The Brand Man Speaks

Consumer darling JetBlue brand suffers due to stranded planes in freak NE snowstorm.

JetBlue apparently faced some major obstacles dealing with the freak October Northeast snow storm this past weekend. In one case in which a plane was stranded on the tarmac at Bradley International in Connecticut for seven hours, it might turn out to be less of the brand's fault and more of the airport.

This past year a Passenger Bill of Rights was passed by Congress to ensure these kinds of incidents where passengers are stuck on planes for ridiculously long hours without food, water or bathrooms would be addressed. The fines the airlines face are as much as nearly $28,000 per passenger for each incident. Hefty to say the least.

Now I am no fan of airline travel these days nor the lack of service most airlines offer a sentiment shared by millions of people around the globe. However, if the latest news is true that Bradley International Airport is mostly at fault, then why should the airlines suffer millions of dollars in fines? What has surfaced includes the JetBlue Pilot's unanswered pleas to the airport to help get passengers off the plane after finding his company could not get the airport to help either. The airport was very slow to react seemingly with little or no emergency preparedness plan in place.

Maybe if the airline turns out NOT to be at fault and it is the fault of the airport and the city and/or state can they all be fined? Could the city and state be subject to lawsuits from passengers? Why not? Airports (run by governments) get fees from airlines to do business so they need to be held accountable, although, as we all know Government, whether local, city, state or Federal seem to not be accountable for much lately.

Until all the facts are known, JetBlue will be taking alot of heat from angry passengers and the media.

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!