Brand Autopsy

Jazzy Business Quotes | 5

quote from Presentation Zen (Garr Renoylds)

Jazzy Business Quotes | 4

quote from Presentation Zen (Garr Renoylds)

Jazzy Business Quotes | 3

quote from Presentation Zen (Garr Renoylds)

jumboSHRIMP Marketing | marketingprofs.com

You’ve seen the YouTube video version, now read the print rendition of my jumboSHRIMP Marketing presentation …

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FULL ARTICLE | jumboSHRIMP Marketing marketingprofs.com (free req. req’d.)

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Jazzy Business Quotes | 2

quote from Presentation Zen (Garr Renoylds)

Jazzy Business Quotes

Garr Reynolds over at the Presentation Zen blog has more tasty quotes from jazz greats which apply to the life of business and the business of life. Great stuff Garr!

Coke BlaK Tasting Notes

Paul Williams, of the Idea Sandbox, recently shared his impressions of Coke BlaK, a coffee infused cola. He also shared an amusing story of when we cracked open and tasted a long-expired coffee soda beverage called Mazagran. Mazagran? In 1994, before Starbucks partnered with Pepsi to create the bottled Frappuccino product, they first produced a coffee-infused cola beverage called Mazagran. Mazagran didn’t last long but while doing the marketing thing at Starbucks, I managed to get my hands on a dusty box of Regular and Spicy Mazagran bottles. Before I left Starbucks in January of 2003, I cajoled Paul into sampling a long-expired bottle of Mazagran – click here for the pictures.

Anyway, I bought a four-pack of Coke BlaK this afternoon and like I did with Pepsi Spice, I’m sharing my tasting notes

Coke BlaK Tasting Notes

Color:
Mahogany autumn-brown hue

Nose
Slight sparkling sweet ginger effervescence gives way to a medley of hazelnut, roasty, and woodsy notes. A subtle coffee aroma is present but overshadowed by other aromas.

Flavor
Initial sip reveals a generic cola-like flatness leading to coffee infused velvety caramel cola flavors. A rounded sweetness with tartness on the sides of the tongue is prevalent but the mouthfeel lacks substance. The finish is tame and heavily tarnished by the artificial aspartame sweetness.

Impressions:
The coffee flavors are underwhelming and when present, taste like low-grade, light-roast artificially-flavored coffee. You could probably recreate the flavor of Coke BlaK by opening up a can of Tab cola and adding a small droplet of brewed hazelnut coffee. Seriously, Coke BlaK tastes a lot like Tab with a slight hint of bad, flavored coffee.

Given all the snazzy and heavily aspirational creative promoting Coke BlaK, this is another example of marketers overpromising and woefully underdelivering. By year’s end, Coke BlaK will enter the blaK hole of beverage missteps from Coca-Cola.

What's Goin' On -- Presentation

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UPDATED 1:45 PM | JAXMAC Folks ... scroll below to find links to videos mentioned from today's technology challenged presentation.

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I’m in Jacksonville, FL today talking marketing stuff. In particular, I’ve been asked to address the following:

Word-of-Mouth, Viral Campaigns, Product Placement, and Branded Entertainment are all the RAGE in marketing today. Is Traditional Advertising dead? Can advertisers really create Word-of-Mouth? Has Product Placement become passé?

Wide ranging topic, eh? Well, I put together a presentation which addresses all that and a little more. A collage of a few sample slides are below and you can also download a low-res version of the presentation by clicking on the download link at the end of this post.

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DOWNLOAD LINK | What’s Goin' On [.ppt (5MB)]

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Video Links

1 | George Masters iPod video
2 | Converse Gallery (website full of fan-created videos)
3 | I’m into Nuggets Y’all video
4 | Ronaldinho NIKE video
5 | Microsoft does the iPod packaging video

jumboSHRIMP Marketing Video on YouTube

What started out as a whim ended up being ... what I think is ... a worthwhile endeavor. This weekend I decided to create a super-condensed version of my jumboSHRIMP Marketing presentation. Basically, I recorded my voice and synced it up to some of my jumboSHRIMP Marketing powerpoint slides and then converted it into a video. Since YouTube is all the rage, I uploaded the video to YouTube.

View for yourself—click below to watch the ten-minute jumboSHRIMP Marketing presentation.

RSS Readers click here to view the video

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Ya know … posting this marketing knowledge nugget on YouTube makes it so easy for others to share either through an email or through embedding the video in a blog posting. So please, if compelled, pass along this jumboSHRIMP Marketing video to others … especially to anyone looking for a speaker to present at an upcoming business event.

MORE INFORMATION:
>> about johnmoore
>> about BRAND AUTOPSY
>> about My Presentations

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FYI … I’ve setup a Marketing Bloggers group page on YouTube. Consider this a place for marketing bloggers and business clairvoyants to list thought-provoking YouTube videos centered around sharing ideas and ideals. I plan to create more of these video knowledge nuggets and list them on the YouTube Marketing Bloggers group page. You are invited to do the same.

Ghosn Gets It

During the same speech Carlos Ghosn delivered at the New York International Auto Show where he derided automakers for their reliance on discounts to drive sales, Ghosn challenged automakers to reinvigorate their businesses with passion. Ghosn believes passion, not rebates, will revitalize the auto industry.

Ghosn compared the auto industry’s current malaise to where Apple Computer was in the nineties. He said automakers should look to Apple and how its resurgence has been a result of an uncompromising focus on design. Ghosn wants automakers to become more passionate about the design of new cars and trucks and that passion will help reinvigorate the auto industry.

According to Ghosn, the reliance on discounts and rebates to sell cars has made the car buying process, “… less involving, less personal, and less emotional.”

Ghosen’s right on the money. Automakers must make the car buying process more involving, more personal, and more emotional. Just ask any Mini Cooper car owner and they will tell you just how involving, personal, and emotional their car buying process was.

Incentives are an Insidious, Confusing Carousel

During the New York International Auto Show this past week, Nissan’s CEO, Carlos Ghosn, made an impassioned plea to the auto industry to wean themselves from their addiction to discounts and incentives. Ghosn is quoted as saying, "Incentives are an insidious, confusing carousel that no one seems willing to get off.” He went on to say, "You'd be hard-pressed to name another industry so reliant on discounts." [SOURCES: NY Times article and CBS Marketwatch article]

Unfortunately, the discount addiction afflicting automakers hasn’t improved much since Brand Autopsy first made public the EDEO (Employee Discounts for Every One) Epidemic. While the EDEO discount programs may be dormant, they have been replaced by other dangerous discount deals. It has been reported the auto industry discounted, on average, $3,200 per vehicle sold in March 2006. (Oh my.)

Just maybe … this one courageous act by an auto executive will break the Circle of Discount Addiction that automakers are endlessly addicted to.

With Ghosn’s courageous words, the walls of denial are showing initial signs of crumbling, which may lead to finally breaking the Circle of Discount Addiction. Or, maybe the auto executives are too far down the destructive path of discount addiction that they cannot imagine operating in a business environment without it.

In an earlier post, I touched upon the difficulties discount addicted marketers face when trying to break the Circle of Discount Addiction …

"It’s very hard for the discount addicted marketer to maintain any semblance of a normal business life when he’s reached this point. Problems at staff meetings and at off-site business retreats start to intensify and clashes with the legal department over marketing verbiage in advertising collateral become more common.

Faced with these devastating situations, the discount addicted marketer makes a promise to stop using low price marketing schemes. The promise by the marketer may be sincere and perhaps the marketer has come to accept he has a problem and has a desire to stop. Unfortunately, the marketer goes into fiscal withdrawal soon after the last discount tactic expires and unable to withstand the pain, the marketer starts to use again.

Following the broken promises, the discount addicted marketer once again retreats deep into denial. He will use low price marketing schemes less, he says, but he doesn’t have to stop because he doesn’t really have a problem. The circle of discount addiction continues.”

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It pains me greatly to see an industry suffer so mightily from abusing low price marketing schemes. As a marketing doctor with Brand Autopsy, I’ve seen far too many businesses overdose on discounting. And once these businesses OD on discounts … they never seem to recover and regain the marketing vitality they once enjoyed.

The Art of Espresso

Some people bemoan paying $4 for a latte at Starbucks. However, I would gladly spend much more than $4 for any one of these artistic lattes.

Maybe it’s the coffee freak in me, but I was mesmerized by the artistic expressions from this espresso artist. Sure, it takes time to create such art atop a latte. But I think you’ll agree … the little time it takes makes a big difference.

Part 2 | Harvesting Collective Genius

The other week I blogged about a NY Times article on how Rite-Solutions harvests the collective wisdom of its employees. This week Chris Flanagan, from the Business Innovation Factory, clued me in on a video presentation Jim Lavoie (Rite-Solutions CEO) gave last October at the Collaborative Innovation Summit #1. In this video vignette, Jim tells the story of how and why Rite-Solutions developed the internal idea stock exchange. (Hint ... you can skip to the half-way point and listen only to the idea stock exchange story.) Great stuff … well worth watching.

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>> VIDEO LINK<<

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You can also watch other storytelling video vignettes ... including this one from Bill Taylor, co-founder of Fast Company magazine and the author of the NY Times article on Rite-Solutions internal idea stock exchange program. Chris also said this presentation from Dennis Littky on creating a new model for education blew everyone away at the Collaborative Innovation Summit.

Expert who Blogs or Blogger who Experts?

SOURCE: Guy Kawasaki’s The First 100 Days: Observations of a Nouveau Blogger blog posting.

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Hmm … I can’t decide if I’m a blogger who experts or an expert who blogs. Besides, isn’t an expert someone who used to be a pert? Anyhow … chewy quote, eh?

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Hey Dunkin’ … Accentuate the Hate!

”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.’” [SOURCE: Wall Street Journal article (sub req’d)]

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Armed with this research, Dunkin’ is in the beginning stages of remaking its nearly 5,000 U.S. stores to be more like Starbucks without feeling like Starbucks. Huh? Is that even possible to be similar yet dissimilar at the same time? Given the research findings, why isn’t Dunkin’ accentuating the differences rather than blurring the differences between the two?

Take a look at the new prototype Dunkin’ Donuts … sure does resemble a typical Starbucks, right?

In addition to the new pastry case displays and granite-like countertops, Dunkin’ is also taking a page from the Starbucks playbook and playing music in its stores where previously it didn’t. While there will not be comfy chairs in the remodeled Dunkin’, there will be upscale sandwiches with a decidedly downscale name. Feedback from Dunkin’ customers was that “Panini” was too fancy a name to call a hot sandwich so instead, Dunkin’ will call this menu offering a “stuffed melt.”

And get this … Dunkin’ marketers are considering ways to allow its customers to text message their orders in. Wait! If “Panini” was too fanciful a name for Dunkin’ Donuts’ working-class customers to call a hot sandwich, then why would Dunkin’ marketers even bother with fanciful text messaging ordering ploys?

Furthermore, according to this Wall Street Journal article, internal Dunkin’ Donuts research also revealed just how uncomfortable Dunkin’ customers were inside Starbucks. Seems as though loyal Dunkin’ customers didn’t enjoy the atmosphere, didn’t like all the laptop-using customers hogging the tables, didn’t appreciate the tall/grande/venti lingo, and didn’t understand why someone would pay $4 for a cup of coffee.

Conversely, loyal Starbucks customers were just as uncomfortable inside Dunkin’ Donuts. Starbucks customers especially didn’t appreciate when Dunkin’ employees added cream and sugar in their coffee denying them the opportunity to customize their coffee as they desired.

Again I ask … given these research findings, why isn’t Dunkin’ accentuating the differences rather than blurring the differences between the two?

I’m reminded of what Rick Nobles said in a MarketingProfs article,

“If your brand is clearly defined enough to have the power to attract enemies, it also has the power to attract raving fans. And the raving fans of your brand are the ones who return again and again. They're the ones who will tell their friends about you. They're the ones who will wear your logo. They're the ones that almost enjoy the annoyance of your brand-haters and will keep coming back for more.

So don’t fear the hate. Embrace it.”

Dunkin’ you’d be wise to fully embrace the differences that exist between yourself and Starbucks in everything you do. Why risk diluting the Dunkin’ difference by trying to be more like Starbucks? Your current customers want Dunkin’ to be Dunkin.’ So appeal to your raving fans by accentuating the hate. Dig?

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Other Brand Autopsy takes on Dunkin’ & Starbucks include:
Lowest Common Coffee Denominator | Nov. 22, 2005
Will Speed Win | Dec. 10, 2004

THE Lensmaster

There are lensmasters and then there is THE LENSMASTER. David Fleishman, an eyewear enthusiast, is THE LENSMATER. See for yourself at his eye-opening website – it’s quite a spectacle.

SOURCE: Wall Street Journal article (free access)

Talking Word-of-Mouth with Jack Trout

>>> LISTEN HERE <<<

Marketers everywhere … do not pass go and do not collect $200 until you listen to this 19 minute roundtable interview between Jack Trout, Steve Rubel, and Rick Murray. Following all the blog fodder about Jack Trout’s take on Word-of-Mouth marketing, Trout asked Steve and Rick to join him to discuss the merits of WOM.

In the audio interview, Steve and Rick served as great champions for the word-of-mouth marketing cause. And because of their great championing … Jack Trout has a much better appreciation for Word-of-Mouth marketing as another strategic tool in a marketer’s toolkit to promote stellar and staid products. Mucho kudos Steve and Rick for doing a great job for all us WOM practitioners!!!!

Thanks for the heads-up Errol.

Blogging = High School

Excellent riff from Kirsten in her comments about the wretched conversation we've endured ...

"yep - this entire riff makes my point. blogging = high school. and i don't just mean it's petty - its about top dogs and popular people (Top N Lists and A-list bloggers), sucking up (link love), bullies (riffs, spam, and dinkheads), exchange students (like "smurfette") reinventing themselves, and pedagogue teachers (kawasawki) who make too many rules and lists." -- Kirsten Osolind.

Wretched Conversations

Scoble said this.
Shel said that.
Werner said this.
Shel piped in again.
Scoble then challenged Werner to meet after school by the flag pole to settle things.
Shel backed his buddy and buoyed the brouhaha.
Werner added this.
And Shel said more stuff.

Anyone else feel like we are in Junior High again with all this "He Said. Shel Said." babbling? Too bad this conversation went from being naked to wretched with all the back-and-forth bickering blogging. Let’s hope things simmer down between these three so a productive conversation on the business case for blogging can happen.