Canuckflack

Persona. A persona is an artificial identity derived from demographic analysis, survey results, focus group findings, and secret shopper interviews. It’s a convenient shorthand in the toolbox carried by user experience specialists - people like product designers, process architects and interior designers.

A shorthand that allows them to pick and choose behaviours, attributes, prejudices and generational stereotypes to support their artistic work.

(let the flood of emails begin - the ones where I’m accused of understating the value and overstating the harm created by personas)

I found this gimmick popping up in a discussion of the design aesthetic (and financial assumptions) behind Aloft, a new chain of high concept, low service hotels.

“… “We believe in trip personas,” [VP of Aloft Brian] McGuin­ness says. “You go somewhere with a persona in mind.” Project architect Bakos talks about the personas he expects will be drawn to a place like Aloft. They’re on-the-road, business-oriented people. And they don’t need shoe shining, laundry service, or a great restaurant. What they need is a place where they can check in, access their e-mail, go to sleep, wake up to natural light, and be able to grab a quick banana on their way out, all in an atmosphere of aesthetic attention and awareness of design. What they don’t need is another Ramada, Quality Suites, or La Quinta….” (Metropolis)

Ahh. So Aloft is like Target. It’s essentially a discount chain, but charges a slight premium for the appearance of exclusivity and the inference of personal taste and influence.

As a concept, it may just work. If Starwood, the chain behind Aloft, can find a way to design and construct visually appealing overnight accommodations while keeping room rates low, it may be able to draw in high-falutin and snobby travelers who suddenly find their expense accounts trimmed.

Of course, you can always wake up to natural light by … camping. Better have a Perma-Prest suit, though.

Now, I know that advertorial copy doesn’t exactly attract the “A team” of writers, designers and editors, but you would think that the New York Times would catch an error this egregious: using the same stock photo clip for a fake article on “nursing excellence” and an adjoining ad for Mount Sinai Hospital.

From last week’s New York Times magazine (May 4, 2008)

You know, with all the focus on immediate prototyping and taking Alpha products to market, I think we forget the basic principles that underly most theories of public opinion research.

If you rely on user testing, your development process is only as strong as the variety and depth of demographics in your user pool.

Image courtesy vcwear.com

Meet Hunter Somerville. While an intern at Ogilvy & Mather in Toronto last summer, he was asked to chip into a campaign by taking a shot at redesigning the back of the Shreddies box.

He now works there as a creative.

The key to winning a promotion in the advertising world?

Demonstrating a canny understanding of the product and its features. Groundbreaking insight into the market you are targeting. (And more than a dash of Machiavellian office intrigue, but let’s leave that to the senior creatives.)

Somerville’s fantastic insight? Tilt the square Shreddies by 45 degrees - thereby creating Diamond Shreddies!

“…”It came from an exercise of redesigning the back of the cereal box,” says chief creative officer Nancy Vonk. “We gave the task to a lowly summer intern Hunter Somerville. His joke idea–make the back look like the front of a new bogus product–was quickly seen as a bigger idea that could become a 360 campaign.” (Creativity-Online)

The idea was so simple, yet so fundamental, that it stopped me cold in my feet. Or cold on my sofa, waiting for American Idol to come back on.

Nothing had changed in the 67 year-old product. Nothing had to change on the production line. Yet the product was positioned as having fundamentally changed.

Even the focus groups were fooled. That’s right. As part of the marketing campaign, Ogilvy & Mather conducted focus groups to test the perceived difference between traditional “square” Shreddies and newfangled “diamond” shreddies. See for yourself. Focus group participants work themselves into identifying the improved qualities of the new product.

As the CMA blog wrote, “Poor consumer. They didn’t stand a chance.”

Even the food obsessives at the Kraft Canada forums are praising the campaign.

In perhaps the funniest twist of the re-branding, Vancouver lawyer George Gould put the “last square Shreddie” up for sale on ebay.

Technorati Tags: Shreddies, cereal, O&M

The political economy of taco trucks, as explained by Jonathan Gold: personal skill, quality products not overburdened by design or packaging, effective location scouting, and feature-rich marketing.

“…I love mini-malls. I love swap meets. I love tamale carts. I love itinerant fruit vendors. I love old Guatemalan women with hampers full of corn on the cob and squirt-bottle mayonnaise. I love the pickups that roam the Eastside, with loads of mangoes or bushels of fresh green chickpeas.I love the guys who lop off the tops of coconuts with rusted machetes.

I love entry-level capitalism at its most chaotic, where the barriers to doing business are on the wispy side of minimal, where a family with a dream and a catering license can support itself selling delicious barbecued cabeza from a truck window, where two dozen oddball eating places can be launched for less money than it would take to open a single outlet of Burger King.

There are plenty of cities in America where freedom is best expressed as the right to choose between Wendy’s, McDonald’s and Carl’s Jr., but Los Angeles is not one of those places. I think that’s why I live here…” (LA Weekly)

Technorati Tags: Taquero, taco truck, Mexican food, fast food, community development, economic growth

Oh Galen Weston, you scamp. I admit, I was on the fence for a while. When you were appointed Executive Chairman of your dad’s company, I was naturally skeptical.

When your photogenic and cherubic mug started showing up in advertising for Loblaws groceries late last year, I questioned the wisdom of the move. After all, Loblaws is the home for President’s Choice, a wide-ranging white label brand that many consider a fundamental part of the Canadian identity.

President’s Choice isn’t just a success because of its delectable butter tarts, shortbread cookies, cheese trays, spreads and holiday train sets.

It’s the brainchild of Dave Nichol, a Loblaws executive who became synonymous with white label grocery products in the frozen North. Through sweat, blood, tears, market testing, brand development and millions of promotional inserts, Dave built the President’s Choice white label brand into a category killer for Loblaws.

But then you started playing with babies. Babies, man.

Let’s remember that Galen is the shining new star of a family ranked by Forbes as the #93rd richest in the world.

How is he gonna come across as personable, down to earth and a straight shooter?

Back in the 80s and early 90s, you knew Dave was simpatico. His ads were full of references to “working hard for you” and ” we’ve kept the same price as last year” and “my team” and “our family.”

Over the past few months, Weston has been working hard to put a personable and young face on the Loblaws brand. Personalizing the brand was first suggested over a year ago, by people like Mark Evans (read the comments, it’s one of those bitter but everfresh posts).

Weston’s clean face, tousled hair and open necked shirt have been pushing products that would appeal to the new and sensitive consumer. Organic baby food. Reusable shopping bags. Phosphate-free dish washing detergent. Apple crisp. Freakin’ apple crisp!

(Which, if you want to watch them, you have to dig into the Bensimon Byrne website under “current creative.” Because ad agency websites suck.)

And in the latest ad, Weston brought out the big gun - he ended the ad with “eh?”

“Clean dishes. And a slightly cleaner Canada. That works, eh?”

Normally, I would be all like “oh yeah? who are YOU to try the common and somewhat stereotypical colloquialism that has branded Canadians around the world?”

After all, eh is not a word to be wielded lightly by copywriters - unless in an excessively ironic manner.

But Galen Weston pulled it off. Bastard.

Good for him.

And I can’t just help myself. Here’s a Bob and Doug MacKenzie clip, featuring a lot of “ehs”:

Technorati Tags: Galen Weston, Loblaws, President’s Choice, grocery, eh, Canadian culture

In a puffy little piece, USA Today points out that quite a few international consumer chains are emphasizing their links to your local neighbourhood (neighborhood for you Americans):

- Tesco’s Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Markets
- Applebee’s
- Kelsey’s damnable appropriation of the Cheers theme song*
- Lowe’s - still a neighborhood store

It may just be me, but if your employees have to read a hundred page jobsite manual and order their pants from a central distribution facility, then you are not a neighbourhood company.

If your signage is designed and produced in another state or province, you’re not a neighbourhood company.

If your general manager is rotated through your store and/or region once every two years, you’re not a neighbourhood company.

Do you have to debate the real meaning of “locally grown”? Not a neighbourhood company.

Do you want a real definition of neighbourhood? Look no farther than Sesame Street. Who Are the People in your Neighbourhood, indeed.

Aside from that short period where Maria converted the Fix-It Shop into a Mailboxes Etc. franchise, I don’t remember a lot of characters complaining about their regional sales quotas or the “word from HQ.”

You remember the lyrics from that catchy ditty, don’t you? If not, here’s a short video, from back when Bob McGrath had sideburns and a spring in his step.

That clip is really quite old and inappropriate, actually: one of the people you meet is the neighbourhood news dealer.

*really, words cannot express how angry I get when I see the Kelsey’s ads overlaid with the theme from Cheers. It’s such a seminal part of my youth - and the development of television - that it would be like seeing the theme from M*A*S*H used for a national chain of funeral homes.

** In fact, if I was Kelsey Grammer, I might even think about a cease and desist order, since the link between his role on Cheers, the name of the chain, and the song are so in-your-face.

*** I’m that upset. Really.

Technorati Tags: Kelsey’s, neighborhood, neighbourhood, local, community, retail

Are your ideas inspirational? Can you challenge others to believe in the impossible? Are you a social butterfly, capable of building links between cool tools and others who are crazy, funny, idealistic, iconoclastic or poetic?

h/t to exitcreative

Technorati Tags: inspiration, Michael Bay, imagination, creativity

For the life of me, I couldn’t understand why a brand manager would buy these ads. An ordinary woman, with ordinary if well-presented clothes, obviously standing in front of a false aisle of consumer goods, blatantly promoting a particular product - sauces, detergent, food.

The most direct comparison? Imagine the scripted pitch and rigid product positioning of an in-store sampling program, recorded with better lighting.

That’s Brand Power, the work of the Buchanan Group, which was featured in the National Post yesterday in an article called “Back to Basics.”

And here I thought Brand Power was a particularly Canadian program - but it’s obvious that audiences across North America and the Commonwealth are seeing one interpretation of the advertisements or another.

“… From a creative point of view the ad executions are awful, but mesmerizing. These are the type of commercials that are generally abhorred by agency brand strategists who spend months deciding on how to sell you breakfast cereal artfully.

“They are not ads that electrify you,” said Anthony Stokan, partner at retail consultancy Anthony Russell Inc. “They are very lame and uninspiring. But that said, they are highly believable because they focus on the essence of the brand and the products.” …”

Chris Clarke has made a strong, and emotional, argument in the past that Brand Power could be considered deceitful and misleading. I agree that the format is designed to appear informational rather than promotional, but I have never thought it anything but blatant advertising.

Some on the scene retail anthropology, at the Tim Hortons donut shop in Khandahar, Afghanistan.

“… Of all the troops who crowd Tim’s counter or queue at the “walk thru” window outside, Barbarie’s personal favourites are the Royal Gurkhas, the diminutive but notoriously lethal Nepalese mercenaries who have fought for the British army for nearly two centuries.

“The Gurkhas are real fighting machines, so I don’t know if they want people to know they like frou-frou drinks that aren’t so manly, but they really love their French vanilla cappuccinos and their honey-dipped doughnuts,” joked the 35-year-old Barbarie, who gave up a job in Canada with a logistics company to serve a six-month stint in Afghanistan.

One of the revelations for Barbarie and the Canadian staff at Tim’s most remote outpost - owned by the Department of National Defence - has been that national tastes differ greatly.

Everyone at KAF, as the base is known, likes French vanilla cappuccinos - including the French. But Canada’s Afghan warriors hardly ever order this beverage unless extra coffee is put in it. The Dutch are keen on hot chocolate. French Canadians love honey crullers, which they call roues de tracteur (tractor wheels) …” (Canada.com)

Why is Tim Horton’s in Afghanistan? I discussed that last year.

Which popular game is a stunning combination of multi-level marketing, addictive design and the worst of subscriber-based advertising on the ‘net?

That would be Roll the Brim to Win, which boldly plays off the popular Roll up the Rim to Win from Canadian coffee and donut chain Tim Hortons.

In the Tim Horton’s game, each coffee purchase gives you a chance to roll up the rim of your paper cup to win prizes like free coffee, donuts, coffee cards, boats and cars. The chain asks you for no personal information and does not sign you up for subscription services.

In the Facebook application, gullible - even stupid - users sign up for an app that rewards you with “Brimbucks,” which are used to buy the online cups needed to “roll the Brim.”

Am I being harsh? No.

In order to keep playing the game, you are provided with several options to earn Brimbucks:

• recommend the app to friends
• invite friends to install the app
• become a fan of the app
• return every 4 hours to “earn” more
• vote for Brim as the app of the day
• fill out “surveys”

What kind of surveys? What about “want to know what your future holds“? Clicking on the link takes you to a site that offers your daily horoscope by text message - all you have to do is enter your mobile phone number.

Stop and read the fine print, though, because you’ll also be signing up for your daily horoscope, delivered by text message for only $1.25 a day.

Or sign up for a book club - or a DVD club - anything that commits you to repeated payments.

Oh - and you’ve already agreed to let Facebook share your profile information and Facebook activity with the application developer - a second year college student from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario and his friends.

At its best, this game gives you several minutes of mind-numbing clicking and the false promise of gift cards “for your favorite coffee shop.”

Roll the Brim to Win player = sucka!

With 49,000 users and 17,000 fans … that’s a lot of morons.

I can’t decide if the corporate folks at Tim Hortons should be worried about this or not. A solid number of the comments on the app page refer to Timmies and Tims - common colloquial references to the chain. The fan photos are almost all images or products featuring Tim Hortons trademarks.

Still, it may not be worth the effort to shut down this app, especially given the millions of real Roll Up the Rim to Win cups distributed during each Tim Hortons campaign.

Technorati Tags: Tim Horton’s, Timmies, donuts, Brim, rim, contest, facebook, mlm

While I’m on a publishing bent, I think I’ll resurrect something I first prepared in the fall of 2005: Incorporating Blogs into the Marketing Mix (.pdf)

The examples are a little stale, but the rationale underlying this 10 page booklet still makes sense.

“… Viewed single-mindedly, blogs are an entryway to an active conversation about your products, your pricing, your retail outlets, or your brand. Bloggers are dissecting your hiring policies, your new store placement, your holiday specials and the nutritional content of your new sandwich.

Bloggers’ll turn on you like a hungry ‘gator

Marketers, however, have to approach this group carefully. Following in the path lit by the Cluetrain Manifesto, bloggers and their readers value transparency, honesty, two-way conversation and above-board behaviour. Any attempt to illicitly manufacture buzz, if discovered, can provoke a maelstrom of negative chatter – which can eventually generate enough interest to be picked up by more mainstream outlets. They aren’t your usual consumer: they won’t be herded, and they won’t eat everything you feed them …”

This will be a first. Faced with economic contraction and consumer apprehension, how will companies increasingly focused on service, brand differentiation, environmental qualities and aspirational marketing react?

How will consumers react? Unlike the last two economic slowdowns, consumers are feeling the credit crunch in their pocket book. Will they change their spending habits? Will they lower their expectations from products, brands or companies?

Or would they expect companies to eat the economic difficulties (including the downstream costs resulting from soaring prices for staples like grains and oil) and spare them the pain while continuing to deliver the quality?

Starbucks has sent a signal: it is slowing the opening of new stores in the United States. Frankly, Starbucks has overpopulated so many neighbourhoods with outlets it could probably close hundreds of stores and maintain its volume.

(Well, maybe. My assumption only works if people are going to Starbucks for its aspirational qualities, not simply convenience. If they think McDonalds or a local coffee house has an equally good morning coffee, Starbucks sales could fall)

Last night, John Moore asked “if Walgreens went out of business tomorrow, would any of us care?”

No. Not really. Just like we didn’t care that Pier 1 and Bombay Co. stores closed. Did YOU notice that Restoration Hardware was in the toilet?
Difference is, I don’t look for aspirational values in my drugstore. I look for cheap children’s Tylenol and brand name toothpaste. And maybe a wide selection of Mother’s Day cards late at night.

Forward-thinking companies like Target have been trying to find a price-sensitive but fashion-forward niche in the general merchandise market. Kohl’s is trying the same trick by hiring Dana Buchman. Ralph Lauren is creating a line of goods for mass merchandisers, with a separate identity from his bread and butter lines.
If the credit crunch continues, and the US dollar continues to be battered in comparison to international currencies, consumers may face a difficult choice between affordable products and all the wonderful product qualities they have come to appreciate and flaunt: environmental sensitivity, design, flavour variation, international influences, and individual portion sizes.

In the end, which comes first: value-added attributes, the pocketbook, or government cheese?

Technorati Tags: recession, aspirational marketing, consumer choice

Meet Mike Holmes. He’s a contractor with a heart, who arrives to repair the mistakes and shoddy workmanship of other contractors. He’s also the host of a very popular show on Home and Garden Television here in Canada.

As you can see, Mike also had a clothing deal with Carhartt, the workwear company (I say had, because he now has his own branded clothing line. I said he was popular).

It’s the perfect alliance - the honest and forthright contractor, sporting rough and durable work clothes.

Trouble is, Mike likes showing off the guns, so to speak. Hammering nails. Cutting boards. Gesturing wildly at the blatant code violations and stunningly dangerous modifications made by the previous contractor.

No tats. No earrings. No leather wristbands or elaborate pendants.

As the picture shows, that means a startlingly genuine character is central to his program.

And no - THAT IS NOT A SPORTS BRO.

Technorati Tags: Carhartt, Mike Holes, HGTV, sponsorship, clothing

You open up a freshly-purchased magazine, and dozens of subscription cards fall out. They clog up every third page, stick to feature layouts, and make you slip on the floor.

It’s a giant waste of paper. And Outside magazine recognizes that its readers, in particular, may not appreciate the mess:

“… Beginning with the March issue, the magazine is cutting roughly 20 million annual sub cards in an effort to save trees and be more sustainable, a palpable concern among its rootsy readers …” (Folio)

Outside seems to think growth from online subscription renewals will eventually replace treeware renewals.

But magazine publishers continue to insist that subscription cards are an essential part of their marketing strategy. After all, what better marketing is there than overpricing single issue sales and then undermining that strategy with a campaign of large scale and drastic pricing cuts based on volume sales?

I think U.S. automakers can answer that question.

Nevertheless, Wired magazine tells us in a blog post that

“…they’re part of our business model. It’s not just about money, really — it’s about your eyeballs. See, advertisers pay based on audience size. And blow-in cards are a cheap way to snag subscribers and boost numbers: It costs a glossy monthly about $10 to acquire a new reader through one of those cards. But using direct mail? $25 — or more…”

As Rex pointed out, Wired delivered this ecologically unfriendly and largely unwanted news in a lighthearted design - in the print version of the magazine, their note about blow-in cards was printed in the design of a … blow-in card.

Unfortunately, the “Death to Blow-Ins” Facebook cause only has 29 members, so this marketing gimmick may have years of longevity left.

Technorati Tags: magazine subscription, blow-in cards

Cross-promotion in support of a cross-promotion campaign!

The gist of this lengthy post: take a negative, add some humour and ingenuity and make it a positive!

God bless Rax from Splendid Communications. His agency has the Marmite account, and as part of their follow-up to a cross-promotion campaign earlier in 2007, he sent me this little note:

Canuckflack, Oh Canuckflack,
How we all love Colin McKay
So we’re writing him this romantic note
Because it’s Saint Valentine’s day!

His quirky take on the marketing world
Fills our lives with daily mirth
Which is why he is without dispute
The most gorgeous blogger on Earth…

You’ll always be our classic rock
As you guide us through what’s new
The communications industry has found itself
A poster boy in you.

Colin – a man like you, who knows his stuff
And can talk all things social media
Fills our minds with many naughty thoughts
About how we want to feed ‘ya…

So we’d like you to try new Lovers’ Marmite,
Which is laced with a bit of Champagne
You should have fellow citizens wondering
About that nice smell on the O-Train…

And so when you’re chomping on your morning toast
Before you head out to Uppertown
Don’t forget to reach for the Marmite jar
But you don’t have to put the butter down

Happy Valentine’s Day from Marmite
You’re our perfect date
Thanks for showing us some love
Instead of choosing to hate!

What cross-promotion, you may ask?

The fabulous Paddington Bear preferring Marmite over Marmalade ad:

But what’s the second level of cross-promotion?

Some little thing called “Lover’s Marmite” - a special blend of Marmite and Champagne only available for a limited time, with a special label on the back. A label where you can write the name of your special darling, as you hand them a jar of yeast extract that says “I Love You” on the front.

The only thing better would be used undergarments from your solo vacation to Thailand.

If that image wasn’t disturbing enough, take a look at the advert for “Lover’s Marmite”:

Honestly, I don’t know why I obsess over Marmite (the product), but Marmite (the marketer) has bowled me over twice in six months!

Technorati Tags: marmite, blogger relations, blogger outreach, Lover’s Marmite

Be like Ron Jeremy

While there may be an implied promise vis-a-vis your package, there is no guarantee about improved attractiveness. In fact, you will probably remain the same fat, overconfident and overly hairy person you have always been.

It’s important to note that at one time - the 1970s - it was fashionable to be a bear. That’s the only explanation for Barry Gibb’s open shirted chest pelt.

Four words. On a thin roadside sign. Alongside Highway 401 just outside Brockville, Ontario.

Cast and Blast Outdoors

Yesterday, I broke with habit, I abandoned a now-established tradition. I called a 1-800 number to make a reservation.

And the customer service representative tried to game me - and the system - twice!

One on the price, and a second time on the after-service quality survey.

Since I have such low standards for call centre CSRs, I expected to be bluffed with a higher room rate, even as I quoted from the website.

Once we had finished the call, though, she asked if I would mind taking a few minutes to answer an automated survey on the quality of her service.

Then she lays this on me:

“…If you thought my service was acceptable, you can just answer 5 to every question…”

Talk about skewing the results!

Ever the contrarian, I followed her instructions - but pressed 5 even before the automated voice had finished the question. My goal? to make sure the system knew something was wonky with their survey.

It worked. At the end of the “few minutes,” another automated voice noted that my answers had seemed unusual, and offered me the opportunity to leave a voice comment about my experience.

Starbucks is dropping organic milk from its list of options available to caffeine addicts. Apparently, the regular milk is now free of growth hormones, which eliminates the need for organic. (Oh, and drinks with the milk accounted for less than 1% of total drinks sold.)

Which seems a little strange. After all, even your local corner store is carrying organic products. It’s a trend sweeping the nation! Why drop the pretension, even if the benefits are now available in regular milk?

But Starbucks is focusing its product line, and that means cutting some things out. And some afficionados, naturally, are seeing the move as something of a betrayal, even if their organic milk tasted bad and wasn’t well promoted.

“…Goodbye, Starbucks organic milk. You sucked, but at least you offered hope… (Sustainable Scoop)

via Grist, via WSJ

Technorati Tags: organic, consumer choice, Starbucks

As you know, I love a good quote. I admire an executive that can turn a good phrase. That’s why I was impressed by Seth Heine’s quotes in a recent feature on the recycling of cell phones in the New York Times magazine.

Heine runs Collective Good, one of several companies that recycle cell phones, phones discarded for a variety of reasons, from the barely out of fashion to the brick-sized.

Heine has obviously had some experience in describing his business, managing to wedge references to a 70s television show and popular Japanese game parlour games in the same interview:

“…A store in Beverly Hills had been sending boxes of gold-plated, limited-edition Dolce & Gabbana Motorola Razr phones, turned in when customers traded up for something even newer. “That phone can’t be more than six months old,” Heine said at one point. Later, he handed an employee a Nokia with a note rubber-banded around it. It was something a friend gave him at dinner; that happens all the time, he said, “when you’re the Fred Sanford of phones.”

“…Heine’s business succeeds or fails based on how well it can assess and then realize the value of each phone. “I refer to that as the pachinko machine,” he told me. “You dump in a phone and it rattles around. It’s got to come out somewhere at the bottom.” The question is, where?

Phones beyond repair, or with little value, are dispatched … for their gold. …. The most valuable handsets find their way to a room across the hall from the storeroom, where two employees sell them on eBay. Most, however, are sold via private auction to a stable of about 20 different resellers.” (NY Times Magazine)

I think this reinforces one of the keys to building corporate value from a corporate social responsibility program: the ability to sell the intent and benefits of your business, and to do it in a familiar and evocative way. Much like what Yvon Chouinard has done at Patagonia.

Technorati Tags: Sanford & Son, CSR, corporate social responsibility, cell phones, mobiles

Just like Jackie and Ben tell us, just like Jake emphasizes and Connie practices, a business has to know its community and its market to succeed. Here are a few examples:

On the east end of Long Island, there’s a 1,000 watt radio station that’s extremely local:

“…Mr. Tria’s morning show, “The Dawn Patrol,” delivers a style of local radio that is nearly extinct on Long Island: a neighbor’s lost dog, a birth or death in the community, and news from the schools, the police and Town Hall. It is a slow-drip blend of slow-paced life that seems meant to waft into kitchens and mingle with the smell of bacon. (NYT)

A Ford dealership in a small California town has been bought out, a reaction from hq in Detroit to declining market share and a surplus of dealerships in the region. But not for a lack of trying:

“…All the while, Norwalk and southeast Los Angeles gradually became more Latino — 63% in the most recent Census data. Stutzke says he adapted, becoming among the first car dealers to advertise on Spanish-language television. Families poured into the dealership on Saturdays to watch the making of El Show de Keystone Ford. (USA Today)

Looking for some heartwarming stories of big box chains and international brands failing? Reason magazine tells us that the little guy CAN win - and has an eighty year history of beating the big guy. It’s a good read with a lot of historical context:

“…By understanding local tastes, Newbury Comics, Phoenix Coffee Co., La Flor De Broadway Café, and Kansas City’s Broadway Café demonstrated that localization, customer care, and authenticity are far more effective means of fighting larger rivals than agitating for anti-chain legislation.

Had Broadway Café owner Jon Cates initially looked at historical precedent, rather than petitioning city hall, he perhaps would have understood that David slays Goliath with encouraging frequency in the history of American business.”

Technorati Tags: community, audience, brand, retail, radio promotion

And there I thought pageants had already taken a great leap into modernity with the hiring of Billy Bush.

Last night, Miss America:Reality Check hit the airwaves. I think it may be just the radical revamp this old dame needed. The formula is tired and familiar to us all: a disparate (and maybe desperate) group of girls settles into cramped quarters with too few bathrooms.

They form heartfelt but ultimately shallow and dishonest relationships where they claim friendship and are quick to criticize any demonstration of disloyalty or competitiveness. The show’s producers attempt to create artificial divisions among the pageant queens by separating the teams by age and physical characteristics (only on this show would a 24 year-old be considered a “senior”).

The appeal comes from the incredible contrast between the plastic and highly manufactured contests of the past, and the new hurdles facing the contestants today.

Like a reality check from the tag team of Stacy London and Clinton Kelly. Or the faux cinema verite segment where the contestants appear to discuss whether teens (and Miss American contestants) actually practice abstinence. Some of those young ladies actually appeared grief-stricken at the thought of deviating from their practiced stage patter.

“I favour harsher jail sentences for parole violators … and world peace.”

Finally, I could swear that the “challenges” between teams are held in a converted horse paddock behind the communal house.

All I could imagine was Miss Ellie from Dallas, cheering on Miss Texas.

Technorati Tags: Miss America, reality TV, beauty pageant

As a community, we’re not sitting on the fence, we’re all over the fence, tearing up the garden and throwing fenceposts at people about Facebook’s Social Ads.

The idea that Facebook will strike backroom agreements with corporate partners to associate their consumer data with your Facebook activity seems to strike people the wrong way. Clearly, there needs to be a simple opt-out mechanism to avoid your personal brand being associated with a corporate brand (at least without compensation!)

The great weakness in this scheme, however, is that Facebook and their partners depend on the Facebook Friend having a stellar reputation worth trading on. Or at least have profile pics worth reproducing.

Imagine if Facebook users started using profile pics like those long used on Livejournal? Like that animated .gif to the right?

That would drastically affect the value of the implied endorsement from a social network user.

For example, take this comment from a Wired blog post on the business:

“Fortunately I don’t look that great. If they use me in ads, they’ll be fucking themselves.

Posted by: Experimenting Techmulogical Differences | Jan 2, 2008 6:48:36 PM>

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Social Ads, social objects, beacon

I realize that Canadians are buffered from breaking U.S. trends in casual dining, but a 90 minute wait to get into a Cheesecake Factory?

“…The average wait at a Cheesecake Factory restaurant is 1 1/2 hours, said Alethea Rowe, director of restaurant marketing for the Cheesecake Factory Inc. Once the doors open and the restaurant fills up, then the waiting line forms. …

The lines, however, are a positive sign to restaurant management. “I think this is the biggest compliment our guests can give us,” Rowe said. “It tells us that they think the Cheesecake Factory is someplace special.”(Hartford Courant)

Yeah, that’s what the investors in Planet Hollywood thought as well.

Look at your kids (or your neighbour’s kids, or your brother). Are they planted on a sofa, playing a MMOG? Imagine what generations after generations of lethargic kids might look like. What effects would their health suffer?

Participaction, the Canadian health promotion campaign aimed at kids, has the answer:

Oh - and what’s the car in the promo? A Chevy Citation? An Acadian?

Technorati Tags: Participaction, health promotion, gamers, youth, Citation, Acadian

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