If you’re a tech nerd like I am you can’t help but take note of the incredible hype building for the yet unannounced Apple Tablet. The speculation over whether Apple was working on such a device started really heating up months ago in the lead up to the last Apple event in which the iPhone 3GS was announced. Since that time the rumour mill has been churning at an astounding rate with coverage of everything from Apple’s patents that might be used in such a device to the recently held collective thought (hey if the NY Times says it’s so I think it’s safe to call it the collective belief) that yes this device is being built so we should now move to speculating on what it will be called. The ability of Apple to sit on the sidelines and not say a word yet have this much speculation and hype building says a ton about the passion people have for their products (more on that in this post) but it’s not just the normal hype and speculation around Apple products that we typically see -- it is more than just articles on TUAW and mocked up images floating around the Internet, rather there is almost a cry for the product coming from both consumers and very interestingly from the publishing world. It’s this last point (the desire from the publishing world) that I find really fascinating and want to explore a little further in this post.

The idea of the Tablet computer has been around for a long time, you can even go back to Apple’s Newton handheld to really find that it’s been tried by many pretty unsuccessfully to this point. Microsoft really tried to push the Tablet a few years ago even going so far as to have Bill Gates demo it in many spots. However it’s really never gained the traction that was expected -- people just couldn’t or wouldn’t adopt the new form factor and while I (I owned an Acer) always found the handwriting recognition and other Tablet features cool, there was just not enough reason for consumers to buy. Not enough software was created for the Tablet and while companies like Zinio were trying to start up with digital magazines there was not really any specialized media made for it -- at the end of the day it looked cool but not much more. Skip ahead to present day…

Today there are still Tablet devices available from multiple manufacturers but they’re pretty much the same as those from the last 7-8 years. The real difference is that while consumers definitely seem excited about a new Tablet and seem ready to buy an additional computing device (see the great Netbook and Kindle sales this holiday season) it is the publishing world which seems to be begging for Apple to launch a product to save them.

Print publications whether newspapers or magazines are dying -- readership + advertising is at an all time low, classified ads have moved to Craigslist, and only a very select few publications have been able to charge anything for their content online. It would only seem logical that these publications need to find a way to move their product to the digital space but the really interesting thing is that to do so they have basically thrown up their hands and said we need a new printing press to be invented and that printing press should come from Apple. Beyond a bevy of articles about the need and desire of these publishers to have Apple throw them a lifeline it was really a video from Time/Sports Illustrated that caught my attention. The video produced by Time and showcasing the potential future of Sports Illustrated (embedded below) looks great but caused me to step back and take a moment to look at what the message was to the business versus tech communities.

From a pure technology standpoint of course all of us (the tech nerds like me) are waiting with baited breath for the Tablet specifically from Apple and regardless of whether it really takes off like the iPod/iPhone or it’s considered a dud like Apple TV (just to show Apple’s not perfect) we’ll love that it’s out there and ushering in a new computing form factor beyond the Netbook. So I get that the video is a showcase of what could be. From a business standpoint though I really find the messaging of a video like this to be suspect.

What is Time trying to say with this video? From my standpoint it seems to be really giving the message that publishers are waiting for someone else to solve their business problems by inventing them a magical new printing press. I find that it signals that they feel they are unable to move forward or innovate at all on their own. While it is a very cool video indeed, if I’m an executive at Time I’d much rather my team be figuring out ways to make all of our publications more advertising and subscription friendly in the online space and less time creating videos full of speculation and conjecture. Don’t get me wrong, if Apple is indeed working on such a device (and pretending I still am an exec at Time) I would expect my team to have secured a partnership so that we had content ready at launch. We know Apple really knows how to launch a product so I’d want Steve Jobs to show our product at that launch, but Apple has not confirmed anything and so I’d expect to see a video like this presented to me (as an executive) internally but I wouldn’t want to announce to the world via YouTube that we’re waiting on a Hail Mary pass from Apple.

What do you think? Am I crazy or is there some real mixed messaging going on here?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSn7Za5SWng

If you live in Canada I certainly do not need to tell you about the level of anticipation, excitement, passion and collective hopes that were riding on yesterday’s men’s Olympic hockey team selection. For my non Canuck readership the things I can compare it to include the lead up to a national election or for the techies, speculation on the next product from Apple all with coverage more intense than that of the flight of Balloon Boy. Just the selection of the team is a national moment and one which I’ve decided to turn into 5 business lessons you can learn from Steve Yzerman and crew.

So here goes my attempt at 5 business lessons from Canada’s Olympic Hockey Team selection.

1. The Roster Announcement – Build Buzz By Being Quiet

Of course not everyone is able to garner the media attention that Hockey Canada achieved but one of the major take aways from Yzerman and crew is that regardless of the amount of speculation (again think Apple Tablet hype) surrounding the Team Canada roster there was a set time and place where the team would be revealed and nobody from Hockey Canada would remotely comment on the roster before yesterday’s press conference. The secrecy only lead to more people talking about the press conference and just like an Apple media event, the take away is that giving pre-interviews or sharing tidbits prior to launch might be appealing, if you can build a buzz by setting a firm date and time for the magic reveal, then allow your launch (roster announcement) to truly be an event by sticking to your guns and not letting loose lips sink your ship.

Take Away: Pick a launch date and stick to it, it might be tempting to talk to reporters or analysts about your product pre-launch but nobody’s interested in the launch of a product that you’ve already essentially launched via a collection of bits and pieces in multiple spots. Build a buzz and make your reveal the main event.

2. Players In Uniform – Show The Product & Have Media Available

People all across Canada were not only excited about today’s roster announcement but were instantly given a jolt of national pride by seeing all the selected players pictured in their red and white Team Canada jerseys. I can’t tell you the number of times I saw news orgs using these photos and of course they were flying around the blogosphere.

Sidney Crosby Will Lace Up For Canada

In the same way that people were clamoring to not only hear the Canadian roster but actually get a glimpse at what it looked like, you too should never launch a product with a flashy video or presentation and not have product shots and other media ready for press and blogger consumption. In fact, the more you can provide, the better. Taking a page from the playbook (and they’ve provided a good one) of the smart people @Hubspot, you want to provide as much media and as many inbound hooks as possible. Dropping a press release is simply not good enough, you should be prepared with images, a podcast (why not use video), something for YouTube, a blog post, at least a few Tweets (try CoTweet for the ability to allow multiple people to Tweet under your corporate identity – there is power in using different voices) and at least one custom landing page on your website.

Take-Away: If you want people – reporters, bloggers, customers etc – to talk or write about your product (and why wouldn’t you) then make it easy for them. By giving them media to share with their audience you not only make it easy for them to tell your story, but as importantly you get to have way more control over the way (wouldn’t you rather people see your high quality product shots than something a blogger shot on his iPhone) in which that story is told.

3. Balance Your Roster – Surround Yourself With Greatness

Looking up and down the Team Canada roster one of the things that becomes apparent is that there is a mix of young (Sidney Crosby) and older (Scott Niedermayer) talent, players with pure speed + finesse and those who don’t mind grinding it out with some physical play. The team is comprised of not only terrific players but also players that compliment each other’s skill-set and looking at your own management team, why should it be any different?

While the Olympic roster needed to be set by a certain date and is not supposed to change, in business you want to always be evaluating your team and it is important to get the right people on that team and get the wrong people off it – more on that in Jim Collins “Good To Great”.

Taking the analogy a step further, although the Team Canada alternates (in case of injury) have not been named yet, it is safe to assume that a couple of those spots will be filled by young up and coming players like 19 year olds Steven Stamkos and John Tavares. These guys are not quite ready to crack the roster today, but they’ll be counted on in 2014 and so giving them some experience now is in both the team and their best interests That same idea easily applies to business and your management succession planning. Evaluate your company and find out who your future 50 goal scoters are, who will you want at the table in the future? It’s not only an important exercise to identify these people but it’s more important to let them know you recognize their talent and to offer them experiences, training and other ‘perks’ that not only benefit them but will pay off for you and your company down the road when they’re ready to fill the shoes of someone heading out the door via free agency (i.e. another job), waivers (i.e. necessity when they’re not right anymore) or retirement. By recognizing this young talent today you signal to them and the rest of your organization that you’ll always reward top talent and will both cut the risk of losing that talent and have the benefit of more fruitful recruiting of other young budding superstars.

Take-Away: You can’t do it alone in either hockey or business and in both it’s extremely important to ensure your team has a mix of levels of experience and skill-sets. It is also vital to your business that you too identify your future superstars and start bringing them along today, in doing so you will be positioning your company as one that not only can challenge for your equivalent of a gold medal today but (like Team Canada) is a contender each and every time you compete.

4. Everyone’s A Critic – It’s Best To Have A Passionate Base

In the months leading up to todays roster announcement everyone had an opinion on who should wear the Maple Leaf and who should be watching from their couch. In the weeks from yesterday’s selection all the way to beyond the Olympics (especially if Canada does not win gold) the decision of Yzerman and Hockey Canada will be as hotly debated as the ongoing US healthcare reform.

My point being that whether you’re Barack Obama making decisions of national importance or Steve Yzerman picking a team that feels nationally important, people will always second guess you or be quick to point out what they would have done differently and it’s not necessarrily a bad thing. First, remember why you became the boss. At some point wasn’t it so the buck would stop with you and you’d be able to stand up and say this is my decison and I stick behind it? Second, I can’t imagine anything better than having passionate consumers (fans), employees and other stake holders. The people who comment on blogs, review your service on Yelp or converse with you via Twitter are your equivalent of Canada’s army of hockey fans – these people are the ones that will be first to tell you when you piss them off or they disagree with a decision you’ve made, but they’re also fiercely loyal and given the alternative of having people who just don’t care trust me when I tell you that you’d rather have a few pieces of opinionated feedback than a business that is full of yes men and women.

Take-Away: Creating a brand where your customers, employees and other stake holders are passionate is one of the biggest achievements you can strive for. With passion comes opinion and while you might not always appreciate being second guessed remember that it comes with the territory and it’s a thousand times better than nobody giving a damn about you or your brand.

5. Go For Gold – Second Place Is The First Loser

Go For The Gold

While we might be ok telling our kids that there are no winners or losers in life, let’s be honest and say that there is indeed a scorecard in hockey, life and business. Someone is going to win the gold medal (or be the global market leader in your space) and if you’re going to go to the trouble of putting together a team it should be with the goal of being number one. Yes I am sure there are teams (and businesses) that are content or even thrilled at just getting a medal, but ask any elite athlete (CEO) what they’re striving for each time they lace’em up and the answer will always be the same – “I (we) play to win”. Your business is no different, you should get up each morning with the goal of taking one step more towards the goal of market leadership.

The other major point to note here is that while Hockey Canada has not always returned with a gold medal that has never changed the goal for the next Olympics. Again this applies directly to business in that the recognized leader in a space today is not necessarily going to dominate that space forever – heck of the 500 companies on the Fortune 500 in 1995, less than half remain on the list.

Take-Away: Always go for the gold and strive to do better each day – you may not win today’s competition but you’ll certainly lose tomorrow’s if you’re not in the mindset of a champion.

I guess I’d be remiss if I didn’t end this post in true Canadian fashion and let you know that it’s gold or bust for our boys in Vancouver so Go Canada Go!

Thanks for reading, your comments, feedback and Twitter retweets (here is the tinyurl – http://tinyurl.com/ybvmwz7) are always appreciated.

So you’ve got a business idea or maybe even for the most advanced in my readership, a business plan. You’ve heard a lot about your elevator pitch and the many ways in which to raise money. So the next step in your plan is to get mainstream buy in for your idea. Yet how do you do this if your idea is complex and new? You need to break down your idea into bite size and intellectually digestible pieces. The person you are pitching to must intrinsically get your business the moment after you pitch it or the pitch flat out was not worth it. So how to explain a tough concept? Why not spend a fair bit of dough (this was not entitled the “free way to get noticed”) and get some experts to help you tell your story. If you really want to go for the gold, how about the guys from Epipheo Studios who were good enough for Google, twice.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDu2A3WzQpo

www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwVX42Amcak

I’m not just talking about any group of talented individuals because if you need a guy who is awesome I’d just send you to Marc Lostracco, but if you need an agency who knows how to explain technology or even say Rosh Hashanah, go visit the kind folks at Ephipheo.

I have to admit that I quite enjoyed my own open letter to Starbucks, so I thought I’d bring back the format in this my open letter to Motorola.

Dear Motorola,

I don’t work for you and to be honest I haven’t owned one of your products for a while, but I know enough to know that you are undoubtedly the leader in bluetooth headsets for mobile phones.  I say this not to flatter you but to remind you that your market dominance is always at stake and that you can and should use your power in the market to continue to dominate. To that end, I’m here with a little suggestion for you and it goes something like this.

With all the states, provinces and other jurisdictions enacting laws that prohibit the use of cellular phones without a handsfree option there are going to be a mass amount of people who need to get in the market for your products quickly. Now of course you could take the traditional approach and offer some deep discounts right around the same time these various pieces of legislation pass, and I suggest you do. But here is where I think you can use your deep pockets to both make yourself look good and garner new customers. First why don’t you reach out to every law enforcement agency that is going to have to hand out tickets and offer them a coupon for $25 off any of your bluetooth headsets and $50 off any of your in-car setups. Talk about Guerrilla Marketing, you end up making the boys and girls in blue your street team, literally! Now while, we’re at it, why not tell the same police and governments that you will do a joint awareness campaign with them and get them to foot 50% of the marketing campaign that you were going to run anyway?

Nobody (just ask Maria Shriver) is going to be happy getting pulled over for using their phone, but I’m pretty sure that those same people will be picking up a bluetooth device sometime shortly after getting the ticket. So there is a completely new customer base up for grabs and I’m happy to give you what I think is a leg up. Since you don’t pay me and I’m quite confident that I’m not going to get any swag in the mail from you as a result of this suggestion I’ll let you do the math on the budget and break-even for this type of campaign, but I’m a betting man and I’m betting you can’t go wrong.

So with that, I thank you for your time and if you’re feeling generous after reading this letter I am happy to take any and all payments for the marketing campaign suggestions contained herein. You know where to reach me.

Michael G. Cohen

With plenty of respect to Jason Schuller who designed the theme upon which this blog is built – and is amazing both as a designer and in the support realm – I will come right out and tell you that I am a WooThemes fan and you should be too. I work in the software industry and have been involved with my share of start up companies so it is not without some experience that I say these guys know what they’re doing. From collaborating with top notch designers (many of whom I’m sure they have never met in person) to outstanding customer support, the company is one that is certainly an example of a Web 2.0 mover and shaker.  Of course it’s not just a feel good story here, I do have some questions on how the brand is being built, so read on.I have first hand experience working with the themes provided by WooThemes and they are incredibly easy to work with out of the box, yet take one look at their showcase and you can see how someone with more talent than I can easily customize them. It’s the customer support when you are trying to tweak one of these themes where WooThemes more than excels. I am not sure if they pay every one who is a “support” representative in the forums, but there is a sense of community and I have posted an answer or two when I have known it. There is really nothing bad I can say about the company (I do not work for these guys) , so I invite you to check them out if your blog need’s an upgrade.

Where To From Here?

WooThemes - Antisocial

So I am not just espousing the greatness of WooThemes, I do actually wonder where to for this company and what kind of revenue they are making. On the revenue side, the themes cost $75 if you want one (plus one with their permanent promotion) and I would suspect that many who purchase these themes are semi to fully professional web designers who find that it is more cost effective for them and their clients to start from one of many many themes. So if your factor in the cost for a developer of $150 per theme (and I’m not including memberships just yet) there is a quick doubling of margins. I’m not sure what kind of revenue the subscriptions generate, you have to plunk down $200 to start, which is not very much if you are planning on selling your services. Another $20 a month and I guess all you really have to do is have 2-3 clients a year and it pays to be a member. So putting these numbers together the obvious question is what does demand equate to. I feel like I am a bit of an uber consumer on this front but I have to imagine this is going very very very we$$ for the team.

I’m extremely impressed with the company’s ability to collaborate with top notch designers from around the globe, but as a marketer I do wonder about whether a brand is being built. There is the WooThemes Twitter account which seems to be a bit personal, and there are all the individual designer’s pages – Adii Rockstar seems to be the biggest of these – yet if WooThemes was gone tomorrow or less drastic decided to change its name, would anybody care? Would much change? I don’t think that the world would crumble if any brand went in a different direction, but I think the indifference to the WooThemes brand is because of the fact that at the heart of it, it still feels like a company of individuals. Maybe I am just being picky, but I think that there could be more being done to build a Zappos like brand. After all, I have to suspect that regardless of the revenue numbers if the team could sell the company on more than just the revenue stream it would be worth sacrificing a little “rock star”
status.

Public relations is a funny business, many times you are trying to get people to pay attention to a press release or event you are holding and the job is really about creating a buzz. Other times public relations becomes more about either quelling some bad publicity or having the foresight to recognize an opportunity for good press. It’s not always so easy to spot the great public relations efforts (though a company like Zappos does pretty well) but it is certainly easy to spot when your public relations team has failed and even more easy if that failure is on a global stage. In particular I am talking about the utter failure of the corporate PR team at the Marriott Hotel Chain to react to a groundswell of poor press, tweets and blogs after staff at the Times Square location did not recognize that kicking the new fan favorite of the US Open out of their hotel would be a boneheaded move…Allow me to elaborate.

Even if you are not a tennis fan, it is hard to avoid the hoopla and hype surrounding the US Open.  As one of the tennis majors and hosted in Flushing Meadows, New York, the tournament is extremely well covered and televised both domestically and internationally. As there is almost every year in major sporting events,  this year the tournament provided fans with a real feel good story in Melanie Oudin. Oudin, the previously 70th-ranked 17 year old shocked tennis fans by defeating fourth-seeded Elena Dementieva and former world No. 1 Maria Sharapova and was only recently defeated by ninth-seeded Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark in a 6-2, 6-2 loss. However it is not Oudin’s remarkable tennis run that caused this post, rather it is a story making the rounds (and the news) about how Oudin was forced to leave her hotel and move across the street because Marriott wanted to jack the room rates.  The story goes this way…

Oudin was staying at the Times Square Marriott — because if you’re 17 and in New York, you want to be in the middle of the action – But because she’s never advanced this far in a major and her path was littered with high-ranking players whose last name ended in “ova,” Oudin booked her hotel room for one week. She shared the king-sized bed in the room with her mom. Then down went Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (ranked 36). Then Elena Dementieva (the 4th seed). Then Maria Sharapova (the former world number one). Then Nadia Petrova (the 13th seed). So Oudin, whose stay in New York had been elongated, needed a place to hang her racket at the end of the night. The Marriott Hotel made Oudin and her mom leave when their reservation was up or pay an increased (doubled) room rate.

Melanie Oudin @ The US Open

Now I can understand the front line hotel staff not having the foresight to realize that this was going to be a public relations disaster but doesn’t someone at the Marriott head office stand up and take notice when reporters start calling to ask about a guest. I mean shouldn’t your public relations team have heard of Twitter and started to see the buzz growing? Apparently not at Marriott as the hotel chain said it was shocked to hear the news of an ousted Oudin.

“We had no knowledge Melanie Oudin was staying at the hotel. There were no guests registered under her name. The hotel was absolutely shocked to receive this media inquiry,” a hotel spokesperson said.

Even if the hotel chain had no knowledge of Oudin’s ordeal, I find it tough to believe that when reporters started calling nobody thought to pick up the phone and call the manager at the Times Square location to confirm what had actually happened. Surely the people working at the hotel knew who Oudin was and recognized the fact that this 17 year old girl now had to employ security guards to protect her when she makes the short walk from the locker room to the practice courts or when returning to her hotel. Even if the front line staff did not recognize the poor move of having this girl leave their hotel, how could nobody at the corporate level recognize the opportunity to turn a PR disaster into something remotely positive. It would have been extremely easy to turn this situation around even after Oudin had found a room at another establishment. Here’s how I would have played it

First, once I realized that head office getting a call from a reporter about a teenage tennis player in the US Open was not a hoax I would have immediately made two phone calls. I would have the manager of the Times Square Marriott on one line and begin explaining to him that I didn’t care who was in the nicest suite in the hotel, s/he was to turn that sucker into a 17 year old tennis phenom’s dream. Lavish pillows, bubble baths and whatever else is saved for the top guests. Then (and I am assuming that there is some level of authority granted to the executives at Marriott) I would have made it my business to figure out who represented Ms. Oudin (which is not very hard considering for this article I found it in two minutes) and would have called her representative to not only offer apologies but to let them know that the hotel had prepared the best suite for Oudin and that of course her and her family were guests and did not have to pay for their stay. Of course that seems like the easy way to stem the negativity that was already brewing in the press. I probably would have even taken it a step further and paid Oudin so my  marketing team could whip up some quick viral advertisements that played on Marriott’s error in judgment. Giving the girl a lavish suite and showing that the hotel chain could laugh at itself would certainly be better than the absolute nothing that they did do.

Great job Marriott, now you have America’s newest sweetheart booked as a guest on “The Tonight Show” and “Ellen” where no doubt the easy story to tell will be about how big bad Marriott kicked her out of her hotel. Ya, that’s what you want. For a company that tries to espouse a commitment to community and family values I’d say you could mark this as a pretty complete failure.

USA Today recently reported that the NBA and NHL were both looking into allowing some form of advertisement directly on game (practice) uniforms – see below the post for examples and the various league’s stances

Although this practice has been around for many years in European sports and many sports purists will make their argument from a sports perspective, I thought I would try to give a more economic look at the same issue. I think the thinking behind advertisements on jerseys as a revenue generator is pretty straightforward but I really think that by not having a league-wide policy or making this a league-wide initiative there is a major potential pitfall with respect to corporate naming rights and conflicting jersey advertisements  for all the major sports. Please allow me to explain…

Naming Rights & Brands Collide

The idea of putting your corporate name on the outside of a stadium or theatre is not new, but the money that has been spent on these naming deals over the past decade is staggering.  I believe that a significant amount of the money currently being spent to purchase the naming rights (see ESPN’s list of naming right deals) will either be cannibalized by this way of affiliating with sports or that more likely the owners of the naming rights will want to start imposing restrictions on who can or cannot be a jersey advertiser. Let’s take that last point a little bit further.

I do not want to debate the branding merits of attaching a corporation’s (or product’s) name to a building that most people will associate with the team(s) that play in. However what I do want to point out is that a major problem is brewing if leagues start allowing advertising on jerseys and those advertisements start to become a part of the way people recognize that team. Then you are faced with a situation where a company has poured millions of dollars into an affiliation that they really thought would be with the team that played in their stadium only to now really only have the affiliation with the stadium. No company really cares about people driving by the stadium who take note of their brand name. They care about the millions of people who come in person or watch on television and hear their brand name repeated over and over againg in the same breath as the team name. Just think about every sports broadcast and the opening that goes roughly “live from Company Name Field, today’s game features the Insert Team against the Insert Team.” Now fast forward a few years when teams have been wearing advertisements on their jerseys for a few years and people start to recognize a team’s jersey based partly on the branding on it (are Air Emirates and Arsenal Football (see jersey here) not intrinsically linked?) and tell me that problems will not arise if the stadium naming rights owner does not purchase the jersey advertising space. Do you think Coca-Cola wants to see the Houston Astros running out onto the field at  Minute Maid Park (naming rights that cost $6 million a year and $170 million over the life of the deal) with Tropicana advertisements on the jersey? What happens when Coca-Cola  says to the Denver Nuggets that they are willing to pay Carmelo Anthony’s entire contract (over $15 million a season based on 2009) for the right to brand their jerseys? Will that mean Melo suits up sporting a Coke Zero patch while running out the tunnel in the Pepsi  (a name that cost over $3.4 million a year) Center?

Even if teams are going to give current naming rights owners the first opportunity to advertise on jerseys there is a potential major issue on the horizon and not having a concrete league-wide (see below) policy is going to come back to bite one of the majors (NFL, NHL or NBA) right in the arse.

Of course while this purely a revenue play and I’ve tried to look at it as such there are still times where a sports league needs to think about its fan base rather than its corporate customers and need for a boost to the bottom line so I’ll conclude this way – I get that sports teams and leagues are looking for revenue. I get that as a sports team owner you need to constantly be looking for revenue sources and ways to generate the humongous payrolls that star players demand. I get that iff you are an athlete you are already throwing on a jersey where you generally care more about the name on the back (your own) than the team name on the front (Hockey Canada excluded) and as such what do you care if there is advertising patched on your shoulder. Most star athletes already have endorsement deals and so the fact that their employer signs a few shouldn’t bother them…BUT if you are a fan and purist you certainly won’t love the idea of jersey’s being covered in advertising and (at least IMO) may feel that the leagues are really doing themselves a disservice by cheapening their sport with gimmicks that do nothing to improve the game or the fan experience.

Bottom line is that whether advertisements and naming rights collide or fans are just turned off there is potential for a major pitfall here and the revenue earned from additional advertising might be wiped out in the lessening of naming right values and a decrease viewership and replica jersey sales.

As always I would love your comments and feedback…Retweets are greatly appreciated

The NBA & Advertising on Jerseys

Beginning this season the NBA will let teams sell ads on their practice jerseys, says deputy commissioner Adam Silver, who adds the league is continuing to explore the issue of ads on game jerseys. “We are operating a diverse business all around the world,” Silver says. “(The sponsored game jersey) is a well-established practice in other countries. Ultimately, I think our fans will come to accept it.” WNBA teams were allowed to sell ads on game jerseys this season and two teams took advantage. The WNBA’s Phoenix Mercury and Los Angeles Sparks featured LifeLock and Farmer’s Insurance, respectively, prominently featured on the front.

The NHL & Advertising on Jerseys

The NHL which pushed the envelope 30 years ago by allowing teams to sell advertising on the boards — is going high-tech to attract corporate dollars by offering marketers the chance to insert so-called “virtual” ads inside national game telecasts on NBC and Versus. These computer-generated signs, typically superimposed on the crowd, are only visible to TV viewers. and not to fans at the game.

“As with anything new, you weigh tradition with the commercialization of sports,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly says. “Obviously, sports are becoming more commercialized each and every year. We have that debate internally all the time. Where do you draw the line? How much is too much? You have to protect the look and feel of the game. You look at professional hockey played in Europe and there’s advertising on jerseys and on the ice. You can have so much advertising on the ice that it can be distracting to players. There’s a balance there.”

The NFL & Advertising on Jerseys

The Tennessee Titans have had a small patch for a local hospital on their practice jerseys since relocating from Houston more than a decade ago, and the league put rules in place last spring to permit the activity league-wide. Five teams — the New York Jets, New York Giants, Indianapolis Colts, St. Louis Rams and Chicago Bears — have taken advantage, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy says. The Jets will get more than $2 million a year from a deal with Atlantic Health that includes practice uniform patches and its name on the team’s training facility, says Matthew Higgins, the team’s executive vice president of business operations.

MLB & Advertising on Jerseys

Major League Baseball has no plans to add such advertising, says MLB president Bob DuPuy.

I came across this article in the New York Times almost a month ago and have been meaning to blog about it ever since. For those not familiar, a brief synopsis of the storyline at play.

For the past several years people in countries around the world have begun to purchase bottled water in astronomical numbers. According to some research 12,000,000,000 (12 Billion – that’s 9 zeros) gallons of water were sold in 16 Western European countries in 2007. For the North Americans in the audience your fact is that between 1997 and 2007 per capita consumption of bottled water more than doubled to 29 gallons.

As we have seen in most if not all of these countries, the environmental and economic impact of these empty water bottles is a huge headache for municipalities.  Now put yourself in the shoes of the Mayor of Venice. Beautiful Venice has no roads so trash must be collected on foot and while plastic bottles can be recycled, the process is not exactly perfected. Trash collection on the mainland in Italy costs $84 per ton. Collection in Venice where it is collected by men with wheelbarrows along the canals costs $335 per ton.

So what has the city of Venice done? Did it ban plastic bottles or start charging a premium (see Toronto’s policy of charging 5 cents for platic bags) to those who use them? Nope, the city went in a completely novel direction and decided to brand their tap water. For years many people have claimed that bottled water was marketing and hype at its greatest or ugliest point in that you were paying 12 cents for the water and another buck fifty for the name on the label. So putting that theory to the test officials in Venice decided to meet bottled water’s branding with some of their own and renamed Venice’s tap water “Acqua Veritas.”

Ok so you are thinking, “who cares if they rename tap water, that’s not branding” which would be true, but the Venetians understood your skepticism and backed up the name change with a slick logo and a billboard ad campaign that included local politicians. Even taking a page from comedy 101 which teaches you to poke fun at yourself, the advertising campaign plays on the fact that tap water is often referred to as “the mayor’s water” and has used this as a slogan where prominent Venice personalities are pictured with a glass of Acqua Veritas and the phrase “I, too, drink the mayor’s water.”

I decided to highlight this campaign not only because of its novel nature, but also to remind that there are often times where a brand (in this case any bottled water) has taken control of an industry and most would write off other brands (in this case tap water) where the other brands are not dead, they just need to reinvent themselves or reeducate the public. In the case of Venice’s tap water they have done both and to some early success.As Silvia Vatta a 25 year old student noted, “we used to use bottled water because we grew up with it at home and didn’t know any better.” Now Ms. Vatta is a regular Acqua Veritas drinker and the number of Venetians who drink tap water has risen 7 percentage points over a two year span.

My point to this post is that while we might see some companies as industry leaders who cannot be unseated, it is only that way because we let our perception become reality and don’t think we can change the “staus quo.”  What we seem to forget is that the status quo today was probably not the status quo five years ago and something worked to change it. Whether it is a marketing effort or collective social conscence (e.g. going green being top of mind today when just 5 years ago it was for “tree huggers”) that moves that status quo my point is that it can and does move.  Think about your own industry or even walk into your local grocery store and scan the drinks shelves. Ten years ago we had Gatorade but little else that would be considered a specialty drink. Now I step out at lunch and see people chugging everything from “Viatamin Water” to “Viatmin Enriched Coke” – So kudos to Venice for a well thought out and well executed campaign, now if they would only fly me down to do a taste test.

As always your thoughts, comments and feedback are appreciated.

Of course we’ve all heard the sentiment that a satisfied customer will tell a few people but an unsatisfied one will tell anyone who will listen. When the Internet started to become a more social place, companies started to realize that their customers now could tell the world about their negative experience – just look up any company with the word “sucks” after their name. Companies that already had good customer support realized they had to do even better while those with crappy support were at least more exposed.

There is no doubt that this is good for the consumer, but recently I was giving a speech on customer service and I gave a tidbit from my personal consumer life that seemed to really resonate with the crowd. I explained to them that there is transparency in the levels of customer service that current customers are receiving and that as a potential consumer it is actually pretty simple for me to gauge the number of support issues and the way they are handled. This transparency can and does impact sales well before the point of purchase.

In the offline world when someone has a customer support issue they generally will have one of two ways of resolving it. Either they call the support number provided or they have to head to the store and seek live support. In either case generally the exchange between company and customer is private to the outside world.

However in the online world one of the ways I like to investigate a product or service that I am contemplating buying is to head directly to the support page or forums and see what problems customers are having and more importantly (to me anyway) the responsiveness of the customer support staff at said company. It’s a level of transparency and a window into what life would be like as a customer of this company that I can’t get elsewhere. I of course can and do search the blogosphere and use Twitter to seek out other’s opinions, but I find that by doing a quick scan of the support forums I can find out (1) if the product is plagued with issues and (2) how quickly and efficiently those issues are dealt with.

Some companies make you register to enter these forums and that’s ok, I don’t mind giving up a little information if it means I get to look behind the curtain of PR and Marketing to see what’s really going on with the product and company.

So what’s my point? You can and should be using this tidbit as a way to look at your own company.

Try dealing with your company as a consumer – what are the difficulties? Where does the company fall down? Take the time, call your customer support line, is it a good experience? Head to the support forums on your website and post a problem – how long until someone gives you a well thought out (not a pre-written form letter) response?

Every once and again you need to step back and put yourself in the shoes of your consumers experiencing problems – how does your company look then? Where can you make improvements?  The transparency of support is something that can be a big plus if your company does it well but I just don’t think enough companies remember to put themselves in the shoes of the consumer in an after sales capacity.

As always your thoughts and comments are appreciated.

As Oprah pulled up at the Twitter table last week it seemed like the party was over. There are no shortage of people who declared that the reason to use Twitter was dead now that it was being taken over by celebrities like Aston Kutcher (@aplusk) and the aforementioned Ms. Winfrey.

I guess that is one way you could view the happenings, yet I’m going to ask you take a look at a different group of people (all of whom are celebrities) and I think you will get the sense that while Oprah is undoubtedly like your parents (and why not follow my Dad – @actonroad) chaperoning and then deciding to dance at your prom, if you take the time to follow some of the great athletes that have embraced Twitter you’ll get a totally different view.

I am going to start by saying that I do not really think it’s fair to put Shaq or Lance Armstrong in the same column as Oprah when it comes to their “cool” factor, but I think it is essentially fair if we are just trying to compare celebr-twit to celebri-twit on my invented “this person is autograph worthy” scale.

Neither Shaq nor Oprah need any more people trying to cover their every move yet there both of them are on Twitter sharing with the world. The difference between Shaq and Oprah is that Shaq – like most athletes on Twitter – inherently seems to “get it”. I mean you really only need to look at Shaq’s tweet where he put Oprah in her place to see that he is actually protective of the Twitterverse.

Ok you say, so Shaq and Lance Armstrong seem to like Twittering and they aren’t so completely self-interested that every tweet is about themselves or their cafe macchiato – what’s the big deal?

It’s not just Shaq and Lance that get it is what is the big deal. There are a ton of athletes on Twitter who are actually using it in much the same way you or I do. They’re chatting with friends, throwing random questions at their followers and for the most part are some of the most “real” Twitter users you will find.

I could have listed numerous examples but will stick with just @jalenrose because after following him for a bit I actually think that for him Twitter is not about stroking ego.

So before you declare Twitter dead and the party over, remember that there are all types of people on Twitter – celebrity or not – and nobody’s forcing you to follow @oprah.

If you’re looking for a list of athletes to follow on Twitter there are no shortage of them out there but I found the majority of the ones I follow at Athletes That Tweet and would encourage you to check there first.