Brand Autopsy

File this under “Small Ideas with Big Impact” ...

PROBLEM:
Too much spillage in the men’s room urinals at Schiphol Airport (Amsterdam).

SOLUTION:
Etch an image of a common housefly near the drain holes of the porcelain urinals.

RESULTS:
Spillage has been reduced by 80%. According to someone close to the project, “The fly improves aim. If a man sees a fly, he aims at it.”

Fascinating stuff. Learn more by reading the NUDGE book, NUDGE blog, and this NY Times article.

Can one person in a workplace ruin a workplace? In other words, can one bad apple spoil the whole bunch?

That’s the question Dr. Will Felps, Rotterdam Business School professor, sought to answer. His findings were published under the title of, How, When, and Why Bad Apples Spoil the Barrel. [preview available].

This American Life brought to life Felps’ work in a recent episode. It’s a fascinating piece, worthy of spending a few minutes listening to. (Listen here.)

The gist is this … Felps’ study indicates the spillover effect of Bad Apple behavior can undermine the success of a group. Groups in this study infected with a Bad Apple, performed 30%-to-40% worse than similar groups without a Bad Apple.

This study identified three personality types linked to Bad Apple behavior. I’m sure we’ve all experienced one of these personalities in our group project work:

1. THE JERK
This personality will make rude and insulting comments directed at others. He’ll criticize other people’s ideas without offering up alternative ideas of his own.

2. THE SLACKER
The attitude of indifference persists within this person. Verbally and non-verbally, he’ll convey feelings of “whatever” and “who cares.”

3. THE DEPRESSIVE PESSIMIST
The Debbie Downer of the group. This person will complain about how unenjoyable the project is and openly doubts the group will succeed.

(Interestingly, these represent some of the same destructive on-the-job personalities Dr. Bob Sutton wrote about in THE NO ASSHOLE RULE.)

What’s a group to do if they are burdened with a Bad Apple?

Sure, you could confront and try to reform the Bad Apple. However, a better approach could be to follow Jim Collins’ advice from BUILT TO LAST and have the virus, that is the miserable person, ejected before the spillover effect happens.

Business at Google is healthy. However, in these uncertain times Google is watching its expenses and is getting downright frugal by tightening some of its famed employee perks (free food, free massages, etc.).

The New York Times ran an interesting interview with Eric Schmidt (Google CEO) where he comments on managing the company during this economic avalanche. He was asked if it is enjoyable to manage a company on a spending diet. His answer may surprise you...

Earlier, we shared takeaways from Donald Keough’s THE TEN COMMANDMENTS OF BUSINESS FAILURE.

Today, by way of Seth, we learn of Ed Welch’s list of 101 ways a business WILL destroy itself. Lots of chewy nuggets in Ed’s PDF — below are a few of the chewiest nuggets...

#1. When you have a great product that’s selling well - look for ways to make it cheaper – your customers won’t be able to tell the difference.

#5. Do everything you can to keep your customers from creating a community – you don’t want them talking to each other.

#16. Make sure your employees care more about procedures and rules than customers.

#22. Never try to build customer evangelists – mass advertising has always worked better!

#47. Make sure everyone in your company understands that people are loyal to products and brands – NOT other people and relationships.

In June, Time magazine ran a story about the business philosophies of Kip Tindell (ceo/co-founder of The Container Store) and John Mackey (ceo/co-founder of Whole Foods Market). Kip and John are kindred spirits because they hold fast to the belief “empowered employees beget happy customers.”

The article is interesting. However, the transcript of the CONVERSATION between Tindell and Mackey is FASCINATING.

This CONVERSATION is required reading for anyone remotely interested in building a business that matters.

I’m on vacation this week. But you can’t take a vacation until you READ THIS.

What are you still doing here? I ain’t kidding you. I am imploring you to READ THIS. (There will be a quiz.)

** Kudos to Lilly Rockwell of the Austin-American Statesman for the heads-up.

Kudos to Karlene Lukovitz for her autopsy-esque article on reviving left-for-dead brands. Click here or below to read the interesting article...

Living in the Badlands of Central Texas has some benefits. I took advantage of one those benefits on Saturday morning by visiting Snow’s BBQ in Lexington, TX.

Brand Autopsy blog readers will recall an earlier post about Snow’s BBQ, a small town BBQ joint that was once hardly-known but now is widely-known thanks to hefty praise from Texas Monthly magazine.

Saturday was the day for me to make the hour-long drive to visit Snow’s and experience for myself the littlest bestest BBQ joint in Texas. I took along my itty-bitty camera and clumsily cobbled together this amateurish video of my visit. Enjoy.

Consider peeping the July issue of ARCHITECT magazine. The magazine asked five architect design firms to envision the rebirth of Starbucks. Interesting results ... lots of daydreaming esoteric fodder for design-types. The regular marketing-type in me likes the Modular Community Kitchen design from Studios Architecture.

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CLICK HERE to review all five rebirthing Starbucks design ideas.

Let’s pretend … you live in a small town, population 1,200. You operate a BBQ joint open only on Saturdays in this small town. The townsfolk describe your brisket as “transcendent meat.” By the early afternoon you’ve sold all 300 pounds of the meats you smoked. Your day is done and your customers are happy. Business is manageable, profitable, and more important, enjoyable.

Then all of a sudden your unknown BBQ joint gets praised as BEST BBQ IN THE STATE.

People now drive hours from all over the state to taste your BBQ and by 10am, all the meat you smoked has been sold. Then you start smoking 1,000 pounds of meat instead of your regular 300 pounds, but still sell out by mid-morning.

Snow’s BBQ in Lexington, TX was anointed by Texas Monthly as the best BBQ joint in Texas. Since being lauded, Snow’s BBQ has been swamped with out-of-towners. The first Saturday after being featured in Texas Monthly magazine, I made the trip out to Lexington, TX to taste the ”transcendent meat” at Snow’s. No go. All gone. I was too late, even though I arrived at 10:45am.

As Snow BBQ’s pit master, Tootsie Tomanetz, says, all this attention has “blowed our business out of proportion.”

When faced with a similar situation where demand outstrips supply, most businesses would welcome the opportunity to blow their business out of proportion and simply expand to better meet demand. Expansion is the easy answer. The more difficult answer is to not expand.

Snow’s BBQ doesn’t want to expand because its owner, Kerry Bexley, worries that his and Tootsie’s passion for their Saturday BBQ gig will dry up under all the demands that come with being a bigger business.

These are perplexing times for Bexley and Snow’s BBQ. Sure, business is booming and the attention is good for the ego. However, is being too good actually bad for business? More out-of-town customers mean fewer folks in Lexington can enjoy the meats at their hometown BBQ spot. Tootsie is having to dramatically ramp up her early morning meat smoking duties, which adds intense pressure for everyone involved. It’s not uncommon for Snow’s BBQ to sell out of their meats by 9am which means loads of customers arriving after 9am leave disappointed. Again, is being too good actually bad for business?

Kerry Bexley told the Austin American-Statesman he’ll consider shutting down the business if it becomes just that … a business. “My concern,” says Bexley “is we don’t get so big that she [Tootsie] doesn’t enjoy it. But when it does, well, we’ll quit.”

Wow, that’s a refreshing take ... a business that puts passion and enjoyment before revenue and growth.

ONE | I dusted off my “No Business is Perfect” essay and gave it new life with new context. It’s on the Keppler website … READ ARTICLE.

TWO | CZ Marketing interviewed me about SBUX, WOM, and OTHER STUFF … READ INTERVIEW.

Over at the Idea Sandbox blog, Paul Williams breaks down the perverted oddities in this Burger King promotional tray liner. Really, this is just odd. Look at the rubber glove-wearing Pickle and the pants-down Onion. Now read Paul's breakdown.

Okay. I’m admitting it. Admitting to my procrastination. I should be deep into a writing project, but I’m not. I’m avoiding it. Sure, busyness with my everyday business has taken up my time. But my summer is slow, I have the time to devote to this writing project.

However, I need a nudge.

That nudge is re-reading Steven Pressfield’s THE WAR OF ART, (I’ve blogged about TWOA before -- here and here.) In TWOA, Pressfield helps you to overcome the self-sabotaging power of “Resistance.”

Check out these money quotes and if you like what you read, devour the whole book.

“Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance. Are you a writer who doesn’t write, a painter who doesn’t paint, an entrepreneur who never starts a venture? Then you know what Resistance is."

Take a few minutes today to read Jay Ehret's cautionary tale on how he lost focus by trying to run two businesses ... only to run himself into the ground. An important lesson for us all.

Fortune’s latest issue shares “The Best Advice I Ever Got” from a cadre of business muckety-mucks. Lots of good advice from the likes of Michael Bloomberg, Nelson Peltz. Craig Newmark, Tina Fey, and Indra Nooyi. I especially liked the advice from Eddie Lampert, hedge fund head man and Sears chairman ...

"Almost every weekend when I was 7, 8, 9, 10 years old, my father and I would toss a football in the yard or play basketball in the driveway. When we played football, he'd say, "Go out ten steps. Turn to your right." The ball would reach me just before I turned, and it would hit me right in the chest. Why would my dad do this? He told me, "If I waited for you to turn, you and the defensive player would have an equal chance to get the ball. Your opportunity is gone."

This idea of anticipation is key to investing and to business generally. You can't wait for an opportunity to become obvious. You have to think, "Here's what other people and companies have done under certain circumstances. Now, under these new circumstances, how is this management likely to behave?" The plays my father designed for me helped me learn to think ahead." -- Eddie Lampert [source]

Four years ago I linked to an article titled, GURU NATION. The article shed light on the Business Guru Scene from the egos to the economics of it all. Interesting read.

The Wall Street Journal has revisited the Guru Scene for 2008. This updated look reflects a change where more non-traditional business experts are in greater demand. Journalists like Thomas Friedman (#2) and Malcolm Gladwell (#4) rank high as does education professor, Howard Gardner (#5). According to the article, the most popular topics for these business gurus include: globalization, motivation ,and innovation. Here's the list...

This list was compiled by two Babson College professors and is based upon the number of online mentions, academic citations, and LexisNexis media mentions. It’s not a truly scientific list, but it is an interesting list.

Adding to the interest is the absence of women in the top 20 rankings. Wendy Bounds, from the Wall Street Journal, asked readers for their take on why women are absent from the list … the conversation is worth reading.

David Bowman riffs smartly on how some brands have gravitational pull while others don't ... all reasoned in the context of Newton's Law of Gravity.

Good stuff ... READ MORE.

As a kid I read lots of MAD magazines and the backpage fold-in was always something I looked forward to doing. Can't say I understood everything contained in the fold-in ... it was just fun for a curious kid to do.

The NY Times recently ran an interesting story on Al Jaffee, the mastermind behind the fold-in. Since its first appearance in the April 1964 issue of Mad magazine, the 87 year-old Al Jaffee has drawn every one of these backpage fold-ins. WOW!

Take a few minutes this Tuesday and rekindle your MAD magazine fold-in memories with this wicked cool digital gallery.

The March 17th issue of Fortune magazine has a "Good Steve | Bad Steve" take on Steve Jobs. The Good Steve article has chewy knowledge nuggets from him on being innovative, connecting with consumers, staying focused, managing people, and hiring talented people. Good stuff.

on being innovative…
"You can't ask people what they want if it's around the next corner," says Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO and cofounder. At Apple, new-product development starts in the gut and gets hatched in rolling conversations that go something like this: What do we hate? (Our cellphones.) What do we have the technology to make? (A cellphone with a Mac inside.) What would we like to own? (You guessed it, an iPhone.) "One of the keys to Apple is that we build products that really turn us on," says Jobs.

Smart thoughts from Neal Stewart on what he's learned from package redesign projects. Good stuff. When you're there, check out all of Neal's HMOs (hot marketing opinions). Really good stuff.

The current issue of Ad Age has an interesting interview with Chris Anderson sharing more insight into his to-be-published book, FREE: Why $0.00 is the Future of Business.

Anderson is the editor-in-chief of Wired Magazine and his take on how, despite subscription fees and cover prices, magazines are in the business of FREE might surprise you.

CHRIS ANDERSON: “Magazines are in the essentially free business. At Wired, we charge $10 a year for a subscription when the actual cost to us is more than 10 times that much.

So why do we charge anything? We charge a nominal fee simply as a psychological fee that shows that you want it -- which allows us to charge advertisers more. A single penny does it. We charge $10 because we don't want to devalue the product, because that would be sending the wrong message. But from our perspective it's essentially free.”

Anderson also shares smart thinking on whether or not getting something for FREE empowers customers or does it dis-empower them.

CHRIS ANDERSON: “I'd like to think that getting more for less is empowering. As we shift from the currency being money to attention and reputation, in a sense, the field becomes a relatively level one.

We all have attention and respect we can offer. That's a far more democratic access to the marketplace. We all have attention that has some value. As more and more becomes free, we're able to deploy that wherever for whatever.

Basically everything is available to everybody -- not necessarily at all tiers and all features, but the walls to entry to products and services are falling faster than ever before.”

Lots of chatter about Duncan Watts and his take that ordinary people have just as much influence as influential people have in making something popular. Cory, Guy, Seth, Spike, and scores of others have all chimed in.

On The Media interviewed Clive Thompson who wrote the Fast Company article that compellingly explains Duncan Watts’ word-of-mouth randomness theory. In the radio interview (available online here), Clive summarizes Duncan’s complex theory this way,

“It’s not how influential each person is, it’s how influenceable everyone else is. If society is ready to embrace a trend, almost anyone can start it.”

Hmm … could it be the marketing society is ready to embrace the trend that individuals have just as much sway as influentials do in starting the next big thing? Could it be that marketers are an influenceable bunch?

"Ideas are usually rejected out of turn for being too 'something' — too fast, too unproven, too far beyond the corporate image. 'Too something' is a reactionary description used to take the edge off ideas that are strong, bold, and a little scary at first sight. Your challenge is to help people discover a means, harmonious with the culture, to accept your concept."

When the 2007 year-end tallies are calculated, Amazon is expected to have grown revenues to $15 billion, an increase of 35.0% from the year prior. The company counts 72-million active customers who spent, on average, $184 on Amazon.com last year. Profit margins, which have been as low as 3.0%, have increased to 6.0%. Amazon is making money.

Amazon is also making customers happy. Ed Nocera, writing in the New York Times, thinks profit and sales-growth at Amazon is a by-product of making customers happy.

Ed purchased a PlayStation 3 as a gift from Amazon this Holiday. Concerned the package hadn’t arrived yet, Ed tracked the shipment from Amazon’s website. He learned the package had arrived and a neighbor had signed for it. Ed asked his neighbor about the package and learned she put the package in the hallway after signing for it.

Ed knew his PS3 was MIA so he managed to find Amazon’s customer service phone number and explained his situation to the customer service rep. Amazon shipped out a replacement PlayStation3 and on Christmas Day, Ed’s son was happy. And so was Ed.

Curious about Amazon’s stock performance, Ed looked it up and saw it had risen about 140% in the past year. Wall Street types credit the Amazon run-up to improved margins, international expansion, its web services business, and to increased sales with its reseller merchant market affiliates.

Ed has a different take,

I couldn’t help wondering if maybe there wasn’t something else at play here, something Wall Street never seems to take very seriously. Maybe, just maybe, taking care of customers is something worth doing when you are trying to create a lasting company. Maybe, in fact, it’s the best way to build a real business — even if it comes at the expense of short-term results.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO and Founder, appeared recently on The Charlie Rose Show and had this to say about his obsession with customers,

“They [Aamzon customers] care about having the lowest prices, having vast selection, so they have choice, and getting the products to customers fast. And the reason I’m so obsessed with these drivers of the customer experience is that I believe that the success we have had over the past 12 years has been driven exclusively by that customer experience. We are not great advertisers. So we start with customers, figure out what they want, and figure out how to get it to them.”

Ed Nocera closes his article with this gem,

There is simply no question that Mr. Bezos’s obsession with his customers — and the long term — has paid off, even if he had to take some hits to the stock price along the way. Surely, it was worth it. As for me, the $500 favor the company did for me this Christmas will surely rebound in additional business down the line. Why would I ever shop anywhere else online? Then again, there may be another reason good customer service makes sense.

“Jeff used to say that if you did something good for one customer, they would tell 100 customers,” said Suresh Kotha, a management professor at the University of Washington business school.

I guess that’s what I just did.

Not sure who pointed me to this interview with Nick Morgan, but I’m glad they did.

Nick is a communication and speech coach and his book, GIVE A SPEECH, CHANGE THE WORLD is a must-read for all us business folk who get up in front of people and speak. This interview with Management Consulting News serves as a nice summary of the presentation advice Nick shares in his book.

Money quotes from the interview include:

“The wonderful thing about audiences is that they want to be enthralled and moved. They come in with a positive attitude in spite of the fact that they have been disappointed so many times. Audiences want you to succeed.”

“That support is yours to squander. If you fail to connect, midway through your speech the audience will no longer be on your side--they will be looking for the exits.”

“That's what charisma is--emotional expressiveness, the ability to show a range of genuine emotions. But I don't mean weeping or losing your temper. Rather, you need to let an audience know how you feel about what is important to you, when you are excited about something and when you are displeased with something.”

The Steve Jobs commencement speech at Stanford from 2005 has made the rounds many times over online. I read the transcript two years ago and was moved. Now, I’m moved again because I’ve listened to (and watched) the commencement address.

The audio (and video) is now available on iTunes.

(Once iTunes opens up, look on the right-hand column under “Top Downloads” and you’ll find the Steve Jobs’ 2005 Commencement Address. If you do not use iTunes, use this link to listen/watch.)

Since it’s the beginning of 2008, I suggest taking 15-minutes this week to be inspired by Jobs’ story of staying hungry and staying foolish. I’m burning a copy to share with my Father.

Kudos to Dan Pink for the hook-up.

Some might consider the product category of fire extinguishers as being boring. Sure, the fire extinguisher category is HIGHLY important, but it ain’t a sexy product category. Or is it?

The Home Hero Fire Extinguisher looks anything but dull. It’s sleek and dare we say … sexy.

The Arnell Group has redesigned the fire extinguisher to no longer be “so damn obtrusive, ugly, and not conducive to a pleasant experience of the rest of the aesthetic of your kitchen.” The Home Hero Fire Extinguisher is currently being sold exclusively at Home Depot for the alluring price of $25.00.

Learn more from Rob Walker’s CONSUMED column in the NY Times.

Did you see the Brandweek story about Visual Vampires?

Visual vampires are images shown in advertising that divert attention away from the advertised product. Think … Wendy’s Red Wig … Robert Goulet/Emerald Nuts … Paris Hilton/Carl's Jr.. (Think 100% Creationist WOM where companies engage in outrageously gimmicky attention-grabbing antics to capture our attention.)

The study Brandweek cites is from The PreTesting Company. Here’s further explanation:

Wendy’s red wig-clad ads are hard to miss. However, new research shows that the characters in pony-tailed toupees greatly overshadow the products featured in the same ads.

“It is a visual vampire. There is high engagement, but when they show the food it drops like a rock,” said Lee Weinblatt, CEO of PreTesting, Tenafly, N.J.

The majority (68%) of viewers of the Wendy’s ad were riveted when the wig was on screen, but when hamburgers were shown it fell to 24%. The baseline for fast food commercials is 50% as consumers expect to be entertained. Other TV ads dominated by visual vampires: Subway (Jon Lovitz), Chrysler (Dr. Z) and Burger King (Coq Roq).” READ MORE

Hmm ... so is there a marketing garlic we can use to ward off these Visual Vampires? Could be. It's something I refer to as the WHAT YOU DO vs. WHAT YOU DID test.

When people talk about your brand, do they talk about the products/services the company does or do they talk about the advertising it did? If people are talking about the products/services you do, then you've successful repelled the Visual Vampire. However, if all people can talk about is the offbeat creativity in your ads, then the Visual Vampire has probably been allowed to run amock.

For example, I know no one talking about the food Wendy's does. Instead, its all about the edgy red wig advertising the company did. Same goes for the Emerald Nuts spots we saw at the Super Bowl this year. No one was talking about how great Emerald Nuts taste, they were only talking about how creepy it was to have Robert Goulet acting a fool in the spot.

As a marketer, I much prefer people talking about what a company does and not what it did. Reckon the only way to truly repel Visual Vampires is to follow the Sethology of spending marketing dollars to make products/services more remarkable and not to make kookier commercials.

In 2004, the New York Times dissected the Bush/Cheney and Kerry/Edwards presidential logos.

With the 2008 Presidential Race heating up, the New York Times has dissected the campaign logos of the front-running candidates. Click the image below for a sampling of the dissection. If the image does not show-up big and clear enough on your screen, consider opening up this PDF file. Or, go directly to the source at the NY Times.

Jonathan from the Dim Bulb blog has a super-tasty riff on the marketing of Microsoft's Zune. Read the intro and then read his full riff...

"People are too busy enjoying their Apple iPods to listen to Zune's marketing, so what is Microsoft going to do?

Spend more money on ads, of course!

It has already wasted millions on state-of-the-art web design, artsy films, and beautiful Peter Max-ish advertising. The branding conceit was that Zune was all about sharing music, and had some built-in whatchamacallit to beam songs to other Zune devices.

Unfortunately, people already share music on their iPods: two people each grab an earbud and, voila, you've got sharing. Hand the player to a friend. Play songs on a computer. Zune offered to fix a problem that nobody had." >> READ MORE <<

Could it be everything Bill Gammell learned about marketing, he learned from watching Seinfeld? Maybe not everything ... but he did learn some smart marketing lessons from Jerry, Elaine, George, Kramer, and the Cougar 9000.

Consider Bill's e-book worthwhile (and fun) weekend reading.