For Wal-Mart, there always seems to be two sides to every story.

Kraft's presence in the cheese aisle shrinks as Great Value grows

This has especially been true over the past year as Wal-Mart pursued a two pronged strategy emphasizing the expansion of their Great Value private label brand, while simultaneously streamlining store layouts and upgrading product offerings in clothing and electronics in an effort to appeal to the Target crowd.

The result?

With the ubiquitous white Great Value packages gobbling up shelf-space from the likes of Kraft and Smucker’s, some brand-conscious shoppers have begun to turn their back on the world’s largest retailer. According to an article in this week’s Time Magazine, Wal-Mart experienced negative same-store sales growth for the third straight quarter. That’s an unheard of decline in Bentonville. To combat the slide, Wal-Mart plans to do what Wal-Mart does best. Another round of price cuts.

As for the Great Value line, it appears that it won’t be getting cut anytime soon, which is unfortunate.

Wal-Mart’s entire empire has been built on the idea of selling a wide swath of brand name products for less than their

Great Value products fill the pasta aisle

competitors. Now, with the expansion of the Great Value line, that philosophy has become “we sell an increasingly limited line of brand name products, and their Great Value equivalents, for a little less than our competition.” Sound exaggerated? In the past year, Wal-Mart has jettisoned nearly 300 name brands from their shelves in order to make room for their own private label offerings.

Not only does the growth of the Great Value line limit what we as consumers can find at Wal-Mart now, it also limits what we may buy in the future. As companies like Kraft lose shelf space at Wal-Mart, they lose the ability to get new products into the market. Instead of having the luxury of multiple product lines, producers will be forced to stick with a few “category killers,” which could stifle innovation (not that there are a lot of ways to innovate with Oreo cookies, but still).

Some may argue that sales in the Great Value line have been strong, and that may be true. But, think of the emotional connection that people will have to these products. Items like Kraft Mac-N-Cheese and JIF Peanut Butter remind people of the good times they had growing up and after-school snacks made by mom. If you’re in a household that is trading down, Great Value products may remind you of how your parents were out of work during the worst recession in 80 years. This is why I do not buy into the idea that consumers will continue to stick with “generic” products over the long run.

Private label products are meant to complement, not replace, name brands. Until Wal-Mart realizes this, they will continue to lose foot traffic to competitors who provide customers with the variety they want.

Related posts:

1. KFC and the Danger of Free: Why the Great Chicken Giveaway of 2009 Wasn’t so Great
2. Green Day Sticks It To The Man, “21st Century” Style
3. Feds Should Seek Corporate Sponsors for Post “War on Drugs” Era

The two approaches could not be more different.

For example, your local bank may run a promotion that promises to give new customers a $25 credit when they open a checking account.

In the Minors, they give away the same $25, but instead of executing an electronic transfer or handing someone a check, they have fans step into a phone booth full of swirling, wind-blown cash and urge them to grab all they can in 30 seconds.

Another example.

Your local bank probably puts suckers at the teller window for everyone to enjoy. (I personally enjoy the Blue Raspberry ones).

In the Minors, they hire helicopters to drop buckets of candy and marshmallows onto the playing field.

Kids participate in Quad Cities "Mega Candy Drop" promotion

I’m not saying that either approach is wrong. When we go to the bank, we expect a certain degree of professionalism. Most people would not enjoy seeing their loan officer brandishing a squirt gun while sporting a cartoonish mascot outfit.

However, when we go to a ballgame, we expect to enjoy the experience. That’s why the tongue-in-cheek, don’t be afraid to laugh promotional style used by many Minor League franchises is so successful. It’s the right approach in the right environment.

High school athletics could be marketed in that same vein. Unfortunately, local amateur sports are either a). marketed like banks as opposed to family-friendly entertainment or b). not marketed at all.

A little creativity can go a long way towards changing that, and a good place for high school athletics to start is by implementing small contests into their game day schedules.

Getting Creative with Contests

As I discussed in the last post, Minor League teams fill down-time between innings with fun, interactive games that involve the fans. Since these contests are only 1-3 minutes in length, they could easily be integrated into any athletic event (half-time of basketball, between quarters in football, etc.).

Coming up with a good contest idea is surprisingly easy. Just think of your current sponsors and ask “what do they do, and how can we turn that into something fun our crowd can interact with?”

By using this line of thinking, you might end up with something like a Subway “Sing for Your Supper” contest where two fans sing the “$5 foot long” jingle. The best jingle, based on audience applause, would win a Subway gift card (provided by Subway, of course).

The Blue Eye pulls ahead during the Cedar Rapids Kernels' Eyeball Race

Even service businesses can get in on the act. The Cedar Rapids Kernels stage a between-inning eyeball race at every home game. If you’ve never seen an eyeball race, it is exactly what it sounds like. Two fans, each dressed in a huge eyeball costume, race across the field. It’s quite a spectacle. And it’s also quite an advertising opportunity for the local optometrist that sponsors it.

These are just two examples. The possibilities are as endless as your own imagination.

Providing advertising opportunities that go beyond signage on the field and logos on the back of a program provides a unique value for sponsors. It helps make their brand “sticky,” or memorable. When other businesses in the community see this, they will want to develop partnerships with the school as well.

Getting Creative with Theme Nights

Contests are great, but why settle for a few minutes of fun when you can go the extra mile and provide a whole evening’s worth of memories?  That is the idea behind the ever-popular “theme night,” a promotional strategy mastered by the Minor Leagues.

If you’ve never been to a theme night, the premise is simple: the team picks a topic and then weaves it into every aspect of what goes on at the park on that given night.

And, as the Minors have proven, any topic is fair game for a theme night. Here is a short sampling of some of the more popular theme nights from the past year, with links to their descriptions:

• Plumber Appreciation Night (South Bend Silverhawks)
  

  An awful Marilyn Monroe hands a program to a teen during the Altoona Curve's annual "Awful Night"

• Awful Night (Altoona Curve)
• Fan Bailout Night (Clinton LumberKings)
• Country Night (Bowie Baysox)
• Salute to Cows (Wisconsin Timber Rattlers)
• “Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes” World Record Night (Wilmington Blue Rocks)
• Break a World Record Night – Largest Kazoo Rendition of “Take Me Out to the Ballgame” (Northwest Arkansas Naturals)
• Face Your Fears Night (Bowie Baysox)

That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Theme nights like these help Minor League franchises make a connection with fans. Instead of simply being spectators, the fans become a part of something bigger. They also create publicity for the teams involved. People want to know what happens at an “Awful Night,” or a “Face Your Fears Night,” and that curiosity often leads to attendance.

Why Get Creative?

For those involved in high school athletics, theme nights and contests provide an opportunity to do something that’s simply not being done at the amateur level. In Indiana, there will be over 1,000 high school football games played this year. Triple that in basketball and baseball. The approach to these contests is pretty much the same. Schedule the games, and if people show up, they show up.

For large high schools with powerhouse programs, this type of hands-off approach is fine – people will still pack the stands. But, those schools are in the minority.

If the student-athletes at your school are playing in front of more empty seats than filled ones, maybe it is time to get creative.

Next Time: Using technology to make a fan connection

Related posts:

1. Lessons from the Bush Leagues: Applying the Minor League Mindset to High School Athletics (Part I)
2. Silver Hawks Find Promotional Inspiration in Plumbers, Mustaches
3. Drying Paint and Growing Grass Highlight Altoona’s Seventh Annual Homage to Awful

There may be better ways to spend a summer vacation, although I can’t think of any. For two months this summer, I traveled around the country watching Minor League Baseball games, thanks to a Teacher Creativity Grant from the Eli Lilly Foundation.

A large crowd looks on at Smokies Park in Kodak, TN

Officially, the idea was to study the marketing methods used by Minor League Baseball teams, which happen to be so good that they’ve helped some Minor League franchises across the country to record attendance, recession be damned.

Unofficially, I am never at a loss for an excuse to go watch baseball.

In the course of my travels, I was also hoping to get some ideas to bring back to the classroom.

Ah, the classroom – where I teach Business to high schoolers who are sometimes (most of the time) more interested in shooting arrows at balloons with a cartoon monkey (God bless internet games) than learning business fundamentals.

And while I did come up with the inspiration for a handful of great lesson plans, I realized that nearly everything I was seeing at the ballparks – the wacky promotions, the entertaining mascots, and the carnival-like atmospheres – could easily be applied to high school athletics.

It may sound outlandish, marketing high school sports in the same manner that a professional sports league markets its product, but, the reality is that Minor League Baseball and high school sports already have a lot in common.

I’ll give you a few examples in friendly, bullet point format:

• Due to athlete turnover, both the Minor Leagues and high school athletics typically promote teams as a whole as opposed to individual players
• In most markets, fans will attend Minor League games regardless of how well the team is playing. In other words, it doesn’t matter much if the team wins. Fans attend the games to have fun and see young talent develop. Is high school that much different?
• Minor League teams, especially in the lower levels where the teams play in smaller towns, are a big part of their communities.  As a result, the fan mix at most MiLB games is a cross-section of hardcore fans, casual observers, uninterested socialites, and hyper-active youngsters. In a lot of ways it is the same type of crowd found at a high school sporting event.

Any high school athletics program, regardless of size, can adopt a Minor League mindset to help boost community interest, fan support, school spirit, and attendance – all of which lead to more money for the school.

A group of mascots discuss their gameplan.

So, as a back to school gift for Athletic Directors everywhere, I will be offering a four part blog series on the tenets of the Minor League Mindset and how they can be applied to high school athletics.

Part I: Focus on the Fan

It is hard to create a caricature of the “typical” Minor League Baseball fan, because the crowds that attend the games are so diverse. All age groups and levels of interest are represented at the ballpark. Yet, for all their differences, fans at Minor League games seem to have one thing in common: they all have fun.

So, how do these franchises go about entertaining fans ranging in age from infants to octogenarians? Most minor league front office people readily admit that it’s not always about the team on the field.

Sure, some of the fans are there to watch baseball. But, even big baseball fans would have a hard time mustering up enough excitement to go see a lineup like this:

Means – RF
Sappelt – CF
Puckett – 2B
Mendez, C – 3B
Brown, T – LF
Coddington – DH
Day – 1B
Wideman – C
Rojas – SS
Janke – P

Not exactly household names. Nevertheless, 8,584 people piled into Fifth Third Field in Dayton, Ohio to watch these Dayton Dragons take on the Fort Wayne Tincaps on July 2nd.

If it’s not the game itself, what’s drawing 8,000+ fans a night to Dayton, and other ballparks across the country?

Minor League baseball teams have an unrelenting focus on the fan. Everything they do is designed to entertain, and most of the entertainment is interactive. Downtime between innings is filled with contests, with the participants being plucked right from the crowd. Fans may race one another around the bases, sumo wrestle, dance on dugouts, sing karaoke, and play “Let’s Make a Deal” – all before the seventh inning stretch.

As one front office executive put it to me, “baseball is just a backdrop we use to perform our shtick.”

Fans not participating in the “shtick” are treated to what basically amounts to a live-action reality show. What nine-year old will be able to put on a Dragons uniform and race around the bases the quickest? Tune in between the fourth and fifth innings to find out!

All of these contests provide family fun and help turn spectators into participators and casual fans into season ticket holders. In addition, they provide a unique opportunity for your sponsors – an issue we’ll discuss next time.

A fan participates in a dice rolling game at Bowling Green Ballpark

Focusing on the fan also means providing a comfortable atmosphere. I visited over 20 Minor League stadiums this summer, and I don’t recall seeing a single scrap of paper laying on the ground in any of the concourses or men’s rooms. All of the stadiums were clean, all had good food (some obviously better than others) and regardless of where I was at, it was always easy to spot an usher if I needed something.

Adopting a Minor League mindset requires more from an Athletic Director than scheduling officials, chalking the field, and turning on the lights. It’s about creating an environment where people are always wondering “what are they going to do next?”

And, the beautiful thing is, adopting a fan-friendly focus doesn’t take a lot of extra money or staff. Work with students to develop theme nights and contests. Leverage your school’s existing website to advertise your programs (a topic which we’ll cover in part three). Partner with the booster club to find volunteers to serve as ushers/fan assistants.

In the end, fans that have fun at a sporting event will continue to come back. The Minor Leagues have proven that. There’s no reason why the same wouldn’t hold true at the high school level.

Next Time – Part II: Get Creative and Get Fans

What do these eyes have to do with drawing fans and providing value for sponsors? Find out next time.

Related posts:

1. Lessons from the Bush Leagues: Applying the Minor League Mindset to High School Athletics (Part II)
2. Kane County Cougars Thriving in Crowded Market
3. Micro-market Beloit Tries to Snap up Fans by Sticking to Basics

Beloit Snappers - Class A Affiliate of the Twins

In professional sports you have big market teams and small market teams. And then you have the Beloit Snappers, a Class A affiliate of the Minnesota Twins, who play in a market so small, it almost warrants classification as a micro-market.

Indeed, if there were a baseball franchise version of life-support, the Snappers would be on it.

What exactly has the Snappers gasping for air?

For starters, the Snappers play in a stadium that was built in 1982, long before owners and stadium architects realized they could print money by constructing luxury boxes and club seating.  Aside from the addition of patio areas down the left and right field lines, Pohlman Field is largely the same as it was when it was constructed nearly thirty years ago.

And while many baseball fans find Pohlman Field to be a charming throwback to a less-commercialized era of Minor League Baseball, the stadium’s lack of modern amenities was largely responsible for ending Beloit’s twenty-three year affiliation with the nearby Milwaukee Brewers, who dropped the city and moved to a newer ballpark in Charleston, West Virginia following the 2004 season.

Beloit's Pohlman Field Remains Largely Unchanged Since Constructed in 1982

Then there’s the city itself.  Beloit, a town of 37,000 just beyond the Illinois border in South Central Wisconsin, has no radio or television outlets. With no local media available, coverage of Snapper baseball must come from the neighboring cities of Rockford and Madison, which each have their own teams – the Madison Mallards participate in the Northwoods League, a summer collegiate baseball league, while the Rockford RiverHawks play in the independent Frontier League.

No media coverage. An outdated stadium. A small fan base. To say that Beloit is a challenging market would be putting it lightly.

Good thing Beloit General Manager Jeff Vohs enjoys challenges.

Vohs began his baseball career in 1999 when he served as a Scouting and Baseball Operations Intern for the Milwaukee Brewers. His hopes for a career with the Brewers were dashed after a front office shuffle saw many of his bosses leave the organization after the 99’ season. Undeterred, Vohs found his way to Beloit, where he worked his way from up from intern to General Manager over the course of five seasons.

Like many Minor League GM’s, Vohs wears a number of different hats. When I caught up with him at his ballpark office on a sunny Friday afternoon in late June, he was wearing his groundskeeper’s hat, watching the weather radar on his computer for rainstorms that might threaten that evening’s game against the Quad Cities River Bandits.

Rain is a familiar enemy in the Midwest League, where teams schedule 140 games a season, but usually only end up playing around 135 due to inclement weather. “In an environment like this, where a lot of fans are local, rain definitely hurts,” Vohs said, “if people think the weather is going to be bad, they’ll just stay at home.”

On this day, rain not only threatened the game, but also the cancellation of one of the team’s most popular promotions – a postgame fireworks show.

“We try to stick with what works,” Vohs said, explaining his back-to-basics promotional philosophy, “in this market, fireworks and beer promotions work. We could do like Kane County and schedule Myron Noodleman or Zooperstars, and those things might do well after two or three years, but as a non-profit team, I can’t justify spending $3,000 to $4,000 a night on those performers and not have it make an immediate impact at the gate.”

In addition to overseeing the club’s marketing efforts, Vohs is also heavily involved in baseball operations, communicating with the Twins front office regarding baseball matters on a regular basis.

His acumen as a baseball guy has not gone unnoticed. In 2006, the Twins arranged for Vohs to attend Major League Baseball’s Scout School, an intensive ten day camp designed to teach the intricacies of scouting major league talent.

Someday Vohs may trade in his job behind the desk for a job behind the radar gun, but for now, he is content with the Snappers. “It’s never dull,” Vohs said, “you’re always working on something different. Everyone here has a title, but everyone also helps take care of whatever needs to be done, whether it’s selling tickets, serving food, or cleaning the stadium.”

Despite the best efforts of Vohs and his grounds crew, baseball and fireworks were not meant to be on the day I visited, as a rain storm drenched the area about an hour before game time.

It’s not all dark clouds for Beloit, though. According to Vohs, the team is “in the process of finishing up a site plan and engineering study on some land in the Gateway area at the intersection of I-43 and I-90.”

Not only would a new stadium be a boon for the Snappers, it would also ensure the future of baseball in Beloit for decades to come.

Related posts:

1. Kane County Cougars Thriving in Crowded Market
2. At Elfstrom Stadium, Kane County Cougars Fans Make the Difference (Ballpark Review)
3. Lessons from the Bush Leagues: Applying the Minor League Mindset to High School Athletics (Part I)

As the century’s biggest economic crisis drags on, some are being forced to trade down in yet another area: their job.  But, many job seekers are finding that going from unemployed manager to employed bottom feeder is easier said than done, thanks to that dreaded “o” word – “overqualified.”

The plight of the overqualified is being acknowledged by hiring directors everywhere. Jamaica Eilbes, a recruiter for the employment agency Manpower, practices Qualification Discrimination on a regular basis. “I’d never feel comfortable putting a really high-level candidate into a lower level position,” Eilbes explained to the Wall Street Journal.

Short on employment prospects, but not ingenuity, some job seekers have taken to dumbing down their resumes in hopes of convincing potential employers that they don’t have the experience and skills necessary to warrant fancy titles or high salaries.

Although the idea of dumbing-down a resume goes against two main tenets of resume creation, namely don’t lie and always put your best foot forward, some have landed the entry-level job of their dreams (or nightmares) thanks to the practice.

If your overqualification is quickly becoming desperation, you may be tempted to put the dumb treatment to your resume. Follow these five tips and you will be on your way back down the career ladder in no time.

Ditch the Printer

Nothing says “I have extensive technology skills that command a large salary” more than being able to create a document on the computer and subsequently print it off. The amount of button-mashing talent that goes into the document creation process is mind boggling. Why put yourself out of the running before a hiring director even starts reading your resume?

The better bet is to write your resume longhand on a piece of lined notebook paper. If you must insist on creating your resume on a computer, it is best to stick with a simple program like Paint, which I use for my dumbed-down resumes (see right).

Desperate Times Call For Desperate Resume Measures

Avoid Specifics

Conventional resume wisdom advises people to use specifics when describing their previous positions and accomplishments. Phrases like “generated $1,500,000 in new sales,” and “organized 37 new product launches” help hiring managers understand exactly what contributions a candidate is capable of making.

Your potential employers do not want to know that the person getting their coffee or making their copies is capable of outperforming them. Underwhelm them immediately by being as vague as possible. “Sold some stuff,” and “worked on things,” will work fine on your new resume.

Focus on Favorites

A good “skills” section can be an effective addition to some resumes.

However, in the brave new world of dumbed-down resumes, listing all the programming languages you know and the software programs you can operate will only make you seem like a know-it-all show off. Consider casting yourself as a loveable office goof by replacing the “skills” section of your resume with a “favorites” section. Be sure to include your favorite television shows, movies, music, and breakfast cereals. A good “favorites” section will show your potential employers that you can talk pop culture around the water cooler as well as anyone.

Get Creative with Your Salary History

If your salary history includes previous jobs that earned you $100,000+ a year, you run the risk of pricing yourself right out of the entry-level market. Thankfully there’s an easy work around to this problem.

Always denominate your previous salaries in a little-known foreign currency, such as the Omani Rial (OMR). With today’s exchange rates, you can turn a deal-breaking $100,000 salary history into a “you’re hired” ريال عماني 38,500.

You Don’t Need No Education

The tendency among learned people is to include all of their degrees, certificates, and training within the “education” section of their resume – which is fine for upper level positions that require an excess of book smarts.

But, for those people back peddling their way around the career path, there is a much better way to document intellectual prowess. Show your potential boss that you can think quickly on your feet by playing Jeopardy. Prior to developing your resume, play along with the television version of the popular quiz game each night for an entire week. Record your scores in the “Education” section of your resume. This will accomplish the goal of conveying your vast knowledge while hiding the fact that you have an MBA or other advanced degree.

There you have it. Five simple steps guaranteed to dumb down your resume. Check back after the recession ends (which should be soon according to economists) and we’ll examine How to Exaggerate Your Qualifications in Five Easy Steps.

Related posts:

1. IRS Joins FDA in Cereal Crackdown
2. Lessons from the Bush Leagues: Applying the Minor League Mindset to High School Athletics (Part I)
3. Study: U.S. Suffering from Immigrant Brain Drain

The alt-rocker’s latest album, 21st Century Breakdown, will not be carried in Wal-Mart stores due to the band’s refusal to create an edited version specifically for the retailer. According to Wal-Mart policy, any album containing an explicit lyrics sticker is automatically barred from their stores.

For now, the band appears to be treating the blacklisting, and resulting loss of sales, as a minor inconveinence.

“As the biggest record store in America, they should probably have an obligation to sell people the correct art,” Bassist Mike Dirnt told the Associated Press.

The “art” Mike is referring to?

For those of you who couldn’t tell a Green Day from a weekday, here’s a sample from the track “Horseshoes and Hand Grenades.”

Well, everything that you employ
Was meant for me to destory
To the ground now
So don’t you f*** me around
Because I’ll shoot you down
I’m gonna drink, fight and f***

I’m no rocker, but that has to be stretching the definition of “art.”

Even more disturbing than Mike’s creative defintion of “art,” is Green Day’s watered-down idea of what it means to stick it to “the man” – in this case the corporate suits at Wal-Mart.

21st Century Breakdown has essentially been kicked out of the biggest music retailer in the country, and all Green Day can do is say “no, sorry, we won’t make you another record.”

Come on. That’s so NOT rock-n-roll. Green Day is supposed to be the voice of a misguided, disgruntled generation.

If the band wants to retain their street cred with teens and unemployed twenty-somethings across the nation, this is what they need to do.

First, demand that all of their records be pulled from Wal-Mart shelves immediately.

Of course, making this happen would involve lawyers, record label executives, and a bunch of other balding white guys. And there’s nothing kick-ass about that.

Rather than waiting for that legal battle to play out, the band should take matters into their own hands and schedule a different kind of summer tour this year.

Instead of hitting the stadiums and arenas, Green Day needs to gas up the bus and stop at every Wal-Mart in the country and buy (or better yet, steal) every single Green Day album from each store.

After each CD heist, they would hold an impromptu free concert in the Wal-Mart parking lot, setting up their stage as close to the front doors as possible.

The liberated Green Day cd’s? The band could inscribe each one with some witty, filthy piece of anti-Wal-Mart rhetoric (use your imagination here) and pass them out as collectors items to fans. Or, maybe they could just pile them up on the stage and blow them up. Pyrotechnics = cool.

Trespassing, theft, use of illegal explosives, disturbing the peace….at thousands of locations across the US?

Now, that’s sticking it to the man.

21st Century Ain't What it Used to Be

Related posts:

1. Wal-Mart’s Great Value Gamble
2. Preview: Bowling Green Hot Rods
3. Hot Rods Deliver Fun, Future Rays at Bowling Green Ballpark (Ballpark Review)

What a difference two years makes. The Summer of 2009 is shaping up to be a bizzaro version of 2007, especially when it comes to the US auto industry.

For decades the automobile industry lobbied to stop federal mandates designed to improve vehicle quality and safety. Each requirement passed down by the Feds calling for trivial things like air bags, seat belts, turn signals, and crash standards, was decried by automobile executives as a nail in their respective company’s competitive coffin.

So, it is not without some degree of irony that Detroit’s Big 1.5 are embracing President Obama’s new plan that seeks to increase fuel efficiency and reduce greenhouse gases. Under the Obama plan announced Tuesday, average vehicle fuel efficiency for new cars must average 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016.

Ford CEO Alan Mulally praised the plan, calling it a “crucial milestone” that his company is “committed to meeting.” GM executives were equally enthusiastic.

Keep in mind, these are the same companies that, in 2007, vehemently opposed legislation requiring vehicles to obtain an average of 35 mpg by 2020.

In 2007, the auto industry called 35 mpg “unattainable.” Today, they are calling it an opportunity.

Why the sudden U-Turn?

Obama postponed announcing fuel efficiency standards for trams

The only logical explanation is that we are witnessing an $80 Billion change of heart. After receiving bailout funds to stay afloat, Detroit’s automakers are now in no position to argue. President Obama has exploited their moment of extreme weakness to achieve something that no president has been able to do: get an agreement on heightened fuel efficiency standards.

But, why stop there? Obviously, our tax dollars have Detroit’s attention. Let’s pressure President Obama to request a few more changes from the automakers – while they are still open to suggestion.

Here are two things on my Detroit Wish List. Feel free to add your demands in the comments.

Let Me Buy My Car On The Internet

I’m a point-and-click kind of guy. I don’t like dealers. I don’t like showrooms. Let me go to www.ford.com or www.chevy.com, customize a car from scratch, add it to my virtual shopping cart and be done with it. I’m fine if it takes five to seven days for the vehicle to arrive at my house (just ask Amazon – they know I’m all about the free super saver shipping).

And it’s not like I need a test drive. Outside of kicking the tires and getting a free soda, I get nothing from the in-person buying experience.

Make Better Commercials

The average car commercial is thirty seconds long. I estimate that, throughout the course of a year, I spend 1 day, 16 hours and 32 minutes watching car commercials (a testament to the sheer volume of car commercials on television, not my excessive television viewing).

Despite seeing hundreds of commercials, I can only vaguely recall something about Howie Long giving away a Honda lawnmower. That’s it. The rest of the ads are a blur of random vehicles whizzing down nondescript country roads and too good to be true financing offers.

If Detroit can’t even build a good 30 second spot, why should I believe they can build a good $30,000 automobile?

Related posts:

1. General Motors: The Reality Show
2. Commercials: Don’t Give Them a Second Thought
3. Introducing…IRS Form 1040 (Schedule $)

Now Mikey has a problem. And he doesn’t like it.

Mikey is part of a growing number of children being targeted by the IRS for failure to pay taxes on the toy prizes found in their cereal boxes. According to longstanding IRS regulations, all prizes and awards must be included in a taxpayer’s income at their fair market value.

While the market value of a foam dinosaur that expands under water may not seem like much, IRS agent Henry Kottinger says that cereal toys are more valuable than people think. “Given the eventual collectability of these items, the IRS stance is that they carry a very high market value. The individuals receiving these toys should be responsible for the taxes,” said Kottinger.

Too young to work and too old to plead ignorance of tax laws, Mikey is now struggling to find ways to pay off his tax debt – which after penalties and interest amounts to $1,857.32. “Daddy says I’m too young to mow grass,” Mikey explained as he played with a white plastic helicopter he recently found in a box of Cap’n Crunch, “but Mommy said she would help me make a Lemonade Stand.”

Mikey enjoys his cereal prizes, but at what cost?

Despite criticism from parents and taxpayer advocacy groups, the IRS remains contrite. “The cereal boxes plainly read ‘prize inside,’” Kottinger said, “Until the cereal manufacturers change their marketing practices, the IRS must continue to enforce the tax law.”

The recent IRS cereal prize crackdown comes on the heels of an FDA announcement that Cheerios is actually a drug masquerading as a breakfast foodstuff. But unlike the FDA crackdown, which is mainly a General Mills problem, the IRS attack is hitting home for thousands of first-time taxpayers.

“I remember the first time Mommy brought home cereal in a box,” Mikey recalls, referencing the fact that his mother used to purchase generic cereal that came in bags and did not contain toys, “it was awesome.”

“Now I wish I never even heard of Cookie Crisp.”

Related posts:

1. Marketing Lesson: Kellogg’s Cereal Creation Activity
2. How to Dumb Down your Resume in Five Easy Steps
3. Top 10 Ways to Make Your Taxes More Exciting

On Friday, KFC issued an apology and a raincheck to angry “customers” who were turned away during a recent promotion for the chain’s new Kentucky Grilled Chicken.

The promotion, designed to be the centerpiece of the Grilled Chicken product launch, was fairly straight forward: place a coupon offering a free two-piece grilled chicken meal on the KFC website, have Oprah mention the coupon on her show, serve up some free chicken, and then sit back and watch America fall in love with the new offering.

Unfortunately for Colonel Sanders and his crew, somewhere between plan and execution things got clucked up.

To understand what went wrong for KFC, it helps to compare their debacle to a recent restaurant giveaway that was executed successfully.

Not since the Chicken Famine of 1987 has poultry caused this much of a stir. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)

In January, Denny’s surprised the breakfast world (which is not an easy group to surprise, given their penchant for early mornings and coffee) when it offered the entire country a free Grand Slam breakfast. The promotion, which was advertised during the Super Bowl, packed Denny’s restaurants across the country on the morning of February 3^rd. But, unlike the KFC freebie, the masses went home from Denny’s satisfied, and the breakfast chain enjoyed a flood of good publicity.

A closer look reveals three key ways in which the KFC promotion came up short.

Underpromise, Overdeliver

In offering the internet masses free chicken, KFC backed itself into a promise they were unable to deliver on.  By being unprepared for the amount of people who flooded their stores, KFC overpromised and underdelivered. In a business climate where one unhappy customer can vent their frustrations to millions of other potential customers with the click of a mouse, businesses can not afford to make promises they cannot keep.  Although KFC never anticipated that everyone would attempt to redeem their coupons at once (the original promotion was set to run over the course of multiple days), someone should have had the foresight to do some “what-if” planning.

Avoid the Coupon Mentality

Although coupons are not cash, they do share similarities: each is scarce, both are printed on paper, and both require effort to obtain. When KFC forced customers to get a coupon in order take part in the promotion, they inadvertently turned the act of giving away chicken into a monetary transaction. As a result, KFC did not just turn people away by refusing to honor the coupons; they essentially told the holders “your money is no good here.” The sense of entitlement that comes with holding a coupon led to a lot of strong negative reactions when the coupons went unfulfilled. As such, KFC may have been better served to forgo the coupons all together.

Own the Story

With a television show that draws over 7,000,000 viewers every weekday, Oprah has the ability to reach a captive mass audience. She also has the ability to draw a seemingly equal amount of people that enjoy lampooning anything she is involved in that doesn’t turn out as planned. While the power of “O,” initially helped spread the word on the chicken promotion, it also took ownership of the story from KFC. Instead of being a “KFC” story, the promotion became an “Oprah” story. This shift made it much harder for KFC to conduct damage control after the giveaway was botched.

The fact that KFC wasn’t telling a particularly good story to begin with did not help matters either. After Denny’s made good on their promise of a free breakfast for all, multiple blogs and newspapers praised the promotion as an altruistic act to help raise spirits during a down economy. Of course it wasn’t, but since Denny’s was in control of their publicity situation, they received this type of spin. KFC’s giveaway was never portrayed as anything more than a launch of a new product.

Next Time

Like all controversies that take on a life of their own on the internet, KFC’s mismanaged promotion will soon be an afterthought.

In the meantime, Colonel Sanders is urging his customers to UNthink KFC. As for the hungry patrons turned away during the chicken giveaway? They would like to see the Colonel’s team REthink their strategies before they try to roll out another promotion involving free food.

Related posts:

1. Wal-Mart’s Great Value Gamble
2. Free (Business) Lesson Plans! No Purchase Necessary!
3. Lessons from the Bush Leagues: Applying the Minor League Mindset to High School Athletics (Part II)

Today’s Wall Street Journal is reporting that Amazon is set to continue the digital assault on all things paper with a new version of its electronic reading device, Kindle. The new Kindle DX, which features a larger viewing area, is designed to display textbooks in a reader-friendly format.

Gadget loving bloggers have been quick to revel in the potential convenience that the Kindle offers – namely the ability to replace sacks full of textbooks with fingers full of white plastic.

Now, textbooks are heavy. That is a given. But, we have had a solution for that long before the new Kindle came along. It’s called Cliffs Notes.

As a college freshman, I took an Old Testament Survey class. The required reading for the class came in the form of the New Oxford Annotated Bible, whose hardback cover and 1,400 pages checked in at a hefty two-and-a-half pounds. In the interest of economization, I made a trip to the local Books-a-Million and picked up a copy of Cliffs Notes for the Old Testament. Thanks to that little yellow book, I was able to replace a bulky text with a lightweight alternative. No Kindle was required.

Dr. Roberts, I'm Sorry. I Used Cliffs Notes.

(Yes, you can get Cliffs Notes for the Old Testament, and yes, I am still wondering what consequence buying Cliffs Notes over the Bible will have on my mortal soul).

There are other ways the Kindle will fall short when it comes to replicating the college textbook experience.

When I was in college, I didn’t view the textbooks I bought every August and January as purchases. Instead, the textbooks were more like deposits on my bi-annual trips home. I would buy the textbooks at the start of the term, and then sell them back at the end of each semester for gas money to get home. If I did not have something tangible to sell to the college bookstore back in December of 1997, i.e. if all my books were on a Kindle, I would still be stranded in my freshman dorm room.

Even the books I was unable to resell have proven to be valuable. Whenever the bookstore refused to buy a book from me, the book went on my shelf. Between those unwanted books, and the other books I’ve acquired over the years, I have amassed quite a collection. I display these books prominently throughout my home. My hope is that when visitors see my small library, they will assume that I am intelligent. After all, a moron wouldn’t surround himself with such great works as West’s Federal Taxation – 2001 Edition and Seven Theories of Human Nature, would he? It’s the same strategy used by the legal, financial, and medical experts you see every night on the evening news. They’re always surrounded by an office full of books. But, if their books were trapped inside a Kindle, they would be unable to create that aura of intelligence.

Amazon’s Kindle may succeed in recreating the words that are contained in college textbooks (and it wouldn’t even be the first device to accomplish that). But, for me, no gadget will be able to replace the actual textbook experience.

Related posts:

1. Lessons from the Bush Leagues: Applying the Minor League Mindset to High School Athletics (Part I)
2. Vandalism Blues
3. Personal Finance Lesson: Investing in Stocks