SUV Discussion

The discussion in class today regarding different perceptions of SUVs hearkened me back to one of my least enjoyable summer jobs...valet parking. I worked most often at one of the only posh night clubs in downtown Minneapolis and consistently felt dissonance and embarassment driving those vehicles around downtown, often for 10-15 minutes in Saturday nigh traffic getting to the parking lot.

I would characterize myself as a "Charlie Brown" driver whereas I was dealing most often with an adjacent quadrant of people who are risk averse and see their cars as toys. I most often drove Hummers, Escalades and BMWs which had all the bells and whistles including usually extremely loud stereos. I couldn't figure out why I was so embarassed to be driving these vehicles around downtown when in most cases, the windows were sufficiently tinted so that noone could see me and I wasn't actually purchasing the vehicles. It was such a strong discomfort that I was actually happy to arrive at the lot and exit the enormous plush leather seats even knowing that it meant I'd need to run the 1/2 mile back to the club on a summer night to pick up another car.

Today's discussion made me wonder if it was the dissonance with my own perspective on cars and the brands I prefer that made me uncomfortable. Perhaps it was also a subconscious recognition of the importance of these very expensive toys to our patrons and the intimidation of being trusted with their favorite toy.

Facebook groups

I was recently invited by the car dealership through which I leased my Mazda3 to join their Facebook group. I went to the group page and it is a pretty standard Facebook group with a picture of the dealership in the corner and a few pictures of the members. I was surprised to see that they had well over 100 members already in the group. However, when I looked down at the postings, there were only two posts by owners of cars and the rest were Mazda employees thanking these two people for their posts and asking others to post stories.

It struck me that 110 people were willing to join the group but none were willing to comment on why. I also found myself closing the window having no desire at all to join. With all the buzz about the power of social networking, I think that these companies still haven't figured out how to integrate the business community successfully into these domains. The first thing that jumped out at me was the starkness of the webpage. There was only one picture of the dealership. This contrasted to the Mazda e-newsletter I got recently which had a picture of a new model, info on their new hydrogen/hybrid engine development and a racecar design contest the company just won. I think if this more eye-catching, relevant format could be imported to facebook pages, businesses could see more returns and have people more excited about joining and posting on their pages.

In the end, I don't think I joined because I'm not getting anything out of that facebook group. Rather, it only benefits them to have people glowing about Facebook and also have a portal for customer feedback without having to pay a research firm to run a survey. If they also offered me some information, I think I'd have joined and maybe been prompted to post something in reaction to recent Mazda developments. Hopefully by merging a sense of design and interaction companies and social networking firms can work to build better pages that are more customizable and interesting for members.

Comcast Ads

I was struck the other day by what by my count is the 3rd ad campaign run by Comcast Communications targeted to consumers. First, they have the comcast cable package commercials with the black backgrounds and colorful letters where they promote the low introductory rates for the first three months of service in their Triple Play. Second, they have the long series of turtle commercials dealing specifically with Comcast High Speed Internet. Finally, the third strategy I saw this past couple weeks is a classic customer interview talking about Comcast's home phone service affordability.

My first observation is that it is odd that one company is promoting its products in completely different executions. There's a humor ad, a price sensitive ad and a product package ad but all in different themes, tones and communcation objectives. I wonder what the effect this is on Comcast's brand equity in this and whether it is confusing to consumers. I think it is difficult to be all things to all consumers as Comcast seems to be trying to do. The messages aren't necessarily contradictory, but it doesn't leave a consistent feel for the essence of the brand. One explanation could be that they are targeting two different audiences, one that wants a one-stop shop for cable/phone/internet and another that is dedicated to satellite television and may still need internet and phone services. However, I still think they could develop an over-arching campaign that encompasses all the things Comcast is about.

I also feel that the commercials are not building a strong brand identity based on the emotional and cultural techniques we've discussed in class. The commercials are very much functionality based and not about the experience of communications services. The turtle commercials even focus on a negative part of internet service when it doesn't perform.

My hunch is that due to their relative market dominance, they are not suffering from the side effects of this. However, my discussions with Comcast customers and my own experience with Comcast seem to reveal relatively negative feelings toward the company. My parents have service interruption all the time, people my own age seem to resent the introductory rates that quickly rise substantially after the initial few billings and they are viewed with resentment as enjoying almost monopoly status in communities. If a culturally and emotionally savvy company is able to compete with them, I think they will be in big trouble in the market.

Millennial-ish

Reading the Millennials book has been really interesting on a personal level. Born in 1983, I'm on the "forefront" of this generation and it has been really fascinating to see how I fit within this generation and how I reflect more Generation X tendencies. One thing that stands out is my relationship with my parents that is sort of on the fence of these two generations. I definitely resonated with the act of having your parents involved in your decisions. I almost always look for their advice when I make a big decision. For me it seems obvious to leverage their experience and perspective to make sure I see all sides of the issue, perhaps this is a reflection of my risk-aversion as symptomatic of a Millennial. Where our relationship significantly diverges from this generation, however, is that they have never been extremely involved in my activities or schooling. They were interested when I brought it up but it was frequent that they didn't attend my tennis matches and would attend concerts if I invited them, but would stay back otherwise. They are definitely NOT helicopter parents.

I think these patterns are an important point to make: that these generations may not be as clearly delineated as portrayed in the book. There is always a transition period like 1980-1983 in this case where the shift happens gradually. As I was reading the media sections, a few movies showing this shift jumped into my mind that owed their popularity to the rising generation of Millennials and signaled the shift. Forrest Gump, for example, drew on the rebellious tendencies to pull in Generation-X and the history aspect spoke to Boomers, but the overall focus of the film: a young man who makes a significant impact on history through his particular "specialness" which resonates with the empowerment of Millennials. The book also spoke about the rise of G-rated movies and animated film popularity and Shrek and The Incredibles jumped to mind. Shrek because it owes its popularity to targeting both young people and their parents with its allusions and insinuated jokes. The Incredibles pulled on the "specialness" I spoke of before where a seemingly ordinary family is actually special and extraordinary down to their infant son. This pulls on the trend exhibited by American Idol where average citizens close the gap between themselves and "special" celebrities.

These movies I think mark some of these transition points where the gradual shift between generations can be seen.

Valentine's Day at Martins

I had the luck to be in Martin's on the evening of Valentine's Day and I noticed two interesting patterns. The first was the demeanor of the men buying flowers at 7:00 PM on Valentine's eve. The mix was great to see from middle-aged men in suits (on a Saturday) to ND athletes in letter jackets. Most of them carried the flower bouquets by the base facing downwards at their hips seemingly trying to obscure the fact that they were purchasing them. In front of me in the checkout line, one ND athlete was buying a single red rose and looked sort of sheepishly at the two of us behind him before quickly looking away. He appeared to be in a rush to leave the store with that flower. I wondered if the feelings these men were having were akin to just being embarassed to be succumbing to the pressures of the day or if they were experiencing the anxiety we discussed in class worrying about how the recipient of the flowers would feel or interpret the gift.

The second thing I noticed as I walked through the other sections of the grocery store were a few couples shopping together. Their carts weren't full of the ingredients for a romantic dinner but rather the normal grocery store items: milk, etc. The two couples I most closely observed were a retirement-aged couple and an MBA student and his wife out shopping together. I found this to be an interesting thing that couple were doing their grocery shopping together and that it was not necessarily a generational thing. I wonder if this is becoming more common or was just a fluke from that night in the store or a function of the holidy. I also wondered if this is the recession Valentine's Day where it is just time spent together doing the normal things.

Super Bowl Ads-How dumb do they think men are?

One thing that we didn't discuss in much detail in class was the theme in the Super Bowl commercials which seemed to claim that their products cause women's clothes to come off. First, when a Dorito's bag is opened, the women's clothes fly off. Later, we see that by going to GoDaddy.com, Danika Patrick will strip down and shower with the 20-something super model/German teacher. If that isn't enough, you can go back to GoDaddy.com and women will flaunt their enhancements. Clearly, a new marketing strategy is to adopt a new strategy of creating products designed for men for that 20% of consumer choices made by men.

Judging by the Super Bowl ads, however, how dumb do they think men are? Then again, this strategy seems to have worked for Axe, despite the corporate conflicts with their Dove campaign. And the Old Spice body wash ads feature a man/horse creature and sufficed to say that they don't have the head of a horse and lower body of a man. Then their's the "man stink" ads (I can't remember what brand this is for). These strategies are a far cry from Garnier-style commercials where key product benefits are given by well-known middle-aged actresses. The sophistication gap is pretty apparent. I think a particularly smart cosmetic ad right now is for the stiletto mascara which claims to do the same to your eyelashes that stilettos do for your legs. This is a well-crafted metaphor creatively cross-referencing another product category. "Man Stink" or "eat our chips and women's clothes fly off" don't quite compare.

So...apparently these advertisers think men are pretty dumb and they may be alienating those female purchasers as well.

Paying for Pure Experience

This afternoon, I read an article in USA Today about a new trend in movie theaters that really drove home for me the power of experience for the consumer. Movie theaters across the country are expanding their services to include live entertainment including sports events, award ceremonies and opera presentations. The article focused mainly on the return of the theater as a community center, but what struck me was the money people are paying for something they get for free at home.

It spoke about an Oscar night event at one theater where patrons paid $250 to come to the theater, walk a red carpet (surrounded by hired paparazzi) dressed to the nines and view the Oscars together in the movie theater. Similar events include live HD feeds from the Metropolitan Opera, an upcoming NBA All-Star game, and the inauguration of President Obama. The Met shows operas on PBS and NPR and the All-Star game and inauguration were on TV that most Americans receive for free. Yet they are shelling out almost $20 to experience these events on larger screens or with an audience. Despite the sophistication of home theater systems, there is still a different element added by a 52' screen and theater surround sound. One woman who brought her husband and children to see the inauguration in her local theater talked about wanting to experience the event within a community and not alone at home.

I think this is a very clear depiction of what Gobe is talking about in terms of providing emotional experiences and services. The desire for this is so strong for consumers that they are willing to pay money for something they are already paying for (in cable for example) or at the very least are getting free through an antenna. I think it also illustrates a potential contradiction with some of Brooks' ideas of American culture to see people paying high prices to experience things as a community and choosing that over their own privacy.