Archive for April, 2009
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?
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?
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.
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.
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?