Mark Kolier’s Blog

Archive for January, 2010

It’s 11PM and I’m sitting in seat 4D (First class) on a Delta/Northwest (why can’t they make up their mind already?) flight to Ft. Myers, FL.   I am to attend a 1 ½ day conference with other marketing agency folks via the DMA’s Winter Executive Briefing.   Sounds good right?   Only I shouldn’t be here.   In First Class that is – or on this particular flight. 

You see I left my house at 7AM this morning and it is now 9PM the same night.  It was snowing when I left (‘snow showers’ turned into 4 inches at my house I am told).  A harrowing ride down the parkway made making the 9:49AM flight no sure thing.  But I arrived at the airport at 8:50AM and breezed through security in about 8 minutes (I was really pleasantly surprised).   The flight was supposedly delayed 20 minutes which did not seem too bad in view of the weather as it was still snowing at LaGuardia.  And then it went straight downhill. 

No less than three separate times the plane left the gate only to return for one reason or another.  Finally after 3 hours they allowed us to get off the plane (the passenger bill of rights in action perhaps?) and we were immediately told once entering the gate area that the flight was in fact cancelled.  Good thing I paid the $ 25 upgrade to an exit row seat in coach.  My M.O. is to fly as cheap as possible.  I got what I paid for apparently. 

Since I have access to the Delta Sky Miles club I immediately walked in there where I learned that the next direct flight to Ft. Myers was at 8:30PM.   But somehow the desk attendant was able to get me in First Class (I did not ask but gladly accepted).  After a short flirt with flying to Detroit then to Ft. Myers that would had me arrive an hour earlier that became a moot point when it ‘disappeared’ according to the desk attendant.  Flying another airline through Philadelphia got me in 2+ hours earlier but that airline was experiencing delays as well and I declined that option.  Little did I know that the 8:30 did would be ‘delayed’ until 9:15.  We actually boarded at 9:30 and then proceeded to sit at the gate until 11PM because the pilots were flying in from another city.  Apparently La Guardia was using only one runway.  A fact that was not reported  until 11PM.   Airline communications with passengers (i.e. CUSTOMERS) sucks wildly. 

So I have spent more than 14 hours at the airport and finally (I hope) am going to get somewhere.  I well realize that many people have much more horrific travel stories than this one.  I have never slept in an airport although I have been delayed overnight more than once but always managed to get out to a hotel or head back home.  The food choices at the Delta/Northwest terminal at LaGuardia are awful.   Unless you like to eat at Chili’s, Burger King or Sbarro.  Eating that stuff twice in one day is not a path to feeling good or good health in general. 

Hard to believe that the best experience of the day was getting through security in 8 minutes.  If this journey is its own reward the rest of the trip will have to be better.   I wonder how?

I’ve been playing tennis a very long time.   Competitively to a degree (tournaments, rankings – mine was pretty low).   As I’ve gotten older I don’t play as much, as well, or as much singles as I once did.   I still can play a little I like to think.  A good friend of mine who is as passionate about tennis as am I (perhaps more so), kept bugging me to subscribe to the Tennis Channel since it was offered by my cable provider – Cablevision and he was a subscriber already. 

 It was not all that much.  $ 6.00/month.   My wife is frequently agitated by the cable bill as we have several televisions and cable boxes associated.  So we cut back on the service for one of the TV’s making the Tennis Channel no more of an outlay than before. 

The Tennis Channel is indeed way cool.  More than 75% of the time when I pass through the channel there is actually – Tennis.  Some match from some time – usually a good one, is on and I invariably stop and watch.  Even if I know the outcome!  I do not do that for any other sport.  Like I noted – I really like tennis. 

There are occasional programs on the Tennis Channel that do not feature people playing tennis.  But even then they have some relevance to the game and that’s why I am watching that channel in the first place. 

The point is – there is a somewhat limited audience that would actually pay to have a network offer programming as does the Tennis Channel.  The Golf Channel tries but for whatever reason does not do it quite as well.  And I also like to play golf and have actually watched the Golf Channel and would actually rather play golf than tennis if I could.  The Tennis Channel gets it right.  Geeky enough that only true Tennis fans could appreciate Nastase-Pohman at the 1975 U.S. Open at Forest Hills.  

It can be done.   Narrow appeal yet dedicated audience.  Give them what they want and they will seek you out.    Give it a try.

I’ve already asked the question is the DMA still relevant after attending the annual conference in San Diego this past October.   But with the abrupt resignation of John Greco this week those thoughts have come to mind again. 

When I went to AdTech in New York City in November I happened to see Mr. Greco walking head bowed through the busy exhibit hall full of high energy, YOUNG people excited about marketing.  This was what the DMA was supposed to have been.  I have even heard the DMA at one point considered buying AdTech and making that show a DMA event.   Great idea but it never got done. 

On the few occasions I happened to meet Mr. Greco I found him to be engaging, thoughtful and seemingly interested.   At $ 800,000 plus total compensation that should come as no surprise.  And running the DMA over the past 5 years has been far from a picnic.  A paralyzing recession forced a total reevaluation of DMA expenditures at the same time DMA revenues from conferences were reduced significantly. 

Yet Eugene Raitt and his fellow DMA Board of Directors have a tough task in finding the ‘right’ person.  Exactly what kind of person should that be?   If the primary source of DMA revenue is the annual conference (and conferences in general) something has to be done about making attending the conference an exciting and more informative event.  

But wait, there’s more!  Representing member companies and anticipating legislative issues remain key aspects for the.  While now past-President Greco did an acceptable job of combating do-not-mail legislation, it always felt to me like the DMA was on the defensive.  

I say it’s high time that the DMA looks to bring in a leader who has exhibited vision in keeping up with the rapid changes in direct and digital marketing – maybe even someone from a DMA member company? 

There is still time for the DMA to change course and move forward instead of backing up.  The departure of John Greco presents a unique opportunity and there may not be another one.  Let’s hope the DMA Board of Directors gets it right this time.  The very survival of the Association may be at stake.

But it’s not Twitter’s fault.  Haiti has a population in which many people live on $ 10.00 per week – or less.  So having a mobile device is out of the question.   And how sad that is considering that the lack of infrastructure makes land line phone calling difficult if not impossible at times.   Haiti by all counts is the poorest country in the western hemisphere.   It’s difficult to fathom how technology infrastructure in much Africa is far ahead of Haiti.   Many westerners refer to a large part of Africa as the third world.   Where does that leave Haiti?  

When the bombings in Mumbai occurred in 2008 the first reports of the incidents were made on Twitter.  Agile and fast, tweets offer citizen journalism in its finest and condensed form.   The catastrophe in Haiti is still unfolding and there are amazing stories of survivors still being pulled out nearly a week after the earthquake.   I cannot help thinking that if people had mobile devices and could tweet their situations help could have been directed to those in need in a much more efficient fashion.  

GPS on mobile devices also would offer tracking abilities but a broadcast tweet on Twitter would have enabled MANY people to better understand individual situations and arrange help.  We all want to help and aside from donating funds, working on sending food to Haiti there is little more that we can do. 

The power of Twitter sadly was not and will not be realized in Haiti.   Having a bunch of followers is often seen as preaching to the choir.   Yet the opportunity to rally people to help on a one to one basis in a time of need is something Twitter can do better than just about any other platform.  

Certainly Haiti has had and will have much bigger issues than connecting its population via mobile devices.   Yet how many more lives might have been saved had the injured been able to call out for help to their followers?  

Am I off-base here?

You see it all the time.  Measured media spend for a company is a common term.   Or ‘spending is to be…’.   I don’t understand why these dollars are not referred to as investments.  

When you go out to dinner with your spouse, family or friends that can be seen as spending perhaps although it could be argued that your investing in your relationships.   However that is probably too semantic and since you could have grown your own food, gone to the market, or chosen several less expensive alternatives to eating out in a restaurant spending is likely the best term to define going out to dinner. 

Buying shares of companies through the stock market is always seen as an investment.   It is speculative to say the least and far from a sure thing.  But the object is to increase the value of your investment.  There is of course no guarantee. 

Would you agree that you invest in your health by going to see your doctor?   Again there is no guarantee.  But my guess is you rarely look at paying the doctor as an investment. 

Yet when it comes to advertising and marketing agencies it seems that the word investing is nowhere to be found.  Maybe it was John Wanamaker that got things started off on that angle – ‘Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted the trouble is I don’t know which half.’    Big help he was. 

The smaller the business the more it seems that any allocated marketing dollars are deemed to be spending that the business wishes it did not have to outlay.  Larger companies often have a better understanding of the value of investing marketing dollars but when budgets are slashed (a common term during the recession) what they are slashing is spending.   I venture a guess that not one company that reduced its marketing budget described it as reducing their marketing investment.   It doesn’t quite sound the same does it? 

Now that the recession seems to be waning wouldn’t it be great if the term marketing investment became part of the lexicon?   Most marketing agencies are filled with dedicated and accomplished professionals.   No less professional than lawyers, investment advisors and yes stock brokers.   People are comfortable using the term investment when it comes to the latter.   Marketing agencies and their affiliated partners should be solely focused on helping their clients maximize their marketing investment.   How about clients start referring to it that way?