The Low-Bid Economy, Continued.

Way back in August--when the temperature was higher but the globe was some degrees cooler--I wrote about a phenomenon called "The Low-Bid Economy." http://adaged.blogspot.com/search?q=low+bid+economy
This weekend, I've been forced to attend a Bat Mitzvah in Ann Arbor, Michigan (that is not the start of a joke) and I've run head-long into another facet of the low-bid economy--the complete and utter lack of service.

I flew Northwest. Surly flight attendants. No service or accountability whatsoever. Seats literally crooked on their runners as low-bid workers try to jam in another couple of rows. A dirty plane. No food except $2 trail-mix, which really sounds like something a gerbil would eat.

Then the Hertz counter in the Detroit airport. A line of six customers. And one fat Hertz rep behind the counter unable to make the contract printer work. Three Hertz people milling about, complaining in loud voices about the cold. Or looking at USA Today on their computers. No sense in serving customers--they pay us to pass hours not help people.

Then the Marriott Courtyard Inn. One pimple behind the counter. She can't spell my name. Can't even bother to listen to it when I repeat it again. And I'm an "Elite" customer. Ha! A filthy hotel. Because why pay people a decent wage to clean? It is dirty. You are dirty after a shower. And if you are over 5'5" you have to bend to get your head under the showerhead. Low-bid, everybody down.

Then, an attempt to replace a broken cell-phone still on warranty at the T-Mobile store. "T" as in terrible service. Terrible attitude. Terrible. Terminal. Tacky. Tsurly. Trafe. The phone they sold you breaks, and you are inconvenienced. You get charged for shipping. You get no apology.

Dell has just awarded some billions in advertising to a new WPP group. If Dell does not become the "Nordstrom's" of the PC world, their market-share will continue to shrink.

The Low-bid world is a dirty, dumb and dispiriting place. A place where no one cares. We need an alternative.

Would you please speak English, please?

The abuse of the English language spreads like a California wild-fire. While I am exacting and punctilious by nature, I do believe that language is mutable, always changing. But that by no means excuses the sloppiness of diction and thought that infects our speech today. Much of the infection is pure laziness--people chuck in extra cliche-d phrases because, well, it's so easy to say what someone else said before. So, you hear and read things like, "We will provide access to transportation," rather than "We will provide transportation." Then there is the segment of our language that is sullied because it has become propagandized or politicized or both. Somehow political discussions are "debates." They are not. They are questions and answer sessions with little interplay. Abortion. You are either anti-abortion or pro-choice. Well, guess what? I am anti-abortion--of course I am. Abortion is a horrible procedure and probably a painful choice. I mean who ISN'T anti-abortion. However, I believe women and men can opt to choose an abortion if they wish. I can go on and one and probably will. Because the manipulation of language shapes the world we live in. The Manichean world view of the Radical Right eliminates nuance and says, basically, anyone with a skin-tone darker than Paris Hilton is evil, especially if they don't believe in salvation through the one-time Jew, Jesus Christ.

Perhaps in a later post I will come up with a list of warning words. If you hear those words in a conversation or read them, do everything you can to escape. Because they are used only by scoundrels, charlatans and know-nothings. Robust is high on that list.

Finally, I am writing this from a visually cacophonous room in a Marriott Courtyard Hotel in Ann Arbor, Michigan. There is no courtyard in sight. And no one named Mari. And certainly no yacht.

This is for smart people only.

:30 seconds is more time than people will spend with something they're not interested in. And 30 minutes may not even be enough time if people are interested in something.

That's why we see print ads and print vehicles disappearing but books proliferating. People now know they can skip things they aren't interested in. And choose instead to focus on the things they care about.

What marketing people haven't done to date is alter their communication mixes following the simple logic outlined above. So we see mass marketers spending billions on commericals and media sending virtually zero information (brand or product) to people who don't care a whit or can't afford what is being proffered.Further, they show no acuity at targeting their customers and saying "here's where to and how to satisfy your needs."

American automakers are the worst offenders. Let me say it one more time: No matter how many and how good the commercials are that Buick runs, people are not coming back to the brand. If they can somehow build a car that gets 95 mpg, lasts 25 years, doesn't pollute and costs $3000, maybe they have a chance at long-term survival. Barring that, they are simply throwing away their dough. But since GM lost $5000 per second last quarter, apparently they don't care. (BTW the $5000/second is not hyperbole. It is fact.)

What marketers are forgetting is something Steve Hayden famously said in 1994, ten years after producing what is often regarded as the greatest commercial of all time. "Direct is the future of advertising, and interactive is the future of direct." In other words, though paraphrasing Mr. Hayden is somewhat sacriligious, to a targeted audience, a :30 is the movie trailer and the website is the movie. Tell people who want content how exciting the content is and where they can find it. Then let them customize that content and get it on the devices that matter most to them.

In this week's Ad Age, Peter Noel Murray (who sounds like a phallus, the Christmas season and a guy who slices lox in a deli) writes this and I think it's pretty good.

"To maximize the potential of the internet, the CMO must take the lead in developing and researching applications that will resonate with the customer. Steps that the CMO can take include:

1. Put communication front and center.
Establish communication as the priority by challenging the company's marketing resources and interactive agencies to think from the larger perspective of the internet's "narrative voice."

2. See ad formats from a consumer's perspective.
Evaluate existing internet advertising formats and capabilities from the perspective of consumer psychology. How well are they aligned with human information processing? How can they be improved?

3. Make messaging the end goal.
Lead the development and testing of new advertising forms and structures that are built on the foundations of customer understanding and the harnessing of the technology to communicate messages most effectively.

4. Develop a more emotionally rich experience.
Establish long-term goals for internet technology that will transform the medium from its current data-centric character to become a richer medium in communicating values such as emotion, an active ingredient in the most effective ads."

Nattering nabobs of positivism.

Perhaps this is an understatement or maybe it's an overstatement, but it seems to me that there is one giant fundamental difference between account people and creative people.

Account people consider it a good day when they've had a good meeting. Creative people don't give a rat's arse about the meeting, so long as producing something good comes from it.

I've just gotten out of a rousing client meeting--prelude to another meeting with the largest of all client cheeses tomorrow. Those around me are high-fiving. We've had a good meeting.

But so far, we've sold fuck all.

Remember that.

A public service announcement.

As the weather turns chilly, Ad Aged would like to remind its throng of faithful readers to wear a hat. Science has determined you lose upwards of 40% of your body heat through your head so when the mercury dips, it makes sense to bundle up. If you're at work and you forgot your hat and the temperature suddenly plummets, you can wrap your head with old print outs and foam-core. That will also do the trick.

Let's run this up the flagppole and see who salutes it.

I think I've finally had the advertising idea that will make me rich. I'm going to create a holding company for holding companies.

Get me Sir Martin on the phone.
Tell Wren to hold.
I'll see Roth in a second. Tell him to cool his heels.

I'm about to introduce WinteromniPubliseurohavascom. I will own every agency in the world. And first I'll lower your salaries. Then I'll consolidate your back-office. Then I'll fire your asses.

Eliminate your but.

If you want to work for a good agency or be a good client, it's easy. Just have everyone around you eliminate one word from their vocabulary. But.

As in, "Yes, but."

Eliminate that's funny, but...
I like it but...
We should do that but.

It's so easy to kill an idea and enthusiasm.
Just use your but.

My agency's Christmas party.

Ok, ok. I just ducked out of my agency's Holiday party to write this post. Now, I'm not one for parties. In fact I despise them. But the party I'm attending right now is off the hook with a capital H. Or a capital O.

Can you say Bacchanal? Can you say orgy? Can you say moral turpitude and lewd and licentious?

I showed up late, mais oui, but within five minutes of arriving and hanging my coat up on a super model's erect nipples, I counted six of the seven deadly sins taking place, and a couple more sins that may only induce comas.

Holy cow. Great pay. Great people. Great work. Great parties. Have I died and gone to heaven?

Weapons of Mass Communication.

A book was reviewed in yesterday's New York Times (for those of you unfamiliar with that term, a book is a collection of printed words on a page, usually bound and placed between two covers.) The book is called "War Posters--Weapons of Mass Communication" and as the title indicates, it is a collection of a couple of hundred posters from various combatants from the dozen or so wars the world has fought since the advent of mass media. Here is the review: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/02/books/review/Heller-t.html

I recommend this book for about four reasons:
1. It makes for great history of the wars we've fought (and started.)
2. It tracks our attitudes about other nations and races.
3. It provides an archive of 100 years of great ads. You can also see great illustrators, graphic design and typography (including type from one British WWI poster that is a dead-ringer for the Altoids typography.)
4. My 16-year old daughter learned something.

For your free copy, please respond to this post with a check for $72.50 to cover shipping and handling. Thank you.

Meeting facilitators.

40 foreign leaders in Annapolis, ostensibly trying to settle one of the world's most intractable problems. So my question is this: was there a meeting facilitator at Annapolis? Did someone stand up in front of Abbas and Olmert and the rest of the chic and the sheik and say "There's no such thing as a bad idea?" Did they have "brainstorming sessions," and flip charts and someone keeping sticky flip-charts that they can post on the wall with the "no bad ideas" that we come up with, and everyone gets ten day-glow circle stickers to place next to the idea they think is best.

"I think we should get all the Palestinians really good jobs."
"I think the Palestinians should accept the existence of Israel."
"We should give everyone a camel and a goat and some baclava and then we'll have peace."

Then we can take all those ideas and look at the ones that got the most votes and figure out "action-items" around those and "next steps" that will lead to brotherly Semite love, philosemitism will reign, the Dead Sea will kick into life, manna will rain from heaven and milk and honey will be freeflowing and lo-cal.

Write to me at this address with your thoughts and I will send you a complimentary .ppt file of innovative clip art.