Automotive Agenda

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Here would be an interesting metric for the auto industry.

I was thinking about ways using metrics creates job security and insulates one from doing anything that actually makes a significant impact on the business when I had this thought.

What percentage of a new car's price or value should go into its repair and maintanence over its lifetime?

I'm sure the auto industry has that number, and wouldn't it be an interesting number to see on new and used car stickers. Bet it would drive down the cost of dealer repairs and shake other things up - and it should be there right next to the mpg sticker. But I'm still thinking of the benefits that would accrue to the end user - you and me.

ANALYTICS IS SO POPULAR IN BUSINESS BECAUSE

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Analytics and metrics are so popular in business because business men and women believe trends are things that stare up at you dead and lifeless from a slide on a microscope that's easy for us to move around. With the keyword being easy. It's dead. It doesn't move. Anyone can do it. And anyone who drives their business with this information is bound to end up roadkill, or existing on the artificial life support of today's media. Takes massive amounts of infusion to keep "the brand" out there.

So studying the past in a petri dish won't engage the future - otherwise every brand, manufacturer and ad agency would be doing a whole lot better. It's a hostile environment in which to create new products or turnaround brands not doing well. No matter what anyone says, you can't measure your way to a breakthrough. Trends that pop out of numbers are like studying an earthquake, by the time you analyze the data, the event will be long past.

BRAND DOPING ON RISE AS OLYMPICS CONTINUE

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Are you doping brands?
doping refers to the use of performance-enhancers forbidden by organizations that regulate competitions. Doping is mostly done to improve performance.

Increase in marketing performance for several brands triggers probe. Prosecutors widen investigation into use of illicit creative steroids; tampering with established CPG category brand positions.

Cincinnati (AP) Prosecutors investigating C-level brand management practices at Procter & Gamble today confirmed use of performance-enhancing creativity to dope brands. Use of Abstract Dimensioning® (known on the street as AD), and other forms of banned creative stimulants manufactured by Calle & Company under the names Multi-Dimensional Consumer-Creativity® and Culturally Influential Consumer Groups® are all practices forbidden by key trade organizations that regulate competition including the 4 As, Marketing Research Association and the Grocery Marketing Association. Each has denied the practice of brand doping exists despite unusual performance spikes attributed to many once flat-selling brands. Prosecutors said they would expand their search immediately to other high profile incidents in consumer packaged goods, auto, retail, restaurant, financial and pharmaceuticals. Facing stiff penalties for illicit tampering with category positioning and new product innovation, unnamed Procter & Gamble executives with a promise of immunity defended the company’s use of performance growth stimulants (such as BGH – brand growth hormone) citing dramatic increases in brand strength and rejuvenation of older slower moving brands.

In a stinging retort to allegations that his brand and team had been using the illegal creative steroids marketing superstar Lance Brandstrong said yesterday that all accusations are without foundation. "We had permission to bring every performance-enhancing product we could envision to use. We do it by the book. We get everything authorized. We seek only unique selling propositions and have no idea what that guy was talking about when he pitched us on identifying new Special User Effects® as the underpinning to every great breakthrough.” In addition he said, “I have never injected or ingested any consumer information that I didn’t already know and I have never engaged the services of Calle & Company’s Consumer-Creative® Assays® to audit something that I did already know or suspect. I would never do that.”

Prosecutors believe the practice of brand doping providing an unfair marketing advantage over rivals, in markets and with consumers to be widespread - but the practice is hard to pin down because brand people don’t apply the illegal creativity to all of their brands all at the same time. “You have to wait for one brand in one category to unexplainably make a significant leap forward overnight. That’s our first clue” said a high-ranking source wishing to remain anonymous.

Companies under investigation in the widespread brand doping and market position corruption scheme include Kraft Foods, Nestle, ConAgra, Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive, Campbell Soup, Gerber Baby Foods, Pepperidge Farm, Entenmann’s Bakery, Brown-Forman, Miller Brewing, Ferrera USA, The Coca-Cola Company, Frito-Lay, Pepsi, Mead-Johnson. Janssen Pharmaceutica, Johnson & Johnson, McNeil, Schering-Plough, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, The Mennen Company, Chesebrough-Ponds, Clairol, L’Oreal, Noxell, General Foods, Lehn & Fink, The Drackett Company and more. And aggressive young prosecutors looking to make a name for themselves want to land indictments against other companies soon. A Federal Trade Commission spokesman said the agency is investigating the use of banned Abstract Dimensioning® and other forms of breakthrough creativity marketed by Calle & Company. (OK, I admit it. I've been doping brands with enhanced creativity for years. Like Nixon, I just got caught.)

To report suspected brand doping:
Brand Doping Hotline
714 244 9511
Category prosecutors are standing by to take your call.

OraQuel® Toothbrush Cleaner - Heart Smart Oral Care

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Would you eat breakfast with a fork you only licked clean last night?

The Anacin Syndrome

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Is your business suffering from The Anacin Syndrome? And what is The Anacin Syndrome? The Anacin Syndrome is my metaphore for all that has to do with the dropping of standards. During the 50's, when brands like Anacin were at their peak, words like "competent" meant that you were just one step above moron. Now the word competent means you practically own a Ph.D. Well these days being "average" has gotten so bad that you can go to the head of the class just by showing up. But why did things change? How did these lax standards come about? Well, about the time brands like Anacin were popular, moms had just started going into the workforce for the first time. They'd come home tired, stressed and hungry - and still faced a home and family to manage! Hence Anacin's most memorable ads. Moms snapping at little children! Close up on mom: hand to forehead: Voiceover: "Sure you have a headache. You're tense and irritable. But don't take it out on her!" Why if you ran that ad today you'd be accused of depicting child abuse. Back then it was just reality TV. Well, more moms and dads are working today than ever before. They don't have time for all this. Hell, I've even had marketers tell me I'm damn good. But the problem is, I make them think. Too hard. They don't have time for this. I maintain that all great minds like a good think. They just don't exercise the muscle often enough to maintain its competency.

Hence the current trend to hurry up the maturing of kids faster - or the growth of brands. As workers, we don't have the time to correctly nurture the majority of children or brands. Well nurtured children and brands are now in the minority. Hence, Vanessa Hudgins posing nude for Disney when just 18. Miley Cirus partially nude at 14 or 15. You get the picture. Pretty soon you could run the same Anacin ad depicting 13 year olds in place of mom! "Sure school's tough. You're tense, your irritable. But don't take it out on your little brother!" So many people self-prescribe, who would stop the kids? And that's why companies can't fix themselves.

And that's what's happened in marketing. We no longer sell brands. It's too hard to find an ownable brand specific reason for being that substantively differentiates one product from another. Though I have the know how I can't find a brand in any category that says anything different than their rival. They just say it in a different way. Guess it's called commoditization and it's the price brands pay for not taking the time to do their homework. As a result we are inundated with category sells and not brand sells. It's too hard to find something different to say about your product - so we invented branding - it's what you do when you don't have anything important to say. Sure Starbucks has a headache. Howard Schultz is tense and irritable, but don't take it out on the business! And that's The Anacin Syndrome.

ARE YOU YOUR COMPANY'S BOTTLENECK?

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LEADERS ARE READERS So make certain you take the time to read the things that come in from people and companies you don't know. They're excited about what they do which is why they are calling with something you don't know. Don't have the time? Consider this. It takes General Motors five days just to acknowledge receipt of a letter to head honcho Rick Wagoner. Look at the shape General Motors is in. And casual indifference to new thinking is killing Starbucks.

WAS PRESIDENT BUSH A BOY SCOUT?

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IS HE LEAVING AMERICA BETTER THAN HE FOUND IT?

PRUNE YOUR THINKING

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Marketing strategy: Prune your thinking to promote new growth.

There is a saying among leaders (anywhere) that you have to give up to go up. And someone just asked me what that meant. The hardest things to give up are our ideas and beliefs; like what drives a business, but overall it means 'sacrifice' and in the broadest sense acting in others best interest before you act for yourself, "when you help others get what they want, you get what you want," which is sure a pure thought that it is like the perfectly cured medium rare T-bone steak because if you help more people buy your product, just by pruning your thoughts to promote new growth, you win!

In business to sacrifice and help others get what they want, like a higher stock price or more consumer traffic, it has always proven the most expedient and effective device to prune your thinking. Yes, you have to prune your thinking to promote new growth. Sounds easy, but in business, and in marketing that business, people don't like pruning their thinking to promote new growth. As sales guru Zig Ziglar said, "People cling to their ideas more tenaciously than their most prized material possessions. The Chairman or CEO of a company will get a new lease on a new vehicle or give up his or her home and move, but the thoughts stay in place.

Now there is a thought that you have to tell consumers the same thing over and over again to build a number of impressions, but in the case of brands like Folgers or categories like OTC remedies, the thoughts have remained the same for decades...while consumer thinking changes at the pace of the next internet article read.

Distilled Intelligence - What's your DQ?

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I’ve always had a penchant for distilled intelligence, and now I have another reason, Sweden’s vodka. The latest to tickle the palate is Nordic Spirit, the first publicly owned vodka manufacturer to emerge in Sweden since the government's monopoly on the spirit’s production was disbanded. I want the account of a company that thinks this abstractly! What a great new product!

Nordic Spirit professes to be one of the purest premium vodka on the international market. Under the moniker, DQ (meaning ‘distilled intelligence’), this luxury spirit has been in development for the last 10 years. What a great positioning; like that short lived 'think earlier' print campaign for Starbucks which sold caffiene, just like the best part of waking up is Folgers in your cup..

DQ is distilled in the government-protected Malmköping springs, a feature which formed almost two million years ago. The water is naturally soft, filtered and fortified. In the Nordic Spirit bottling plant, a connecting pipeline to the natural springs allows them to blend their distilled DQ spirit with this purified water, close to the source.

Even the method of wheat production is steeped in tradition, with seeds planted in autumn and allowed to mature during the eight winter months, making the grains of superior quality.
The result is an ultra smooth, complex vodka that slips down as gently as a shot of pure spring water. The bottle is an appropriately sleek mix of Italian glass and brushed aluminium, topped off with a specially developed nozzle that maintains the quality and freshness within. A must for any discerning drinker. What's your DQ?

THE SIMILARITIES OF EARTHQUAKES, MARKETING AND KNOWLEDGE

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Marketing. knowledge and earthquakes have a lot in common. By the time you model and analyze the data the event has already happened. Working after the fact, reactions are behind the curve. And no matter how hard you study the past, it will not give you all that you need to know for the present. You can plan and anticipate, but it can not predict the next event. You can only fall back on everything you know about earthquakes and/or your business - and that resides within knowledge of established habits and practices. In marketing to consumers, only the ability to create new knowledge, that which does not yet exist (so it can not be gathered and measured) can put you in control and position you ahead of the curve to jolt an industry, business, category, segment or brand like the image here.

TURNING SPARE CHANGE INTO STAR BUCKS

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I allocate a lot of time to Starbucks because it is a classic example of the rise and fall of a great brand - and because I was one of the company's early adapters in terms of product usage and portfolio holdings. And it all happened in one of the shortest times on record, so it is a great example of what not to do. Time was, you could go into Starbucks with a buck or a buck twenty five and get a great cup of coffee, then expenses and overhead went up as the brand "grew" to become more things to more people. Rather than a great place to go for some quality time that didn't cost an arm and a leg Starbucks became a planned distination for which one had to determine if a stop at an ATM was necessary before dropping by. The beginning of the end.

Now no one believes that recipe dissemination, a few novelty fro-yo drinks, closing stores, trimming the payroll and soliciting user-generated input via an online portal will affect Starbuck's turnaround. The cost reductions are a technical mandate, but the rebuild of unit sales and dollar volume requires the creation of new consumer knowledge (as in tell me something new about yourself) to raise the bar and get foot traffic flowing in the door again. Why not target a number like 400 customers per hour on any given average hour? Why not? That's what Costco does. And why do this? Because every decision Starbucks now makes is based on established consumer habits and practice. And Starbucks already knows what that gets them. I think their stock is trading around $14 a share.

SAVING STARBUCKS

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With every cut more water is pouring into the hold of the Titanic. Why would you want to fire all those people and let all that experience go to a competitor - just because you couldn't find a better answer?

Everything the past, present and future team at Starbucks knows about its business is based on established consumer habits and practices and no matter how hard you study the past it will never tell you all you need to know for the present. The demand to create new consumer knowledge, that which has never existed to be gathered and measured is essential for Starbucks to immediately generate significant incremental unit and dollar volume sales. And I'd like to demonstrate how that worked at P&G on Folgers and Pampers, just to prove it works everytime to those who think it's impossible to generate incremental AM usage occassions. It is the most immediate way to impact a brand and business. No layoffs, no store closures. Nobody quits when you're making money. So what's to loose?

ARE YOU TARGETING THE NEW AMERICAN UBER CLASS? THE BUDGETEERS

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Yes, as the name implies, the new American super segment to target is the Budgeteers. Much like Disney's original Mouseketeers these current financial American innocents are adults in age only when it comes to managing money. And what would you expect? Since the invention of the credit card in 1958 these financial innocents have been encourage to constantly indulge and dip their hand in the financial cookie jar (it's irresistible) to live far beyond their means so the credit pimp (finance industry) could live well. Hence, America's current financial crisis.

To put a positive spin on Budgeteers would be to think that they are frugal people and manage money well, reading Money Magazine and always putting their money in the accounts that pay the most interest and employ credit cards with the lowest interest rates. But that's not true. That is the minority. The Budgeteers are a much larger vaster segment..."Cornucopia Kids" bred by campaigns like "Life Takes Visa" (and decades of similar before) to consume more than they bring in. They live at the intersection of "can just barely get a credit card" and "I'll never be able to pay all this back." Hooked by the purchase pimp these finance-children, with their hands in the credit and finance cookie jar take out jumbo loans with no doc or easy doc applications, they lease vehicles to have more than they can actually afford, and when they turn leased vehicles in, (more than 70% of the vehicles on the road are leased) the auto industry finds it difficult to dispose of them, which hurts the auto industry. And these are the people who came from the homes that run our finance and mortgage industry today! No wonder it finally got all fouled up. The day of reckoning arrived and it's time to go to the woodshed. It's all illusionary wealth and we blanket ourselves each night in the illusion of financial security while the simmering financial stress drives us to seek Tylenol PM and therapy for attention deficit disorder children unhinged by little more than watching their parents create a daily atmosphere of monetary paranoia and financial misery. That's insecurity. It would be hard for me to pay attention in such a household too.

The smart Budgeteers will learn from this experience and adjust their priorities advancing to middle school. They are the minority. The rest of America's Budgeteers, captured by the financial pimp will continue to be held back in financial elementary school earning their C- and D+ on their report cards. We're a long way from Ray Bradbury's blissful 24th Century Star Trek utopia where human-kind no longer needs money and lives in pursuit of improvement.

We would have a much kinder, gentler and more fiscally responsive America if retailers did away with credit cards and loyalty programs. Just offer good products and friendly service. That would be an incentive for management to get back in touch with employees. Would these businesses, like Home Depot shrink? Of course they would. Down to their "reality" size rather than their credit inflated illusionary bottom lines.

HUGE EARTHQUAKE JUST HIT ORANGE COUNTY, CALIFORNIA

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Hi. I was just working in my office and an enormous earthquake just hit here in Villa Park, CA in central Orange County, just by the City of Orange, south of Los Angeles. My entire office shook! No camera to play video but the walls rocked. It was a back and forth. Went on for almost 30 seconds. Going to inspect for damage now. Real biggy. More updates if aftershocks occure. Thanks. Sure scared me. Floor moved enough that I stumbled trying to get out. Aftershocks happening now. Dogs barking before. They sense it. Deep. Continuing.

STARBUCKS...HOW SAD

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Did I die at Starbucks and wake up in Aunt Gloria Jeans Tea Room? Selling frozen novelty yogurt drinks called Sorbetto at Starbucks is a clear signal the coffee purveyor's brand equity compass is way off track. This isn't even making Howrd Schultz look good if he's trying to stabilize the company for a sale. Selling non coffee drinks at Starbucks, especially frozen yogurt novelties is like Campbells Soup Company selling Chunky Soup as a stew in a can instead of "the soup you eat with a fork." That's how you biuld the equity of a soup company as a soup company. Starbucks. Desperate. The company hasn't even taken coffee 20% of where it can go, and they're already turning in non-coffee directions. And, not to be critical, but those Pepto-Bismol colored splats placed on Starbuck's store floors look like some sick kid yakked. Then people walk on it and it's even more revolting and unappetizing. Looks like some stores in-need-of-repair restrooms. Rating: Thumbs down. Coffee loyalists, Turn around and walk out. Newly [re] appointed marketing head Michelle Gass has her work cut out.

THE AIRLINES - GOOGLE'S LEAST LIKELY EVOLUTIONARY RIVAL

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As commodities, heavily price driven US airline brands are going the way of the old Greyhound Bus Lines and dodo bird. What needs are actually served by physical travel save sentiment? If an airline's overhead is so great that it cannot sustain itself, then what should or could an airline become without its hardware and overhead...and what prescient Chairman or CEO is asking this question? With baggage fees bringing in no more than beer money airline marketing seems missing in action. Sure airlines stand for travel, but what does travel stand for? Communication? Enrichment? and how can that be served by communication without travel? Who would be the first airline to compete with Google? And how unlikely would that be? With the first chinks appearing in Google's armour, could an airline remold itself into the next travel/search/communication engine? Is it more likely that this new business entity replace the Face Book? And with a slight twist of wrist revolutionize social marketing and networking? And how would that occur? Where are the Special User Effects that are the underpinnings of great unique selling propositions? (like the identification of 'development' that took Pampers $1.6 billion in annual sales beyond 'fit' and 'dryness') Where are the reasons to try an airline, and if I try it and like it to fly it again? When the industry needs direction most Madison Avenue too seems MIA. Awareness and recognition pap like Fly the friendly skies isn't going to cut the mustard here or impact consumer habits and practices. There is a clear need now for a market share war and not based on price. Two things, 1) when you talk price it spooks those already facing shaky personal and professional budgets; 2) when you talk price (like Chrysler's $2.99 a gallon gas promotion) your brand equity sinks so low you have to climb up a ladder to get to the bottom. Christ! Sell your cars based on their substantiated reason's for being. Cars, airlines = modes of transportation = for business or pleasure. Tell me something I don't know. That's what the brand doctor orders here!

BACKSEAT DRIVING WITH HARVARD'S CLAYTON CHRISTENSEN AND DISTRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES

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Innovation starts in the mind, not in the laboratory - so without stimulating R&D and innovation execs minds beyond their current frames of reference, innovation becomes the next best thing - supplier or vendor ideas, packaging and delivery system evolutions, etc. You can't start in the lab and work backward. You have to start in the mind and go forward.

TOILET PAPER FOR DIETERS

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One of the fun things about my job is that I get to have new product thoughts no one else has ever had; And the best part about the best ideas is that they always seem to draw connections between two things that have never been connected before, or that have no reason to be connected in the first place...like toilet paper and dieters. Knowledge is the by product (no pun intended) of my unique job in the consumer packaged goods industry (and believe me, I've learned more from the crappy ideas than from the billion dollar winners) - while everyone else is busy scurrying around gathering and measuring data, I create new knowledge for purposes of strategic innovation, consumer insights and new product concept development - quite a number of which have fallen into the 'heavy-hitter' category over the years, and more into the toilet bowl.

But you want to argue with the notion that no one has ever had the idea of "toilet paper for dieters" before? Maybe someone has - so go ahead and Google it because I couldn't find it. And why shouldn't Americans have the right to purchase "toilet paper for dieters." There's an obesity epidemic in America, so a lot of solid material from over consumption is getting flushed down the bowl while we simultaneously try to eat less. It's like a daily good cop bad cop routine. I stuff my face, then feel guilty about it convincing myself that one less leg of fried chicken or one less Pillsbury dinner roll is going to make a difference. I've been drinking Lite beer for years and it hasn't changed my waistline. I flog myself for a lifetime. Yes, one of my clients has been Jenny Craig.

But back to TP for Dieters. You snicker it's a silly idea. Oh yeah!? You wouldn't if you saw it rolled out by P&G and Charmin or KC and Scott Paper. After all it's been A LONG TIME since anyone innovated in the toilet tissue category. A roll of paper has been a roll of paper for since before your grandfather. People used to laugh at the idea of just having a second cold symptom remedy relief product. Everyone used Dristan and incredulously asked why they might need something else. Then we turned their tablet into a liquid. Prototypes were perceived to do a better job of providing night time tranquility. The day before every Consumer Packaged Goods executive laughed at the idea of segmenting the cold symptom relief category. The day after, they had NyQuil. They stopped laughing because NyQuil took nearly 70 share from Dristan overnight and opened the door for the flood of symptom relievers that followed. We just blazed the trail.

So is TP for Dieters a worthwhile idea? Probably not. Because it is the byproduct of my own mind and not that of consumers, and unless consumers say "make it so" the product has no reason-for-being. But if they did want it what might it be like? Would it be slippery or coarse, thick of thin, smooth like Lays or ridged like Ruffles? And why does it have to be flat? Can it be inserted? Would it change color like pregnancy tests to indicate carbohydrate versus protein metabolizing. How about indicating stool moisture content? (And they said I'd be embarrassed speaking with women about their daily hygiene needs for Maxi Pads and Tampons.) I THINK TOILET PAPER SHOULD BECOME DIAGNOSTIC. There'd be a great market in hospitals alone. Would there be different TP segments for people with different weight loss goals? People who want to loose 20 pounds this year versus 40. Is there a competitive segmentation for dieters on TV - Reality Shows like America's Biggest Loser? And then again, there isn't a single toilet paper that gives me a sensual pleasure. Why shouldn't there be one? Sure would make me feel better about over eating. I wonder if the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex ever looked into this? Probably not because that's not where young executive minds go. But if a guy from IU can go there I'm sure P&G can too. But maybe again, the idea isn't worth the paper it's written on, and then again, maybe it is. Sure are a few technology patent ideas here if someone in innovation at Procter & Gamble or Kimberly-Clark isn't too busy. Googled that too. No patent filings to date. And they say agency creatives have all the fun creative ideas - or the humanists at companies like Ideo or Frog Design. How many've gone here? I bet zero. Because it's not something you can observe by observing existing consumer habits and practices - so that's where they and Clayton Christiansen's theories of disruptive technologies fall short. You have to be able to envision behaviors that have never previously existed and that is what we alone do with our Abstract Dimensioning Mental Processing.

Let's go on. Please help. Comment!

THE CONSUMER FREQUENCY

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Most marketers are busy crunching numbers today, like they did yesterday, and the day before, and as they will tomorrow. What they are analysing are minute changes in business performance based on standards driving businesses that have not changed in decades. We all drink beer, wine, ale and spirits to address the need states of "to party" or "to relax." There are no other reasons. When our wives had babies we bought disposable diapers that had to "fit" the baby better and keep the baby "dryer." The entire industry remained flat until the revelation that a diaper brand such as Pampers could actually capture toddlers by extending its foot print to "development" sold an incremental $1.6 billion worth of Pampers that year while all the nay sayers suggested there was no way to generate an incremental disposable diaper consumption occasion - but those were not the forward-thinking outward-looking execs.

So to what frequency do consumers tune when dialing in your business? Are you broadcasting a frequency only they can hear? That sure would cut clutter! Why ask this question? Because we all operate with our own definitions of positioning, insight, branding, ad nauseum. And they can't all be correct. There is an overburden of clutter, commoditization and desensitization to ad messages in the marketplace. So how do you tune into that one frequency that reaches that one person (thought leader, early adapter, whatever) that you want to hear your message?

About 24 million consumers ago (that's about how many consumer panelists we've intereacted with face-to-face/not online in the last 40 years) we determined that the insight you want to target is called a Special User Effect. It is not a generic emotion of the sort generated by Hal Riney for Saturn. That division still operates in the red. A Special User Effect is consumer-created (not Madison Avenue or client created) and it is the result of a process that creates new consumer knowledge that has never previously existed to be mapped, gathered or measured. It is not the product of your own mind, my own mind or insight either.

This places the bar higher. That's where "development" came from for Pampers, which grew the business by $1.6 billion that year (now that's an insight). It's also the way the oral care business determined the five category attributes that account for all consumer perceptions in oral care. So I don't really care which agency you are or you hire. Every insight they have will in some way shape or form be somehow inextricably tied to one or more of these five attributes unless you create new breakthrough knowledge. We only brush our teeth for reasons of whitening, breath freshening (includes germ killing), gum care, tartar control and cavity prevention.

Why do I make such a hard line stance and draw my line in the sand here? Because my goal is higher. I don't just sell more product with garden variety insights. I control the definition of categories with the proprietary ability to create new knowledge from the minds of consumers. That's consumer-creativity and it is not the same as merely soliciting user generated input from websites where provided input comes only from consumer's existing frames of reference. Companies only do that because it's cheap. No matter how hard you study the past [that way] it can never give you everything you need for the present.

A brand IS fewer things to fewer people. That is what causes the early adapters to glom on. The novelty is what gives a brand an allure. Then they 9the numbers crunchers and insight hounds) try to make it more things to more people and you can kiss it goodbye. Everyone else is just a follower. A brand IS something that someone started that caught on. The rest of us are merely members of the herd. How do you resurrect a company like GM or a brand like Starbucks? It can only come from the creation of new knowledge. Closing 600 stores, recipe dissemination, a few novelty fro-yo drinks and a MyStarbucksIdea website will not improve Starbucks fortune. They are merely stabilizers and are only preparatory moves to Howard Schultz making another kind of decision, like cashing out.

The frequencies of insights are deafening. There are so many so inconsequential insights echoing against the fundamental building blocks of categories - any category - that we tune them out - noise - commodities we take for granted - which is why agencies and managers get hired and fired all the time. The insights that matter are those that fundamentally change perception in a category and substantively alter consumer habits and practices to a desired goal, solving problems. To that end, there can only be one insight - the rest are all peasants.

WHY BRANDS NO LONGER SWAY US

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So if a brand is something that a rancher puts on his cattle so that other ranchers or rustlers don't steal them why do CPG companies brand their products? So competitors or brand rustlers won't steal them. Yet in many ways products (cattle) in most categories (pastures) are the same - commodities - and like cattle heavily price driven categories at that, ground roast coffees, disposable diapers, edible oils, etc.) So if the rancher (cattle owner) wants to sell more of his cattle (brand) at auction (chain grocery and drug stores for example) what must he or she do? Make a better product? A steer is a steer. Meat on the hoof is meat on the hoof. And a better product would screw up the margins. I believe that legendary UCLA basketball coach John Wooden had it right when he said, "It's what you learn after you know it all that counts." These ranchers (marketers) have been raising cattle (brands) the same way year after year. The feed (gathered and measured data) comes from the same vendors year after year. It seems to me that the only thing that would make a difference would be to create new knowledge - knowledge that has never previously existed to be gathered and measured. After all, most gathered and measured (cattle/brand feed) data comes from consumer survey panelists who answer questions for points and prizes - they don't even get cash anymore. And if it's done online, you can't even look the panelist in the eye to see if he or she is telling the truth (suspect data). That feed could be anything! I believe creating new knowledge, that which is yet to exist to gather and measure would sire an uber brand. (It made Folgers worth $1.6 billion when auctioned to a brand rancher in Orrville, Ohio. Then everyone else could once again rush to converge on the same position (pasture) saying the same things about themselves (branding) their own way. The symbol (brand) might look different, but the meat inside is pretty much the same (commoditization). To continue doing things the same way would be illogical because no matter how much you study the past (entrenched or shifting consumer habits and practices or beliefs) it will never give you everything you need for the present. Does anyone actually believe that closing a thousand stores, recipe dissemination, a few novelty fro-you drinks and user generated input from MyStarbucksIdea.Com is going to turn Starbucks around? No. It's just trimming the fat to get ready for an auction where Starbucks is the cattle and rancher Schultz can cash out. “A leader is one who sees more than others see, who sees farther than others see, and who sees before others do.” That way the auctioneer (Costco) can't tell the rancher (P&G) how to breed the cattle (Tide). It's called differentiation, which today, can only come from new knowledge. Jeez, I think I've been hanging around CPG companies too long. Starting to sound cynical.