Penchuk.com

Watching the boob tube last night and saw an ad for Ford that had the tagline “Why Ford.  Why Now.”  Mike Rowe (who I’m a big fan of) stars in this commercial and follows up the tagline with “Why Not?”  Seriously?  Is this the best that Ford could do?  “Why not?”  The message I got was, “Hey, why not buy a Ford?  Why?  Why not?”  Oooh, now I’m convinced.  What does this say about their brand?  It’s not good.

My suggestion would have been to drop the “why’s” and just go with “Ford Now”.  Make the tagline a call to action, get people thinking about buying a Ford today.  They could have followed up “Ford Now” with benefit statements that bolster the brand.  Best fuel efficiency.  Low price.  0% APR.  Not enough?  How about the $4,500 tax break?  Buy American.  Ford Now.

I typically don’t criticize Detroit because I think they’ve got a bad reputation that precedes any actions they take, but this is a bad marketing idea.

Thanks to the wonderful invention known as a DVR, I have a new favorite show:  Pitchmen.  For those of you who don’t know it, it’s about Billy Mays and Anthony Sullivan, two guys that are in the direct response business.  Billy is the bearded loud guy that hawks everything from Oxiclean to insurance.  Anthony is a lesser known talent but also has a business creating ads for products.

The premise of the show is these two guys are looking for new products that they can pitch via direct response.  The products themselves are hit or miss, the banter between the two celebrities is sometimes annoying and the show is a little predictable.  So why is it my favorite?  Frankly, because these guys do marketing right.

They have a formula for what makes a good selling product.  It’s simple, easy to understand, has a low price point, offers good value, demonstrates well and has a “wow” factor.  Once they find a product that has these qualities, they pitch it via 2-minute or 30-minute infomercials.  All of the buzzwords and catch phrases get used:  “Now”, “But wait, there’s more…”, “Order now and…”  And before they dump a bunch of money into something, they test it.  They buy limited media runs in different markets using different approaches.  In the end, they end up with the right products getting proper investments.

Marketing is a trial and error game with science mixed in for good measure.  When I was responsible for product marketing back at NetIQ, I used a similar test, test, test approach to email marketing.  For example, for one email campaign I created three different messages and value propositions.  Buzzwords and calls to action were must copy.  Then I tested each message with a segment of my target market.  The best performing message was then rolled out to the rest of the list.  The end result was an improved response rate and higher sales.  Testing takes a little more work, but is compensated for with improved performance.

I’d be thrilled to spend some time with those guys just to watch them in action.

Today’s Wall St. Journal has a headline that reads: Baseball Mired in a Mysterious Ratings Slump.  The gist of the article is that ratings are down this year and that last year’s World Series had low ratings.  The article posits that other sports leagues playoffs and a public tired of steroid scandals might be to blame.  As a big baseball fan (and someone that tried many moons ago to get into the business of baseball), I’ve done a lot of thinking about what’s wrong with America’s Pastime.

The biggest thing I hear when talking to fans and non-fans alike is that the game is boring.  It’s hard to disagree because at times I can’t take it and change the channel.  What’s boring isn’t the game but the time it takes to watch a game.  My beloved Yankees know how to drag out 9 innings like no other team, especially when playing the hated Red Sox.  Take the series against Boston back in April.  Here are the lengths:

• Friday night, 11 innings, 9 total runs, 4 hours 21 minutes
• Saturday, 9 innings, 27 total runs, 4 hours 21 minutes
• Sunday, 9 innings, 5 total runs, 3 hours 9 minutes

Two games are a little irregular.  One went extra innings, the other has a boatload of runs.  But, that’s going to happen and MLB has to figure out how to NOT make it happen.  Practically no one has the time or the patience to sit at home and watch over 4 hours of baseball.  It’s simply too much.

Compare that to football, basketball and hockey which all have the advantage of a fixed clock.  They know their games will last under 3 hours unless there’s overtime.  A 3-hour game is completely manageable AND those sports are much more action-packed.  There’s a lot more happening with up and down the court action in the NBA.  End to end runs up the ice are thrilling.  Football is violent and has action on every single play.  Part of baseball’s charm is that there is no clock.  But now that games have lengthened, that rather unique feature has become a hindrance in our world of channel surfing, ritalin and Twitter.

Here are my proposals for Major League Baseball.

• Pitcher/batter clock - It would be impossible and against all tradition to put a clock on the field but guys have to get on the mound or in the box and be ready to play.  Viewers get bored when a pitch comes in and then the batter steps out.  The pitcher walks around the mound.  The batter adjusts his helmet or gloves or whatever.  The pitcher takes his sweet time getting back on the rubber.  Then around 22 seconds later, the next pitch is on the way.  There’s 19 or 20 seconds in there where NOTHING is happening.  I don’t think MLB understands that.  There is NOTHING, NOTHING, NOTHING happening that would compel someone with 300 channels to stick around.  This doesn’t just happen once in a while, but rather it happens 5 times when someone goes to a 3-2 count and puts the ball in play on the last pitch.  It happens every inning, 3 times, top and bottom.  Every second is a step closer to the channel changing and a fan being lost.

  MLB needs to set a guideline, say 10 seconds between pitches, and enforce that.  How?  My suggestion would be a post-game review of the time per at bat.  Calculate how long on average every at bat lasted.  What were the reasons?  Who was ready, who wasn’t?  What were the guilty parties doing?  Compile the statistics per batter and per pitcher.  That information needs to be shared with the teams and the players.  Then, set penalties for violating the rules.  You might find that David Ortiz averages 15 seconds between pitches per at bat.  Fine him and the Red Sox.  CC Sabathia takes too long getting on the mound?  Fine him and the Yankees.  There have to be consequences to change the behaviors.

• Bring back the strike zone – The rule book definition of a strike and what is actually called differ.  Wikipedia says, “Historically, umpires often call pitches according to a contemporary understanding of the strike zone rather than the official rulebook definition.”.  That’s a problem.  A smaller strike zone means more pitches.  More pitches takes more time and that drags out games.  MLB has tried to address this but I haven’t seen anything definitive that tells me the problem is solved.  What I do see are pitches just above the belt not called strikes.  Umpires need to be rewarded for using the rulebook strike zone.  This simple change will do wonders for the length of games.
• Intentional Walks – How often does an intentional walk go awry in the majors?  Once in a lifetime is my answer.  I don’t remember anyone ever having an issue with this.  If that’s the case (and even if it’s just 1 in 1,ooo that something goes wrong), just put the guy on first without throwing the pitches.  It’ll only cut a few seconds but they are boring seconds that have zero excitement.  When did you last stay glued to the tube to see whether or not a professional pitcher could intentionally throw 4 straight balls?

The end goal has to consistently get games under 2 1/2 hours.  That’s the magic number.  Go back and watch old games and you’ll see how fast they move along.  Your attention doesn’t wander because the next play is happening quickly.  MLB needs to do this to keep and attract new fans.  If they do this, the game will sell itself and the way they market the overall sport will be less important.

Last week the NC legislature passed a smoking ban. WRAL explains:

North Carolina legislators on Wednesday put further distance between a past steeped in tobacco and a present focused on health care and research enterprises by approving a ban on smoking in restaurants and bars.

The state House voted 62-56 on Wednesday to approve changes adopted in the state Senate. Gov. Beverly Perdue said she would sign the bill into law in the country’s top tobacco-growing state.

Never in my life have I smoked. I’ve always been an athlete and frankly, have never had any interest in smoking.  Not having smokers in bars and restaurants is music to my ears.  Coming home reeking of smoke is never enjoyable and makes you feel disgusting.  One local hangout, in particular, Woody’s Sports Tavern, will be much more enjoyable.   You could go there when NO ONE is smoking and still come out smelling like an ashtray.

All that said, I disagree with the law.  I’ve heard all of the arguments one way or the other, but have come to my own opinion on the matter.  The law didn’t need to be passed as the marketplace was handling this on its own.  For example, back in January, there were two weekends in a row where I went out and about. The first time was to a local restaurant/bar for a drink on a Sunday afternoon.  We watched some football and had a few beers.  The establishment didn’t allow smoking.  The next weekend I went out on a Friday night and hit three places.  The first was for an event at the RBC Center, which doesn’t allow smoking.  Next, we hit a bar downtown that doesn’t allow smoking and finally, we hit a sports bar that doesn’t allow smoking.  This watering hole is aptly named Tobacco Road.

So, I visited 4 establishments that all could allow smoking and none of them did.  These locations acted on their own for various reasons but they did so in a free market.  They did not have to be coerced or forced into the ban and they didn’t need a law to make it happen.  Consumers will choose to visit or not visit a location because of smoking and companies will have to react to the whims of the market or they will perish.  The places I went will get return visits from me because of an enjoyable, smoke-free experience. They made a business decision that separated them from others.  Now the state comes in and artificially removes what I would have considered an advantage.

It’s amazing what the free market makes happen without any outside intervention.  Unfortunately, we (and 30 other states and dozens of other countries) have gone the nanny state route to enforce something that was happening on its own.  If you don’t like smoking for whatever reasons, don’t smoke.  If you don’t like secondhand smoke in a bar, don’t go to that bar.  It’s a simple, personal decision.

One last point.  It’s amazing that North Carolina voted the way it did.  Truly amazing.

It was very interesting to read about Skittles.com and their interesting experiments with various social media.  They should be applauded for taking a bold step and trying something different.  They certainly got themselves TONS of free press, people talking about them and quite likely, a boost in sales.  So, the experiment was probably a success, right?

I’m not entirely convinced.  Let me give you two reasons. Below is what I saw when I visited the site sometime on Tuesday.  Notice the big pile of crap?  It’s an interesting moniker that the tweeter uses, as well.  Nothing quite says yummy Skittles like a steaming pile of dog poop.

Here’s another screenshot.

Kazybrown writes about the saddest thing he ever saw.  SKITTLES!  Perhaps the whole thing is a joke and he just wanted to be included but this isn’t a great association to make with the brand image of Skittles.

So, we’ve got horrible death from an accident and dog shit.  Let’s go get some Skittles.  When a company gives control of its brand and image to others, especially in this day and age, they’re walking a fine line.  That said, the overwhelming majority of what I saw was positive and most likely, people will ignore the excrement and traffic accident type posts.  There will be positive associations made and that’s an important part of branding.  If more people buy Skittles and continue to do so, this will have made a lot of sense.

Seen today on a carpet cleaning van:

5 Room Special $99, Wednesday, Lady’s Day, 6th Room Free

“Lady’s Day”.   LOL.  Does that really work?

It’s so clear that they really value me as a customer.  They miss me and want to spend some time with me, Mr. Soandso.  Click to see this full size.

We get a monthly coupon magazine in the mail and a recent ad caught my eye.  Now, please realize, I’m not in the market for the services this business offers, however, I found it very interesting.  This is an ad for a cemetary:

I love how the company has positioned the message as “pre-need”.  Also, the delicious fine print about how the “offer is not applicable on an At-Need basis”, is morbidly humorous.  In the end, I guess a cemetary is a business like any other (well, not like ANY other, but it is a business) so why can’t they do promotions?

This is a fascinating article about the challenges faced by Dunkin’ Donuts. The basic gist of it is that they are trying to become more upscale to increase profitability but have to walk the line to not alienate their core base of consumers.

Dunkin’ Donuts last year paid dozens of faithful customers in Phoenix, Chicago and Charlotte, N.C., $100 a week to buy coffee at Starbucks instead. At the same time, the no-frills coffee chain paid Starbucks customers to make the opposite switch.

When it later debriefed the two groups, Dunkin’ says it found them so polarized that company researchers dubbed them “tribes” — each of whom loathed the very things that made the other tribe loyal to their coffee shop. Dunkin’ fans viewed Starbucks as pretentious and trendy, while Starbucks loyalists saw Dunkin’ as austere and unoriginal.

“I don’t get it,” one Dunkin’ regular told researchers after visiting Starbucks. “If I want to sit on a couch, I stay at home.”

It’s a really interesting dilemma. People probably fall into one camp or another. Changing their stores is going to be challenging. I mean how do you take their “signature pink and orange scheme” and make it upscale?

According to the Burger King’s CEO Greg Brenneman, in the Wall St. Journal,

…a typical Burger King sells just three salads a day, compared with 300 Whoppers. Salads, he says, help take away the “veto vote” of mothers who sometimes prefer such fare to burgers and fries.

I think the veto vote concept is certainly worthy and has some merit. I’ve seen Laura exercise this kind of veto, but more often it means the whole family goes to Subway instead of Hardees (which I’m arguing for).

The 3 salad a day stat surprises me and makes me question if BK should have salads at all. Let’s assume that these 3 salads are associated with stereotypical families. Dad gets a value meal, the young’uns get kids’ meals. We’re probably looking at $12, $13 for the rest of the family. The salad may cost $5 or $6. So total, for all of these veto related meals, we’re talking about $60 per day per store. Is it really worth having to assemble/ship in salad stuff? Is it worth holding the dressings inventory? What about the salad containers? If they are assembled in house, what’s the training required? Salads aren’t rocket science, but someone has to be taught what to do.

Now $60 times 8,415 US stores equals $504,900 per day. That’s not chump change but I still question if salads are worth keeping on the menu. One things for sure, it will be a cold day in hell before I get a salad at Burger King.