Airline Madness! Why I am going to visit Detroit and Cincinnati for 30 minutes each

Posted on April 27, 2009 by markkolier

I have to go to Minneapolis next week for a meeting or two.  It’s a one day trip out of necessity as I have things going both before and after that require my being close to the office.    It’s about a 2 ½ – 3 hour direct flight to get to Minneapolis from a New York area airport.   Kind of like going to Chicago and it’s normally pretty easy and reasonably priced to get to Chicago.   

Not so much for Minneapolis.   Direct flight – (and there are a few but not many choices) – $ 1,470.00.   No I did not use Priceline as I need to be there at a particular time and cannot deal with the uncertainty that is Priceline.   But going through Detroit to get to Minneapolis and coming back to New York City through Cincinnati the fare was $ 163.00.   Not $ 1,163.00.  $ 163.00 ROUND TRIP!  I am thinking it is unlikely the Detroit and Northern Kentucky (where the Cincinnati Airport is located) Airport authority is that strong a lobby to build traffic for wayward travelers, (however it would be terrific idea if they had!).  But by flying more total miles and taking 4 planes instead of 2, I saved more than $ 1,300.00  

How can this make any sense?   It doesn’t for me so it must make sense for the Delta/Northwest right?    Both Detroit (Northwest) and Delta (Cincinnati) have hubs in these cities and have many flights going every which way from those hubs.   So I imagine that there are unsold seats on planes leaving from those hubs and somehow it makes good business sense (to the airline) to fleece the customer who wants to go direct from New York to Minneapolis.   What they end up with is a customer who is aggravated and I have not even gone to the airport yet.   Yes I will be fine and people who live further from major cities like New York have to deal with this all the time.  

I have done quite a bit of traveling this year and plan to continue that trend.  I have not had big time complaints with the airlines this year.  Most flights I have taken have been reasonably on time and the service (less and less) was pretty much what I expected.   Yet out of all the things I have done this by far bothers me the most.   

Customer loyalty?  Why would I be loyal to an airline that runs me through the wringer?   Why would you?   It’s not a service proposition – domestic air travel here in the United States is pretty uniformly dreadful.   So price continues to rule the day.   Would I have paid more to go direct?  Yes but nowhere near $ 1,300!  

I’m willing to bet that almost all people do not run their business this way.  How long would our companies last if we did?   What say you?  

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Live Concerts are a better value than sporting events

Posted on April 21, 2009 by markkolier

The opening of two sparkling new baseball parks in the Metropolitan New York area gave critics and fans (sometimes they are one in the same) plenty of things about which to complain and praise.   I was at Citi Field (maybe we should call it U.S. Government Field) opening night.  The ballpark is beautiful but of course compared to rickety old Shea Stadium that’s not saying much.  Yet I grew up watching the Mets at Shea.  Citi Field seems to me like another team’s ballpark.   I expect that to change when I attend more games but I could not even get to see a third of the stadium as I actually was there to watch a baseball game.   One comment I heard was that the Mets (and Yankees too I presume) are more interested in attracting consumers than baseball fans.  At an average ticket price of well over $ 100 many baseball fans are priced out of the equation. 

I read this morning that despite the current deep recession live concert sales are up more than 18% 2008 over 2007.  And if you have paid any attention to live concert ticket prices they appear to me to be no less expensive than baseball games at the new parks (or football games for that matter) – probably a good deal more.    Of course $ 200 plus for Miley Cyrus is something I cannot fathom.   And I have gone to the New York Philharmonic a few times recently and their ticket prices for a good orchestra seat are slightly less than a good seat at Citi Field. 

But live concerts are a better value by far in my opinion.   And I love sporting events.   Yo-Yo-Ma and Miley Cyrus don’t have off nights when they perform.   Or if they do it’s for the most part unnoticed by those in attendance.   The orchestra, the ensemble, and frankly all the professional in the performing arts (on and off Broadway are great examples) have a much higher standard of accountability than athletes.   How do professional baseball players, football players and other athletes not know the rules of the game?    If a pitcher has a bad game he comes out in the third inning.  I don’t believe I have ever heard of an artist leaving the stage saying ‘I just don’t have it tonight’ – or their manager pulling them off stage for the same reason. 

There’s no question in my mind what is the better value.  That does not mean I won’t be going back to Citi Field to see my beloved Mets soon, (and I will also venture to the Bronx to see the Yankees even though I cannot stand them though I do like Jeter) because I’m a baseball fan.   But people that go to live concerts are there for the performance and experience.   I am not certain of the same with sporting events anymore. 

Agree?  Disagree?  What do you think? 

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I need new skills. You do too.

Posted on April 15, 2009 by markkolier

Even though I run my own company I feel I still must answer to my employees, clients and colleagues.   Everyone is counting on me to keep up with what is new in communications, advertising and specifically direct response marketing.  A ton of pressure right?  Yes and no. 

I realize there is no way for me to be the most knowledgeable about all the new developments and things that are on the marketplace.  But I do strive to know enough to be able to discuss what’s going on with those that know more than me (there are a lot of these people).  

 Engaging smart people in conversation is easier than you might think – social networks, twitter queries all enable me to find a little just about anyone  – unless they mask their identity or choose not to engage.  Even then you can find things out about people. 

So I have developed new skills – blogging, reading social media data, trying to help clients realize where they should be engaged in both new and old media which requires me to know more things about new and old media.   I don’t know how to write HTML code or any code for that matter but would be interested in at least better understanding the difficulties and complexity – after all our company has developers that do these things but they remain sort of a holy grail to me since I just have no clue.  

What I know most of all is that I will continue to have to learn new things.   This results in reading about the same thing in multiple places (the internet is the home of the derivative article and viewpoint) which is a total waste of time.   The internet is also a great place to waste a lot of time.  

You can never be tired of learning new things.    You can be tired and not feel like it sometimes.    But you, like me, need new skills.   Skills you will need tomorrow and beyond.    Why not start today.

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Ten tried and true recession clichés

Posted on April 11, 2009 by markkolier

There are so many recession clichés.  

1.       We’re closer to the bottom than the top

2.       It will get worse before it gets better

3.       People are changing their spending habits

4.       Right sizing (this means people lose their jobs)

5.       Workforce reduction (this also means people lose their jobs)

6.       There is still a lot of pain to be doled out

7.       Any recovery will take years not months

8.       People were using their homes as an ATM

9.       This is a crisis of confidence

10.   An opportunity exists to grab market share at lower costs

 And those are just a few – I bet you can come up with so many more.   

The last one may not be as popular but being a marketing guy I think it might be the most important.  In the current culture of expense slashing and burning, marketing budgets have also taken a major hit.  No doubt some of that is warranted (John Wanamaker’s famous words ‘Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half – still ring true today).

 

And most marketers are aware that there are great opportunities out there to have a louder voice since so many companies are pulling advertising dollars out.  Yet people are still buying things – less expensive things but still buying.    Recent data suggests an uptick in consumer spending.  I’ve seen municipal associations promote the going out to restaurants as a way to save city jobs and contribute to the economic recovery as a whole. 

 

My company has taken to investing in research and development to an even greater degree since opportunities for learning have not been this good in years.    Some of our clients are moving away from tried and true channels like mail and on-page advertising to – direct response television?   Yes since media time AND the production costs for a television commercial have not been this cheap for years.  And they may not be again for a long, long, time.  

 

I have clients and associates who are having a great 2009 so far.  It can happen!   And it inspires me and makes me feel that we are on the beginning of the upslope on the other side of the trough.  There’s another cliché.   They flow so easily. 

So join me in encouraging marketers to redouble their efforts to get the most bang for their buck (yeah I know).   All that is at stake is your present and your future. 

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What time is it? Does it even matter?

Posted on April 5, 2009 by markkolier

I have been thinking about this post for quite a while.  Maybe more today since I am getting some work done at the office on a Sunday afternoon (I did play 18 holes this morning – in 3 hours!).   

When I was quite a bit younger (longer ago than I care to think about) time seemed to be broken down into easily understandable units.  There was school time, play time, family time, vacation time, practice time (sports or music or whatever), breakfast time, lunch time, dinner time and always the despised bed time.  Summer time meant a lot when I was a kid.  I am still a bit wistful about not having 3 months of no school or work.   As I got through college there was class time, study time and party time (NOT in that order necessarily).   

Once in the workforce there was work time, after work time (leisure time – I never liked that term very much), weekend time, and vacation time.  

Then I got married and eventually had kids so and consequently the term ‘quality time’ with the family became operative.   It’s all fine and dandy.   But in the past few years that has really changed.  People work all the time and if you do business overseas your work time can be another’s sleeping time.    Many of us have PDA’s and get messages constantly – weekdays, weeknights and weekends.  Social networking has messages coming to you at all times (sometimes personal sometimes business).   More recently Twitter allows people to send up to the minute status reports and what they are doing at any moment. 

 I actually like working on the weekends.  I don’t do it every weekend or even both weekend days (at least not often).     Many times like so many people I know I go home and work remotely to stay ahead of the onslaught of constant messages.  When I am on vacation I prefer to know what messages have been received so that I can decide what is important enough to earn a response prior to my return.  I don’t know anyone who likes coming back from vacation with 624 messages awaiting their perusal.  

At the same time I don’t feel guilty if I do a non-work thing during the five days ‘business week’.   And whoever made up the 5 days on 2 days off thing ought to be shot – I would much prefer 4 and 3 but was not around for that meeting.    Convention still dictates that people operate along the Monday – Friday guidelines since old habits are hard to break but I see that changing too.  Your clients, employees, employers and associates have become accustomed to timely if not immediate response to important messages.  

Eventually (if you are not already) we all will be able to be reached and be able to respond 24/7.   I don’t see that as a sign of the apocalypse but I do think expectations of adequate response time will have to change.   I realize that employees do not want to have to be on call and accountable to their company at any given moment.   And there are plenty of bosses who already abuse that tactic.  Yet I feel that knowing what is going on is a good thing.   It is up to each of us to understand the expectations of action/response.    There are times when things need an immediate response.  But they are not as frequent as most people think.    Time doesn’t really care at all.  People have divided it up to suit their own desires and purposes.    I wonder if our ultra connectivity will change the notion of time overall?    Do you wonder the same? 

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Rental Cars – services keep going down and prices keep going up

Posted on March 29, 2009 by markkolier

After traveling internationally more than just a bit recently, I had a two day trip in and out of Cincinnati this past week.   I have been renting cars from Budget and occasionally Hertz for the most part over the past twenty years.   The current economic downturn has impacted the car rental companies in many ways.   Fewer renters, older cars as car manufacturers seem to have discontinued the practice of leasing new cars to the car rental companies in order to get people to try them out.  

So people are not buying cars and consequently GM, Ford, Toyota and all the others are no longer offering those low mileage cars to renters.   The best rate we could come up with on a one day 3 hour rental was $ 270.00 for a full size (that being a Ford Taurus which does not seem very full size to me).   For twenty seven hours.  Digging a little deeper the day before my trip we found that we could rent a minivan for $ 205.00 for the same period.   So we went for it as like many companies we are looking to hold down expenses wherever possible.   

If you are not aware Budget and Avis are now ‘one’.   Budget has a ‘Fast Break’ program for frequent renters.  I am in the program and for the most part it is pretty good – the rental bus drops (or sometimes you just walk over if within the airport like in Tampa) customers off at the kiosk which has a display listing your name and which row you can choose any car.   Not in Cincinnati (whose airport is actually in Northern Kentucky).   All the Avis and Budget customers had to exit at the Avis lot (apparently the Budget lot had closed unbeknownst to me) and wait since the computers were down. 

Standing in the rain waiting my ten to fifteen minutes I considered how much car rentals have changed.   The paradigm appears to be cars with high mileage, low choice opportunity, more expensive prices than ever before (stick it to the business traveler as a one week renter does not pay much more than 50% than the one day plus I rented!), and declining customer service.   

From what I can see all the car rental companies are following this same model.   The real question is why car rental companies thought lowering customer expectations is a good idea in the first place.  It just isn’t.    I feel there is a big time opportunity to cull out a different model in the car rental marketplace.    It will take Virgin-Atlantic or maybe even a Jet Blue new approach but I think people would respond to something away from the lousy and seemingly identically boring alternatives available now.   What do you think? 

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Thoughts on Tokyo – Part VI – Tokyo – it’s all about the hair and the mask

Posted on March 24, 2009 by markkolier

9:30PM on Sunday night in Tokyo and the Hair Salon is bustling.  There are actually people waiting their turn to spend more than $ 100US to color, tease, and style the head s of 36,000,000 people.  Maybe it’s just sheer numbers but I have never seen so many hair salons in my life.     The Japanese are so very into their hair.  Guys too.  I had great difficulty in processing that fact.  The guys had colored their hair – that Henna color being the preferred shade.  Then the teased odd hairdo’s that were I assume to suggest a highly self-expressive individual.  I felt it made men look like a bunch of wusses.  Maybe the women like that but I can’t really say for sure.

But servicing the customer is what the hair salons are all about and staying open late on a Sunday night speaks to that more than anything else could.   I am also aware that so many young unmarried Japanese women live at home with their parents (cultural and economical) and have ‘disposable’ income.    That income seems to direct line to their hair and clothes.  But the guys too?    I fail to understand how looking like someone should beat you up would attract the ladies.  Yet another reason why hard as I try I just don’t really understand the Japanese.

Almost all the Japanese dress stylishly even to go to the market.  On Saturday or Sunday as well.   Many of the outfits are chic and tasteful and then there are those that border on the provocative.  They guys look more like they stepped out of a bad George Michael Video.   Then there is the mask thing.  I was there during allergy season but even though I had seen photos of Asian people wearing hygiene masks I was not prepared for the amount of people wearing them as they walked around and rode the subway.  Apparently after WWII a host of cedar trees were planted in Tokyo and the residents suffer miserably in the spring during allergy season.  But at times it was 50% of the people.    Alarming.  And something you would never see in the United States. 

The other mask I noticed in Japan was the one worn by people when they were alone just walking around going about their business.  Implacid faces, vacant looks, I am trying not to think it was just me but their overall demeanor was radically different when there were two or more people.  Americans may not be the most friendly people on the planet but they will at least look at you when you walk by.   The mask must protect people but I admit I had no success in getting used to it. 

There are many things that make Tokyo so very different from the western world – I keep thinking of new ones all the time. 

 

 

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Thoughts on Tokyo – Part III – Tokyo is no place for direct mail

Posted on March 23, 2009 by markkolier

I remember the first time I went to Tokyo in 2000.  The area in which my friends were living was very chic and filled with westerners.  Where my friends live now (they have moved around several times) is also a very nice area but more typically Japanese with few westerners (that’s means you!).   But the thing all these areas seem to share is that there are (except for major thoroughfares) no street signs and no street addresses posted.   How does the mailman know where to go?  They do it by neighborhood and somehow it works.  But it does not work if you want to send any kind of offer to the household aside from a generic message on behalf of a neighborhood business.

Japan does not have lists of people to buy and sell as is the case in the U.S. and many other places.   Since the population is so homogenous there is no need for demographic and psychographic profiling.   People are not all that different – at least city people are city people and country people are country people.  In Japan mail is delivered 7 days a week and you pretty much have to check your mailbox every time you return home.  I did not get to see any offers from companies that may have provided services to my friend but I imagine that there may be some mailing to customer files but then again maybe not.   I was told how efficient the Japanese postal service is, and that would be consistent with just about everything in Japan.  The Japanese postal service is being privatized over the next 9+ years.  This is something that is often discussed about the USPS but never really seems to gain any real traction.   

The cultural reasons would seem to be many for why there is no customer list industry in Japan but I am sure that there are many Americans that would prefer if there were little advertising mail in the United States.   There are however no shortages of direct response television ads and some of the same characters that hawk products on American television can be seen doing the same complete with dubbing, subtitles etc. for selling those products in Japan.    I wonder if the Japanese will use the mail any differently as the amount of advertising messages continue to increase there as much as in the U.S…   I for one think it is a channel that could be leveraged but it would not be easy (what is easy these days?). 

And don’t ever just throw your unwanted mail in the garbage.  In Tokyo your neighbors make up what I call the ‘garbage police’.  The recycling standards are quite high in Tokyo and as gai-jin (foreign people) are not fully familiar with garbage protocols you can spend fifteen minutes being admonished by your neighbor due to your errors in separating your garbage.   These people take this stuff seriously!  Good thing though – 36 million people have big time garbage potential.  And even with the strict standards there are mutant super crows that prowl the streets of Tokyo.   These birds are scary big and appear to have hit the steroid stash.   They make noise 24 hours a day and frequently made me feel as if I were in an Edgar Allen Poe story or Alfred Hitchcock movie.   I have heard that the crows have actually gone after people and they take small animals regularly.  One final observation about garbage in Tokyo (and Europe for that matter) – re: public garbage cans.  There aren’t many.  Having been to Europe twice in the past 9 months as well as Tokyo I have never carried my trash around more in my life.  However the streets of Europe and Tokyo were infinitely cleaner than in New York (not saying much) or most other places in the U.S.   Yes there is a correlation.   But it would take an American quite some time to get used to that!   

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Thoughts on Tokyo – Part II – how technology made it more fun

Posted on March 17, 2009 by markkolier

tokyo-akihabura

Trying to figure the Tokyo subway map was not easy but it worked

Trying to figure the Tokyo subway map was not easy but it worked

I am going on 24 hours with little sleep trying to stay up to hopefully get back on track.  So this might not be the most lucid post I have ever made.  Forgive me if that’s the case.  I just finished uploading all the photos and I will share a few along the way.  

I got the Blackberry Storm the Friday before I left for Tokyo (don’t hate me iPhone zealots – I love the iPhone too it was all about the carrier) and it worked like a dream.   I used it all the time (and the data plan was really reasonable for the week except for phone calls which I did not make).  I almost felt like a Japanese person since they are CONSTANTLY using their phone.   In fact the Japanese don’t use computers at home nearly to the degree that we do here in the States.  The 3G network is outstanding and really fast.  Surfing the web was easy and it appeared simple to switch from phone mode to web.  

One morning I realized I misplaced my subway map and was on my own as my buddy had to go to work.  I went to Google and downloaded a Tokyo subway map and could increase the size so I could see where I wanted to go and also could move around within the map.   It was comforting to always be able to be in touch.   I also could easily monitor what was going on at the office (without responding as being 13 hours ahead is not all that convenient for real time work e-mailing or conversations.  I posted a few tweets, a few Facebook updates all from the handheld.  And it also has a 3.2 mega-pixel camera which takes pretty good photos – and videos.  

So even though I am totally fried right now I am in a pretty good way coming back to work tomorrow without the deluge of stuff to sift through since I already have seen much of it and responded to whatever was important. 

The Storm is a little bulky and the younger Japanese set that is continually on the phone have to have great eyes as their phones are really small and reading Kanji  looks like a chore even if you know what it means! 

But the main thing here is that Smart phones like the Storm, iPhone and the yet to be released Palm-Pre (I actually really wanted one of those but could not wait) have changed the game and I am wondering when and how the tiny net books I saw in Japan will meld with the Smart Phones?    I guess you could say it’s happening as we speak.  Or text.  Or email… 

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Thoughts on Tokyo – Part I

Posted on March 15, 2009 by markkolier

I have been in Japan for nearly a week now and I am leaving tomorrow morning.   This is my third trip to Japan (and Asia) in the last nine years.  Several friends of mine travel to Tokyo on business and for the most part seem to enjoy it.  But since I have never stayed in a hotel in Japan I believe as a tourist I have a very different sense of the overall culture than someone who flies in for a couple of days, has a few meetings and hangs out where the westerners are (Rappongi).    I can say with all assurance that I love this place and could easily see myself living in Tokyo for a while.   While that is highly unlikely (my family, friends and employees have nothing about which to be concerned), living within a completely different culture is energizing and perspective changing.   And I don’t speak the language and barely understand enough to get around.

Since I often blog about customer experiences I’ll try not to rhapsodize too much about why I like it here in Tokyo – a city of more than 36 million people within the greater Tokyo area.  1 out of 3 Japanese people live in Tokyo.  Japan is a country whose area would fit comfortably within the state of California.  Yes it’s crowded.    Really crowded, but it works.  

I have had the great pleasure of spending a week with my great friend Tom who has lived in Tokyo for ten years.  He began studying Japanese in college when were freshmen at USC.   He is still taking Japanese lessons.    The Japanese language is very difficult.  But I do want to learn it.  I had a DVD from our great client Rosetta Stone but somehow it has disappeared and I did not study up before I arrived.  I will be sure to go out and get a replacement.  But since my friend has been studying for more than 30 years and lives here I realize at best I will be able to hopefully get by.  Some Japanese people speak English, but not many.  

Tom mentions that Tokyo is easy and he is right.  Convenient to live and work and I don’t believe I have ever felt (or will ever feel) safer in a city anywhere. 

For those that are interested I will have a series of posts on different subjects regarding my observations about Tokyo and Japan.  Travel, Food, Dress, Personal Grooming, Politeness (and Rudeness) will be some of the areas that I cover. 

What I will leave you with now is that I have come to realize Japanese culture rules people’s behavior more than any other single thing.  It’s not possible to try to platform some of things that occur here from a traditional customer behavior standpoint.  There are those that say don’t try to understand certain things about the Japanese.   And a western person there is only so much (and it probably is not much) I could ever really understand. 

But you should come here and see it for yourself.  In the words of the Governator – ‘I’ll be back’. 

 

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