Wasn’t the whole idea behind generic brands hatched as a way for consumers to pay less while the store could keep a greater share of the profit? An article in Tuesday’s Wall Street Journal http://on.wsj.com/AbOAMK offered some interesting thoughts regarding store brands. It seems at times people actually prefer the store brand to the more established name brand. And they are even willing to pay more for the store brand. What the heck is going on here?

When I shop and consider a store or generic brand versus an established brand I go through the same checklist that I’m sure is the same as many people. If I decide to buy generic or store brand paper towels my expectations are lowered a bit (thinner ply and not as absorbent) but will only buy if the price is considerably lower. Sometimes it is lower, but sometimes the name brand is having a special and the value is better. It rarely (if ever) enters my thinking that I would prefer the ‘private label (fancy name for store or generic) brand.

From the WSJ article:
‘Private-label products still cost an average of 29% less than their nationally branded counterparts. But they are rising faster in price, at a rate of 5.3% last year compared with the industry average of 1.9%, and can sometimes be the most expensive product in a category, according to market-research firm Symphony IRI.
Target’s two-pound jars of Archer Farms roasted almonds, prominently displayed on the end of the nut aisle, recently cost about 16 cents more per pound than Planters’ roasted almonds.’

That Target has been able to create a store brand that costs more than the established brand impressed me a great deal.

The article also noted that Procter & Gamble Chief Executive Bob McDonald said the maker of Pampers and Tide has been balancing its exposure to chains with store brands by expanding distribution in other channels like dollar stores, which don’t sell private labels that compete against P&G products. They are also redoubling efforts to develop new products, particularly at lower prices. “We invest $2 billion a year in research and development, $400 million on consumer knowledge and about 10% of sales on advertising,” Mr. McDonald said in a recent interview. “Store brands don’t have that capability.”

Sounds like someone who is not sure but is hoping he’s right.

Is this a wake-up call for traditional established brands?

Mr. Johnson unveiled Penney’s new strategy and logo this week (a square signifying a square deal). One of his first moves is to eliminate the seemingly unending promotions and sales. In fact J.C. Penney had 590 such promotions and sales in 2011. He also will be streamlining pricing to be more consistent, around 40 percent off previous prices, all the time. And as reported in Macnn.com – http://bit.ly/A5gC3X when sales happen, they will be month-long events, and the company will strive to offer “great prices” on items every day. It will also price items in whole numbers, meaning a $20 price instead of $19.99.

I have written (unflatteringly) recently about the trials and tribulations at Sears http://wp.me/pJX7l-y6 and while I’ve not set foot in a J.C. Penney store (at least not that I can recall which says something in and of itself) in a year or so, I feel Mr. Johnson has got the right stuff and is saying and doing the right things to refurbish the J.C. Penney brand.

Having a brand stand for something and have that position understood by consumers is the challenge that Mr. Johnson is taking head on. I like that. He’s also avowed to invest $80 million a month in advertising and promotion. I like that too!

What’s your take on J.C. Penney? Is it a tired brand beyond repair?

I’ve been to China a handful of times over the past two years and our company is doing business by helping Chinese companies in the U.S. as well as helping U.S. companies enter the Chinese market. I’ve learned a great deal and have much more to learn in the coming years. However I have learned a number of very important things. Here are three to think about:

1) The Chinese will not be pushed around. It’s like when you are being yelled at by someone and you eventually just tune out. Jumping up and down demanding that China accede on trade practices and currency valuations will have little or no impact on how China will act.

2) Win-win does not mean the same thing to the Chinese as it does to Americans. I can hardly count the number of times I’ve had a Chinese businessperson tell me Win-Win right? With a smile and a handshake. Win-win to the Chinese means the company wants you (the U.S. side of the venture) to take all the risk in helping them develop their business in the U.S., and for the most part, non-major Chinese companies are unwilling to invest any money in developing the U.S. market. This should not be all that surprising given that just a little over thirty years ago the notion of marketing and advertising was as foreign as – well, a free society.

3) It is an understatement to say that it takes patience to have your China market strategies bear fruit. When I tell my Chinese associates and U.S. expatriates that we’ve been able to gain client engagements in China in less than two years they are amazed and impressed. For me it feels as if it’s taken a really long time with constant work, some missteps and changes in strategy. I’ve been told repeatedly that having success in anything less than three years is unusual.

I believe most Americans are smart, smart enough to realize that starting a trade war with China will not help the U.S. get its goods and services into the fast-growing market any faster. Yes of course we all desire a level playing field and at the same time it’s frustrating to have to deal with the subsidization of Chinese enterprises by the PRC government. However the U.S. and other western countries will be far more successful if they try to find more collaborative methods to effect policy when it comes to the Chinese.

The Chinese are not focused on helping the west rebound from its financial difficulties. China has its own problems. But the Chinese are aware that they are holding the right cards at the moment. That China will continue to try to exploit its hand should come as no surprise to anyone.

But somehow that doesn’t seem to be the case. Do you think I am being naïve? Practical? Neither? Both?

Last week I received a message from a friend noting that there was some less than flattering buzz going around on Facebook regarding something my wife was being accused of doing (she didn’t). Apparently someone we do not know had been ‘wronged’ and tracked the wrongdoer to a physical address – in fact the address where we used to live, having moved out three months ago. The affronted party got the home address from the police and checked it in a reverse lookup. Of course we were still listed as living at our old address as records are not always updated promptly – no surprise there. It went downhill from
there.

Thinking that the offending party had been found out this person went on a social network and began to post a vitriolic rant on how my wife was a terrible and horrible person and that the police were involved. Naturally my wonderful wife was shocked and had no idea what was going on – at least not at first. By piecing things together she was finally able to figure out what took place.

My wife tracked down and contacted the person who had been posting the incorrect information. She received a lukewarm apology but without any or at least enough contrition.
You’d think that a person would be horrified at erroneously accusing an innocent person of wrongdoing in a public forum like a social network. But the idea of going public in the first place to embarrass someone due to a personal grudge is unfortunately not all that uncommon these days.

What I am suggesting is that if you are going to go the route of publicly calling out someone for wrongdoing in a social network or other public forum – AT LEAST GET IT RIGHT! But in my opinion better if you don’t do it at all and approach the person one to one first. If then you are not satisfied and want to go public – do it at your own risk.

Now this is going to make me sound old – maybe older than I am, but I remember when there were no mobile devices and you actually had to have a conversation with the person with whom you were sharing a meal. You couldn’t fake a call from someone in order to get out of a bad ‘blind’ date or any kind of date for that matter which just made it much more challenging BTW.

Look around any restaurant for someone sitting by themselves. Perhaps they are waiting for someone(s). Maybe they are eating alone. But how often do you see a single person just sitting there looking out and around, not on their mobile device? Of course many people read a book or magazine (electronic or not) when dining alone but I recall from black and white movies a time where someone would sit in a restaurant and not read anything and simply just sit there and wait, and think. Could you imagine?

How often during your waking hours do you not engage in some sort of stimulus? That is, how often do you just sit, stand, or run, and think without any other stimulus (think iPod)? I think for many people this is happening to an increasing degree (in the U.S. at least) and is inexorably changing not only the way people interact but even more significantly people’s ability to spend idle time simply thinking about whatever crosses one’s mind. It’s even more prevalent for people under 30 who appear to me to never stop interacting with technology when not in the presence of others. Is there any time that they just sit and do nothing but think or day dream?

It goes way beyond the seeming inability of people to spend any idle time. Answering an email or phone call when in the presence of others when 99% of those contacts are not emergencies is not multi-tasking in my opinion. How can you make the person you are with feel that you care about them or what they are saying when you stop to answer a phone call, text or email? But somehow that’s become the norm rather than the exception. People not only have difficulty being idle, they feel the need to manage two interactions simultaneously.

How about you? Do you spend quiet time just thinking? No music or electronics of any kind. Quiet. Can you? Will you?

Yesterday I attended a meeting in Washington D.C. and decided to take the Amtrak Northeast Regional – it was $ 98.00 round trip. Taking Acela would have saved me less than one hour and was substantially more expensive. Driving made no sense and flying would have not saved much time at all if any. Amtrak offers ‘free’ Wi-Fi and some limited food service on board. Since I spend a great deal of time working on my computer and talking on the phone it ended up being a sort of mobile office. They also have a frequent traveler program with rewards – and yes I enrolled just to see how they might market to me and they have been doing an ok job of sending emails – not too many thank goodness.

The first thing that was good was that the train did not derail. I am not certain as to what percentage of Amtrak trains derail but it seems that it happens with some frequency.

Overall my impressions are that it was better than flying and car or bus travel. Perhaps it took a bit longer than flying, (3:20 from Penn Station to Union Station) but the low stress and ability to be productive was a plus but I was not nearly as productive as I could have been. Why? The main reason is because the free Wi-Fi service is spotty at best. There was not any option to upgrade to better service. I kept in mind that when I rode the regional train in China this past November the condition of the trains were similar (the Chinese trains were newer but get more use so appeared somewhat worn just like Amtrak) and there was no Wi-Fi service available. In fact aside from that my experience in riding the train from Guangzhou (formerly known by Westerners as Canton) to Hong Kong was remarkably similar – except for the price which was less about half in China and I made no advance reservation. That should come as no surprise to anyone.

The Chinese rail does move faster although there are a similar amount of stops. That is primarily due to the fact that the rail lines have been laid more recently and do not limit speeds for fear of derailment on the ancient tracks as is the case in the Northeastern U.S.

I had made a reservation to return to New York City at 7:10PM but arrived early at the Union Station at 5:45 and noticed there was a 6:05PM Northeast regional train. I inquired as to if I could get on that train and was told yes, but it would cost an additional $113.00! More than what I paid for the round trip in the first place. I will go out on a limb and surmise the reason was not that the train was overbooked. Managing to suppress my outrage I simply said no thanks and went and had a nice dinner and a beverage and took the 7:10. But really – how insane is that? I was not going to travel any less time on the train (the same 3:20) and there was room for me to sit without question. Just to be clear had I originally booked the earlier train the roundtrip price would have been … $98.00.

Amtrak is a viable alternative and I will ride it again but it still has a long way to go. From a marketing perspective Amtrak does not do much advertising but the messaging they do is ok. However to have a customer experience what I did in terms of attempted fleecing to move up my time by one hour undoes whatever good marketing Amtrak might put out. What happened to me should be easy to fix (but will they?) and the fact that they allow it to happen tells me there are many other problems that have to be repaired in order for Amtrak to continue to present itself as a truly worthwhile means of transportation.

Have you ridden Amtrak lately? Regional or Acela? I’d love to

From what Steve Jobs reputedly averred on his deathbed, Apple has finally ‘solved it’ – it being the marriage of internet and television. It’s about time since we’ve all been waiting for such a product for a long, long time and when it finally does occur, perhaps the days of having a rat’s nest of cords all over the place will finally be ending.

More than twenty years ago a brilliant creative mind and very good friend of mine referred to the tangle of cords that sometimes looks like a rat’s nest as ‘Spaghetti City’. I admit that I’ve been living in Spaghetti City at home and in the office ever since.

Like so many people there are ties holding some of the cords together but there are always a few that are scattered about loosely and get caught on everything. Going behind the television and audio system is a scary prospect.

Leaving Spaghetti City goes way beyond cutting the cord. The ability to have your home (and office) technology devices communicate with one another without the tethering of a maze of power, Cat-5 and other various cords will have our children’s children snickering about the old days where people had wires and cables all over the place.

But leaving Spaghetti City has much greater implications than the elimination of cords. The world is heading for a level of technology interconnectivity that is the stuff of science fiction lore. And it appears that at the core of it all is the iPad itself and its ability to control a multitude of devices with a swipe of your finger. Other tablets are also going to be designed to offer wireless manipulation of any number of home appliances and devices but Apple (as usual) has a substantial lead.

As I noted it’s been far too long in development but finally I can see a day when we won’t have tape and color coded labels on cords going every which way. And that day cannot come soon enough.
How about you – have you a replica of Spaghetti City at home or in your office (or both)?

When I have worked on MLK day in recent years I have noticed an increasing amount of companies that are closed. Of course MLK day is a Federal Holiday, no banks, post offices and even the financial markets are closed. New York area commuter trains runs on a Saturday schedule.

So what took me so long? I really don’t have a good answer. I have great respect for the work done by Dr. King and his importance and significance in American history is in my view underappreciated. But from this point forward, as long as I am running a company MLK day will be an official company holiday.

Of course I write this from my desk at work on the morning of Martin Luther King Jr. Day. But that’s my choice to get a things accomplished on an unusually quiet Monday morning. I think it’s no problem to work on a holiday like MLK day – as long as the choice is yours. Please pardon that it took me an inordinately long time to figure that out.

Is your company open today and if not are you working anyway?

Several years ago I wrote a post on how I thought there should be an iPhone EZ pass application – http://wp.me/pJX7l-9L – and BTW I didn’t and still don’t have an iPhone. I would now add that it should be a smartphone application for all platforms (Android, Blackberry if they last). Good idea but I’ve lately been trying to find a way to make it happen and have been stymied every step of the way when it comes to contacting people at EZ Pass – which has been nearly impossible. If it was easy it already would have been done right?

So my conclusion is that the answer to ‘why didn’t I think of that’ can sometimes be answered in realizing that the idea is only part of the process and successfully implementing an idea is most often more difficult than thinking it up in the first place.

If I have learned anything from creating http://www.yourcover.com is that good ideas don’t always translate into good businesses – at least not right away – and even if they do it will take time as it has with YourCover which I am happy to say is now a very successful business. And even if they do translate into good businesses the road to success is will be long and filled with potholes that we do our best to avoid. However I find myself on the side of the road from time to time fixing the damage done when the pothole cannot be avoided.

But I strongly encourage people to not answer the question ‘why hasn’t it been done already? Before they’ve tried actually doing it. Even if other people thought of it, putting an idea into action and making it happen requires more than ingenuity. The idea is only the beginning and the hard work then follows. What happens to me is that I think – someone has undoubtedly already thought of this and there’s a reason it has not been done. I realize that is a pretty poor excuse for not at least exploring an idea to a greater degree.

Some time ago I had an idea for a smartphone mirror application – something that would look like a compact-type mirror. Sure enough when I looked I found one on the Android system (but not for Blackberry as far as I have been able to determine) http://bit.ly/wrPbwp. The question I should ask myself (and you should think about asking yourself) is – ‘Why didn’t I think of making it happen?’

So in a world full of top ten lists and the like I could not even come up with ten things I did not resolve. I managed to squeeze out a few:

1) I did not resolve to watch fewer sporting events on television. Hey, I’m a guy. My wife was not all that surprised.

2) I did not resolve to take fewer showers in order to save water. I like to think of it as improving the overall air quality.

3) I did not resolve to spend more time with my family. While this remains unannounced, I doubt they would notice one way or the other so I take it that I am doing ok anyway.

4) I did not resolve to drink less wine. Duh.

5) I did not resolve to work longer hours. However I will continue to learn to work smarter.

Happy New Year to all and to all my very best wishes for health, happiness, and prosperity. In that order too.