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"My hit HBO series is over, and my stock portfolio is worth dirt, and you're telling me to 'be resilient'?!"

Pass the paper bag, I’ve got emotion sickness.

I’m perusing Harvard Business Publishing’s website, and a headline snags my eye: “Use the Downtown to Your Advantage“. Hmm, that sounds compelling. What kind of killer advice could the gurus of Harvard Business bestow upon us mere mortals?

What I subsequently read makes my eyes roll like rubber dice on a craps table in a 6.7 earthquake.

The author, leadership consultant John Baldoni, had read a Wall Street Journal interview of Macy’s CEO John Lundgren. Baldoni then decided to relay the managerial lessons he drew from it. The result: an article filled with more hot air than a Rush Limbaugh balloon at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. The lessons could be summed up in three quotes. Brace yourself for ‘em:

• “Make tough choices. Now is the time to get rid of anything and everything that does not add value to the bottom line.”
• “Look for the up and comers. When times are flat or in a downturn, look for new ideas. Challenge your best and brightest to make suggestions…”
• “Live resilience… Good leaders use these opportunities to describe what is going right as well as what is going wrong.”

Now some people are probably saying, Freddy, you’re way too freakin’ harsh. What’s wrong with that advice, cynic boy? It all sounds reasonable…

Sure it all sounds reasonable, but as business professionals, we should have higher standards for Harvard Business Publishing articles — indeed, any business articles — than reasonableness. Here’s my beef:

1. This article’s vague and generalized advice could — and should — apply to good times as well as bad. When does a manager not cut waste, look for new ideas, or point out what’s working and what’s not? Jack Welch preached the same kind of advice at GE back when the economy was hot. Those are practices that a CEO should perform all the time.

2. Is that advice for a multinational business, a family household, a community theatre company, or a team on “The Apprentice”? It could be any of the above — it’s that generic.

3. In a CEO profile from Harvard Business Publishing, I expect specific, concrete tactics, not inspirational pablum. This is the kind of article I would expect in Reader’s Digest targeting Avon distributors.

4. This article is supposed to tell you how to actually THRIVE in a recession. Note the word “advantage.” Businesses are wallowing in quicksand out here, and “live resilience” is supposed to help them get a leg up?

So what do I want to see in a CEO profile entitled “Use the Downtown to Your Advantage”?

How about specific strategies in a hurting industry, such as fashion retail?

• How is John Lundgren responding to fire sales by his competitors? When Saks offers 70% discounts, potentially luring away traditional Macy’s shoppers, does he recommend offering similar discounts, boosting advertising, or some combination of both? What does he think of Abercrombie & Fitch’s refusal to discount and suffering huge sales declines in the process, yet preserving their brand for a broader economic rebound?

• Would he consider cross-promotions with companies outside of his industry, but similar in brand position, such as Starbucks, Virgin America or Cadillac? If no, why not? If yes, what works and what doesn’t?

• What were his criteria for closing down the Macy’s stores in certain markets? When he laid off employees, did he favor seniority or “up and comers”? As he was closing down stores in L.A., did he consider concurrent expansion to thriving cities overseas, such as Shanghai, Moscow or Rio?

In other words, give me scenarios, deep insights and hard tactics based on singular real world experience.

Imagine reading a magazine on professional football coaching written by pro football coaches for pro football coaches. You come across an article by an NFL head coach on how to turn around a bad season. But rather than provide game-time strategies or player substitution tips, the coach says, “Make tough choices. Look for ideas. And be resilient.” How many of his peers do you think would say, “Gee, I never thought of that…”?

And yet, that’s essentially what Harvard Business Publishing is perpetrating here. It’s a quintessential example of what another business writer, Matthew Stewart, derides in his much more perspicacious article, “The Management Myth” published in The Atlantic.  Stewart founded and ran a management consulting firm that grew to 600 employees, but he detests management literature, describing it as a “collection of quasi-religious dicta on the virtue of being good at what you do, ensconced in a protective bubble of parables (otherwise known as case studies).”

See, I’m not the only cynic in business.

What also bugs me about flimsy articles like “Use the Downtown to Your Advantage” is that they serve mostly to provide reassurance. What’s wrong with that? We could all use an emotional boost in tough times, right? True, but the advice in articles like this is so limp, commonplace and obvious, even bad managers practice most of it. That enables the self-serving weasel who just received a government bailout to say, “Oh, hey, I do all that! I’m a brilliant manager! Now where’s my bonus?”

Notes Matthew Stewart:

“If it’s reminiscent of the kind of toothless wisdom offered in self-help literature, that’s because management theory is mostly a subgenre of self-help. Which isn’t to say it’s completely useless. But just as most people are able to lead fulfilling lives without consulting Deepak Chopra, most managers can probably spare themselves an education in management theory.”

Here’s a Hollywood metaphor (bear with me, I live in L.A.): Such vapid articles are like the therapy that Tony Soprano received from Dr. Melfi before she realized she was simply validating his sociopathic behavior. Vague reassurances and generic advice make the recipients feel good, but they don’t help ‘em get any better.

*****

Shameless Plug: For B.S.-free business consultation, contact Atomic Tango.

– Philosopher and Business Consultant Matthew Stewart, “The Management Myth,” The Atlantic Online, June 2006

Never unpack again.

Suddenly, millions of Americans are making lists of where they would like to go. Others are wishing they hadn’t wasted all their vacation days during the summer. College football fans are checking their team schedules and packing extra jerseys. And Gov. Mark Sanford can park the state jet for a month.

In a deft bit of marketing, JetBlue is offering an “All-You-Can-Jet” pass that lets you “fly JetBlue anywhere you like, as often as you like, from September 8 to October 8″ for only $599.

I love this promotion.

• It’s so unlike the usual fare cutting, it’s creating a buzz, which saves on advertising expenditures.
• The marginal cost of each additional passenger on each flight is minimal.
• It generates a huge flow of cash at once.
• It boosts business during the down period for air travel after summer is history and kids are back in school.
• And by providing endless trips on just one airline, this promotion captures market share: buy one of these passes, and you probably won’t book a flight on any other airline if you can avoid it.

That’s one ballsy competitive move.

Of course, another major competitor in the budget sector — like Southwest or Virgin — could try to match it. That could start an aggressive all-you-can-fly war in the airline industry, which would mean great bargains for consumers, and a huge boost for hotels and other travel-related businesses. And though it might bite into industry profit margins, it would jumpstart the moribund air travel market.

Now that’s the kind of stimulus package I think everyone can support.

All-you-can-jet would also mean a lot of really jetlagged people. And suddenly, I’m very happy to be a Starbucks stockholder.

Bon voyages!

For all our talk of freedom, we Americans LOVE rules…

• Our favorite sport, football, has the most rules of any sport on the planet.

• Poker players make up new rules with every hand (“threes and hearts are wild except for the Queen, which you can pass to the right if someone sneezes during play”).

• Our institutionalized belief systems — whether Rastafarianism, environmentalism, or even Libertarianism — bristle with rules of what can and can’t be done.

• The August issue of Wired features an entire section on rules, “How to Behave: New Rules for Highly Evolved Humans,” which includes a few illuminating ones by Brad Pitt (“Don’t take a picture of your wife’s butt. That’s silly. Take pictures of other people’s wives’ butts.”).

• And, of course, as its name indicates, this here blog occasionally lays out rules for marketing and media as laid down by a higher authority (me).

Want more proof that most of us are rule-snorting junkies? Take this here Internet, where many users routinely cry “net neutrality!” and “information is free!” and “hands off, Feds!” — YET first-comers to any new website, network or medium are quick to impose rules that newbies must follow or die.

Case in point: When I edited MCA Records’ first website in 1995 (yes, kids, the Web existed back then), doing anything commercial online was considered taboo and totally uncouth. That’s right: the Internet was strictly “information only” and completely off limits to us marketers. So we record-industry scalawags disguised our website as a music magazine called “AMP.” We still got hate mail for commercializing the Internet, but just a year later, all those anti-commercial “rules” were chucked like yesterday’s cat litter or Mark Sanford’s political career. For better or worse (obviously I say better), the Web got full-on commercialized.

Here are some other examples of silly arbitrary Internet rules, in no particular order:

1. If someone follows you on Twitter, you should follow them back.

Considering the number of tweeters who are spammers, scammers or completely inhuman bots, following them would simply be supporting extreme douchery. Many other tweeters are self-promoters who rarely read a tweet from the thousands of people they “follow.” They’re compiling Twitter stats as if they were frequent flier miles, but the stats have no value. Indeed, exorbitant stats call your credibility into question: following more than 1,000 people is like subscribing to 1,000 free magazines — you can’t possibly read them all. Hence, I won’t follow a serial follower unless I’m really really really interested in what they have to say — and for me, that’s an extreme rarity on Twitter. (More rants on Twitter in a future post.)

2. Don’t edit your published blog posts. Rather, cross out mistakes like this and add corrected text alongside.

Yeah, sure. And next time I find myself speeding on a highway, I’ll just report myself to the nearest cop. The beauty of digital media is that we can correct our errors continuously — and we should. A blog post is not a literary classic that must be preserved in its original form for future generations to savor. And blog posts are rarely ever read twice by the same person, so who will notice if I edit and update? All the text strikethroughs just make the post a pain in the freakin’ ass difficult to read. Rather, the rule should stipulate that bloggers try to get their facts straight and eliminate writing errors, even after publishing, so that we don’t all pull a Drudge and spread misinformation and ignorance.

3. Don’t moderate the comments on your blog: no censoring, editing or commenting upon them.

Which spammer wrote that? If I didn’t filter my comments, my blog would become a free bulletin board for cheap Viagra, MLM-based lobotomies and mortgage refinancing scams. Although I use Akismet to filter out most spam, some weasels are hiring dirt-cheap labor (like former Bush economic advisors) to bypass filters and post on unsuspecting blogs.

A blogger should also feel totally free to delete comments. Your blog is a manifestation of your personal brand: you don’t need it sullied by comments more suited for a bathroom wall. I do allow critical comments on my blog, since smart criticism helps me see holes in my arguments and improve my rhetorical skills. They also give me the opportunity to provide additional arguments and dis back. But if some kid simply wants to post “you’re a turd” on my blog (which has happened), sorry, that “right” doesn’t exist. One’s blog isn’t democracy square — it’s an island dictatorship.

4. A website needs an “About Us” section.

That’s a convention, not a rule. Conventions are traditional practices, “the way things have always been done around here.” Web design is, unfortunately, full of conventions, with the “About Us” as only one example. (Always putting the logo in the upper left corner is another.) Now if you’re running an ecommerce site or an SAS (software-as-service) site, then a well-written “About Us” section helps build your credibility. If your site is just an online brochure that describes who you are, then having an “About Us” section is like having a biography chapter entitled “Biography.”

On another note, no rule says you have to call the section “About Us”; feel free to call it “Background” or “Our Story” or “Da Scoop.” It’s your site and your brand. Do it your way.

5. Websites for banks and other financial services can’t have a personality or — the gods forbid — a sense of humor.

I call this the “Chase Rule” after the intense soul-numbing boredom that Chase imposed on Washington Mutual after buying it. Most business service sites look like they were cloned, not crafted. They all have the same gag-inducing stock photos, the same bland reassurances of their stability, the same patronizing assertions that they “care” about our dreams and families. Yeah, right.

I originally banked with WaMu because they seemed different from other banks in L.A.: they actually had a personality. Now when I need financial services, I ask friends for recommendations, because looking at another generic, multi-million-dollar banking website is a waste of time. My colleague Jeffry Pilcher runs a consulting practice and blog focusing on bank branding: if you run a financial service, look him up.

6. Typing in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS is equivalent to shouting.

I DON’T BUY THAT ARGUMENT, BECAUSE WHEN YOU SHOUT, PEOPLE CAN HEAR YOU BETTER. RATHER, TYPING IN ALL CAPS FOR MORE THAN A FEW WORDS IS NOT SMART BECAUSE IT’S ANNOYING TO READ, NO? AND IF PEOPLE CAN’T READ YOUR WORDS, THEY’RE NOT GETTING YOUR MESSAGE. EVER WONDER WHY THE SURGEON GENERAL WARNINGS ON CIGARETTE PACKS ARE PRINTED IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS? THAT’S RIGHT: THE TOBACCO COMPANIES WANT TO MAKE THEM HARD TO READ.

7. If you enjoyed reading someone’s blog, send them money.

Now that’s a rule I endorse.

There are many other silly, arbitrary rules out there. I’m not talking about laws against spam and truly criminal behavior. By all means, obey those rules. (Die, spammers, die!) And I’m not talking about the rules you find here on Cool Rules Pronto. Obey those, too. But if you hear of other conventions and unofficial rules out there, feel free to question them.

And while you’re at it, let me know all about ‘em — indeed, before you tell anyone else.

That’s because breaking rules and conventions is a highly profitable business. Ask Zappos. Or Craigslist. Or iTunes. Or any other business that’s leveraged the Internet to blow out traditional businesses. The Web has been the biggest convention breaker of the past two decades. It’s reshaped entire industries and made billionaires out of the rule breakers. Hence, trying to impose silly, arbitrary restrictions on Internet usage is fundamentally wrong. There should be a rule against it.

Previously on Cool Rules Pronto…

Pizza Hut became “The Hut,” evoking images of Jabba — or worse.

Now word comes that another iconic American brand has likewise simplified:

Radio Shack is now “The Shack,” evoking images of a giant basketball player. Their new tagline, “Our Friends Call Us The Shack,” makes me wonder what their non-friends call them.

Now, understandably, Radio… I mean, The Shack sells a lot more sophisticated electronics and components than radios. Indeed, when was the last time anyone bought a standalone radio? And considering the state of radio these days, the R-word no longer packs the appeal it once did.

The problem is that there’s a small chain of beach-themed hamburger joints called “The Shack,” and they might have issue with people wandering in ordering HDMI cables. I smell lawyers warming up their suits.

I’m also now taking bets on which of the following happens next:

• K-Mart becomes “The Mart,” prompting a lawsuit from Wal-Mart, which claims to own everything.
• Burger King becomes “The King,” prompting a lawsuit from one Aragorn of Middle Earth.
• Dairy Queen becomes “The Queen,” and hooks up with Aragorn.
• A huge brawl breaks out among cable executives as they fight for the right to be called “The Channel.” Soon thereafter, a strip of water near England files a lawsuit.
• General Motors becomes “The Motors” and no one cares.
• The Republican Party becomes “The Party” because “Republican” is too hard for Sarah Palin supporters to spell.
• The Democratic Party also becomes “The Party” just to piss off the Republicans. Both sides agree that this is a more interesting issue than fixing health care or ending two concurrent wars.

What do you think? Is there a major case of corporate simplification that begs to be made?

Update 8/4/9: My friend Cheryl forwarded me this brilliant 2007 “report” from The Onion: “Even CEO Can’t Figure Out How RadioShack Still In Business.”

***

Shameless Plug: Need help naming — or renaming — your company? Contact Atomic Tango…

Yeah, try re-bottling that. (illustration by Stuart MacKay-Smith)

It’s tough watching an old friend slowly die. Even tougher knowing that you’re helping to knock him off.

Before you go calling 911, the old friend I’m referring to is my daily newspaper. For decades, I’ve started every day with my morning paper. I score my sports and business fix while downing pure Colombian full-caf. Over the years, the two addictions have chemically intertwined to enhance their combined effects. Consequently, whenever I miss my morning coffee-n-paper jumpstart, I find myself fluttering from activity to activity the rest of the day like a fat pigeon in a hurricane.

And now, to my horror and profound sadness, newspapers are dying, losing readers and advertisers to the Web. As a blogger, I contribute to this lethal migration, not so much by stealing readers from newspapers (if only I had such drawing power), but by validating the Web as the place to go for scoop. I myself drink deeply from this vast sea of instant info. After all, why read papers for business alerts or sports scores when they’re updated every second online?

As an environmentalist, I guess I should encourage the decimation of a business that consumes so many trees. I can always sip my coffee while perched before my MacBook — but it just wouldn’t be the same. With that vast expanse of information spread before me on paper, I’m much more likely to read something I might have ignored if it were just presented to me as a hyperlink. I can also take a paper with me into the bathroom — where MacBooks dare not tread — or roll it up and stuff it into my bag for later perusal in a place without WiFi.

A newspaper is more than just info in print.

As executed by the L.A. Times or the N.Y. Times, a newspaper is an orchestrated performance that you consume at your pace and leisure. These hardened yet savvy wizards known as “editors” critically pick what’s relevant, what’s trivial, what warrants front page emphasis, and what deserves to be relegated to the bottom corner of the inside back page. Do they make mistakes? Sure, they’re human, but they’re better than the alternatives. Yahoo! News is indiscriminate in feeding me headline after headline. Even a filter such as Digg seems less orchestrated than mob-ruled. Some institutions are right for democracy; others, like a sports team, a kindergarten, or a newspaper, call for a benevolent dictator.

What truly separates newspapers from all other journalistic media is in-depth investigative reporting of serious issues. The other media could provide it, but they don’t.

The major network evening newscasts consist of pharmaceutical ads interrupted by sound bites. Go ahead, millionaire anchors, investigate that vast sucking corporate greedhole known as the U.S. pharmaceutical industry. I dare you. We’ll see how long your corporate masters will keep you around at GE/NBC, Disney/ABC, and Viacom/CBS.

The cable news channels are worse. Fox News is a right-wing exercise in character-assassination and willful ignorance. CNN has become People Magazine in HD: “Tonight: what hot chick who used to date Brad Pitt then became a governor’s prostitute is now missing in Aruba? We’ll provide continuous coverage after this quick report on some wars going on.” MSNBC consists of pundit after pundit after pundit after pundit after pundit after pundit speculating and expounding and speculating some more on what someone else has investigated, followed by a prison-reality show. I did have hope when I heard Al Gore was launching a news network, only to find myself numbed by Current TV’s duller variation of MTV News.

And now we bloggers are supposed to be the new face of journalism — may the gods save us all if that’s the truth. While we may cover stories the “mainstream media” missed, people like me are more likely to review shenanigans at Facebook than expose corruption at the Pentagon. And the bigger bloggers, like the execrable Matt Drudge, want to shape the news rather than report it. Bloggers are to journalism what street preachers are to education. Certainly interesting to listen to or read, but not exactly the foundations of a civil society.

The big question we bloggers need to ask ourselves: are we amputating the hand that feeds us?

An editorial in today’s L.A. Times (“The Free Ride That’s Killing The News Business”) argues that bloggers, online news aggregators and other “free riders” are driving real journalists into extinction:

“Usually we all benefit when more efficient competitors enter the market and drive inefficient competitors out of business. But the Internet has not made ‘new media’ publishers more efficient at gathering news than their print counterparts. It has made them more efficient at taking news from their print counterparts and using it to compete while the news is fresh.”

The article notes that, while free rider websites can survive on very little profit, “Newspapers, which bear the hefty labor costs of gathering the news, can’t.” The editorial then proposes tweaking copyright law so that news can’t be borrowed freely by aggregators and bloggers.

Yeah, right.

As a newspaper lover, I appreciate the sentiment, but there’s no way in hell to re-bottle this genie. It’s simply too easy to rehash news online. Indeed, sharing information is the entire raison d’etre of the Internet. Clamping down on sharing news online would be like banning gossip in a junior high. If the music industry can’t protect its songs, how is the news industry going to protect information? Will the Powers That Be read every blog, peruse every Facebook profile, scan every tweet? After all, most news organizations are using social media to drive traffic to their sites, even putting “share” buttons next to their stories.

That said, there still needs to be a solution to save the news business. Just don’t look to the bloggers for it.

New TechCrunch blogger Paul Carr — one of the more brilliant writers in the business — used to write for the Guardian newspaper in the U.K. before getting laid off. From all appearances, he’s the only real journalist at TechCrunch. I read TechCrunch daily, and some of the stories are very good, filled with valuable information. But far too many TechCrunch posts consist of hearsay, speculation and over-the-top editiorializing. You know, just like the articles here on Cool Rules Pronto. The difference is that I would never compare Cool Rules Pronto to real news organizations, least of all claim to be superior to them, as does TechCrunch’s kingpin Michael Arrington.

Carr criticizes that absurd comparison himself. (I quote at length, because it’s totally fair to free ride a free rider.)

“There’s a horribly pompous misconception amongst bloggers that they are somehow ‘taking on the mainstream media’. “Those old losers just don’t get it!” they cry. “We bloggers are on the scene first, asking tough questions before the mainstream media have even put their shoes on”… When it comes to a certain type of highly visible breaking news, no-one can argue that social media kicks the mainstream media’s ass. At any given disaster, there’s possibly a 0.01% chance that a professional journalist or photographer will already be on the scene, compared to 100% odds that there’ll be some dude with a camera-phone there…. And yet… after camera phone dude helps us establish that the plane has crashed, who can we trust to tell us why it happened? While bloggers can own the first five minutes of any breaking story – a plane crash, a fire, a burglary – it’s always going to be the professional reporters who own the next five days, or five weeks. They walk the streets, work their contacts and – yes – trawl the blogosphere for eye-witness reports, and then take all of that information, analyse it, follow it up and ultimately provide an account of events that readers can trust… a superstar hack takes days – or weeks – of legwork to get to the bottom of a single story. Without content from workaday photographers or wire-feed-re-writers, the New New York Times would be three pages long and published weekly. Good journalism is a slow, labour-intensive business. And what about unglamourous local stories? Let’s not forget that the two most famous reporters of all time – Woodward and Bernstein – were junior reporters when the broke their most famous story: Watergate. A story, let’s also not forget, that began life as a dull local burglary.”

Unfortunately, Carr then remembers where his current paycheck is coming from and reverses himself a few paragraphs later, arguing that most newspapers have devolved into tabloids, and, hey, will you look at all the great journalistic practices taking place at TechCrunch?!

So What Is The Salvation?

Perhaps the model for real journalism is a non-profit news organization like NPR. After all, as some of Walter Cronkite’s obituaries noted, even in the heyday of journalism, news reporting was often a loss leader performed as a civic duty by the major media corporations. A great news report also created a halo effect for the entire organization.

Conversely, many of today’s so-called news organizations pander to sensationalism (“all Michael Jackson, all the time”) in order to draw the audience numbers that mollify advertisers, investors and creditors. The result is a 24/7 abuse of the word “news.” That’s why I’d love to see the L.A. Times or N.Y. Times launch its own cable news network with the standards it sets for its paper.

In the meantime, I’ll proudly pay for a subscription to the L.A. Times as long as it exists. (And if you also believe professional news organizations are worth saving, please at least click the link to that article in the L.A. Times.) Real professional news organizations do the heavy lifting that makes what I do possible.

Just imagine a world in which all the news reporting and analysis came from bloggers, tweeters, and corporate-issued press releases… That would make the neo-fascist freak show Fox News look like a paragon of journalistic excellence. It would make the seditious and anti-intellectual Bush years look like the Enlightenment.

In short, free news might sound like a great deal now, but it ultimately comes with a very high price.

I’m usually impressed with Amazon’s ability to recommend products based on a purchase. It’s a smart way to get current customers to buy more.

But tonight I purchased a product at Amazon and got a recommendation that I wasn’t quite expecting. Can you tell which one it was?

click image to enlarge

Yes, we Mac users are a wild bunch indeed…

Hollywood is experiencing a “Freaky Friday” that’s lasting all summer — and perhaps beyond.

In the 1976 movie “Freaky Friday,” a mother and daughter magically swap bodies. After a series of icky moments milked for laughs, they predictably come to understand and respect each other.

Now, unpredictably, the entire movie industry is experiencing a similar switcheroo.

A-list celebrities are failing to lure fans to the box office, while top movies are starring relatively unknown actors. Writes the L.A. Times:

“The stars are not twinkling bright this summer. Hollywood’s movie studios, hopeful that marquee-name actors would push their summer box-office receipts to record levels, are finding that the heavyweights aren’t winning over audiences like they used to. With all but a couple of big-budget films already opened, the summer of 2009 is shaping up to be one of the worst on record for Hollywood’s A-list talent… The brightest stars of the lucrative popcorn season — which typically accounts for about 40% of annual ticket sales — instead have turned out to be mostly movies with no-name actors — or no actors at all on screen.”

Eddie Murphy, John Travolta, Will Ferrell, Jack Black and Denzel Washington all bombed at the box office this summer. The biggest hits have been the far less star-studded films “The Hangover,” “Up,” “Star Trek,” “Harry Potter” and “Transformers 2.” (OK, I’ll give credit to Megan Fox for drawing some fans to watch giant toys fight.)

Scene from Ionesco's "The Chairs," starring Cynthia Mance and Bo Roberts, now playing at City Garage Theatre.

Then there’s the L.A. live theatre scene, the poor stepchild of the movies.

Most theatre actors here don’t get paid, and the budget for marketing an entire play is less than what one movie spends on a single day’s makeup. I know because I serve on the board of directors for City Garage, a small playhouse known for staging risky, experimental productions by such playwrights as Ionesco, Muller and Mee. The theatre contains 48 seats, and on a good night, we manage to fill half of them. Meanwhile, just a few steps away, Santa Monica’s thriving Third Street Promenade spills over with shoppers and moviegoers who wouldn’t attend a play if you paid them…

Unless there’s a celebrity involved.

French Stewart and Laurie Metcalf in "Voice Lessons"

Here in L.A., you can catch TV and film stars in theatres across town, even small houses. For example, I recently saw French Stewart (“3rd Rock from the Sun”) and Laurie Metcalf (“Roseanne”) in “Voice Lessons” at the small Zephyr Theatre. The show was repeatedly sold out and even extended, and the L.A. Times reviewer went gaga over it. I enjoyed it — the actors were hilarious — but the one-hour play felt like a live sitcom: funny but not provocative, and with very little blocking or stagecraft.

Annete Bening goes Greek

Elsewhere, you can find Chris Noth (“Sex and the City”) at the Geffen Playhouse, Bill Pullman and Julia Stiles in David Mamet’s “Oleanna,” and later this year, Annette Bening as Medea at UCLA. You know Medea — the Greek woman who kills her child after her husband leaves her for a younger woman. Great date night show. But I suspect Bening will draw even young people to this Greek tragedy. Audiences want to see celebrities in person, and theatre gives them an opportunity to see stars performing live, often up close in intimate spaces.

And don’t get me wrong — I’m not complaining about any of this. I also like to watch celebrities perform live. In fact, I’d like to make a proposal that would make financial sense for all involved:

Let the celebrities have all the stage roles, and give the movie parts to the unknown theatre actors.

Now, a movie might still need a celebrity to attract financing — these days, investors appear to care more about a movie’s cast than audiences do — but let the rest of the parts go to the theatre crowd. Why pay Shia LaBeouf $5 million to appear in “Transformers” when you can get a starving young theatre artist to fight robots for SAG minimum rate? Audiences wouldn’t care. Really. And should those former theatre actors become egomaniacal and expensive, send ‘em back to the stage so they can “work on their craft.”

Now that’s a switcheroo I’d love to see. And by the way, Shia and Megan, when you’re done with robots and ready to hit the stage, I know this great little theatre in Santa Monica…

"This is way too hard! Can we do a play now?"

I couldn’t resist the bait.

A direct marketing guy on LinkedIn posed the following question:

“Why don’t most advertising agencies pay as much attention to results as they do to their creative and the awards that they can achieve?… Don’t get me wrong, I believe that branding is important to a company, but feel like you can do both at once and achieve much more. … Respectfully, please help me in understanding why clever creative, especially on the Internet, is the basis of awards instead of client results.”

Now, I’ll be the first to say that results matter.

I run a small business: my marketing must generate new clients or my agency is toast. I also make my students explain how they’ll measure the success of their ad campaigns — and I never accept “general sales results” as an answer. We all know products with great sales but crappy ads (go Toyota Camry!). General sales can stem from luck (e.g., your main competitor gets eaten by rabid gerbils), from referrals based solely on product quality, or from a killer retail location. And if your campaign contains multiple forms of media (radio, newspaper, TV, online, etc.), how will general sales tell you which was most effective?

So a measuring we go. We conduct customer surveys and other forms of research. We put unique web addresses, phone numbers, coupons and discount codes in each type of ad. We track clickthroughs and conversions online. And we read ad reviews and news in the industry publications. All this feedback helps us shape more effective advertising.

Indeed, I criticized Blue Moon Brewing Company (aka Coors) for not putting a web address in their expensive ad in Wired magazine. So how can I now defend ads strictly for branding only — particularly when companies desperately need sales?

Because sometimes your brand is your primary competitive advantage.

An image-only campaign might not deliver short-term results, but over the long haul, it creates a stronger brand that commands higher prices and greater customer loyalty. For example, BMW‘s groundbreaking 2001 film series “The Hire” might not have generated immediate sales, but it helped enforce BMW’s brand as edgy and aspirational. Featuring celebrities and A-list directors, these short Internet films were viewed over 100 million times in four years, won numerous awards, and established mind share in consumers (primarily young males) who could not afford a BMW at the time, but might be able to later. Lexus might arguably make a better car, but to this day BMW generates more passion — and commands a higher price — among automotive aficionados.

Apple also successfully used strong image campaigns to promote the iPod + iTunes. What kind of direct results can be traced to dancing silhouettes? In the long term, Apple leveraged the popularity of the iPod to regain share in the coveted youth/education computer market. Apple’s stock price keeps soaring, and the brand now commands over 90% of the premium computer market. Dell, the master of direct marketing and all things measurable, has seen their sales and stock price decline over the same period.

There’s a reason Coca-Cola and Pepsi spend millions on image-only Super Bowl ads: they create awareness and a positive feeling toward those brands, while crushing the hell out of smaller competitors. (RC who?) Tertiary and lower brands have to resort to steep discounting to generate sales.

True, these ads could include a unique web address to abet measurement — I almost always encourage it — but sometimes an integrated sales message is a turnoff that should be saved for another day and another medium.

And about them awards…

Award shows are often rife with error. (“Titanic” as a best picture? Are you kidding me?) That doesn’t mean awards have no value. They encourage creatives to use their imaginations instead of resorting to dull, dry recitations of prices and locations that constitute most sales-oriented ads. Dull advertising hurts the entire industry because it teaches consumers to tune out or to TiVo past commercials. You can put all the tracking mechanisms in the world in your ad, but if no one notices it, it won’t make a sound.

When should you go image only?

Three conditions should be in place before you decide to go full commando creative:

• Your target market cares about the image of the product. I love great branding, but couldn’t care less about how hip and stylish cat litter is — it just needs to work. Really. Big time. The litter could be in the ugliest packaging in the universe with ads that would put a 3-year-old on Jolt Cola to sleep, but if it keeps the feline WMD’s under control, I’m a happy cat owner. The same is true of price-oriented customers: if all they want is the best deal (for, say, gasoline), the celebrity endorsement probably isn’t worth the money or the ego hassle.

• You can afford it. Building a strong brand can take time and a lot of investment, with the results felt years later. If you need sales right here right now, no time to flirt or preen: focus on a strong call to action in your ads, ideally reinforced with some incentives.

• You can pull it off — and your competitor can be outbranded. Microsoft can throw all the money it wants to at advertising, but it’s wasting time and dinero trying to outbrand Apple, even with ads showing women puking.  Wal-Mart learned the expensive way that no amount of advertising could make it fashionable, so it got smart and is doing the ecological thing — which appears to be working.

Ideally, you want your ad to promote three results: a strong brand, a media buzz, and positive consumer behavior. But even a direct marketing guy can’t frown upon an image-only ad that just hits home emotionally — kinda like how I felt when I first saw this classic (my all-time favorite commercial):

After that, I could never be satisfied with being a corporate drone — thankfully. Does creative advertising work? Oh hell yeah.

Shameless Plug: Need an ad campaign that produces results? Contact Atomic Tango…

What lies in store for MySpace?

MySpace is losing it. And I’m not talking about its members defecting to Facebook.

Last year, the once mighty, world dominating social network that had crushed its predecessor Friendster suddenly found itself splattered on Facebook’s windshield. At first, MySpace responded by copying Facebook features, but copying a competitor is not a long-term success strategy. In fact, it just gives the competition credibility.

So MySpace gave up the fight and is fully rebooting by going after a niche market…

Now I completely endorse focusing. If you can’t appeal to everyone, focus on one core segment and fulfill all their needs. Your company may no longer be as big as it once was, but you’ll inspire greater loyalty. Plus, a tighter market focus helps attract advertisers looking to target that particular segment.

Niche marketing, after all, is how MySpace blew the doors off Friendster.

Early on, MySpace recruited independent musicians, which was brilliant, since many pop artists are cult brands who command a devout, fanatical following. Sure enough, music fans glommed onto MySpace, which rapidly grew around this lifestyle — a far better attraction than just “making friends.” Because of the indie music focus, MySpace also didn’t have the junior high stigma of Friendster; indeed, many Friendster users quickly “graduated” to MySpace.

Then greed set in.

As it grew to millions of users, MySpace lost its music focus, and tried to be everything to everyone. This attracted hordes of new users, but the site lost its cool, particularly as the spammers and predators moved in. At the same time, MySpace allowed other upstart startups, such as imeem and Pandora, to encroach upon its music territory.

Then MySpace lost its lead in the social networking world, and despite efforts to become more user friendly, the exodus accelerated. So MySpace’s parent company, News Corp, decided to do a full wipe and system reinstall. They replaced MySpace’s executive leadership (including the founder), laid off a third of the workers, even dropped the insipid motto “a place for friends” from the logo.

So the big question we armchair analysts are asking is, where will MySpace go from here? Will it return to its musical past? That would make sense. Even though MySpace Music doesn’t enjoy the buzz of Pandora, it’s still a hit with music fans, with traffic increasing over 1000% in the past year. Pearl Jam premiered its latest single there and hit 100,000 plays in just hours. With an undivided focus on music, MySpace could dominate the sector.

But that’s not exactly what MySpace has in mind.

Game On?

According to Reuters (7/23/9), News Corp digital head Jonathan Miller has the cure for all that’s ailing the site: “MySpace is and will be more in the future a gaming platform, a space for people to meet and play games.”

Games? Did he just say games?

“You must focus, and in our case we are focusing on music, games, video, things like that.”

Oh, games and music. And video. And things like that. You know, something for everyone. I guess MySpace has a different definition of “focus” than most people.

To bolster the company’s gaming cred, Miller said that MySpace might look to make some acquisitions, without being specific. I read that, and the first thought that came to mind is that the workers at gaming site IGN (previously known as the Imagine Games Network) might want to update their resumes, and that IGN’s execs might want to invest in marketing to increase their brand value and the “goodwill” portion of any buyout. Not that such a buyout is necessarily going to happen — that’s just what came to my over-imaginative mind. (Psst, I’ve got an article on how to write a resume, in case anyone needs it.)

But, really, why games?

Miller says, “None of the traditional media conglomerates are also significant video game players, so to speak, and I think that that’s the missing piece of the equation, particularly when you see how much time is spent playing games online.”

Missing? Uh, well, there’s Sony. That’s a traditional media conglomerate and a major electronics brand, and I think Sony does games — you know, something called the PlayStation.

Oh, and there’s Disney, which also has online gaming, such as Disney’s Blast. Last I checked, Disney is a traditional media conglomerate.

And while Apple and Microsoft are not “traditional media conglomerates,” they’ve got some gaming going on. Make that a lot of gaming. In addition, there’s this little site called Facebook that also has a fair number of games.

So, uh, gaming is not exactly unexplored territory here. In fact, the one traditional media conglomerate that hasn’t really done much in terms of gaming is… News Corp.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with venturing into a crowded space if you’ve got an original idea and the financial muscle to back it up. iTunes wasn’t the first online music store. And we’ve discussed the succession of social networks here. There’s also a chance that MySpace could become The Best Online Gaming Platform Ever.

However, when you’re talking News Corp and Rupert Murdoch’s master plan to crush the rebel alliance and conquer the universe, gaming just doesn’t seem to be the most natural alternative.

What I Would Do If I Were Rupert (bwahahahaaa)…

Consider this: News Corp owns the Wall Street Journal and Fox News, the two largest media bastions for right wingers in the country. So my suggestions?

1. Spin off MySpace Music as its own purely music-focused site. To bolster its command of the market, MySpace should also acquire imeem, which is trying everything to make a buck. That would win the favor of the record companies who blew money invested in imeem as an alternative to iTunes. MySpace Music would then become the ultimate online destination for music fans.

Megyn Kelly: Reason to watch Fox News (volume off, of course).

2. Use the MySpace platform to create a conservative social network. In other words, do to Facebook what Fox News did to CNN (you know CNN, the former news site that tried to be all things to all people before devolving into a 24-hour tabloid). Call this new socnet something like “Stage Right,” and fiercely enforce ideological purity by charging a membership fee and making new members swear on a Bill O’Reilly book. WSJ subscribers would get elite status,  fancier profiles, and access to VIP parties, all of which would promote newspaper subscriptions. All the Fox News hosts and anchors would have profiles, and the ones who look like supermodels would share extra photos and videos with their “friends.”

Politics inspires as much passion as music, yet there’s no major socnet that caters to one side or the other. (Forget the tiny, under-publicized Ning-based sites.) Murdoch could use Stage Right to promote his shows and publications, while selling ads to the likes of Halliburton, the Republican National Committee, and airlines that fly to Argentina. Such an integration of News Corp brands seems more logical than some foray into a saturated market where the company has no experience or properties.

And when you’ve got hot reporter babes, who needs video games?

Update 7/30/9: And you thought I was just joking around: according to TechCrunch, the WSJ is going to launch a LinkedIn rival called WSJ Connect. Interesting note in this report: the WSJ already has a community section that is essentially a “ghost town.” Gee, you’d think they’d know a little something about business over on Wall Street…

"I write business books for a living. What do you do?"

I’m pissed. I just read one of the dullest business books ever — and I’ve read some pretty awful ones, including a few that I think are actually alien invasion plans written in code. You know, like anything written by economist N. Gregory Mankiw. He’s the guy who advised Bush on the economy, and reading one of his books is like chewing a sheet of tin foil. Mankiw’s baffling prose and Earth-inappropriate ideas lead me to suspect that he’s really a Klingon. Though I’m just guessing.

The book I read last night that set me off was called “Strategic Business Forecasting” by Ronald Sugar and Simon Ramo. Now why would I read anything like that if not on assignment or being threatened with waterboarding? Because the damn reviewer said it was witty…

In an L.A. Times article entitled “‘Strategic Business Forecasting’ is Wittier than Its Title,” reviewer Peter Pae claims, “Much of Ramo’s witty writing style is intact, with Sugar providing detailed analysis. Ramo became legendary for capsulizing complex ideas into wry witticism.”

Uh, no.

I didn’t find a trace of wry wit in this book. Indeed, “SBF” is so dry, I’m using it as a dehumidifier. The first half describes how to predict the future with an approach that’s essentially educated guessing. The second half consists of the authors’ predictions, and reads like a collection of undergraduate essays based on Wikipedia articles.

Uh, Peter, did you actually read this book? Really, now, fess up — did you?

Now, I might not have minded “SBF” so much if:

1. I had not expected business insights with a heady dose of levity, like the choice treats cooked up by my idol Dan Neil (also of the L.A. Times); and
2. It had it not cost me $23 and two hours of my time. For that much time and money, I could have gone to see “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” and learned how to make hundreds of millions of dollars from a movie based on toys fighting. (Two words: Megan + Fox.)

I needed an antidote.

The antidote to the boring business book.

So I reached to my bookshelf and pulled down my prized hardcover copy of “Syrup” by Max Barry, which was written ten years ago and remains the best novel about marketing ever. Yes, a romantic comedy about marketing. It could only appeal to a geek like me, right?

Well, “Syrup” has also attracted an international readership, and is rumored to be coming out as a movie. And that’s because it’s actually witty — hey, Peter, you might want to read it to learn what “wit” looks like. “Syrup” centers on a young guy in L.A. who wants to be a millionaire through brilliant marketing ideas, including a new brand of Coca-Cola called “Fukk.” (Hence, the title.) “Syrup” also contains my favorite definition of marketing:

“Marketing is the biggest industry in the world, and it’s invisible. It’s the planet’s largest religion, but the billions who worship it don’t know it. It’s vast, insidious and completely corrupt. Marketing is like L.A. It’s like a gorgeous, brainless model in L.A. A gorgeous, brainless model on cocaine having sex drinking Perrier in L.A.”

I first read that as a young guy in L.A. working in marketing while surrounded by gorgeous, brainless models. Well, while wishing I was surrounded by gorgeous, brainless models.

So maybe the book only works for me. And it still does, ten years later. And it certainly works wonders after enduring such witticisms as this from page 108 of “Strategic Business Forecasting”:

“Having predicted the range, we then can examine the possible consequences to the future of our own particular activity at each limit with confidence that we probably have covered the situation, certainly not completely, or maybe not even adequately, but at least somewhat usefully. If either of the two limits were to occur and if we had earlier concluded that we could not survive with one, or worse, with either, then the forecasting process already will have been of some help to us in our management duties because we might have acted earlier to better the future as a result of our prediction attempts.”

Damn Klingons.

***

Related Article: Ivory Towers vs Empty Calories: The Best and Worst of Business Publishing

Still a troublemaker.

Orwell is not only spinning in his grave, he must be doing triple salchows.

Amazon kindled a web-wide furor this morning when it yanked digital copies of two books from users’ Kindles: George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm…

Apparently, when you buy an e-book for your Amazon Kindle, you’re only buying the license to read it, not ownership of the book itself. Amazon can revoke that license at any time, including after you’ve made your purchase. Buyers did get full refunds, but this wasn’t just another product recall.

Yeah, the Orwellian ironies have been pointed out by the NY Times’ David Pogue and — in a more histrionic “grab your torches and pitchforks” manner — by TechCrunch’s MG Siegler, who spews, “Amazon, Why Don’t You Come In Our Houses And Burn Our Books Too?” In Siegler’s view, Big Brother lives in Seattle and goes by the name Jeff Bezos.

I see all this as more of a business decision and a licensing issue than an act of censorship.

Overall, I’m just happy to see techies (particularly the geeks at TechCrunch) reading things longer than 140 characters.

While the various parties battle it out with lawyers and laments — “don’t piss me off, man, or I’ll write a vicious article!” — there’s one temporary solution:

No batteries required.

Animal Farm + 1984 in one hardcover book for $15.60. It’s shatterproof, sand proof, built to last decades or even centuries, no batteries required, and you can own it forever, resell it or give it to a friend. Crazy cool, huh? Oh, what will those zany scientists ever think of next?

Update: There’s actually a very logical explanation for this just reported by the New York Times:

“An Amazon spokesman, Drew Herdener, said in an e-mail message that the books were added to the Kindle store by a company that did not have rights to them, using a self-service function. ‘When we were notified of this by the rights holder, we removed the illegal copies from our systems and from customers’ devices, and refunded customers,’ he said.”

In other words, the books were stolen merchandise. If you buy stolen goods, even if you weren’t aware that they were stolen, the authorities still have the right to retrieve them.

Update 8/2/9: New TechCrunch blogger Paul Carr (stablemate of the raving MG Siegler above) agrees that Amazon rightly retracted those books. More reason why he’s my favorite TechCruncher.

"Let's talk about a sensitive subject: breakage..."

So you finally found that gadget you’ve been dreaming about — you know, the one with the 60″ screen, built-in WiFi, and ability to make a perfect crème brulee at the touch of a button. Better yet, you found it advertised at just the right price… but you didn’t notice the fine print. Only after getting to the store do you notice the word that causes blistering steam to blast out of your ears and nostrils…

REBATE

Ah, the R-Word: for most consumers, that one word causes more irritation than “assembly required” and “batteries not included” combined.

Why can’t the store just cut the cost of the damn gadget? Why force their customers to endure the painstaking hassle of clipping and cutting and filling out and mailing?

Because, amigos, the hassle is the point.

Price Discrimination: Yes, It’s Legal

There’s this practice called “price discrimination,” where companies charge some customers more than others for the same product. “That can’t be legal,” you’re thinking. Well, you’re right: companies can’t practice price discrimination on legally-protected bases like race — but they can on behavior. Examples:

• a bar’s happy hour gives discounts to patrons who come earlier
• a buy-two-get-one-free deal benefits volume purchasers
• a frequent flier program give deals to loyal customers

Rebates feed discounts to people who are so hungry for a deal, they’ll jump through flaming hoops to get them. Those customers who are too wealthy or too lazy to go through the process don’t get the deal — they pay full price.

In that way, a seller can advertise a competitive low price, but not have to give it to everybody. Indeed, even those who bought the product for the discount don’t always go to the hassle of redeeming the rebate.

For example, I recently bought a bottle of shampoo that promised a rebate greater than the actual price. “Cool,” I thought, “they’re paying me to use it.” When I got home, I discovered that redeeming the rebate required filling in a 3×5 card. I haven’t owned a 3×5 card since PostIt Notes were invented, and I wasn’t going out to buy 100 of them to get a few dollars back on shampoo. My laziness factor kicked in. The shampoo company won. For now.

Breakage: No, Not The Basis Of A “Seinfeld” Episode

Failure to redeem a rebate is called “breakage,” and can range from 2% of customers to as high as 80%. This “tax on the disorganized” occurs most often during the frantic holiday season. For example, according to a BusinessWeek report on rebates, in 2005, “About 50,000 of TiVo’s 104,000 new subscribers failed to redeem mail-in rebate offers [for $100], reducing the company’s expected rebate expense by $5 million.”

Yes, there’s serious money in breakage. And that’s not necessarily a good thing.

Some companies resort to sneaky tricks to ensure breakage, like making redemption instructions unclear, or providing insufficient time to redeem the rebate on a mail-ordered product.

I once ordered some “free after rebate” products from an online electronics retailer. The rebate forms required that I submit the product UPC’s within ten days of placing my order, but after I paid, I was informed that my free products would be delayed “up to two weeks.” In other words, I would not have the UPC’s in time. I immediately emailed the company and threatened to file complaints with the Better Business Bureau and the State of California. I got a rebate credited to my card the same day.

I don’t consider deceptive or difficult rebates to be marketing. In my view, that’s borderline criminal behavior — and simply being dumb about one’s brand. Yes, there’s money in breakage, but there’s even more money in building a large, trustworthy brand. I’ve never purchased from either the shampoo company or that electronics retailer again. By being honest and straightforward, you create long-term customers, and you’ll avoid smacking into the law, which could lead to embarrassing, brand crushing stories in the news.

The Value of Rebating

Rebates can be a worthwhile activity for all involved if they’re used for the following:

1. Ensuring That Discounts Are Passed Through To Your End Consumers: A company can suggest a specific retail price on their product (the MSRP), but in most cases, the final pricing call is up to the retailer. So if you cut your wholesale price and ask the retailer to pass on the savings, the retailer may just laugh, keep the retail price as is and enjoy the extra profit. Your alternative is to offer a rebate directly to the customer.

2. Learning About Your Customers: Companies should know as much as they can about their customers, even the stingy ones. So in order to get a rebate, customers may be required to answer questions about themselves. As long as the questions are relevant and not too invasive, most customers see that as a fair trade-off. Hence, a rebate can help you learn about your customers for less than the cost of hiring a national research agency. Just remember that it’s your most discount-hungry customers that you’re learning about here.

3. Shaping Behavior: Rebates can jump-start sales during quiet times, get consumers to sample new products, or unload products that are cluttering the warehouse. Because they’re strictly a promotion for that one product for that limited time, they don’t impact the company’s overall brand as do across-the-board price cuts. On that note, if you use rebates all the time for everything — as did the automotive manufacturers — consumers will come to expect them. That’s not the behavior you want. Use rebates sparingly and for a limited time only!

Now For Some Strategic Rebating (Without The Breakage)

Let’s consider some ideas that don’t stoop to encouraging breakage — and that might increase sales and enhance your brand. (Note: every state has different rebate regulations, so brush up on them before launching your campaign and implementing any of these ideas.)

1. Encourage Website Redemption: It’s the second half of 2009 already: enough with the snail mail. Enable your customers to redeem their rebates online by providing a unique redemption code. They’ll be grateful for the convenience. From a marketing standpoint, an online form will make it immensely easier for you to collect information about your customers — and to present them with other products and deals. It’s hard to get people to your store or site in the first place. A rebate presents that opportunity. Envelopes and stamps don’t.

2. Encourage Spending That Rebate With You Or Your Partners: If you have a store or ecommerce site, offer customers the option of a larger rebate in the form of credit. Be sure to make it a choice, not a mandate. For example, if the rebate on the gadget is $100, give customers the option of $120 in credit. This keeps the money in-house. If you have a promotional partner, offer the rebate in the form of a gift card with that partner. Alliances are a great way to boost your brand, and cross-incentivizing customers is a great way to share traffic.

3. Solicit Donations To Charitable Partners: You’ve used the rebate to spur a sale. Now, enable your customers to donate that money — or at least part of it — to a worthy cause. Your brand will score an equity boost, and your favorite non-profit scores a donation.

Can it work for B-to-B?

Finally, rebates aren’t just for business-to-consumer transactions only. Their ability to shape behavior should also be leveraged by B-to-B firms.

For example, getting on-time payments is critical for companies that rely on cash flow to finance their operations. When quoting a project fee, state your 30-day payment deadline (or whatever your standard), then offer a rebate if the payment is made early. If your client doesn’t take advantage of this rebate option — yes, B-to-B breakage — you’ve essentially earned a late-payment fee in advance.

Then There’s G-to-B…

Entire state governments are getting in on the rebate action by offering tax refunds in exchange for, say, filming a movie in their states. Considering all the Hollywood productions that are filming elsewhere, it’s clear that for a lot of people, rebates are not a dirty word.

Related Articles:

• Betting To Lose: Don’t Blow Good Gambling Money on Warranties!
• Marketing During a Recession, Part 1: Pricing
• How to Win a Price War (Hint: Don’t)

***

Shameless Plug: For professional consultation on pricing and other marketing strategies, contact Atomic Tango…

Not my type.

I finally got around to watching the first season of “True Blood” on DVD — yeah, I know,  I’m a total TV slacker — but I survived only four episodes.

“True Blood” begins with an intriguing level of satire that quickly devolves into soap operatics and — even worse — boring stereotypes. Creator Alan Ball cleverly uses vampires to symbolize the coming out of the gay community, but his vampires are clichéd, smug and brooding. Rather than being high-minded immortals espousing centuries of amassed wisdom, they’re self-indulgent fetishists living solely for debauchery. Yawn. If vampires are supposed to represent the gay community, Ball is doing the latter a great disservice. Indeed, with the exception of the leading romantic interest, most of the vampires are hyper-violent dicks, so I actually found myself siding with the bigots: uh, yeah, it’s probably not the best idea to mingle with superpowered creatures hell bent on eating you.

Ironically, for all his attempts to promote open-mindedness, Ball gives Southerners a beating. Most are depicted as dumb lecherous alcoholic hicks whose thoughts are malicious or salacious. The main character is telepathic and can read minds, but being a telepath in Alan Ball’s South is like being a literature major trapped in a room with nothing but supermarket tabloids.

The true South has been the source of great literature, music, cuisine, and a few U.S. Presidents. It would be far more interesting to depict the centuries-old vampires as the true preservationists of Southern high culture, its gentility and passion for the arts. You know, kind of like the gay community in New Orleans. Where is the vampire Tennessee Williams?

Or imagine the possibilities of having the series set on the campus of LSU, with the professors as sagacious blood-suckers — “tenure” would have a far different meaning (“Time for your oral dissertation…”). The vampires would then counterbalance the Bible thumping “conservatives” who say they want to preserve Southern values, but are actually destroying it with their hatred and greed.

But, no, “True Blood” comes across like Ball had read all of Ann Rice’s “Lestat” novels and decided to focus on the naughty bits. If the series gets any better, please let me know, but I’m not willing to sit through more episodes to find out. “True Blood” is not the second coming of “Twin Peaks,” David Lynch’s seminal groundbreaking series that was far scarier and sexier. It’s more “Twilight” blended with “X-Men” and a heavy dash of “Southern Comfort.” There are better cocktails out there that deliver a far bigger buzz.

The following is a satirical work of fiction. Those easily offended should surf to safer territory now…

"You ain't seen nothin' yet..."

In the wake of Michael Jackson’s massive, media-saturated funeral, several Hollywood celebrities are reportedly looking into how they can make sure their own forthcoming funerals are as sensational.

“Ohmigod, look at all these people,” said one A-list actress on condition of anonymity. “I mean, I love Michael, still do, but he was a social misfit who sang pop songs, for god’s sake, and he hadn’t had a hit in, like, forever, yet everyone’s treating him like the second coming or something. I should get this much attention when I die, if not more.”

Other observers noted in more objective terms that Michael Jackson’s funeral was larger and more star-studded than the funeral of former U.S. President Ronald Reagan, as well as those of other politicians and celebrities.

Sensing a commercial opportunity, Hollywood entrepreneurs are leaping into the celebrity funeral business. Prominent party-planner and entertainment publicist Diana Largo has launched a company devoted to producing celebrity funerals on the scale of the Super Bowl. “I call the company Di-Large,” said Largo. “And I’ll cover all the details, from booking public arenas, to lining up Grammy-winning singers. I’ve already received several calls from actors, professional athletes, billionaire businessmen, a North Korean dictator, and some woman from Alaska — but I could barely understand what she was saying. All of them want to start planning now while they still have the money and ability to call the shots. I’m gonna make a mint off hair styling and make-up alone. You know what HD does to a corpse?”

One Silicon Valley-based Web 2.0 startup is also getting in on the post-mortem action. Said the entrepreneur, who only gave his initials as M.Z., “Hell, I’ll do it all for free and make money on the advertising. I’ve already got a major beer company lined up to sponsor a celebrity funeral not related to DUI. Get this: in order to attend, fans have to ‘friend’ the celebrity while he’s still alive. Trust me, that’s worth a lot to some of these guys.”

In related news, CNN has changed its name to “Celebrity Necrophilia Network,” and has signed deals with all the major talent agencies for the exclusive broadcast rights to their client funerals.

No, not me on the cover. Really.

Somebody my size with my athletic ability doesn’t play for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Picture an over-caffeinated chicken on a greased trampoline. It’s just not in my genetic cards.

So I did the next best thing: I wrote a bad-ass essay about the team. Actually a few essays…

In  2000, my buddy Hiroshi and I launched TURFgeeks, a primitive football blog with approximately 2.5 readers: me, Hiroshi, and an occasional stray surfer. It was a lot harder to hype a blog in those pre-Web 2.0 days — particularly since the word blog didn’t exist — but it didn’t matter. For Hiroshi, it was a refreshing break from his brutally dry gig as an agriculture industry PR guy. For me, it was a way to keep my writing skills honed in the wake of the first dotcom crash. For both of us, it was an opportunity to pretend we were sports writers.

Ancient artifact and proof of early bloggers unveiled. Note: We let our domain registration lapse, and now turfgeeks.com is owned by a lawn maintenance service. Sacrilege!

Being a sports writer was something I had fantasized about for years. In college, I was a photographer for the student paper and shot an occasional sporting event, but I envied the writers and the verbal gymnastics they executed to capture the essence of a game. I then looked into sports writing as a career and learned how much most journalists actually get paid.

Obviously, they do it for the love of sports.

I also learned that most rookie sports writers cover bowling, bass fishing and minor league baseball in some backwoods burg in hopes of making it to the big leagues. My interest was strictly football — indeed, I consider baseball to be slow torture.

So I went into the music industry instead, followed by advertising and the dotcom rollercoaster.

Enter “Sports Night”

Porn for Wannabe Sports Writers

Then, in 1998, the TV series “Sports Night” premiered and aired for two brilliant seasons. Created by Aaron Sorkin (who later produced “The West Wing”), “Sports Night” won three Emmy Awards and approximately 2.5 viewers. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t the best idea to do a show called “Sports Night” when women dominate primetime viewership. But, wow, this series about life in sports broadcasting had it all: killer writing, high-energy work environments, and sexy creative colleagues who regularly high-fived each other. It was the complete antithesis of my dotcom experience, which was more like “Office Space” without the action sequences. Indeed, “Sports Night” was so idealized and artificially enhanced it was practically pornographic.

So I tried to make it happen. Hiroshi and I wrote TURFgeeks for one glorious season. He went on to become a cop, and I got a job as an assistant on a TV series about a young guy who sees his entire life as a sporting event: “Inside Schwartz.” It sounded perfect — but let’s just say it was no “Sports Night.” We got canceled after nine or ten episodes. I’ve blocked most of it out of my memory, though I remember once finding the producer in his office obsessively tweaking the show’s laugh track.

That’s when I decided to get an MBA so I could produce my own work, but the love of sports writing persevered.

The Blog Age Dawns

A few years ago, Geek-kind entered the Blog Age. I snooped around a few sports sites, commenting here and there, but nothing grabbed me. I usually found myself debating 13-year-old sports runts who had discovered the joy of cursing anonymously at adults.

Paradise for Steelers Fans

Then, last year, I discovered a site that spoke my language: Behind The Steel Curtain. I’m a lifelong, diehard Steelers fan, and here was a thriving site devoted solely to my team, with actual intelligent discussion, not just the usual cheerleading and trash talking. Indeed, Steelers president and co-owner Art Rooney Jr. described BTSC as “Thoughtful discussion with a sense of history.”

The credit goes to Michael “Blitzburgh” Bean, BTSC’s founder and editor, who’s also a grad student in Digital Media at the University of Washington. He runs a tight ship at BTSC, and is also a great writer. He and I started chatting, and he asked if I’d like to write about the Steelers. I said of course, I was happy contributing to his site. He interrupted and asked if I would write for a print publication he was editing — and get paid to do it.

I said I’d think about it.

Yeah, right. I had the article written and on his desk before he even got off the phone — I was that pumped about the opportunity.

Game Time

The article I wrote for Michael is, of course, a marketer’s eye-view of the Steelers. Entitled “Now That’s Steelers Football!: How a Small Market Team Created a Nation,” it breaks down the elements of a “cult brand” and how the Steelers have implemented each element to perfection. Yes, it’s thoroughly TURFgeeky, but it combines Steelers and marketing. What could be better? I won’t say anymore — you’ll have to read it in your own copy of Steelers Annual 2009 just published by Maple Street Press.

By the way, one of my fellow contributing writers on this book is Howard Fineman of MSNBC and Newsweek. Yes, count me psyched.

Now, I didn’t get to cover a game in person for that article. I wrote it mostly at my local Starbucks in West L.A. But it’s a start, right? After all, if ancient Brett Favre (who’s younger than I am) can continue to pursue his football fantasies, so can this armchair QB. I just gotta take it easy on the high-fives — this typing arm ain’t what it used to be.

Shameless plug: Will write for football — or most any other topic: contact Atomic Tango…

File under “What the Hell Were They Thinking?!”

A few days ago, Microsoft leaked a new ad for Internet Explorer 8 — though I’m not sure if “leaked” is the right verb for it. More like spilled, yakked up, upchucked, and Technicolor yawned it. The ad is nicknamed “OMGIGP,” which stands for “Oh My God I’m Gonna Puke.” Really. No kidding. And it actually has a woman vomiting in it. Think I’m jesting? Watch for yourself — if you can…(WARNING: NOT FOR THE FAINT OF GUT.)

No that’s not a Saturday Night Live sketch. That’s really a Microsoft ad featuring Dean Cain. I guess Jerry Seinfeld was on vacation. And so, too, were Microsoft’s brand watchdogs.

After an initial, um, gusher of disapproval from bloggers and consumers, Microsoft has yanked the ad — though it lives on at YouTube. For now. By the time you read this article, it may already be gone.

But sorry, Redmond, the damage is done. Yes, it went viral. Congrats. You are buzz marketing geniuses, since this ad is literally all over the place. When you’re losing ground in the browser wars, desperate measures might be necessary. But if that’s the image you want implanted in the minds of consumers regarding your new web browser, I think I’ll stick to Firefox.

P.S. Then again, some people might prefer that ad to the free Nickelback song offer that Microsoft is also using to promote IE8.

P.P.S. My friend Maryam (who first alerted me about the spot) notes that if Microsoft had made this same ad using “Family Guy” cartoon characters, “they would have gotten away with it.” Indeed, that would have been brilliant! A tie-in with that show would have made Microsoft kinda sorta even a little bit hip maybe.

Related article: Welcome to the Microsoft Store! Are you sure you want to enter? Are you sure? Are you sure?

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Shameless plug: For advertising that won’t make you gag, contact Atomic Tango…

No pizza for you!

What’s wrong with pizza? I love pizza! Yet fast food giant Pizza Hut is dropping the word “pizza” from some of its store names and packaging. While still officially called Pizza Hut, the chain will refer to itself as “The Hut” to reportedly make it a more appealing place for teens to hang out. Hey, we’re not a fast food joint, we’re a cool clubhouse!

Apparently, parent company Yum Brands hasn’t been paying attention to the problems at Starbucks and other “third place” hangouts.

The other reason for the name change is that Pizza Hut has diversified its menu to include pasta and other dishes. To which I say, so? Taco Bell sells more than tacos — will Yum Brands rename it “The Bell”?

(Oh, the commercial possibilities… Actress Elizabeth Berkley talks about the hunger she endured after Showgirls temporarily killed her career, but thanks to 99-cent burrito specials, she was “saved by The Bell”… Sorry, I digress.)

To further enhance The Hut, the chain is installing HDTV’s playing Hut TV. This in-house video channel will show customized features and segments from “Wheel of Fortune” and “Entertainment Tonight” — how appropriate: junk food for the mind.

Ultimately, I’m not sure what’s the point of having the young and the listless sit in your store all day. What’s to do there besides watch TV, eat, and sip endlessly from the all-you-can-drink soda fountain?…

Ooh. Suddenly, I get a vision of something else that was nicknamed “The Hutt”…

"I can haz pizza?"

Or even worse, how about this character from the spoof Spaceballs…

Pizza the Hutt: The costume took the actor 2 hours to put on, 3 hours to eat his way out.

You know, Yum Brands,  you’re right: hold the pizza — I’ll have a salad.

Related Post: United States of Generica 2: Radio Shack Becomes “The Shack”

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Shameless plug: For naming strategies that make sense, contact Atomic Tango…

"My darling, I may be a lowly postal employee, but I do have government-run health insurance..." "Then shut up and kiss me, you fool!"

“Words are the worst thing ever. I’d prefer a drunkard at the bar touching your bum to someone who says ‘Your smile flies like a butterfly.’” — Grandmother Donna Rosa in “Il Postino”

Twenty-five years ago, the film “Il Postino” captivated American audiences with its sun-drenched tale of Italian romance, the collision of poetry and politics, and the seductive powers of metaphors. Yes, metaphors — or as the lead character Mario exclaims, “Metafore!”

Then we come to this side of the Atlantic, where we Yanks cast subtlety aside, and our metaphors and similes take a much more colorful turn…

For example, as a fan of noir fiction, I like my figurative language contrived and a little purple, like this Raymond Chandler quote that I use to kick-off my blog:

“Common sense is the little man in a gray suit who never makes a mistake at addition, but it’s always someone else’s money he’s adding up.”

I also dig Tom Robbins’ playful approach to the lingo. Here’s how he describes banana Popsicles in his novel Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas:

“Melting, they will perfume the neighborhood like one giant Harry Belafonte belch…”

Then there’s my favorite automotive/advertising writer Dan Neil:

“…everything Chrysler makes besides the Ram truck constitutes a rainbow of awful.”

Take that, Italianos! We dare you to be that metaphoric and witty at the same time!

Then It Gets Ugly: The Health Care Debate

Unfortunately, our politicians also like to make contrived comparisons. Here’s Congressman John Boehner:

“If you like going to the DMV and think they do a great job or you like going to the post office and think it’s the most efficient thing you’ve run into, then you’ll love the government run health care system.”

(BTW, Jon Stewart countered, “If you like the military protecting the country or doctors helping veterans, you’ll love this new government plan. By the way, why are you bagging on the post office? For forty-four cents, someone comes to your house, picks up some piece of crap you wrote and takes it to Wyoming on a plane…”)

Boehner’s fellow Neanderthal, Sen. Mitch McConnell, also pulled the DMV trick, saying that Americans…

“don’t want the people who brought us the Department of Motor Vehicles making life-and-death decisions for them.”

Well, first of all, Mitch, you don’t speak for me. That said, why pick on the DMV? Because they make you wait in line? What, you’ve never had to wait weeks to get a doctor’s appointment or sit an hour in a waiting room full of sick people until they call you?

Oh, of course you don’t, because your health coverage is (drum roll please) provided by the government.

And hey, comrades, as long as you’re picking on government-run institutions, why not pick on, oh, say, the fire department? After all, they’re actually in the business of saving lives, and are often the first on the scene when someone calls 911 for a health emergency. Can you imagine if our health care system were run by the same people who bring you the fire department?

Come to think of it, why not privatize your neighborhood fire departments? Sure, you could put the benevolent loving folks at WellPoint or Health Net in charge. That way, if your houses ever catch fire, they can drop your protection coverage mid-burn because you forgot to mention your pre-existing weeds in your lawn. Or maybe they’ll just deny you coverage up front because, well, you once lit a candle on a birthday cake without a fire extinguisher present.

In other words, there are other words.

We can sling metaphors and similes back and forth for the rest of eternity. You scare your base with your figures of speech, and I’ll scare my base — well, my two readers — with my figures. It’s all just a framing trick practiced every day by us marketers.

Here’s what I suggest: when it comes to something life-or-death like health care, let’s stick to the facts and leave the colorful descriptions to Italian lovers and the Governor of South Carolina…

“I love the curves of your hips, the erotic beauty of you holding yourself (or two magnificent parts of yourself) in the faded glow of night’s light…”

Or maybe just to the Italians.

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• Soccer Moms Voted Off The Island For Jumping The Shark: 10 Odd American Expressions You Should Know
• The Unparalleled World-Class Mission-Critical Hero: Words Sucked Dry In Business

Score one for the Iranian protesters — at least when it comes to marketing.

Just last week, the Iranian protests dominated conversations across the media and the Internet. Then yesterday, not at all surprisingly in our celebrity-obsessed culture, Michael Jackson’s death wiped the Iranians off the evening news, the front pages of newspapers, and the social media trending topics.

Ahmadinejad couldn’t have asked for anything better.

Yes, even Twitter — which had been celebrated as the one sole outlet for Iranian protesters — went Michael Jackson insane, causing the Fail Whale to surface because of a tsunami of MJ tweets. So much for Twitter being the salvation of meaningful news in the 21st century. Sorry, TechCrunch Twitterphiles, even your beloved Twitter mobs value pop culture over hard news just like everyone else.

So how do you keep your life-or-death protests in the minds of an ADD world? Look at what hit YouTube today:

In a montage video entitled “BEAT IT YOU FANATICS!!! GET OUT OF MY LAND!”, a YouTube member named mydorood (operating ostensibly out of Hungary) combined images from the protest with the MJ hit “Beat it” — thus fusing two hot topics into one expression. Now that’s brilliant marketing!

I found out about this video from a Facebook member. And now I’d like to pass it on.

But watch it while you still can, because it might not be long before the censors get to it — and I’m not talking the Iranian government. No, I’m talking about an organization that’s almost as sinister and diabolical: the RIAA.

In the end, who knows how the protests will turn out? But this is more proof that the people of Iran did everything they could.

The news of Michael Jackson’s death just hit the internets a few hours ago, and the iTunes Store already has Michael Jackson featured on top and center…

Click through, and you’ll find a page dedicated to his music with a nice eulogy.

My first thought: wow, that was fast.

Then came the questions: Was Apple simply anticipating a rush of Michael Jackson fans, and just facilitating the fans’ ability to acquire their favorite MJ songs? Or were there Apple marketing folks jumping up and down while shouting, hey, production crew, get on this pronto — there’s sales to be had…

No use asking Apple — we already know what the corporate spin would be.

So I’m asking you: What do you think? Too soon? Tastefully done? Or no big deal — this is just a business doing what it should be doing?

Update 6/26/9: Michael Jackson posthumously rules iTunes:

Related Article: Going Out with a Really Big Bang: Celebrities Planning Even Grander Finales

Just chillin'

It’s not as much fun picking on Coors now as when they were run by right-wing zealots from a mountain stronghold in Colorado. (Alright, it’s a brewery, but it’s fun to say “mountain stronghold.”) I did razz ‘em for their faux microbrew, Blue Moon. But since Coors became the Molson Coors company, they’re part-Canadian, and Canadians are our lovable liberal neighbors to the north with free healthcare, right? To further confuse matters, Molson Coors joined with SABMiller, the South African owner of Miller Beer, to form MillerCoors to promote their products in the U.S. And next year, South Africa will be hosting the World Cup, which is a glorious celebration of international unity through sports. Or something like that.

So how can I pick on Coors now? It’s too easy…

My latest bouef du jour is Coors Light’s multimillion dollar campaign to promote their “Cold Activated Can”, which uses “thermal-chromic” ink to tell you when your beer is cold enough to drink. True, it’s cool (literally) to watch the mountains turn from white to blue, but as one of my buddies asked me, can’t you just touch the can?

Well, when you can’t talk about your product, you talk about your packaging. Coors Light — in my never humble opinion — doesn’t taste good. I’d put it one notch above rusty tap water. Indeed, you’ll never see Coors Light advertised on the basis of taste. Rather, you’ll see it marketed on the basis of its relatively low caloric content and, now, temperature. Yes, you can make this beer turn cold by refrigerating it, putting it on ice, or having Ann Coulter hold it for a little while. Stop the presses — it’s a revolution in the brewing!

There’s another problem with this whole campaign: it makes for bad drinking. I found this little nugget on beer marketing in the July 2009 issue of Wired:

“The mountains on a Coors Light can are poor arbiters of taste. The peaks turn blue at ‘optimal drinking temperature,’ or 39°F and colder. But beer loses flavor at that temp: It releases fewer volatile chemicals, and your tongue’s ability to taste bitterness is diminished. Luckily, with Coors that makes little difference.”

See, I’m not the only geek with an anti-Coors ‘tude. The alpha geeks just use wicked terminology like “volatile chemicals,” which is a lot more convincing than me saying “lame, dude.”

Now, Coors Light once did talk about its beer in its advertising — sort of: “The Silver Bullet Won’t Slow You Down.” But that slogan never made sense to me, either. After all, Coors Light is still technically a beer, and beer contains alcohol and, well, alcohol does slow you down, particularly when you’re thrown by the mechanical bull into the foosball table.

Yet, somehow, Coors Light is still the #3 selling beer in America. I guess for some good ol’ boys, hanging out with your buds and watching beer cans change color makes for a full evening…

Now that’s just cold, blogger boy, just cold.

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Related Article: Not So Artfully Crafted: Blue Moon’s Un-Wired Ad

Shameless plug: Need an ad campaign that won’t leave your customers cold? Contact Atomic Tango…

Oh, now you've gone and pissed off the mermaid... (illustration by Jeffrey Thomas)

Three yuppies walk into a Starbucks. Sounds like the beginning of a joke, and in a way it is. Two claim a table, while the third goes to order. He asks the others what they want, and they both say “nothing.” He responds, “So why are we here?” One replies, “Someplace to talk.” The first guy scowls and says something that makes me want to high-five him…

“That’s gonna put them out of business — people like you.”

I look around. This West L.A. Starbucks is packed at 1 pm with people waiting for seats — it’s one of the lucky stores in the hurting chain — but I see an old guy without a beverage napping in a chair, and a young woman at a table eating salad from Tupperware and drinking O.J. from a gallon jug she obviously bought elsewhere.

Since I’m a business guy who values what Starbucks offers, these sights make me more steamed than Dante’s cappuccino. I take my coffee and leave.

In another establishment, a manager might tell these freeloaders to hit the freeway. But this is Starbucks, and founder Howard Schultz envisioned a “third place” where people could linger and meet outside of work, school and home. Notes the Starbucks mission statement:

“When our customers feel this sense of belonging, our stores become a haven, a break from the worries outside, a place where you can meet with friends. It’s about enjoyment at the speed of life — sometimes slow and savored, sometimes faster. Always full of humanity.”

Oh, the humanity. I can’t imagine this is what Schultz had in mind.

Now, we can point to several reasons why Starbucks’ stock has declined: absurd overexpansion, intensified competition, ill-advised ventures into filmmaking, and premium prices that no longer fit most budgets. Starbucks responded by shutting down underperforming stores, withdrawing from the movie biz, increasing its advertising, and offering lower-priced options like Pike Place Roast. All laudable efforts.

But if patrons are now hanging out without buying, all those efforts won’t amount to a hill of roasted beans, and that can mean only one thing: Hasta la venti, baby.

What can Starbucks do? Some ideas…

• Follow the Italian coffee shops (the source of Schultz’s inspiration) and charge $7 per cup to compensate for all-day hangers. But Starbucks has already suffered a revolt by the price sensitive, and raising prices would only punish the legit customers.

• Pull a Web 2.0 and “monetize that traffic” by selling ads in its stores. I’ve seen other coffee shops do this with ad-sponsored TV screens. But just as advertising isn’t floating too many dotcoms, I don’t think flashing ads will make a difference while people are chatting, reading or napping.

• Take a stand — or more exactly, compel customers to do so literally — by taking away chairs. It’s working in some classrooms, where teachers are finding that students are more alert when they stand instead of sit. That would eliminate the snoozers and the lunchers — and some legit customers as well — but it would make room for lots of standing-only tables…

At the least, before taking any of these measures, Starbucks should just ask customers to drink up. Little tent cards at every seat could pose a friendly reminder:

“Thanks for visiting us today! We’re thrilled to have you here savoring our little home away from home. Nice, huh? Now we hope you’ll help us keep going by trying one of our gourmet coffees — we’re sure you’ll enjoy every drop! But if you’d rather just hang out all day without buying anything, our cousin Guido will soon come along to keep you company. After all, we wouldn’t want you to be lonely here, and he’ll even make you an offer you can’t refuse! If he seems really eager to have you drink some coffee, it’s not personal — it’s strictly business — and we wouldn’t want to upset Guido now, would we?”

Update 8/6/9: The backlash has begun. While Starbucks is still generous, other coffee shops are taking a stand against freeloaders.