more.
NOVEMBER 3, 2008
“I Saw Your Face In A Crowded Place…”
“…and I don’t know what to do, ‘Cause I’ll never be with you.”
James Blunt obviously craves a meaningful life - and, like many others, he finds it through romance. For the rest of us, all we really have to do is browse through the “Missed Connections” page on Craigslist.
Last week I read an article on CNN.com entitled “‘I saw you’ romance ads wildly popular.” The author writes,
Craigslist, Kizmeet.com, ISawYou.com, SubwayCrush.com – these missed-opportunity matchmakers have become a staple of online modern love. They’ve also become a way for some singles to fantasize about the people they’d like to meet and those they hope will want to meet them.
Mary Robertson, a documentary filmmaker in New York City, isn’t surprised by the appeal of the missed connection. She’s been working on a film about the phenomenon for almost a year. “What inspires me about these ads is the density of the narrative,” Robertson says. “The longing, the romance – all in this small space. They’re like haikus.”
Blogger J. Stone at That’s So Fetch does not feel so inspired. Stone writes,
Craigslist’s ‘missed connections’ gives soft-spoken people with a self-aware cowardice the chance to reconnect with a girl/guy they saw perusing the cereal aisle or the buxom blond who smiled back at them at the airport. . . . I would really like to know the average IQ of these people. Instead of posting anonymously on the internet about some chick you missed out on, how about you work on your interpersonal skills?
One could certainly argue that the growing popularity of “missed connections” and “ambient awareness” is actually a reaction to social isolation – the modern American disconnectedness that Robert Putnam explored in his book Bowling Alone.
Indeed, have the internet and accompanying communications technologies actually made us feel lonelier than ever? More socially inept than ever? Are we purposely, purposefully - and, yes, perhaps cowardly - “missing the connection” in hopes of a fatalistic reunion on the internet? Some believe fantasy love is better than real love, after all.
Ultimately, whether you admire or pity people who track down alleged “missed connections,” you have to admit that the appeal of missed-connection Web sites may indicate a shift in how people approach the search for love.
SEPTEMBER 26, 2008
I Surrender. Email, You Win.
I recently identified the single biggest source of stress in my life. No, it’s not the work/family balance. It’s not the status of my retirement savings, either (though that may be because I haven’t looked at my account balances since the collapse of the banking industry this month). It isn’t even the terrorism-global warming-general state of disaster trifecta that the world is currently facing.
No, the biggest source of stress is my complete inability to keep up with email.
My work email, for one, is out of control. Yes, I know it’s a cliche these days to complain about how many emails you get - people seem to trumpet those numbers like battle wounds. (”I went to lunch yesterday and came back to 200 new emails!”) But the reality is that the amount of email we all send and receive is exploding. Some days, I don’t actually do any work - I just respond to emails, half the time asking other people via email to do things, and the other half trying to find the right folder to file away the rest of my emails so that I can find them later, when I do finally get to the work.
But my problem goes way beyond my work email. There’s my personal gmail account, which is connected to my blog, and which seems to expand exponentially every week. Gmail has its good points, but the fact that I can’t move emails into files doesn’t help my mental state. The number on the inbox never goes down, it only goes up. Getting through that account is a never ending task.
And now there’s Facebook. I get messages on Facebook, plus comments on my status and posts on my wall. That’s three separate places for me to accumulate unreturned email, all of which need to be checked individually. Don’t get me wrong - I am not complaining that people are contacting me. I am grateful to friends who take the time to get in touch with me, and I am happy to hear from them. I just get stressed about when I will find the time to write them back.
Unclutterer has some advice for how to get email under control. This is my favorite piece: “Starting right here and right now, you’re going to process your email as it comes in, and as you’re done with each message, you’re going to either delete it or file it away in a folder separate from your inbox.” Great advice - if you can follow it. But if you’re reading email on the road, or you work part-time, then this is tough to adhere to. For one thing, deleting emails on my Blackberry doesn’t delete them on my desktop, so I can’t delete-as-I-go.
Here’s some even better advice:
Ask yourself: if an email is older than a month, does the sender really still expect a response? Be honest. Most likely, the answer is no. If it was that important, the sender probably contacted you again more recently, or using another method. This may seem scary to some folks, but I recommend taking all the messages older than a month (or even two or three weeks, for the brave!) and simply moving them into your email archive.
That definitely does take some nerve.
Missionary Geek, who says that most of us feel “vaguely sick” when we look at our inboxes, also has some recommendations for how to keep them under control.
Unless I do something drastic - and soon - I am in danger of email meltdown. What do you do to keep your inbox under control?
SEPTEMBER 10, 2008
You Can Block Spin, But What About Spam?
Some interesting news flashed across my Google Reader screen this morning: SpinSpotter, a Firefox add-on that uses a series of algorithms to detect “spin” in news stories, has gone live.
According to the BusinessWeek article, SpinSpotter’s basic features include functionality to detect and flag violations of the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics. In addition to that, the program will rely heavily on input from its users, who can flag specific instances of bias and spin that may not be detectable by the program. Those individual flags will be incorporated back into the program itself, so it has the capability to adapt to new kinds of spin.
Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to check out the program for myself, but reading the interview with company officials, a few red flags pop out at me. First, there’s an assumption that media bias is a two-sided affair - that if there’s bias, it’s against Republicans or Democrats - when in reality, American political opinion is much more multifaceted than the old left-right continuum would suggest.
My other issue, though, is a little more substantive. I believe strongly in the power of an adversarial press - where people, reporters, and companies with different opinions can contribute their points of view. Certainly there must be ground rules, and if a journalist is merely repeating the talking points of a political party then he or she deserves to be ignored. But part of the marketplace of ideas is a vibrant press, filled with different points of view, that allows readers to decide what’s relevant and what’s not.
An adversarial press relies on diversity of outlets - something that has been in short supply over the past 50 years, when most cities have only one daily paper and three television stations to supply the news. But the internet and social media have changed that by allowing the kind of diversity of opinion in the press that existed before the big media conglomerates. To gut that diversity by using an automated spin remover seems to me to be missing the point of social media entirely - that it’s supposed to be about individual opinions.
Beyond that, there’s very little evidence to suggest that Americans are interested in bias-free news. For instance, a Rasmussen poll shows that 87% of Fox News viewers plan to vote for John McCain in the upcoming elections, while Barack Obama holds smaller majorities of CNN and MSNBC viewers. It’s clear that in this case, we’re selecting the media outlets that we think best fit our views. It’s no different in newspaper-land: conservatives here in DC read the Times, everyone else reads the Post.
While SpinSpotter’s efforts are certainly noble, ultimately I think it’s a lost cause. Even if we were interested in reading non-biased news, the nature of bias is so complicated that it seems impossible to truly remove it.
AUGUST 18, 2008
And You Thought Only The Government Was Eavesdropping On You…
In and around Washington, D.C. you encounter tourists on a daily basis. Whether on the Metro, walking around downtown, taking a tour of the monuments or going to souvenir shops, it is inevitable that you will run into tourists at any time of year. Sometimes these individuals might be talking loudly and you have no choice but overhear some of these conversations. And sometimes, those conversations are absurd, comical, or puzzlingly ignorant. I should note, however, that it is not just visitors to the city that make some of these interesting statements. Yes, on occasion even the city’s own citizens engaging in strange conversations.
When you hear something you think is too good to keep to yourself, you may call a friend or send a text. But today, I am pleased to inform you that there are better, more public outlets for all these befuddling statements. For your pleasure, Eavesdrop DC and Overheard DC from DCist. These sites/sections specialize in posting anonymous conversations that are too good not to share. Whether the source is local or a tourist, these sites include up-to-the-minute reports of some of the city’s “best” offerings. This is just another example of how anything anyone does in these hype-media times can (and probably will) find its way onto the internet.
What does this mean?
Be suspicious and cognizant the next time you are talking in public, because you never know when someone is waiting to post part of your conversation on the internet. It could be that person standing next to you in line at the store, walking down the street, reading a book on a bench, or that guy looking at you and talking on his shoephone.
AUGUST 13, 2008
Technology: Friend or Foe?
Life today without WiFi and BlackBerries has become unthinkable. These technologies, which we cannot live without, have arguably allowed us to become more connected than ever. We do business more efficiently, pay bills faster, and take care of more errands, all with the help of the technology we love. But is this newfound connectivity killing real human interaction? Steven Hodson asks this question in this post on Mashable:
I know I am not alone in this but sometimes I get the feeling that as a human race we are slowly losing the ability or desire to appreciate the things in life that we are so eager to try and replace with technology.
[snip]
If this is the case then I think it speaks sadly for our society as we apparently are distancing ourselves from each other. As much as technology in some ways is trying to make our lives better, we should also not be willing to so easily give up on the real human act of interaction.
I wonder if our social skills have declined just because we don’t utilize them as often as we used to. With all the options we have to “talk” to one another it’s easy to go for years without having a conversation face-to-face and still keep in touch with a dear friend.
With services like Slydial, it’s not that crazy to imagine a world where we stop talking to each other altogether and rely soley on voicemails, emails, and instant messaging. What is Slydial? It is a free voice messaging service that connects you directly to someone’s mobile voicemail.
From Slydial’s website:
Create the illusion of communication
You maxed out your emergency credit card the first week of school. Your parents are looking for some answers. A text message isn’t going to cut it but a voicemail would mean that you tried calling them.
Talk about a decline in real human interactions! I promise not to Slydial you, if you promise not to Slydial me!
AUGUST 11, 2008
We Moms Have It Good
A few nights ago, I was up late watching the Olympics and reading through email. I checked the latest digest of emails from my neighborhood listserv, and came across a posting from a mom looking for neighborhood kids to join her son’s soccer team (we’re talking 4-5 year-olds, so I use the word “team” loosely) on Wednesdays this fall.
Score! I’ve been wanting to sign my girls up for soccer, but just haven’t gotten around to doing it yet. I emailed the woman who posted, she wrote me back about 10 minutes later (yes, this was 11:45 on a Saturday night), and by midnight the deal was done. All I have to do now is send the check.
My generation of moms has it easy. Think about it: we can do all sorts of things, at all sorts of hours, that our mothers couldn’t. Whether they worked outside the home or not – or whether we work outside the home or not – technology has made our lives a lot easier, and, I suspect, less isolated. Need fall clothes for the kids? Our moms had to squeeze in trips to the store, with squirming kids in tow, whenever their schedule permitted. Me? I go online to Old Navy at all hours of the night when the sales come along, and stock up on whatever we need. Signing kids up for activities? No waiting in line or calling on the phone – I go online to get the girls into gymnastics or ballet classes.
Think about this too – I stay in touch with my friends, those with and without kids – any number of ways, no matter where I am – via cell phone, email, texting, blogging, and occasionally in person. My Blackberry – for good or for bad – makes me instantly reachable to anyone looking for me. I bet my mom had to wait until after we were in bed so she could call her friends or take care of other personal stuff.
The list goes on… Plane tickets? Can you imagine spending your days calling the airlines and comparing fares, instead of just going to Orbitz? Sharing photos with the grandparents by going back to the drugstore and painstakingly filling out those reprint forms? And how about the connectivity that Web 2.0 gives us? When my twins were about 7 months old, I panicked – I just couldn’t figure out how to bathe these two squirmy creatures at the same time without endangering their lives. Off I went to my local Parents of Multiples Club message board, and I had 5 suggestions from veteran twin moms by the morning. (Angelina – if you need some advice, I’m here for you.) For me, my laptop has taking some of the guesswork, the insecurity, and the loneliness out of mothering.
On balance, I feel very lucky to be mothering right now. Of course, my daughters may look back at their childhoods someday and wonder how I managed under these circumstances. But I guess that’s how it always is.
AUGUST 5, 2008
Word-of-Mouth Marketing… It Works!
In the latest edition of an EPM Communications Research Alert newsletter that I follow as part of the New Persuasion team here at TMG Strategies, I saw a startling piece about world-of-mouth marketing. According to the article, ”WOM marketing” is the fastest growing segment of the marketing industry. Surprisingly, in 2007, spending on this form of marketing exceeded $1 billion and is expected to hit $3.4 billion in 2011.
There is no substitute for word-of-mouth marketing - it’s a dire necessity for the success of a company. Studies have proven that consumers trust their friends, families, and even complete strangers more than they trust big corporations. This is why understanding word-of-mouth marketing and its importance is a key element for any growing or fully-established business. According to my Research Alert, about 90% of WOM marketing takes place offline in face-to-face or phone conversations. People are also more likely to think that offline WOM is more credible– which directly correlates to the intent to purchase at a later date.
This is something that everyone needs to keep in mind– no matter what type of company they work for or what type of business they are in. After all, how else could Google have risen to the top as quickly and as efficiently as it has in the recent past?
JULY 22, 2008
Nike, Adidas . . . Under Armour?
Nike’s Just Do It turns 20 this month.
And I bought Nikes before they had the slogan? What was I thinking? Now the slogan has become part of everyday parlance. Why does that matter?
Nike practiced something many companies forget: message simplicity and message consistency.
For twenty years, we’ve heard mostly one thing from Nike: Just Do It. You may love it or you may hate it. Like vanilla or chocolate… everyone has an opinion, but at least they have one. In the case of Nike, it’s mostly favorable.
To me, the phrase embodies a can-do attitude. It is about the art of the possible. It is about making things happen, rather than waiting for life to happen to you. I want to believe in a product, a company, that espouses those values. And it is, in part, because of Nike’s investment in this brand image that the negative issues the company encountered along the way could be addressed – the Nike way.
An example of Just Do It’s opposite, or “message complexity,” was Bill Clinton’s speech at the Democratic National Convention four years before he ran for President. In reflection he said, “It wasn’t my finest hour. It wasn’t even my finest hour and a half.” His was the classic case of an intelligent person who didn’t want to say the same thing in the same way twice, much less in a succinct way. It was supposed to be Clinton’s national coming out, but the only thing people remembered was that he spoke too long. There was no message, no story. He learned this lesson before starting his campaign for the Presidency. During his Presidency, proof of his message consistency could be heard when the traveling press corps would groan and even recite some of his repeated stump speech lines. For Clinton, who was seeking to persuade new audiences, message consistency and simplicity was the goal. Repetition of simple messages gave Clinton a chance to have his message, his story, heard.
Paul Begala, in making the point for message simplicity, asked Clinton “Do you know what John 3:16 says?” Begala’s logic is if the Bible can explain the reason to believe in God in less than 30 words, then their White House team should be able to explain to the American public why its economic plan made sense without giving long speeches or showing mind numbing charts. It’s hard to argue against.
Whether it’s political campaigns or athletic apparel, the landscape is always changing and the competition always trying to win - a marketplace, a consumer or a vote. Today, Under Armour is the Chihuahua (or maybe it’s a Terrapin) sneaking into Kruger Reserve and eating next to the lions, Adidas and Nike. The latter both know they must continue to fulfill and enhance their brand images. Nike is launching a new campaign called Courage. Smartly, consumers are asked to engage. Nike understand that a conversation can enhance its brand. Adidas is investing millions in global advertising that is meant to sweep the Beijing Olympics. And the Chihuahua, Under Armour, is plotting its next moves. It’s even hired a new CEO who is familiar with the lions.
As we talk about at TMG, the message is part of the mix, but innovation and leadership are also essential. Under Armour has had a surprisingly strong start. But can it keep it up and build a global brand? Can it harness the power of message simplicity and message consistency? This Chihuahua (Terrapin) fan hopes so.
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Our culture is shifting all around us. In Undercurrents, we present our observations and insights about where our society is heading.
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