Bad News, Good News, Better News

Satellite Radio broadcasters, XM and Sirius, seem to be facing a tough 4th quarter because of declining retail sales. Executives always knew that the satellite radio market was finite, but the slowdown has come earlier than expected, but the bad news is that sales may be down as much as 20%, which is a lot in any business.

The good news is that although the rate of new additions is slowing, both companies are posting smaller losses than before! Estimates are by 2010 nearly 20 million American households will have satellite. That’s roughly double the current number, with growth driven by new car sales, where 300 satellite radio stations will come as a standard feature.

The better news is, of course, that with satellite radio, if something important happens anywhere in the world, day or night, you can always change the channel!

Having A Ball!

Over the years a tried-and-true CPG marketing strategy has been the introduction of new packaging. As a tactic it has the advantage of calling attention to the brand and giving marketers something to say, while not requiring too much re-tooling of the brand itself.

Other categories have used it too. Likely you’ve seen versions of it in the sports category, where logos and mascots and colors have been changed, but that’s mainly to done make things feel new and to drive sales of licensed merchandise. But here’s a new one: repackaging the ball.

Last month the National Basketball Association tipped off it’s new season with an official new game ball – the first new ball in 35 years. The ball is still being manufactured by Spalding, but there are differences.

The old ball was leather with 8 panels and seams that ran between the panels, converging on both sides of the ball. It had a break-in period of one to two months. The new ball is a microfiber composite, and has 2 cross-shaped panels that interlock. It comes “broken in,” although Shaquille O’Neal pronounced it “terrible” during training camp.

Both are manufactured in China, but the old ball’s color was in the orange to dark brown range reflecting the way leather responds to play and handling. The new ball is “NBA-heritage orange” and has a color half-life of forever!

As to durability and cost, the old ball lasted 70,000 + bounces and cost $37.50. The new and improved ball: 80,000 + bounces and costs $99.99.

If you’re asking yourself the value of the additional $62.49 for the new ball (beyond being color-fast and costing only $0.00125 a bounce), think of this as the future of the game. Denny Crum, Louisville basketball coach once noted, “most of our future lies ahead.” Can’t argue with that!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Berke Breathed, creator of Bloom County, offered the following Thanksgiving prayer: Dear Lord, I've been asked, nay commanded, to thank Thee for the turkey before us. A turkey, which was no doubt a lively, intelligent bird. A social being, capable of actual affection. . . nuzzling its young with almost human-like compassion. Anyway, it's dead and we're gonna eat it. Please give our respects to its family.

In light of Berke’s prayer, here’s our contribution to the holiday, a vegetarian recipe for Wild Rice and Apple Stuffing for eight. You’ll need:

3 cups water
2 cloves garlic, chopped
2 ribs celery with leaves, chopped
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
2 6-ounce bags of corn bread stuffing
1 1/2 apples (your choice), peeled, cored, and chopped
1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 cup wild rice
1 medium onion, chopped
1 tablespoon minced fresh thyme leaves
1/2 cup pecan pieces, toasted
1/4 cup chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Pinch of ground mace or nutmeg
Freshly ground black pepper

Adjust an oven rack to lowest position, and preheat to 325 degrees F.

Combine the wild rice, water, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt in a medium saucepan and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for about 30 minutes until the rice is tender. Drain and set aside.

Melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the onion, apple, celery, garlic, thyme, mace, remaining teaspoon of salt, and pepper, to taste. Cook about 5 minutes. Stir in cornbread.

Stir in the cooked wild rice, pecans, and parsley into the mixture above.

Mix together all ingredients and transfer to the casserole dish.

Cover casserole and bake for 25 minutes. Uncover and continue to bake 10-15 minutes longer.

Thanksgiving is a clearly the most American of holidays. The lavish meal is virtually always a combination of branded products, and is a vigorous symbol of the fact that abundant consumption is the result and reward of effective marketing!

The Brand Keys family wishes you and yours a safe and happy holiday. See you next week.

Shaken But Not Deterred

James Bond, as virtually everyone in the civilized world knows, was the fictional British spy created by Ian Fleming in 1952 and immortalized in films beginning with “Dr. No” in 1962. Fleming wrote numerous novels and short stories based upon the character. After his death in 1964, other writers wrote further adventures, with every year and every decade raising the stakes in terms of an infusion of high-technology toys and weapons, faster and faster cars, and mindbogglingly massive levels of product-placement into the films.

To date, seven actors have portrayed James Bond. They are:
Sean Connery (1962–67; 1971),
David Nivin/Peter Sellers (1967),
George Lazenby (1969),
Roger Moore (1973–85),
Timothy Dalton (1987–89), and
Pierce Brosnan (1995–2002).

On Friday, Daniel Craig will be the eighth actor to play the role. His addition to the list of ‘Bonds’ is leaving fans both shaken and stirred. In the first place, the man is blond! And then there’s the fact that the movie – an adaptation of Ian Fleming's first Bond novel – is one of the few without gadget-maker Q or secretary Miss Moneypenny. The film has been stripped of exotic locations, extravagant gadgetry, bikinied beauties and larger-than-life villains.

It’s said that every decade gets the brands it deserves, and the same can be said about brand-Bond. Craig's Bond has apparently been rebooted as a man not quite secure within his own tuxedo and there is less of the artificiality of the past 33 years since the sainted Connery gave up the role. Craig seems infused with the same spirit of arrogance and élan, the same willingness to drink a man's drink even when he's being slipped a mickey.

As to brand-Bond, in a world where high technology has become as commonplace as an olive in a martini, it's just nice to know that even in the new millennium, somewhere in the world, mickeys are still being slipped!

Imitation Is The Sincerest Form Of Television

Fred Allen originally made that observation, but the same might be said of television commercials.

In the absence of any leveragable differentiating strategy and/or a complete lack of faith in their ad agency, Quiznos has decided to imitate some other advertisers and launch the “Quiznos versus Subway TV Ad Challenge,” a campaign designed to solicit consumer-generated advertising for the brand.

The campaign asks people to submit their ideas for a TV spot to win $10,000, which is bound to generate a lot of consumer-generated entries. There are an awful lot of folks out there who sit in front of their TV sets every night and think, “Boy, I could do better than that! How much did these bozos pay for that ad!?”

On the other hand, most of consumer-generated content is, well, terrible, not particularly on strategy, and not engaging, which are areas that even the most unskilled marketers can still maintain some control over. And if attention is all the brand is hankering, there are more effective means than tossing your brand to would-be creative directors.

Never Let Your Sense Of Ethics Get In The Way Of Doing What's Right.

As the Edelman/Wal-Mart flogging controversy continues, the Word of Mouth Marketing Association released their Ethics Assessment Tool last week which they apparently count on to clarify what's acceptable and what's not.

Apparently the lines between what’s “ethical” and “unethical” are especially blurry when it comes to word-of-mouth, so the organization has come up with a set of questions that ought to make everything crystal clear, even for the most ethically-challenged marketer.

Included are questions like, "Would I be uncomfortable if my family or friends were involved in this campaign?" and "Is there anything about this campaign that we would be embarrassed to discuss publicly?" Well, no ambiguity there!

A grassroots call from critics for WOMMA to toss out the agency – which helped craft the association's ethical standards not long before it broke most of them – has been growing. And while the standards seem well-meaning they have no real teeth to them so WOMMA is calling for public comments through today in order to maximize the tool's effectiveness and comprehension.

Here’s one that ought to make the folks at Edelman happy: The nice thing about standards is that there are so very many of them to choose from.

Marketing Italian Style

We have always held the “bionic” consumer of the 21st century in great esteem. Shifts in values, technology, and 24/7 access to information has shifted power into communities and away from the corporations.

For different companies this reality takes different forms: loyalty, engagement, conversations, consumer generated content. But here’s an example of how it’s working itself out in Italy.

Italian motorcycle manufacturer Ducati has replaced its marketing department with a central "community" function, involving its customers in all aspects of the design, communication, and brand experience.

The key to success: know thy customer as thy know thy brand and recognize that most “conversations” being initiated by brands are simply monologues delivered in the presence of witnesses!

Ciao, United States!

Blogging from Rome today, presenting an innovative approach to establishing financial values for aspects of the hotel experience. We address 2 critical issues: employee behavior linked to guest expectations that provide a calculation of potential “future value” by better managing the guest experience and, in an age when guest “delight” turns into “expectation” faster than an overnight stay, a way hotels can avoid commoditization and maintain guest loyalty.

The link between predictive guest value drivers and employee engagement can identify the financial value of employing programs to change employee behaviors. Now management can more strategically sequence initiatives that address experiential touch-points, quantify financial values derived from increased levels of employee engagement, and differentiate their brands. In a rare instance, actual guest financial and behavioral data was made available for this survey!

Much like vacations, these issues used to be a luxury. In today's world, they’ve become necessities, and, as they say in Italian, “a buon intenditor poche parole” (a word to the wise). If you are interested in a copy of the paper just let us know.