say it again? a dell store?

Dell's Founder and CEO Michael Dell has recently said that "the direct (sales) model has been a revolution, but it's not a religion".
Dell already opened a showroom in Dallas (only to display the models, not to sell them just yet).
All signs seem to indicate that we'll soon see a "Dell Store" out in the street.
This will be an interesting story to watch.

Reference:
Darlin, Damon (2007). Dell's Founder Is Rethinking Direct Sales. The New York Times. April 28, 2007 (here)

is yahoo trying to be more like google?

It's not exactly a secret that Yahoo! envies Google's success. This sentiment has usually been confined to the business arena, as both companies battle for internet's advertising dollars.
However I think this is the first time Yahoo! betrayed that sentiment so publicly. The other day I noticed Yahoo! playing up with their logo, Google-style. See below a couple of pictures of their animated logo: a (modern) windmill that lights up a (green) light bulb, before transforming into their traditional logo.
Starts like this...
...ends up like this.As Google's, it was for a limited time only. Last time I checked, it wasn't there anymore.

diderot and the cute nissan pino

Grant McCracken, in his book “Culture and Consumption”, recalls an essay by French philosopher Francis Diderot. In his essay, “On Partying with my Old Dressing Gown”, Diderot described the transformation caused in his life by a beautiful new dressing gown he received as a gift. He loved the gift, but soon thereafter however, he notices that, compared to the new gown, the decoration in his room, the rug, the curtains, the desk, all looked shabby. He proceeds to replace them one by one, so that they match the new gown. McCracken describes this process as the “Diderot effect”, the way people create a lifestyle by trying to find cultural consistency in the things they buy, so that they “match”.
I just mention this idea because I came across the new Nissan Pino, recently launched (last January) in Japan, targeted at young women. Looking it as it is, it seems like just another small car.However, a visit to Pino’s website quickly tells a different story. To start with, you're welcomed by this "lovely loading" sign.Then you get it. Pino is a kawaii (cute) car. But the interesting thing about the Pino is not the car in itself, but how the cuteness meaning is created. Look at the picture below.
The car is not the center of the action. It’s more of a complement to the whole scene. And it’s the surrounding, with all its cuteness, that "contaminates" the car with meaning. Normally, as Wired’s Mark Durhan well noted, “...using cutesey fluffy pinkness to sell cars to 20-year-old women would be beyond the pale - too narrow, too sexist, too ludicrous. Not so in Japan”.
The Pino, much as Diderot’s gown, helps the girls define a lifestyle. Like Diderot’s gown, it’s not the only item, but a complementary object that, along with her keitai (mobile), her favorite pair of jeans, her pair of sneakers, her handbag, her nail polisher, and all her other possessions (all “lovely” of course, see below), creates her lifestyle and will accompany her “365 days a year, 24 hours a day”.And then comes the fun part, accessories. Girls can choose a heart-shaped cushion, a stuffed dog called “Pino Dog”, a flower-patterned upholstery, and a dozen other matching items, to help them create the desired effect.Accessorizing and personalization are not new ideas, but I hardly remember seeing them so tightly-knit behind the creation of specific lifestyles.
And if you thought the concept of “cuteness” defined only one lifestyle, you haven’t really started in this world. Pino’s campaign shows a group of three fashionable friends who strut around their different "cute styles". They portray three different types of cuteness: the “feminine cute” Yumi-chan, who is a model and loves dancing and snowboarding;......the “casual cute” Kimi-chan who wears a pair of jeans shorts and practices yoga;......and the “beautiful cute” Tamami-chan, who wears a plaid skirt and is into classic ballet. Each one of them brings her own matching accessories; a stuffed pink dog and flower-themed upholstery for Yumi-chan; an apple-shaped CD holder and a green dog for Kimi-chan, and so on. One does not have to worry about which is the best match. Pino does it for her (but of course, people are free to try their own creativity).
I don't know if this "cute strategy" would translate well outside Japan, maybe this is too much of a Japanese thing, but the concept behind it is great. Diderot would've certainly endorsed it.

shrewd marketing or spam?

The Chicago Cubs has agreed on a deal with sports apparel maker Under Armour to have ads placed on its legendary ivy-covered walls. The Cubs' Wrigley Park is one of the most traditional ballparks in what is arguably America's most traditional sport. Already some purists are protesting this move.
Reference:
Sullivan, Paul. Cubs Show Tradition The Door With Ad Deal. Chicago Tribune. February 14, 2007. (see here)

smoking is a marketing problem

I'll say this once and then I'll shut up. Smoking is as much a marketing problem as it is a public health problem. Therefore, the people coordinating anti-smoking campaigns should be marketing professionals, not Public Health officials.
According to a recent New York Times' editorial, a research published in the American Journal of Public Health shows that "exposure to tobacco company youth-targeted smoking prevention advertising generally had no beneficial outcomes for youths". Well, this shouldn't be a total surprise, since this is more of a PR move by the industry, trying to prevent further backlash from the society.
But I see other anti-smoking campaigns and I can't help getting the feeling that this is an incredibly one-sided battle. While one side has mastered how to pull all the culturally relevant strings directed at the youth (to start with, think Bogart and Bacall, James Dean, Brando) and keeps pushing the coolness envelope with persuasive, cutting edge marketing messages (branded content, sports sponsorships, and many other activities), the other side insists in promoting the health problems caused by smoking (often using gruesome images attached to the packaging).
I don't have any data on my hand, so I may be wrong, but I think this approach is highly ineffective. It only reaches smokers who already want to quit, and it doesn't really prevent youngsters from falling to the temptation of trying smoking just a couple of times. By the time they're hooked, it's too late.
If Public Health officials are serious about fighting the tobacco industry then they should hire marketing people with deep knowledge of human motivation, meaning management, consumption rituals, and myth creation, to manage their anti-smoking campaings. And if they are really serious, they should rally other countries' governments to join them in a global, cooperative, communication effort (after all, aren't the "enemies" global as well?).
But it'll never happen, so I'll just shut up.

Reference:
Editorial. When Don't Smoke Means Do. The New York Times. November 27, 2006. (here)

i hate (brand name)

When you become a celebrity, some people will like you, but some will not.
There's an interesting article in the New York Times Magazine about this celebrity fate, showing the case of the "Rachel Ray Sucks Community".
Rachel Ray is not well known in Asia, but she's big in the US. She's a television food celebrity. She has her own TV show, her own magazine, has written many cooking books, and recently started her own talk-show. But what sets her apart is her ebullient character. According to Grant McCracken, "stylistically, Rachael Ray is the anti-Martha...Where Martha Stewart was cool, authoritative, self possessed, as if from the manor born, Rachael Ray is warm, improvisational, unassuming, and just folks. If Martha Stewart was ceremonial perfection to home making, Rachael Ray captures the "close enough is good enough" spirit that animates most American households."
Grant obviously thinks highly about Ray's approach, arguing that she's rescuing the rituals and meanings involved in food preparation and consumption, something that has been largely forgotten recently by TV food shows, with much of their focus being only on the food preparation (and not on what happens after the food is cooked). I've never watched her show but I tend to listen to what Grant says.
So, I was a little surprised that the number of Ray haters (how do you call them?) was so large. According to the NYT's article, the group has more than 1,000 members, whose common trait is to be "anti-Rachel". They criticize "...her cooking skills, her overreliance on chicken stock, her kitchen hygiene, her smile (often compared to the Joker’s), her voice, her physical mannerisms, her clothes, her penchant for saying “Yum-o” and so on. The general tone is suggested by the community’s name for the object of its united spite: “Raytard.” Ouch!
It came to mind that in this age of consumer activism, people are more than willing to share their dislike for a particular brand, forming these anti-fan groups. And brands (and if you become a celebrity, you become a brand, for good and for bad) inevitably will have to learn how to manage this sort of manifestation. Or, as Über-Planner Russell Davies says, brands will have to keep the conversation open.
Because even if you're very successful (or exactly because of it) there'll always be some people who will not like you. Take a look at this list compiled by Organic Frog. Apple, Nike, Starbucks, Ikea, Samsung, Tesco, PS3, Microsoft, all these brands (and many others) have very dissatisfied (not to say downright angry) consumers who'll go to great lengths to voice their opinions.

Reference:
Walker, Rob. Anti-Fan Club. The New York Times Magazine. November 26, 2006. (here)

Agassi in Adidas

So Andre Agassi has retired. Many people have written about his career, his achievements, but one aspect in particular has called my attention. It’s the story of his transformation, from the young punk, a "rock and roll” tennis player to the bald statesman of the sport. Gary Smith, of Sports Illustrated, wrote a wonderful piece about it.
I love these stories of redemption, of people growing up, facing difficulties, but coming out better persons, with a broader perspective and reach.
Some examples come to mind. Tom Hanks, from teen comedy actor in “Big” to award-winning actor in “Philadelphia”, George Foreman from the fierce-looking boxer who lost to Muhammad Ali to the big-hearted, grill-selling grandaddy, "The Beatles" of “She Loves You” to "The Beatles" of “In My Life”.
For marketers and branding practitioners, Agassi’s transformation is even more interesting given the fact that he changed from Nike to Adidas late in his career, the change in sponsor seeming to highlight the person’s transformation. It’s as if the Nike brand (and the whole set of meanings conveyed by it) couldn’t fit with this new Agassi anymore.

Obviously there must’ve been very strong financial reasons behind this decision, not to say the family arguments over which brand his kids would use (the latter was his ultimate excuse to switch to Adidas given his wife’s long association with the German brand).
For me though, it still feels weird to see him wearing Adidas. Just a thought.