The Brand Man Speaks

Macys sues Martha Stewart Living for deal with JC Penney

In a move that was highly anticipated (and actually took longer to happen than expected) Macy's is suing home living diva Martha Stewart's company Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia for making a deal with JC Penney to develop and produce exclusive products for the middle of the road retailer. Macy's has had a long standing exclusive product deal with MSLO and when the JC Penney deal was announced most marketing folks raised an eyebrow and assumed a lawsuit was to follow. Now it has.

Specifics of the suit have not been made public, but given how much support Macy's has put behind Martha Stewart especially when things went south with her becoming a felon, it was a bit suprising she made the deal with Penney's. One might speculate that the Macy's/Stewart relationship was probably not as profitable for MSLO as the years went on as they might have liked and thus they looked for another partner who would give them more money and more control.

I do not think Martha will get hurt by all of this. It is not like Martha is only up market these days and the JC Penney link could devalue her brand. Far from the case. Martha's products go from KMART up the ladder to very high end, more successfully than almost any other home brand, so that isn't an issue. JC  Penney can benefit greatly from the association with Stewart as that retail brand has been floundering for years with no identity.

More details to come.

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli

LA Times "brand" story on Kardashian brand has follow up.

Here is the link to the follow up piece by writer Adam Tschorn. He explores my point of view.

Kardashian a Brand?

 

Watching out for you everday.

Eli

Black Friday moves to Turkey Day, Thanksgiving but will consumers respond positively to this move?

Getting a jump on Black Friday retail sales has become an obsession for millions of Americans. In the past few years most electronic and mass merchandiser retail concerns have opened their doors in the wee hours of the Friday after Thanksgiving. Some open at Midnight to lure shoppers to (supposedly) great bargains. Consumers have been seen lining up for hours to get into these special shopping events. But there maybe a backlash this holiday season.

This year a handful of retailers are pushing the time frame even earlier announcing they will open at 10pm on Thanksgiving. Some consumers think this is great news. However, a growing number are publicly saying they think stores opening in the evening of Thanksgiving Day is "crossing the line".

The line being crossed is the one which says making employees shorten their holiday family time to come to work is unfair, unreasonable and at one extreme a violation of workers rights. In many news articles over the past few days, thousands of consumers have expressed concern to full blown outrage that greedy retailers are forcing their employees (even with holiday pay) to give up time with family to work. Is this going to far? Are these outraged consumers right? Will retailers who open "too early" see a negative feedback in their sales? It is too early to tell but things are a brewing.

The "Occupy" rallies around the US have shown many Americans are fed up with corporate greed and the needs of the wealthy to make more and more money off the backs of the average guy. It is within this cultural paradigm shift that such a backlash against retailers forcing workers to work on holidays is getting much of its fuel.

It is a tricky line to cross because many retailers feel they must be competitive and lure shoppers in as quickly as possible to "snap up" the available holiday gift buying dollars especially in this on-going weak economy. Those retailers who will not open on Thanksgiving evening have expressed support for workers and their families but also acknowedge it could be a costly risk to lose valuable consumer sales.

Personally I cannot imagine being a part of this craziness and have found many of the same desirable items available from the comfort of one's home office online at comparable prices. But what is important here is the underlying voice of average Americans which has until the "Occupy" rallies been kind of quiet. I think it is very important for consumer products and service companies to be mindful of this increasingly vocal group and not to dismiss it as unimportant or minor in anyway. There will be changes in our culture that come out of this still undefined movement across the US. As of yet, as always when you are in the middle of a paradigm shift, it is unclear what kind or what magnitude of change will be forthcoming. Be rest assured, however, that an important shift is coming.

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli

Will quickie marriage (72 days) significantly damage Kardashian brand?

When I started to write this piece my own first question was, why does anybody care? Fortunately or unfortunately the Kardashian Klan have built a nice multi-million dollar business all about nothing or  better known as being famous for being (untalented) and famous.

However, there is enough interest in the question of whether Kim Kardashian had built a real brand or just a marketing fad, flash in the pan. In my opinion Kim has yet to "earn" rights to be called a true brand. Most of her antics are PR stunts (and let's not forget without a sex tape she would be absolutely nothing and we wouldn't be wasting our time on this) and not brand building efforts. Launching perfumes, apparel lines, getting paid to appear at clubs and bars and getting married on a reality show for $17Million doesn't not make a brand.

People are more fascinated with her nothingness as entertainment and not about a vision, a journey or some meaningful element to make people believe something she is offering has any real value. Her deal with Sears is a ridiculous one. Kardashian wouldn't be caught dead in a Sears unless she was picking up a paycheck for an appearance.

Now let's address this divorce business. Maybe had she made it past a year or even six months she would have some credibility. But this 72 day PR game wasn't love or a real marriage. It was a paid for "appearance" event in which she got paid in cash and in kind. Poor guy, hope he didn't really see anything in or have feelings for her. I also hope he is laughing to the bank for all this mess. Although he comes off more of an embarrassment to himself than she does because she is not in the least bit embarrassed about being a shill for anything or everything with a payday attached.

Now you might feel that Kardashian isn't much different than Paris Hilton. I beg to differ. Whether you liked it or not she had a particular way of being, a slogan ("That's hot") and a sense of style (not necessarily one you might like). She acted in a TV show that was somewhat entertaining. Kim Kardashian is a poor (woman's?) man's version of Hilton. Hilton had pedigree for her debutante behavior. Kardashian's father was an unknown until the O J Simpson case (like instant fame, "new" money). The Hiltons have been a fixture in America for years.

Will the business of Kardashian be hurt by this divorce? Likely. It exposed her as having nothing honest or real about herself and her so-called fans will probably feel cheated, lied to, deceived but quickly wake up from their delusion of fascination and become disgusted. No journey here just a young girl trying to make a buck. I would suggest Ms. Kardashian be careful not to spend all her quickly earned cash too fast because the gravy train is likely to end soon.

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli

Why the Print Version of Newspapers needs to exist: Even tech wizard Steve Jobs was a fan. [Second in a series]

Steve Jobs loved newspapers. He was obsessed with how consumers should and would consume news. But he was convinced the printed newspaper would be dead by 2011.

In a recent Wall St Journal article by Gordon Crovitz, Jobs was noted as someone who felt the printed newspaper was once an important tool but felt that the newsprint version of news lost its way, failed to take consumers on a journey (something all great brands must do) and was easily replaced by new media versions of information dissemination. The issue was one of print quality as Jobs was known for being obsessed with excellence especially when it came to the quality of printer matter, especially for his ads. If the ads in print form weren’t glossy and beautiful he wouldn’t use the medium.

 Although Jobs said newspapers would be obsolete by this year, he was to a great extent challenging the newspaper industry, according to Crovitz. Although Jobs is no longer with us, he leaves an important assignment for the news business.  Our lives have changed but newspapers have failed to evolve with us. What the newspaper industry has forgotten is the internet is just a new distribution tool, not a new brand, and the industry needs to better understand the relevance of the print form to consumers better than it does today, ( For example you can be reading the news with a newspaper on a plane without interruption when the flight attendant says TURN OFF ALL electronic devices when preparing to take-off and/or land. A case of print being more convenient than electronic!)

I contend there is something very special about holding and reading a newspaper (or a magazine for that matter). It is a combination of a vehicle of information mixed with the cultural experience of reading through the pages. One thing the glitzy online versions of news (as exampled on the iPad) lack is the tactile sense of going through the news and ads where the eye may pick up on stories (or ads) adjacent to ones you plan to read but would not have done so directly without the adjacency. Personally, I find the online version of news can create a sensory overload and finding the stories you want to read can be challenging in its own right and those you might have not known you want to read are not discovered. Some graphic versions of news online is so glitzy it is actually too hard to read.

Jobs said the quality of the newsprint was a problem. I realize it is expensive to make newspapers look like glossy online presentations of information. However, the lesson, if there is one to be learned, is that the print medium has important value in our culture and the newspaper industry has to figure out how to improve the quality of this distribution channel as well as remind people how meaningful this channel of information dissemination really is.

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli

PS HOT NEWS: Just read that the Newspaper Association of America is launching a new ad campaign that extols the virtue of newspapers with the slogan, "Smart is the new sexy". Now only if the print medium is made a bit more sexy they have a story to tell!

Netflix drops idea to separate businesses into two. Qwikster dead!

Just off the presses, very smartly Netflix makes the decision to keep their streaming and DVD by mail businesses the same under one aegis Netflix and drops the new business Qwikster idea.

Chalk up one for branding experts who have been screaming across the web for several weeks since the original decision to create two separate entities that this was one terrifically bad business destroying idea. (I have written on this myself in an earlier post:Netflix)

Now if only Netflix would "fix" a few other of their messes they might get back to the business of entertaining the world with ease!

Watching out for you eveyday.

Eli

Southwest Air one of only the carriers NOT refunding FAA taxes to fliers directly

As of today most of the major airlines including US Air and Delta have announced they are directly refunding FAA taxes paid by fliers for trips occurring during the non collection time by the FAA (which will go through this fall as the Senate failed to resolve this matter before their summer recess).

Originally the airlines instructed fliers to try to navigate the IRS.gov site to get a refund. You can imagine if the debt ceiling legislation matter in Washington was an example of government failures, you can further imagine trying to address this refund matter directly with the IRS to be just as difficult for the lowly consumer.

A call to Southwest Airlines this morning proves the usually consumer friendly airline is behind the 8 ball on this issue and is refusing to refund the funds directly or assist fliers who paid these taxes prior to the FAA tax collection shut-down with handling it through the government. Shame on Southwest as consumers have come to know this brand as one that steps to the plate and handles these kinds of matters proactively versus the legacy carriers specifically. Management and marketing asleep at the wheel on this one.

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli

Netflix stock rises amidst a major down market set off by signficant worries about Japan and its global impact, why?

Admittedly, I am a fan of Netflix (own some stock and am a subscriber) and watch consumer companies from the perspective of empirical evidence. That is why I am not surprised by Netflix's recovery from a few weeks of declines after many weeks of sharp increases in stock price.

Here is my reasoning, from a consumer marketing point of view.

Netflix was a game changer of sorts when it first surfaced and has helped dramatically change the way we view entertainment at home. Although the economy is improving, I still see consumers spending a lot of time at home enjoying their upgraded entertainment viewing options. Even today the average home has at least one flat screen, many have multiple units, some homes now have 3DTV. DVDs, DVRs, Apple TV Xbox, Playstation among many other toys allow consumers to make choices about their viewing options and times. With the technology to easily view major movies shortly after release either downloaded to your computer or streamed to your TV set, we have so much entertainment at our figure tips.

The key is I do not see consumers spending much more time OUT of the home for some time to come. Since Faith Popcorn and her concept of "cocooning", Americans as well as consumers around the globe have spent trillions upgrading their home environments to make them more comfortable and not worth leaving. With the housing problem still at hand, it is still too expense for many to go out to the movies, dinner and pay parking etc than staying at home.

And this week, after the disaster in Japan, most financial markets are reflecting gloom and doom, with good reason. However, as things get worse again economically around the globe before we see another turnaround, it is more likely that consumers will retrench into the home environment more, cut back on travel, dining out and other disposable income activities.

Another reason for Netflix success:They seem to be pretty shrewd business folks keeping satisfaction high among users while providing frequent new opportunities for their loyalists to stay loyal.

Additionally, the idea that the Netflix brand name will appear of many TV set remote controls in the very near future (if not already) is a huge win for the entertainment provider keeping their ID in front consumers everyday and having virtually no competition in front of the consumer when they begin the entertainment choice process. How amazing is that?

Pretty amazing to me.

Watching out for you everyday

Eli

Aflac, the insurance company known best for its speaking duck fires its "voice"

Aflac the health insurance company brand that has become best known for its duck character and its voice has dumped actor Gilbert Gottfried who played the voice.

Why? In what seems like a stupid and completely insensitive activity, Gottfried used his twitter account to make unpleasant even mocking comments about the disaster in Japan. This was especially painful for Aflac because over 75% of its insurance business is based in Japan. Aflac's CEO took this action immediately as well as jumped over to Japan to help victims of the quake and its aftermath.

In a similar move Sharon Stone was dumped by Dior a while back for making stupid comments when a major earthquake hit China. She indicated that the earthquake and its devastation was caused by Chinese violations of human rights. She deemed it Karma.

As I have written about before, using celebrities in advertising has major risks since quite a few seem to think their elevated status allows them to misbehave without consequences.

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli

Branding the Revolution: the importance of identity creation for a legacy

I have been thinking a bit about the turmoil in the Middle East from a marketers point of view as I am both a student of history and a branding expert.

Today, I came across a thoughtful editorial in the Wall St. Journal that addresses this issue with the opening statement, "Every revolution worth the name needs a [brand] name".

Throughout history leaders of revolutions have come up with names to give their efforts permanency and notability. One immediately thinks of the American, French, and Russian Revolutions some of the most famous of all time. Others less well-known, as outlined in this story, but still notable include the Iranian, Jasmine (Pakistanis, Chinese, Tunisia-first uprising) and Orange (Ukraine).

Some people are calling the events in Egypt the "Facebook" or "Twitter" revolution.

What is clear is that whether or not revolutionary leaders see themselves as marketers are not, invariably to ensure the effort is remembered with a particular identity in history, they come up with brand names (or at least the media that covers them do or assist in doing so).

As revolutionary spirit continues to thrive across North Africa and the Middle East, it will be interesting to see what names are chosen to mark these notable uprisings.

Watching out for you everyday.

Eli