Mark Kolier’s Blog

Archive for May, 2011

With Katie Couric’s departure from CBS News I find it increasingly difficult to remember who the evening anchors are on the national news networks (ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC). Last night I saw a promotion in the New York market to watch the evening news on NBC with Sue Simmons. As someone that does not watch evening news it seemed to me that Sue Simmons has been around for ages. I was right. She started in New York on ‘Live at Five’ with Chuck Scarborough in 1980. This means Ms. Simmons has been on the air in the New York metropolitan area for more than 30 years. She is far from unique. New York television newscaster Ernie Anastos will be 68 years old in July and has been on the air in New York since 1978.

Since most Americans get their news from a number of news sources and nearly 60% get their news from both online and offline services (source Pew Research Center http://bit.ly/m3rAl1) it surprises me that television news has not already gone by the wayside. I have respect for the professional abilities of longtime newscasters like Sue Simmons, Chuck Scarborough (still on the air also) and Ernie Anastos but I am guessing the only reason they are still on the air is that the local networks have not figured out programming that would draw more viewers in the same time slot – and accordingly, command more advertising dollars.

Another essay from Pew Research http://bit.ly/kFuV87 on the State of the News Media 2011 discusses both the durability and decline of television network news. (I am aware the newscasters I am noting are local affiliate newscasters). I am postulating that television newscasters are truly a vanishing breed and we will never see again a newscaster endure multiple decades on air.
And the most trusted ‘national’ newscaster in the United States today is….Jon Stewart. What does that tell you?

Hyper-local sites like AOL’s Patch (http://www.patch.com) offer news and information on an individual town basis. I think Patch could be seriously upgraded and can see a time in the near future where video coverage of local events (updated every 3 or 4 hours) could be made available on a website. It would be ad supported both within the broadcast as well as on the page itself. I’m not sure a subscription would work for something like that. But having video and stories from your local town – news, events, and sports (videos of kid’s and high school sports would be a huge draw) is relevant and highly engaging.

I like to watch Bloomberg News and have in on in the office all day. Do you watch the evening news? Do you watch the morning news or any television news for that matter?

I have traveled back and forth from New York to Lexington, Kentucky four times per year for more than 10 years. When I first went to Kentucky as a provincial northeasterner I had a general idea about what I thought Kentucky would be like. What I found out was that my pre-conceived idea was, by and large, incorrect. The people were and are and sophisticated, techno-savvy and there are great places to eat in and around the greater Lexington area. Not quite what I had imagined.

Today, when I talk to people about my trips to Kentucky they often roll their eyes and even snicker a bit. They have what they think is a general idea about what it’s like even though they’ve never been there. I am very careful now to not draw conclusions about things with which I have no experience. Of course I will have an idea or anticipation just like everyone else does, but I also want to allow myself to be surprised, while at the same time I want to be willing to challenge my own uneducated perceptions.

The same thing has been true regarding my travels to China. Before my first trip I had perceptions that in general turned out to be just plain wrong, like a country filled with morose, unhappy people living in a Socialist state or people that were unfamiliar with western customs and food that would be so unfamiliar I would not be able to eat. These perceptions like so many are built out of the limited information that is available to people – on television, in books and movies, and in the media.

It makes no sense to me to try to sum up people in places like Lexington, Kentucky or Shenzhen, China or anywhere else for that matter. Some people may fit certain generalizations but far fewer of them fit any particular category than one might imagine. And in so doing that’s how stereotypes are created.

Just because people live in a place does not mean they should be lumped together as being New Yorkers (loud and pushy), Angelinos (from Los Angeles – mellow and laid back) or Kentuckians – backward country bumpkins.

Generalizations are in my view counterproductive and even can be dangerous. We seem to want to make sense out of things by categorizing people either by where they are from, their ethnic or religious background, corporate affiliations or political views. I try very hard to take things as I see them and to not allow preconceived notions to rule my real-life experiences. It’s not always easy that’s for sure.

In general do you think this concept is worth your attention?

I spent the day today as a judging chair for the first round of the 2011 Direct Marketing Association (DMA) International Echo awards at the DMA headquarters in New York City. I’ve been judging the Echo awards for something like 7 years. I always enjoy the experience mostly for being able to sit and talk with my fellow judges who almost universally are very experienced and have interesting viewpoints on marketing.

The submitted campaigns are judged on marketing strategy, creativity and results. Over the years it’s been easy to notice the changes in the submitted campaigns. When I first started there were many more dimensional mail campaigns – that is odd shaped pieces that were mailed direct to consumers or businesses. However in recent years I’ve seen fewer and fewer of those campaigns (and most of the ones I do see are non U.S. based). This year a social media category was introduced which while it comes as no surprise is interesting since evaluating the effectiveness of a SM campaign is not quite as easy as other channels.

But what struck me most today was the speaker Rick Segal – President of Gyro Agency here in New York. The discussion was centered on interruptive advertising and how (finally!) that has to change. My associate David Adelman of OCD Media has been riding that same horse now for quite some time. The point was that the idea of interrupting whatever people are doing to get them to pay attention to your message is increasingly less effective if not offensive. As if whatever you are doing is not nearly as important as the message we (advertisers and agency folk) are trying to broadcast.

Do you like pop-up ads on the internet? And what viewer loves the concept of a pre-roll ad in order to watch a program? How about an increased frequency of television commercials toward the latter (and often better) part of a program? Historically interruptive advertising has been used because agencies (and clients) are convinced it works. And I am not averring that it does not or cannot work. However it is a tired old way of doing things and I believe not consistent with the idea of being PART of the conversation.

Being part of the conversation is not easy since it goes against our nature and against the expectations of consumers. Product placement is a great example of non-interruptive advertising. Mr. Segal made some interesting references to people being more productive since they are more connected. He also noted that technology is creating more capacity for work – not necessarily saving individual people time since they can do and are expected to do more. Interestingly he mentioned the concept of brands sponsoring parks (again non-interruptive) and leisure time activities so that people could unplug and enjoy themselves – even during a ‘work day’. (Don’t even get me started on that since in some ways – every day can be a work day).

Lastly, we talked about the idea of not accepting ‘good enough’ work and striving for excellence and standout campaigns. Creating a memorable but non-interruptive campaign is a challenge I will be throwing down to our team as I am fully on board with that idea.

We can and must do better. I for one am tired of all the advertising interruptions. How about you?

I can assure you that I am not. Even if the theft is not a total assumption of your identity I (fortunately) can only imagine what it would be like if someone took out my credit cards numbers, online subscriptions or bank accounts on an individual basis.

When I was away last month I lost my mobile phone for 8 hours. My initial panic was that the people I cared about would not be able to reach me. But then I thought about what I had on my phone itself and realized that I was very vulnerable to someone going through what’s on my phone and lifting whatever they could. While I don’t have any credit card or financial information, I still have very personal things on there and my personal life would be greatly compromised if that information were to fall into the ‘wrong’ hands.

How about you? Do you (like me) have a bunch of passwords for a ridiculous number of accounts? And like me do you at times have difficulty keeping track or remembering which password goes with which account? What about the suggestion that you should be changing your password regularly AND changing it to some non-memorable string so that it cannot be easily decoded? That’s a great idea, until you considering having to remember all of these bizarre passwords. Carrying around a piece of paper or something in your wallet listing all the various passwords seems impractical to me. If that piece of paper or wallet gets lost (or stolen)… well you get the idea.

As time passes there will be more online accounts and even more passwords. More to remember (and while my memory is still pretty good it is not getting better). I’m sure you’ve seen the ads for services that offer identity theft protection. Just to name a few there’s Lifelock.com, Identityguard.com, Guarddog.com, TrustedID.com, IDWatchdog.com and a host of others. I’ve not been tempted to subscribe to any of these services as it just seems so unnecessary and a waste of money, but I am having second thoughts. I’m not certain they work and their guarantees would not save the hassle if someone were to really ‘steal’ my identity.

According to a US Government Accountability Office study it was determined that “most breaches have not resulted in detected incidents of identity theft”. However the report also warned that “the full extent is unknown”. A later unpublished study by Carnegie Mellon University noted that “Most often, the causes of identity theft is not known,” but reported that someone else concluded that “the probability of becoming a victim to identity theft as a result of a data breach is … around only 2%”.

So the percentages are pretty low but the effect catastrophic if you are one of the unlucky 1 out of 50.

I’m not sure if I need to do anything or not. How about you – what are you doing? Have you got any other ideas?

Because our company is actively working with green technology companies in China we all have a heightened sense of awareness in this area. One of our team members sent me a great link – about a 4+ minute video – http://www.wimp.com/solarhighways from a site called wimp.com (no joke!) on how LED based solar panels as road surfaces is a possible way to alleviate the U.S. reliance on petroleum based products.

The idea is that the road not only would pay for itself but that solar highways can generate energy to be used for other purposes. Scott Brusaw the inventor and co-founder of Solar Roadways, is both interesting and approachable – watch the video and see if you agree. The entire road would become an electric grid. People would be driving on glass. It is a concept that blew my mind.

I personally had no idea that there is a great deal of petroleum used in making asphalt. Actually I had not given much thought as to what’s in asphalt at all. With so much talk about the U.S. losing ground I am consistently buoyed with stories like these from what I consider to be brilliant American thinkers that are willing to throw out conventional thinking. The U.S. continues to be a world leader in innovative thinking and development of innovative products.

I took a tour through the http://www.wimp.com website and was surprised to find that most of the content is far from being as interesting as the Solar Highway video. Although for some reason I was compelled to watch the ‘Cat vs. Annoying Bird’ video. There are some other interesting videos on the site worth watching.

Separately, LED lights are increasingly becoming a topic of conversation as in January 2012 incandescent 100 watt light bulbs will no longer be sold in the United States. Incandescent bulb technology (if it can be called that) is more than 100 years old. An excellent article in USA Today by Peter Stevenson http://usat.ly/kUWxWh highlights the attributes and challenges of adoption of LED lighting for bulbs in particular.

Solar Highways may be a far off idea but LED light technology offers great opportunities to help lower energy costs and expenses.

Great ideas and innovations excite me and get me thinking. Do they do the same things for you?