!?*# Alex Bogusky – he just never got it

Posted on October 27, 2010 by markkolier

BTW I don’t even know the guy (and if you’ve never heard of him he was until recently the chief creative officer and partner in one of the hottest advertising shops in the business – Crispin Porter Bogusky). I’ve never met him and probably never will. Maybe he’s a good guy but what I really don’t like that apparently he is all about Alex. Everything I have read (yes I have a media viewpoint only) about him first moving Crispin Porter Bogusky’s creative team (think Burger King Whopper Freakout, BMW, Domino’s Pizza, Coke Zero) to Colorado from Miami, inviting people to either join him or be done (most joined him), then he ultimately bails on them by ‘retiring’ from the agency with his millions of dollars; smacks of a megalomaniac and tyrant.

Just today in Ad Age http://bit.ly/dwcqW4, an article was written on Alex’s new career as a consumer advocate. It notes that he is starting much the way Ralph Nader did 50 years ago. And we all know how loved and admired Ralph Nader has been all these years. But just as it was with CPB this is all about Alex. And we’ve seen this movie before.

Did his agency do good work while Alex was as the helm? No doubt. Do the ends justify the means? I believe that can be argued. Can you even name anyone else on the creative side of the agency? Didn’t the people on the team contribute? Of course they did and I am betting in a big way. Why no credit for them? Why don’t we know anything about the others on the team?

Recently the Colorado office of Crispin Porter (sans Bogusky) has been reduced in staff and rumors are that it may close entirely and many remaining creative folks have high-tailed it back to Miami. I cannot imagine these people don’t feel personally violated, even if they learned important things from their not-so-fearless leader.

Our agency is expanding and adding some wildly talented and experienced folks so that we can become a better agency for our clients and better support each other. As someone that has been the founder and leader of the charge for the past nearly 15 years I am so ready to cede some control by bringing in a host of people who are smarter than me in so many ways. And that’s just part of my ‘new’ job.

What I’ve found and what makes me so excited is my new role in the organization – to facilitate everyone else’s success. In my view this will enable our team (Kristie, Nancy, Carrie, Michele, Shawn, Kristina, Greg, Nader, Jessica, Dona, Melanie, David, Dany, and Larry to mention them by name) to do our very best work on behalf of our clients AND have a really good time doing it.

Don’t think for a second that we are not desirous of being named ‘Agency of the Year’ 13 or more times in the trade press. I just don’t want to be a ‘slash and burn’ leader of a clearly dysfunctional team that only has the solace of awards and accolades but no recognition outside of the group leader. You see from my perspective it’s all about creating a healthy culture and environment in which to work.

Sorry Alex if perhaps I am misunderstanding what really happened but it does not look so good from my view.

How about you – what do you think?

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Foursquare – is it on the road to nowhere?

Posted on October 25, 2010 by markkolier

I’ve been ‘using’ Foursquare’s location based application for about 9 months now. People ask me all the time WHY do I use Foursquare to let people know where I am at a given moment. My standard answer is that in order for me to understand how this technology might be useful I had to be a user and experience it for myself.

Well after 9 months of ‘checking-in’, having received 9 different ‘badges’, being the ‘Mayor’ of no less than 6 different places – including the Acela Club at Citi Field where I have been only 5 times, I am here to tell you that I personally don’t have any real use for Foursquare.

I have received comments from my Facebook friends (you can link your Foursquare status to FB); on different places I’ve been that they went to at one time or another – that’s a little bit cool. But I have yet to ‘check-in’ at a place and have someone nearby let me know that they are in the area and maybe we could get together.

Granted non-20’s people like myself (ok mea culpa I am more than double that), don’t normally go hopping around in the suburbs from place to place and when I am in New York City and check-in most of my Foursquare friends are either not in the city or not going to the same places that I am.

Occasionally Foursquare has offered me a coupon for an establishment nearby to the one in which I just checked-in and I even used a coupon one time just to test it (coffee). But as I wrote in a previous post http://bit.ly/9AWboS Foursquare’s GPS location is not very good and I can often check into no less than 15 establishments at the same time within as many as 1,000 meters (why it’s in meters I have no idea). In fact frequently it says that I am closer to a place down the street than the place that I am actually in.

An interesting article by Todd Woody in the NY Times from October 20 http://nyti.ms/dwjcRh did a nice job in linking Earthjustice – a non-profit law firm, to a campaign in which $ 10 would be donated to protect endangered species by ‘checking-in’ at Foursquare at ‘Earthjustice ad’. Clever campaign but I don’t know if that’s enough of a business model to sustain Foursquare. And now Facebook has been running its own location based platform – Facebook Places.

As far as I am concerned the road for Foursquare leads directly to be acquired by Facebook. And they better do that fast. Time is running out. You can check-in on that.

What do you think?

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Free Wi-Fi access – wouldn’t it be nice?

Posted on October 22, 2010 by markkolier

Since I will be traveling from Connecticut to New York more frequently now that we are opening a New York City office (Soho here we come!), the need for my being ‘connected’ has never been greater. Up until now I have ‘managed’ remote internet access by ducking into Starbuck’s or other establishments that offer Wi-Fi access – be it paid or free.

The object here is to be 100% connected anytime I want. Yes I am well aware that laptop cards (and iPad’s for that matter) afford nearly universal connection. The cost was off-putting from $ 40/month to over $ 70/month often times with a 2 year contract. Until recently I was not out of the office all that much that I could not get by but those days are over.

This week I was in Raleigh for a day with my high school daughter visiting NC State as one of her prospective colleges. We arrived back at the RDU airport with nearly 2 hours to spare before our flight left. I brought my laptop for a few reasons not the least of which was to log on and pick up email and answer a few longer ones that my handheld was not well suited to do. I found a few wireless networks including one named ‘Free Wi-Fi’. Pretty good signal. Only I could not connect. Even the AT & T signal was good. I could not connect even though I was willing to pay. To say I was frustrated was an understatement.

Yesterday I was in New York and again had a half hour to spare and tried to connect to the internet. I found another ‘Free Wi-Fi’ network. And again I could not connect. I began to think that somebody up there didn’t like me.

Earlier this month I was at the SFO (San Francisco) Airport and was able to log on to their free wireless access with no problem. Why SFO does not charge but LaGuardia, O’Hare and other airports do is a mystery to me. There does not seem to be any consistency in this area at all. Of course it’s all about a revenue opportunity for companies like Verizon, AT & T, and Boingo just to name a few. But how much money could they possibly be making? It’s bad enough that many hotels charge you $ 300 per night and then whack you $ 14 or more a day for internet access. I simply am not in love with living in this a la carte world.

In order for Americans to be more productive there has to be a movement to have a nationwide free internet access system. It could not come soon enough for me. In the meantime I am in the process of getting the wireless all the time access (likely from Virgin who has a very interesting program as noted by David Pogue of the New York Times in a recent post http://nyti.ms/bsOAl5). Their program is no contract and $ 40 per month. I will let you know how it works out.

Free Wi-Fi access. It was a nice dream. Do you use on the go wireless access? How is it working for you?

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Stopping the madness – the scourge of email CC – are you guilty?

Posted on October 21, 2010 by markkolier

If you travel out of the office on business you no doubt rely on email to keep in touch with what’s going on the office. But whether you are in the office or out of the office most business executives are dealing with more than one hundred emails each day – or more. In my case I get a fair amount of newsletters and information on a daily basis. I also get copied on emails from clients, team members, and outside resources. I’ll wager that this happens to everyone.

We’ve all seen the tag line at the end of some people’s email signatures ‘Please think twice before printing out this email’. The thinking being that it is a waste of paper and we could help save the environment just a little if we did not print quite as much from our email files. Although I’d like to think I am able to make my own decisions on whether or not I require an email to be printed out I fully understand the sentiment.

What about people’s time? Maybe there should be a different sort of tag line, one that might read ‘Please think twice about to whom you are cc’ing this email – is it really necessary?’ I’ve adopted a rule that I do not respond to emails in which I am cc’d. If someone wants to direct a message to me and I feel the need to respond I will do so. But the rampant use of cc’ing is seemingly out of control from the standpoint of making sure that everyone copied can see what you wrote or are doing.

The point here is not that I am uninterested in what is going on – quite the contrary – I am interested and want to help if I am able. But most of the time I don’t feel I am being asked to help or even for my opinion. It seems to me that it is more of an opportunity for the sender to demonstrate their activity. So using that theory – how is cc’ing helping me?

Email is an extremely useful communication tool and in all honesty I love it and am a regular user. I know I have abused the cc thing and am trying very hard to really think about whether or not I need to cc someone when I send an email. We could all use all use a little more time for the important things don’t you think?

How about you – how much of your email flow is inessential and what would you do with the time
you would pick up if you did not have to read all the cc emails you receive every day?

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Compact fluorescent bulbs – myth or magic?

Posted on October 18, 2010 by markkolier

I replaced another compact fluorescent bulb in my kitchen yesterday. In fact I have to replace them seemingly all the time. That’s not what we signed up for. The supposed wonderful energy cost savings (75% by many accounts) are attenuated by the higher costs of the bulbs (as much as four or five times as expensive. Yet in the interest in contributing to a greener planet my wife and I felt this was a no-brainer. We’ve found that we might be the ones losing our minds.

So exactly how long do compact fluorescent light bulbs last? I tried to find out a definitive answer but I answers to that question are very elusive. The additional cost is supposed to be eclipsed by the longer lifespan. In our experience that’s not the case at all.

A couple of links shed a little light (sorry) on the subject – both describe some level of experience and the Youtube video depicts the issue of cracked CFL’s as they are referred to at times.

http://www.lockergnome.com/technobabble/2007/03/07/compact-fluorescent-light-bulbs-lifespan/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0H2BhxP7UKs

http://www.channel3000.com/news/21300430/detail.html

Personally and professionally I am very interested in green energy solutions. When I first heard about CFL’s several years ago my wife and I bought the hype and a ton of bulbs at places like Home Depot. Now it’s possible that the level of quality of the CFL bulbs we bought at Home Depot is not all that good, (which from what many people have found out is true about many goods at Home Depot), but we also have purchased CFL’s at local hardware stores and other outlets.

The problem is we are buying too many of them in the first place and if they were supposed to last 7 years on average why are we continually replacing them? Do we turn them on and off too much? If that is the case how exactly does leaving a light bulb in the on position fit in with being energy saving?
And then there’s the issue of what to do with CFL’s that no longer function. Since most people are aware that there is a small amount of mercury in the CFL’s those people know that you cannot simply just toss those non-functioning bulbs in your trash can to end up in a landfill and possibly poison someone that handles it. Consequently we have a box full of dead CFL’s that we have to dispose of on something our town calls ‘Hazardous waste disposal day’. Not one of the most celebrated events of the year in our town. But it is well attended and that’s another story entirely.

What about you? Have you bought the hype and the bulbs? Do yours last 7 years? 2 years? Are you replacing them all the time? I cannot believe this is limited to our experience.

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Will the Chilean miners now face an even greater challenge?

Posted on October 14, 2010 by markkolier

Now that the 33 men trapped in a mine in San Jose, Chile for 69 days have been rescued the world has breathed a collective sigh of relief. I watched much of the rescue yesterday both at my hotel and on my Jet Blue flight back to JFK from San Francisco. It was a remarkable and unforgettable experience just to watch it live.

Already there have been reports that the miners would be paid as much as $400,000 each for the rights to the movie about their ordeal. And it is likely that not one of those miners will ever go down a mine shaft again.

I’m not sure that they can be referred to as heroes although they certainly are being treated as such. While it’s true that the camaraderie and teamwork displayed by the miners was quite likely responsible for their survival, the ‘heroism’ sure to be dramatized on film may be more of a testament to Chilean resolve than actual heroism.

But how about the families of these men aged 19-63? And in particular what will happen to the wives who were shown waiting anxiously as the men were slowly raised one by one up the 2,300 foot metal encased shaft. The fame, notoriety, and fortune apparently heading the way of the miners and their families will be nothing like they could have ever imagined. While the miners might have the right tools to operate 2,300 feet below the ground, I thinkit may be less likely that they are equipped with the tools to handle the media onslaught much less the gold diggers (no pun intended) that will be calling all the time.

The beauty of the story has likely had its pinnacle and from here on the denouement very well may end up making the miners look like a bunch of past lottery winners. I don’t mean to be a downer here but the raw emotion and purity of spirit that existed throughout the ordeal as well as immediately afterward will wane all too quickly. The marriage proposal by one of the miners while he was trapped was poignant, as are many of the statements we heard yesterday and today.

But fame has a huge price and the media will have its way with these brave men and their families. I think that’s kind of sad and I actually feel a bit sorry for all of them. And that does not seem right either.

What do you think?

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Does an agency that represents itself have a fool for a client?

Posted on October 13, 2010 by markkolier

Those that know me know that I hatched an idea almost 15 years ago to have people customize a ‘fake’ magazine cover that would help them celebrate a significant life event. At the time it was an idea that was interesting but not practical since printing costs would be hundreds if not over a thousand dollars (keep in mind that in January of 1996 digital printing was in its infancy and four color digital printing was just being rolled out).

But by 2000 digital printing had made production more affordable so we started YourCover (www.YourCover.com ). People came to our website and saw what we could do and then requested information which we would send to them along with a questionnaire for them to fill out which they would send back to us along with some photos for us to scan. Our artist would put it together with my copy and we would send them back a uniquely and completely personalized 4 page fake magazine cover. The price was $275 for 25. And it was $275 for 1 also.

Over the years we’ve refined the product, the offerings, and the way our customers can engage to purchase the product. We’ve generated much of the traffic through both organic (SEO) and paid (SEM) search. We’ve tried most every channel on a somewhat limited budget except for broadcast or cable television and radio.

YourCover is modestly successful but it never has been a huge money maker. Mostly because we’ve not had the resources to throw brand advertising dollars at the product and I wanted us to retain total control. Yet as my Vistage group pointed out several years ago (when I was mulling over our inability to make a big impact) that what we really had was a very cool and effective research and development lab. I had never looked at it that way but they were so right.

By treating our own product as a ‘client’ we’ve learned many things over the years. What works, what doesn’t, and why. We’ve created a unique blogging strategy that our agency has turned into a product. We’ve learned that affiliate marketing is not the right tactic for our business and which businesses might be more apt to have success with it. We take the knowledge we have gained at our own expense and bring that learning back to our clients and we all benefit.

We realize that YourCover lacks big brand identity and that is a huge stumbling block. Direct response is a great medium but there has to be an excellent brand positioning to make it work as well. DR people sometimes lose sight of that. I’ve learned that and much more.

Today we launched the newest version of our site at http://www.YourCover.com . My wife Michele, our Creative Director Nader Ashway and the entire YourCover team (thanks Kristina and Jessica) have done what I think is a terrific job in making it an easy to use and more engaging site. But I will let you be the judge of that.
So we are an agency that has itself for a client. While that may be unusual now, I see a time when agencies will own products on a much broader basis. It makes sense to me because a marketing agency that has its own product truly has ‘skin in the game’.

So does our agency have a fool for a client? It’s fine if your answer is yes but what do you think?

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Marketing and Social Media – An attribution model will display its attributes

Posted on October 11, 2010 by markkolier

Our agency has migrated from using traditional direct response channels to a host of new media vehicles including social media. While we continue to employ direct mail (particularly to identified prospects and customers), television, print, the three S’s – SEO, SEM, and Social Media are fast gaining in overall marketing usage.

An article in emarketer notes that social media marketing has not gained share even faster due to a lack of marketer confidence in its effectiveness to move the proverbial needle. http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1007974
It’s not that marketers don’t believe social media is a viable channel. But clients (and rightly so) want to have empirical evidence of the effectiveness of Social Media marketing not to mention SEO and SEM.
I’m currently in San Francisco for the Direct Marketing Association’s annual conference. I was at the DMA Agency council breakfast this morning where this topic is a constant at our meetings over the past two years. As marketing agencies add to their tool kit the term ‘media agnostic’ is often used. That is to say agencies are not to care which channel is used as long as it is effective. I pointed out (with a nod to my associate and friend David Adelman of OCD Media) that we are better served being media cognostic. To know about all the various channels and make the right choices for our clients so that we can truly serve them in the most effective way.

Even if a channel falls outside of a core competency our job is to find the appropriate partner and bring that partner to the table on behalf of our clients. But what’s needed even more are attribution models that more clearly demonstrate how all the channel moving parts are working together. These are complicated models and requiring of substantial amounts of research. The payoff is a better understanding of how social media (and other channel) efforts contribute to actual product sales.

Intuitively we know that conversations on Facebook and Twitter centered around products and services increase brand identity and in turn sales. Yet we also know the customer is in control of where that sale occurs whether online or at a retail location. And the customer buying paths are not necessarily linear.
So as we build our own attribution models we expect to have that hard evidence that social media is directly contributing to product sales as well as consumer awareness. Just saying it works and expecting your client to buy that is why the adoption curve has been so slow.

What do you think?

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Has the travel pendulum swung too far the other way?

Posted on October 8, 2010 by markkolier

I’ve been on the road more than ever over the last 2 months. Having the opportunity to travel both internationally as well as domestically so much in a relatively short period I am in tune with the way the airlines, rental car and hotel industries are treating people during the current economic slowdown, post-recessionary period.

The hospitality industry was hit very hard by the recession. Airlines which are not always successful in good times were squeezed hard and consolidation has resulted. It also appears that airlines have done a better job of matching the equipment to meet the actual needs of markets. The result is bad news for travelers.

I cannot recall a time in recent memory when a domestic flight was not packed or oversold. And there are decidedly fewer flights to choose from. The charging for bags trend has infiltrated almost all carriers (Southwest and Jet Blue stand nearly alone in not charging for bags) and consequently people are packing or stuffing carry-on bags to the max and getting space in an overhead bin is increasingly challenging. If you are near the end of the line to board the plane the airline will ‘offer’ to check your carry-on for no charge. Only you have to go to baggage claim to get your bag now and most people have not planned for that extra 45 minutes or more. How exactly does that serve the customer?

Pricing has gone up as well. I’ve advanced the idea that airline pricing has been far too low in relation to the CPI. But the quick run-up is aggravating in particular when you relate it to the deteriorating level of service. A coke and a few peanuts is often the only option on any flight less than 3 hours. And the flight attendants are more and more irascible not to mention older and grumpier.

I saw a new revenue driver for the airlines this week. When checking in on United at the airport or online you can opt to pay an additional $ 39.00 on a flight from Chicago to the East Coast for ‘Priority boarding’. I believe the insinuation was that you did not have to wait on the really long security line (on which the TSA agents admonished anyone that had even a paper bag to consolidate into two carry-on bags only). But I was not sure and also not sure if TSA had a hand in any of that additional revenue. In addition at the gate you could board with the first class or elite mileage members. This might be a good revenue driver for the airline but it is nothing but an annoyance to a passenger who just spent $ 260 one way. Adding 15% to board first?

Car rental companies are no better. The option of driving 75 miles or less and paying a flat fee of $ 10.00 for gas is a good one. But on this trip I drove 89 miles (got a little lost on the way back to the airport and ran out of time) and did not stop for gas. It was a mere 14 miles over the 75 mile flat fee ‘limit’. The gas charge was $ 44.43. Great customer service Avis/Budget. Drill the customer between the eyes. We will call and likely get the usurious charge reduced. Or they will lose my business forever. But again how does this serve the customer?

I could get going on hotels that charge ridiculous prices for accessing the internet from your room – how annoying is that? Most people today now want internet access when at a hotel. And $ 10 or $ 15 per DAY for access is just a rip-off. But I will stop there.

We all know that times were hard on the travel and hospitality business. However if these are the ‘salad days’ in increasing profitability for the airlines, rental car industries and hotel businesses (and recent earnings reports show this to be true), who will be the bold providers that acknowledge that when it comes to abusing the customer what goes around comes around?

Does this stuff bother you as much as it bothers me?

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All these technology applications and yet people still play Solitaire and Scrabble?

Posted on October 6, 2010 by markkolier

We all know now that the iPad has changed the world. A blurb in Ad Age today noted that Oprah (who is a big fan of the iPad and gave everyone on her magazine staff one this year) offered her ‘favorite’ iPad applications. For whatever reason, people seem obsessed with lists of things that Oprah says she likes (books etc.).

Scrabble was one of Oprah’s favorite iPad apps. When I rode the train in yesterday to New York I sat across from a gentlemen wearing headphones, using an iPad. What was he doing? Playing Scrabble. I thought it a bit odd at the time since with the cool 3G access he could have been doing so many things and yet he chose to play good ol’ Scrabble. Full disclosure – I LOVE SCRABBLE! But I’ve only played online once or twice and it did not do it for me. We still have an old fashioned Scrabble game with the wood tiles.

Since I also travel by airplane a great deal I watch what people do while sitting in their seats. What I see often is work being done but I also see many people playing Solitaire on their computer. Your next question will no doubt have something to do with, ‘how old are these people’? Ok they are not 25 or 30 as far as I can tell. But many are not much older than that.

It amazes me. And also makes me think – what does that mean? With all these increasingly cool technology tools where people can interact in real time on their iPad or web-enabled computer while flying, people seem to want to tune out and do things reminiscent of a simpler time.

Are we perhaps suffering from device overkill? Can we possibly use all of these useful yet complex tools and applications that are being developed by the second from all corners of the world? How much is enough? How much is too much?

I don’t have an iPad as yet. I do want one and have thought about how it could help make me more productive. I envision it being particularly useful when riding the train to and from New York from the suburbs such that I would not have to carry my heavy laptop all the time. And all the apps I could load – the Kindle app for reading, magazines to keep up with things that interest me could make it even more useful than a laptop itself. (Although typing on the iPad looks like a big pain in the neck – literally, so I’d need to have a plug in keyboard).

But I wonder if I’d end up putting the Scrabble application on my iPad and while away the time trying to unplug from the world while at the same time being plugged in?

How about you? Do you play Scrabble or Solitaire on your computer or laptop? If so why?

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