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GO Go Go

On my American Airlines flight from JFK to SFO on Monday night I once again enjoyed the experience of Go Go Inflight giving me the ability to get online access at 35,000 feet.  The lovely lady in the photo was promoting the service outside Gate 44 and giving out 25% discount passes which I gladly accepted.  Standard charge is $12.95.  It's easy to get online, the service is good, connectivity fast and they even remembered my account info from when I used the service last month.   This is a terrific service and one that I hope to use often during my cross-country trips.  With that and power (available on AA as well) I was in heaven.  I trust Go Go is trying to hook up with other airlines, too, in order to expand their footprint or include it on shorter flights.  Or...maybe there will be competition for internet access in the sky.  Time will tell.  In the meantime I’ll keep going to Go Go.

Music Underground

One of my colleagues, Andrew, and I were coming back from a meeting on Friday morning in NYC.  As we came out of the subway near the shuttle 2 billboards next to each other jumped out at us.  Both were from Target.  The one on the right had the beautiful face of Christina Aguilera on it letting me (and my fellow strap hangers) know that I could only get her new "Decade of Hits" CD at Target.  With all the digital ways of distributing music these days I would say that's quite a coup.  The one on the left also had an image of Christina Aguilera, some headphones, the Target logo and the headline "Christina Aguilera.  Listen Now."   Further down on the ad was a small red box with a spot to plug in a set of headphones and listen to some of the tunes on the new CD.  "Plug In Here" read the sign.

Fortunately Andrew had a set of headphones in his bag, plugged in and listened.  Silence.  The darn thing was busted.  This made me think of 3 things:

1. Great use of the medium.  I've seen interactive billboards where you point your mobile device at them and you get a text message, a free ring tone, an offer, etc.  But never one where you truly interacted with it.  Cool.
2. Great brand building for Target and its association with Christina Aguilera.  If you like the music and want to buy the CD, guess what?  You can only get it at Target.  And while you are there you just might walk out with a few other items.  Target wins.
3. Everyting matters.  I read a wonderful book by marketing guru, Scott Bedbury, called A New Brand World a few years back. One of his points was that "everything matters."  Nike could spend a zillion bucks on Michael Jordan, slick commercials, great looking shoes and terrific store displays, but if the salesperson at Sports Authority doesn't know what he/she is talking about or the customer service person on the phone is rude the shopper won't buy the shoes and all that good will and marketing expense is wasted.  Same thing here for Target.  They got our attention, they engaged us, and we spent a few minutes with the Target (and Christina Aguilera) brand.  Then the music device didn't work.  Guess what?  No sale.

Oops...She Did It Again!

Sorry.  Couldn't resist that title.  It's true, Britney Spears, the pop star who gets more press by picking up the newspaper in front of her house (ok...she probably has someone do that for her), was the #1 most searched term on Yahoo! in 2008.  Britney was followed by WWE, Barack Obama, Miley Cyrus, RuneScape (I had to look that one up), Jessica Alba, Naruto (huh?), Lindsay Lohan, Angelina Jolie and American Idol to round out the top 10.  For those of you keeping score at home Britney was also #1 on the Yahoo! Search charts in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

What does this say about us?  For one thing, we can't get enough Britney. Based on the Top 10 list we can't get enough of our entertainment celebrities either.  For another, it means that individuals (you, me, Britney, Angelina) are "brands" just like Charmin or Chevrolet.  They are produced, packaged, promoted and priced to sell just like the products you buy online or on store shelves.  The fact that Britney has exhibited phenomenal staying power through all the ups and downs of her career and personal life proves that she has a great marketing team behind her and a strong brand.  Good sign to marketers of more traditional products that your brands can withstand outside pressures, negative press, smear campaigns, etc (take Motrin for example) but you need to keep your message out there, spend when times are tough, reach people of influence and join the conversation.   Make the right marketing decisions now and you or the brand you are working on will make it to the top of the Yahoo! Search charts next year!
 

 

Black Friday's Surprising Success & Cyber Monday's Strong Results

Even With the economy in a tailspin the cash registers were ringing at Retail stores around the country during the 3-day weekend following Thanksgiving.  It started with a bang on Black Friday (and really, who doesn't think of the old Steely Dan song when that is mentioned) and shoppers continued to spend on Saturday and Sunday, too.  According to the National Retail Federation (NRF) 172 million shoppers hit stores over the holiday weekend, up 17% from '07, they spent 7% more than last year, and the total take for retailers was in the $41 Billion range.  After watching all those crazy (passionate?) people stand in line at 4am in White Plains on Friday to get into Kohl's, Wal Mart and other stores I'm not all that surprised by these figures.  No doubt HUGE $$ discounts in merchandise may have had something to do with the numbers.  Big question: are retailers sacrificing profits for sales?  We'll see when Q1 earnings reports come out.

Cyber Monday (a term the NRF coined back in '05) was a hit for online retailers, too.  Early results show that shoppers spent nearly 30% more compared to last year and that conversion rates rose, too.  Full disclosure...I did ALL my holiday shopping online yesterday.  Haven't purchased one item in a store this season and hoping that I won't need to.

Newspaper Ad Revenue Falls Nearly $2 Billion

Ad Age alert this afternoon screamed out at me.  Newspaper ad revenue fell almost $2 Billion in Q3 '08 for a record 18.1% decline.  I'm not making this stuff up.  It came from some new stats from the Newspaper Association of America.  I know the newspaper biz is in trouble but a $2 Billion drop is crazy huge. 

What's more surprising is that online ad sales at newspaper's dropped, too, for the second straight quarter.  And that's after consecutive quarterly growth dating back to 2004 when these kind of stats started being measured.  If newspapers can't make it work online or offline that spells disaster for the industry and it means we're going to be seeing a lot more journalists looking for work and a lot fewer newspapers to read  in the coming years.

Final quote on the subject from our friends at Mediapost:

"What we have here is an industry in a nosedive. Blogs, social networks, 24-hour news sites like CNN.com and real-time communication services like Twitter are stealing eyeballs from newspaper sites as the weak economy forces financial services, automotive and retail advertisers to greatly cut back on their spending."