Undercurrents

Dan McGinn on CNBC: Can BP Survive?

Kristen Variola — Fri, 28 May 2010 17:00:44 +0000

Dan was a guest speaker on CNBC’s Street Signs discussing the oil spill’s impact on BP’s reputation. Click here to view segment.

Airtime: Thurs. May 27 2010 | 2:14 PM EST

The End of the Big Gulp Era?

Dan — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 20:29:28 +0000

Children line up for a free issue of soup and bread during the Depression 1932 Courtesy: State Library of NSW

In the 1930’s Eleanor Roosevelt traveled across the country as the eyes and ears for FDR. She was stunned by the depth of poverty she saw and determined to act. The faces of gaunt men, hungry children, panicked mothers stuck with her as she lobbied the President to provide greater assistance to needy families. She promoted WPA programs, created a furniture company at Hyde Park and helped sponsor government funded communities such as Eleanor West Virginia where my mother grew up with her 11 brothers and sisters.

Today, one lifetime removed from that era, another motivated and engaged first lady is likewise engaged in confronting a major societal threat - childhood obesity. How remarkable that we have from gone from a nation where one third was, as FDR said, “ill housed, ill clothed and ill fed” to a nation where nearly every family is touched by obesity and diabetes.

First Lady Michelle Obama joined D.C. United academy coaches, current and former players and others from the soccer community for a “Let’s Move!” youth fitness clinic Courtesy: The Washington Post

This is but another example of a world that has become saturated. With credit cards, calories, ads, noise, pollution, choices and demands. For most people in developed countries today the greatest threat they face is abundance. Managing this challenge is one of the great dramas of our day. Can we transition from “the age of more” which has existed since WWII to an age where quality not quantity is the new model for success. A drama that we will all be watching in the years to come.

Presidents’ Day at Macalester College

Kristen Variola — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 18:04:03 +0000

Our collegue Peter Fenn had a hand in this video Macalester College made where the President of Macalester College Brian Rosenberg gives an insider’s look at their campus and the student experience today. It is a great example of a low-cost, fun, breakthrough communication. Originally posted on February 14th, the video has had over 25,000 views.

United Healthcare - You Might Want to Rethink this…

Dan — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:07:45 +0000

I recently received some marketing materials in the mail from United Healthcare. I don’t know a lot about this particular health insurer. I’m sure they are a good company. If I could give them a little advice however, it would be not to send this promotion package.

Click on the images to enlarge.

What’s wrong with it?
1. Because it is meant to look like a file from a doctor or hospital, it is a little alarming to receive
2. Since it’s obviously an x-ray, your mind races to recall what x-ray you or a family member has had recently
3. It’s meant to be funny, but it falls very flat
4. It’s expensive. Doesn’t look good for a healthcare provider to spend money this way.

As I said, I’m sure they are a good company. This campaign is just way off-key. What’s your reaction to this marketing strategy? Leave us your thoughts in the comments.

Golf Digest asks Dan: How Can Tiger Get Up From His Fall?

Kristen Variola — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 18:58:45 +0000

After Tiger Woods crashed his SUV into that tree outside his home on the day after Thanksgiving, Golf Digest asked TMG Strategies Dan McGinn and other crisis management experts what Tiger should do to restore his reputation. Dan said:

“He is going to have to have a new humility. People want to know ‘Do you really get it? You hurt a lot of people.’ Does it look like he wants to earn it back rather than just get it back?”

Did Tiger meet that test in his statement today? The viewers will have to be the judge. But when golf blogger Phil Capelle reviewed all of the advice given by the top crisis counselors, which one would he hire? Dan McGinn.

Toyota Recall Crisis

Dan — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:06:37 +0000

Like many people, I’m following developments with Toyota very closely. This is a fascinating and incredibly important consumer/business crisis. From my experience in helping numerous corporations, universities, government agencies and non-profits work through complex crisis events, I would offer 3 thoughts on Toyota:

1. This story has a very long way to go. The facts are still being sorted out. Consumers are rightfully disturbed, but they haven’t made any final judgment on Toyota because they don’t yet know what to expect.

2. This re-levels the playing field in the US for all manufacturers. This proves once and for all that quality isn’t something one company or one country owns.

3. Toyota is just the latest shocking breach of faith for consumers. Going back to Enron and the Catholic Church, and more recently with Tiger Woods and Mark McGwire, we have grown used to disappointment.

Let us know what you think in the comments.

Additionally, I was a guest on CNBC today along with Michelle Krebs, of Edmunds.com, to discuss whether Toyota can bounce back from its latest round of problems and who will be the winners if they can’t. Check out the clip below.

Dan McGinn Featured on Bloomberg

Kristen Variola — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:08:06 +0000

Dan McGinn has made a science out of studying trends — not fads that disappear in a season, but deep-rooted cultural shifts that forever alter the way we look at the world. His passion for reading trends recently caught the attention of noted journalist Al Hunt, the executive editor for Washington for Bloomberg News.

Hunt, the former Wall Street Journal Washington Bureau chief and a long-time television commentator, described Dan as “a business consultant who thinks outside the box.” Dan is skilled at identifying “patterns and trends that give a sense of where we’ll be tomorrow and a decade or a generation from now,” Hunt wrote. “He has a penchant for understanding what these patterns and phenomena suggest.” The implications of such insights for every organization — businesses, foundations, universities, and others — are clear. As Hunt writes, “successful businesses over the last generation have been created or run by those who appreciate and understand the ever-changing nature of American society, customers and consumers.”

Dan knows that change is the byword of our times and that the businesses and institutions that anticipate the coming waves of social and cultural changes are the only ones that will continue to prosper and thrive.

Needing Weatherman to Know Way U.S. Wind Blows
By Albert Hunt

Social Media Summary

Kristen Variola — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:07:51 +0000

Here’s a look at what’s news-worthy in the social media space this week:

Today on YouTube’s official blog, CEO and co-founder Chad Hurley announced that the video sharing site serves well over a billion views a day. In his post, Chad takes a nostalgic look back at the three years since YouTube was acquired by Google.

Yesterday Twitter encountered a problem that caused many users’ timelines to be delayed. While nothing like early August’s denial of service meltdown, the event was certainly an inconvenience. For a few hours in the early afternoon, Twitter users were not able to see real time updates in their stream, but luckily search and the ability to update were functioning properly.

This week Chris Brogan hosted the Inbound Marketing Summit in Boston. The conference featured some great speakers including Valeria Maltoni from Conversation Agent. Valeria says when people ask her what is the most effective form of marketing, her answer is valuable content. You can view her presentation here.

President Obama has been in the social media spotlight as of late. The announcement that the President had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize took 3 of Twitter’s 10 trending topics this morning. Twitter users are congratulating, expressing concern, and commenting on the news.

SNL’s infamous skit mocking the President’s accomplishments this past Saturday has also brought him to the forefront of social media this week. The video has been SNL’s first viral success of the year from online viewers on Hulu and NBC.com.

Dear Television: I’m Sorry, But Prime Time Doesn’t Work for Me Anymore…

John Towriss — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:43:04 +0000

I have four kids at home. My life schedule after work is a blur of activities, logistics, dishes, homework and mediation of disputes that last all the way until the last kid is stymied once again after he thought he figured a way to stay up past his bedtime. On a weekly basis, it is a schedule truly worthy of a NASA super computer to figure out. So watch TV in prime time… are you kidding? No chance.

Yet, I’m from the TV Generation… we grew up with sitcoms, dramas and now reality shows. I was bred to watch TV and spent much of my adult life working in 24-hour TV news at CNN. I’m in the 24-54 demographic for Pete’s sake… I am TV’s best friend! But life has changed and so have our schedules and so has technology. I don’t know what is taking so long and why others don’t see this all coming together like I do. So, let me put it this way, I know what I want went it comes to watching television and it suddenly dawned on me the other day that soon I will get it.

It’s really quite simple: I want to watch what I want to watch, when I want to watch it on whatever device that I choose. I want that device to be two-way, wireless, handy, with a killer screen, with charged and long lasting batteries where applicable and constantly capable of connecting to the news sites, entertainment sites, social networks, app stores, ebay and I’ll throw in Google Earth because, well, it’s cool. Is that too much to ask?

Yet I don’t have that today. Or don’t I? I already pay iTunes/NBC $1.99 for every episode of Law & Order, which I watch at my convenience on my iPod touch and rarely in prime time. I can also go to NBC.com and watch a missed episode there. I have the Verizon FIOS service at home, which brings a host of services into my house on one thin strand of glass. And that’s my point. It’s already one pipe to the service providers such as Verizon. It’s me and my way of looking at the world that divides that pipe into TV, phone and internet service.

You have heard of IED’s in Iraq… well how about IAD’s at home? Internet Assimilation Device - is there any question that in perhaps less than 5 years a TV will be little more than another outlet to display a connection to the internet and all the world it opens up? Honestly, it will be easier to find the programs I want to watch that way. Will anyone ever need a TV Guide again?

The truth is that very shortly there is likely to be little difference between the capabilities of the 3-inch iPhone screen, 6-inch Kindle screen, 10-inch Netbook screen and 75-inch home theatre screen. They will all draw content from the same locations and give me the same choices of information, entertainment and two-way interaction.

Anyone see it differently?