Social Consolodation

Several commercial children's TV channels, such as Cartoon Network, play typically one or two adverts each commercial break (of which there are many) advertising the services of credit and loan companies. These are the kind of TV advertisements that show interviews with previous customers (not actors) saying how f**ked up their lives were before they got in touch with the friendly people at XYZ Finance "who consolodated all their loans and credit card debts into one manageable monthly repayment". And how after doing so, their lives had never been better, all beaming smiles. Of course, the legalised loan sharks are not advertising to the kids as such, I'd guess they have some market research that says parents are typically or variably hovering around in the background whenever these adverts are running, hoping to pitch to them instead. But this is hijacking what should otherwise be a clear channel for kids.

Commercial children's TV companies are not permitted to advertise alcohol, pron or other adult material, but I shudder to think what effect this kind of advertising has on the kids who grow up watching it. Grow up watching 40-50 adverts each day about how credit companies make life all shiny and new for sad people and what do you get? An never ending conveyor belt of new market demographics who are socially conditioned to believe that living on the 'never-never' is a veritable nirvana.

I honestly believe that this ranks up there with early cigarette advertising that said fags improved your health. It's as least as cynical as the McDonalds Happy Meal comfort food concept of associating in the minds of kids that eating McD's makes you happy.

Trojan iPod

My new iPod just arrived and it's quietly charging away whilst consuming vast amounts of MP3s from my PC's disk. A couple of observations; the iPod, besides what it represents at a face value function level, is a very clever move by Apple and a real market share trojan horse. Now that I - a PC user - own a piece of Apple hardware and can now experience what it's like being an Apple customer, with all the quirky coolness the brand experience conveys, I'm a whole lot closer to buying an Apple computer.

With the iPod, Apple has skilfully smoked its brand right under Microsoft's radar, rather than confronting head on, Microsoft's otherwise unassailable fortress of PC market domination. And in doing so, Apple has been able to find an unlocked back door.

And I don't just mean they've nicked the MP3 player market from MS or other MP3 kit vendors, what they've done is to chip a big piece off the entire PC user communities' MS or PC brand loyalty and appreciation which, besides making Apple loads of money at the iPod level, may critically harm the dominant market share currently locked down by the PC vendor / MS vendor community. There's definitely a short and long game with the iPod. Definitely a trojan horse on a switch mission.

A truly brilliant business plan.

Mo Money, Honey...

Tom Peters' UK gig yesterday, he made a big play for the disconnect between the sizeable market that is the female sex (he also had a similar thing for everyone 45yrs+) and most male commissioned / targeted marketing, in that most marketing doesn't resonate with or even speak directly to women in a language they will ever recognise, let alone 'get'. This is, as Tom might bark, a "BIG MISTAKE!" because men and women think and emote in fundamentally different ways, and for these reasons - and many, many more - men are just able not to understand what makes women tick, yet they - men -control the freakin' world!

Peters spoke about two US DIY stores, Lowe's and Home Depot. and he contrasted the typical male, tool-fetishist environment such stores typify with the fact that the huge majority of home improvement and furniture purchases and other home / lifestyle related initiatives, are kicked off by women the vast majority of times and merely undertaken by men, not bought by them. Yet these stores mainly appeal to men in their look and feel. He went on to say that Lowe's had attempted to address this in a number of ways with some success, not least by brightening up their stores with better lighting and widening the aisles; apparently men don't mind 'rubbing butts' as much as women do.

There were many other examples he gave of similar marketing mis-alignment where women either lead the purchasing decision or are massive influencers - luxury car showrooms being a shameful example of blatant male-hood with only 9% of car salespeople in the US being female. As you'd expect, he talked about this a great deal more than I'm going to be able to cover here but it was a very interesting and thought provoking subject, though.

He also used a number of great quotes from Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps by Barbara & Allan Pease, including this absolute gem...

"A woman knows her children's friends, hopes, dreams, romances, secret fears, what they are thinking, how they are feeling and, usually, what mischief they are plotting. Men are vaguely aware of some short people also living in the house."

I'm ordering that book today, I think.