Ideapad

Blogging since 1998. By David Wertheimer

Page 86 of 129

Phases

So here I am in the student lounge at NYU Stern. In an hour I’ll have my last class here—an anticlimax, as I completed my major classes and assignments two weekends ago. Tonight is the last session of a marketing elective I took in the part-time program. By 9 p.m. I will truly be finished with school.

The denouement is rather nice. I had lunch with a classmate today, then met with my marketing professor to talk about my new job, which starts in January: I am the new director of Internet marketing for Clarins, where I’ll be the online evangelist and strategist while I learn about consumer product marketing. It’s a great chance to build upon my career to date and leverage the marketing and strategy work that became my main focus in business school.

As if that weren’t enough, tonight’s class centers around Mountain Dew’s “Do the Dew” campaign, on which my wife has worked extensively. The case study we read is all about her executive creative director, who I have met several times and who is truly a master of his craft. I find it appropriate that my time in school—an undertaking conceived and encouraged by my wife—concludes with my learning more about her line of work. After two years of patience and paying the bills, she deserves some extra attention.

I am pleased and proud to report that my MBA has already had a direct and positive impact on me: what I know, how I think, who my friends are, and where life will take me. In many ways I will miss being in school, but I am ready to move forward, and the path that lies ahead is full of promise. Wish me luck.

On privacy

I find it interesting that Yahoo prompts me to re-enter my password when I go into Yahoo Mail, but has no problem accepting my cookie alone to display all the details of my financial portfolio.

Brand death

I have noticed in recent months that several household and food products I enjoy have disappeared from shelves. Sometimes the transition is easy—for example, switching from Tide Ready-Tabs back to plain old laundry detergent—other times, less so (you try finding a paste-and-gel fresh-mint toothpaste without whitening that you and your spouse both like).

Obviously, market forces create the shifts; my beloved Turkey Hill low-fat choco mint chip ice cream has ceded shelf space to low-carb mint chip instead. That doesn’t make it easier, though. As an ordinary consumer, I like what I buy, and I’m confused and disappointed when I can’t buy it. Companies don’t announce discontinuations; instead, one day consumers can’t find the product in the corner store, which leads to an increased neighborhood scouring, then a touch of hoarding as the realization sets in that this could be a last gasp to buy.

The problem is that in an age of increased brand segmentation, the expectations of simpler product worlds still persist. You like Coca-Cola, you buy Coca-Cola, simple as that. New Coke failed not because it was an inferior product but because it pulled the rug out from the expectation level of a vast array of demanding consumers. Now that toothpaste comes in 59 varieties, each one a little more suspect than the next (citrus whitening toothpaste with built-in mouthwash?), product turnover becomes more of an everyday occurrence. Yet the overarching brand continues, leaving consumers confused: do you switch to another tube of Crest, or change allegiances entirely?

Companies need to keep an eye on product discontinuations as much as introductions, for each dead product has an allegiance pining for it. Perhaps I would have benefited, for example, from getting free samples of replacement products along with the toothpaste I used to buy. Create a transition so the consumer realizes that there is a suitable replacement to the soon-to-depart. Higher marketing and production costs, sure, but higher customer satisfaction and loyalty, too. (Consider: I don’t buy Turkey Hill ice cream now that my favorite flavor is gone.)

I am more old-school than I thought, because I miss my discontinued products, right down to the Arizona diet asia plum green tea that I knew from Day One was too niche to spend much time in the corner deli. But that doesn’t make me wrong as a consumer. Just a little more wary as I settle into new habits. And I am probably just one of a sizable segment of shoppers who would benefit from a savvy marketing department that made product transitions easier.

You’ve got imitators

I’m fascinated by the new NetZero ads spoofing AOL’s current campaign. I know these spots well, and personally, I think there’s nothing more flattering than to have a competitor co-opt your work (obviously you’re doing something well enough that it’s worth re-using). But what’s really catching my eye is how similar a lot of the actors and actresses look. Most of them are obvious (and good) look-alikes, but I’m curious if any of them are the same people, and if so, how much of a clamor this is going to cause.

The ads (both AOL’s and NetZero’s) are online here.

Update: I’m told that full noncompetitive clauses apply to commercial actors, and that any similarities to the original performers is just excellent casting (much to AOL’s chagrin, as well as the actors who are ever more intimately associated with the campaign).

P.S. China was amazing.

Gone fishing

As noted below, I’m off to China until November 26. I will be checking email sporadically and, if I’m proactive, I will post some photos and essays as I go.

Happy Thanksgiving.

In this activity, everybody wins

New York Times: In a Game of Shirts and Skins, They’d Be the Skins. Hamilton College has a “team” of streakers that, rather than just run across its own quad in the buff, has invaded Middlebury College and Colgate recently.

“We kept referring to ourselves as a team,” said Craig Moores, a senior studio arts major, “and then it dawned on us that if we were truly a team, we’d have to have away games.”

And with that, I’m off to China. See you in December.

Due this week

5 p.m. Wednesday: paper on China’s trade policy for international study.

6 p.m. Wednesday: 10-page exercise on advertising planning and research.

8 p.m. Wednesday: quiz on Intel’s ad management.

11 p.m. Wednesday: strategic situation summary for integrative project.

9 a.m. Saturday: 5-page paper on Mexico’s 1995 financial crisis (group).

11 a.m. Saturday: macroeconomics final exam (on 17 chapters and 150 slides).

5 p.m. Saturday: full draft of integrative project (group; ~100 pages).

Also: two uncollected homework assignments for corporate finance and a group paper on advertising management due November 3.

See you Sunday.

Best practices and MediaPost

I joined MediaPost today, after years of reading, because I was curious what membership got me.

The answer: three newsletter-style emails in the past five hours, none of which I requested to receive.

Logging into the site to turn off my feeds, I discovered that signing up for the site registered me for fifteen daily and weekly emails, all of which are opt-out. (screenshot)

I wonder how long it will be before I have to turn off the email address I used, once it’s sold to the lowest bidder and turned into a spam receptacle.

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