3D

By JoshPetersel in Josh for Business 2 Comments

Some ideas on 3D:

If James Cameron was really a genius (and frankly, thank goodness he isn’t), and he knew he was sitting on a multi-billion dollar blockbuster that would change movies and TV and media forever (much to my own chagrin), then why wouldn’t he make the (assuredly meager by comparison) investment in an ownership interest in a 3D-glasses manufacturing company? Consider how many theaters (and soon, home theaters) are now employing 3D glasses regularly (Here’s Wikipedia’s list).

Too bad, really, because he probably could have used more money.

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Here’s commercials for ESPN 3D. This doesn’t seem like a horrible idea to anyone else? Don’t you have a hard enough time keeping track of where you left the remote? Weren’t we all laughing about the humorous prospect of folks wearing glasses to watch TV like a decade ago? Or do we think this looks cool now?

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Why 3D flops, summed up in one poorly-shopp’d image:

Note: this image also viewable in 3D

“This 3D is pretty great. Wonder what this part looks like in 2D, though?”

This is what happens to you every 30 minutes of every 3D movie you’ve ever seen. Doesn’t happen to you when you’re watching HDTV. And I’d imagine it didn’t happen to anyone back when the first wave of color TVs were making rounds. Either 3D augments your total immersion in entertainment, or it’s a gimmick that’ll get boring before you know it.

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Here’s a bonus business idea: Lasik Surgery. The committee in charge of the doctors trained to perform Lasik should be having a field day with this 3D glasses stuff. Aren’t people spending thousands of dollars on surgery just so that they don’t have to wear glasses in order to do basic, normal stuff?

If you ask me, there should be parody commercials going off after every 3DTV commercial about how Lasik surgery lets you see in 3D without glasses. That’d be hilarious. The cost comparison is probably pretty close (think, “You could spend $2,000 to wear more glasses, or $2,000 to wear less glasses”). It’d go viral. And most importantly, we’d help put a halt to this whole 3D trainwreck that prompted the commercials in the first place.

A QuikTrip Campaign

By JoshPetersel in Josh for Business 3 Comments

This past Wednesday may have very well been the last time I get all hot and sweaty from playing roller hockey.

It was our last hockey practice of the season.  We’ve got regionals this weekend, but that means we are actually supposed to care about winning and as such will be playing the short rotation of 8 guys who are actually really good on our team.  One of them is Canadian, which I think gives him some kind of unfair advantage.  Like I could be that good, too, if I regularly abused performance enhancing drugs (or just grew up with a rink in my backyard.  Which I think is more likely his case).  I hope the league puts an asterisk next to all of his goals and assists.

One of our prized and cherished hockey traditions is going to Quik Trip after practice every Wednesday night.  For those uninitiated, Quik Trip is kind of like a 7-11, but with a Gas Station in the front and a white guy behind the counter.

Back in the days of yore, you could get a 52oz yellow Gatorade from the soda fountain for a scant $0.99.  Two bucks and you’d have chips and a drink for the ride home, and enough electrolytes in your system to do this move from Street Fighter II. Now the 52oz cup is like $1.29, and you can only get a 32oz-er for $0.99.  In this rare instance, I’m not a big fan of change.  Alternative comment: Interesting how the price of Gatorade at Quik Trip has inflated more over four years than the price of the gasoline (minus, of course, last summer’s Bush-fueled extravaganza).

Speaking of change, here’s my other favorite thing about Quik Trip:  whenever your purchase total comes out to something like $1.97, the cashier will take your $2 bill, give you a nickel back in change, and say “thaaaaaaaanks have a good one.”   It’s not about making 2 cents on the deal every time.  Or about the fact that I’ve consistently been able to launder those afor-linked-to phony $2 bills there.  It’s about the fact that I don’t have to carry around pennies in my wallet. There are few worse feelings in the world than having to carry around 3 cents in change.   So I thank QT for their gesture of kindness.  And in the off occasion when my order totals $2.22, I’ll let them keep my change.  Generosity begets generosity, I suppose.

Here’s my idea for an awesome advertising campaign for Quik Trip: Abolish the penny. Don’t even bother carrying them in the cash registers.  Announce to the world that you’re not carrying pennies anymore.  Round up or round down on every purchase that comes down to a matter of cents. There’s certainly already a calling for this.

Is this legal? I don’t know, actually.  Could they get sued for false advertising if they say that a hotdog will cost $0.98 after taxes and then they charge someone a whole dollar?  Would someone be obnoxious enough to sue over this? I guess we’ve heard worse. Even if it is illegal, the campaign might still be massively effective. Here are a couple of examples that are popularly cited in marketing classes from video game company, Acclaim. (Remember NBA Jam? That was these guys):

  1. In the U.K., to promote racing game “Burnout 2,” Acclaim offered to pay for every speeding ticket in the country on the day of the game’s release.
  2. in 2002, to promote a game “Gladiator: Sword of Vengeance,” purportedly the bloodiest game of all time, Acclaim announced a “bloodvertising” campaign.  They intended put up posters and fliers that actually seeped a red, blood-like substance over the course of a week.

Both campaigns have obvious moral hazards, and neither of them ever actually went into effect.  As it turns out, Acclaim never actually intended for the campaigns to be executed.   Consider the massive free publicity they received from every single newspaper and website that ran a piece on the “obscene” ad campaigns.  Huge wins.  (By the way, you can read up on a few other entertaining guerrilla marketing campaigns here.)

So that’s the deal.  Quik Trip announces they’re abandoning the penny, newspapers say “what the hell?!”, the insiders chuckle, and everyone’s stopping by Quik Trip to see what all the hubbub is about.

You can thank me by bringing the price back down on my beloved 52oz.

How I’d fix Pantene

By JoshPetersel in Josh for Business 0 Comment

I burned some study time productively the other day and flipped through some recent articles posted on BrandWeek.  I came across this one in particular, and felt that I had something constructive to say about it.

The article itself is fairly boring; I wouldn’t bother reading it if I were you.  Basically the idea in the article is that P&G is struggling to sell its shampoo line, Pantene.  They’re throwing some hundred million dollars into a new ad campaign that will tout better quality, stronger hair, or something, and will feature some pretty girl with glossy hair in the commercials.  Pricing and positioning stays the same, though.  According to the article, Pantene’s position is “a value buy that’s just as good as salon brands, but less expensive.”

I guess they think that will work.  I don’t see the logic or the niche behind a “value” brand that’s the most expensive of all the value products.  But I suppose I’m maybe not the target market here.

Why am I writing about a women’s shampoo product, then?

I actually never suspected that Pantene was in trouble as a brand.  Truth is, I’m a longtime Pantene user – not that I’ve ever bought the stuff myself.  All through growing up, I left the shampoo decision making to my mom and sister.  So there’d always be a bottle of Pantene in the shower, next to  some old bottle of slum-poo.  Figuring my sister had better knowledge on the benefits of hair care products than I, I’d always use her shampoo instead of my own.  (I wonder if my mom ever picked up on the fact that my sister was eating through her shampoo about 100 times faster than I was.)

Do any of you guys do this?

Anyway, here’s the point:  Pantene (or some shampoo company) should do something unique and remarkable, and drop a new advertising campaign as “The shampoo product your hip sister uses.”  Here’s what follows:

  1. Girls want the shampoo because the ads subtly/overtly convey that the female users are “hip”
  2. Guys want the shampoo because it’s what the hip girls are into, and because they see it’s okay for guys to be doing it
  3. It’s a unique brand position, and there’s no confusing “premium but value” logic required

Granted, there are a lot of other things to consider.  I’m not terribly positive that Pantene’s current target demographic would adhere well to the new campaign.  It’s a big risk to take.  But then again, maybe it’s time for them to jump ship anyway.

How I’d fix the Islanders

By JoshPetersel in Words 2 Comments

We went to see the Islanders play the Penguins over Thanksgiving break.  Hockey is a big deal for me; it used to be bigger back when the NHL actually meant something, but I still enjoy making the pilgrimage out to Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum every Thanksgiving and Winter break.

It’s no secret that the NHL is a shell of its former self today.  You could say that the NHL is the Detroit Lions of professional sports leagues – formerly rich with history and cherished by loyal fans, currently horribly mismanaging its players and coming up with one hair-brained quick fix solution after another (the latest being Daunte Culpepper for the Lions, and I guess the new-and-improved jerseys system in the NHL), and stuck with a guy in charge who easily should have been fired half a decade ago.

The Islanders have a quagmire of problems themselves.  Games never sell out (yeah, even when it’s Thanksgiving break and the kids are home, and a ton of people are off from work the next day, and the most exciting club in the league is coming to play that night).  It’s next-to-impossible to get excited about the team because we’re never really that good, and we’re also never really bad enough to land a string of super picks to propel us back to the top.  The Penguins were miserable for two years, and now they’ve ended up with two of the best three players in the NHL.  Granted, a Sidney Crosby won’t fall into your lap just any given off-season.

Well, there’s no changing the past.  What excited me most about the Isles epic 5-3 loss/collapse to the Penguins was all of the changes I got to look at around the stadium.  At least the Islanders have realized that business as usual won’t work anymore.  Here are some of the things that have changed recently, and my thoughts on them (you’re here to read my thoughts on things, aren’t you?):

Girls: The Islanders now have Ice Girls – a team of buxom, scantily-clad vixens who come on the ice during TV timeouts to scoop up the ice flakes kicked up from the players’ skates.  This wasn’t a bad idea.  NFL and NBA teams have cheerleaders; a little sex couldn’t hurt fans’ general enjoyment of games.  To a point.  Plus, they’re keeping the ice cleaner, which makes for faster skating and a better game.

New this season, the Isles have also added the Ice Breakers – a team of buxom, scantily-clad vixens who walk around and dance and stuff.  I don’t really remember what their excuse was for being there (maybe I was just distracted?).  It seemed excessive, and seemed like they watered down a good thing.

In fact, I’d say it seemed like something the XFL might do.  99 times out of 100, that’s not a good thing – the one exception being the XFL allowing players to put whatever name they wanted on their jerseys.  I’m still upset that Chad Ocho Cinco never saw the light of day, even after he legally had his name changed.

T-Shirts: Like any other sporting event you’ve been to in the past 10 years, the Isles launched t-shirts into the crowds during breaks.  But now, they occasionally do it via a rapid-fire Tommy Gun.  The gun was awesome.  The shirts, in sum total, excessive.

By the end of the game, the fans sitting in just our seating section must have gone home with 5-7 tee’s.  One nearly fell into my dad’s lap.  My brother caught one while standing up to go to the concession stand – it nearly hit him on the side of the head.

This might not be a decision the Isles are making directly – I imagine some sponsors are paying them handsomely for the right to launch the shirts – but how excited could you get when the the staff rolls out the t-shirt launchers for the fifth time in one game?  I could explain how diminishing marginal returns works, but for simplicity’s sake: the launchers are boring me.

Polite Ushers: As per usual operating procedure, the three of us ended up sitting in entirely the wrong section, because we always end up with two sets of two tickets in different areas and want to sit together.  We ended up getting caught by an usher who was taking some other fans to their seats.  Now, at a normal sports venue, the usher might amicably suggest “GET THE !@#* OUT OF MY SECTION AND GO BACK TO YOUR SEATS.”  Instead, he just politely said “you guys can go where you like, I just need these two seats.”  This was revolutionary – the guy knows that we can sit pretty much anywhere we damn well please, so instead of being obnoxious about it, he smiled and let us go for it.  It wouldn’t work in any other context where fans might actually pay to fill a stadium.

On the one hand, I was personally pleasantly surprised.  But on the other, this is a definite white flag – the Isles don’t fill the stadium anyway, and everyone from the guys in the office to the ushers knows it.  So they’re not even fighting it anymore.  Of course, this is only going to make matters worse for them in the long run – why should I pay for $120 seats on top of the ice when I can just grab a $20 nosebleeder and sit wherever I find a space?

New “Goal!” Cheer: For years, when the Isles would score a goal (rare), they’d blast Rock and Roll, pt. 2 over the loudspeaker, and everyone would get up, cheer, and “Hey!” along with the song.  They changed it this year, to some song I don’t know the name to, the lyrics to, or the chorus to.  All I know is that every now and again, you’re supposed to cheer “Hey!  You suck!”  Seriously.  Not “go our team!”, not “hooray we’re the best!,” but “you suck!”  This is easily the most Long Island cheer I could imagine.  And it’s precisely the reason why I went to a university in St. Louis.

Furthermore, how exactly does “you suck!” fit under the NHL’s goals of becoming more family-friendly?  I think the NHL sucks.

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The Islanders don’t need to continually distract me from the game by throwing breasts and t-shirts at my face.  The game itself should be enough.  Hockey is an incredibly fast game, with constant action and lots of physical play, and if you’re quick enough, you can even follow strategy and watch different plays develop – try observing any of that at a baseball game.  What the Islanders need to do is revitalize the event, make it more engaging, and make it something I’m more emotionally connected to.

Fortunately for the integrity of the team’s marketing staff, the Isles have already taken a few baby steps in the right direction.  They’ve introduced Loudville, one section in the stadium where they’ve wardened off all of the college students under the premise that if you want to sit there, you’ve got to be yelling a LOT.  Which is a fantastic idea – college students love yelling at things, and other fans who saw them yelling on the Jumbotron were inclined to get excited, too.  It was the only remotely close to capacity section in the Coliseum.

The Islanders can also thank Wendy’s for another great idea.  I found out after the Isles went up 3-1 that any time the Islanders score 3 goals in a home game, you can go to any Wendy’s on Long Island, tell the clerk “I want my free chili, Let’s go Islanders!”, and you get a free chili.  On the other hand, every time an Islander scores a goal in general, the Jumbotron says that the person sitting in Section X, Seat Y just won an autographed puck.  Which excites me more: that some theoretical random set of numbers just won a puck, or that I get to swing through a Wendy’s on the drive home and enjoy a chili?  Am I going to stand up and cheer harder for the 1/3000 chance that I win a puck, or the 1/1 chance that I get a delicious chili later?  Hell yeah I want my free food.  If they Isles do a good job hyping up the promotion, I’m a lot more emotionally invested in the success of the team.

Even better – the Islanders introduced a “Victory Plan,” for select games this year, where if the team wins, you win seats to see another game – no questions, no catch.  NOW how hard am I going to cheer when the game is tied late in the 3rd period? (Incidentally, I wrote a longer article this summer about the Victory Plan here, if this is something that really gets you all hot and bothered.)

What it breaks down to is this:

  1. The Islanders incentivize me to cheer, yell, hoot, holler, and go nuts.  In return, I have more fun at the game, I buy more stuff, and I come back more frequently.
  2. I cheer, incentivizing the team to play better (in theory).
  3. The team plays better, fans buy more stuff and come back more frequently.
  4. Upwards spiral, ad infinitum.  Everybody wins (except, hopefully, not the Rangers).

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[The Most Important Section!!] Here are a few other ideas I’ve got to push the emotional investment idea:

  1. Give free parking to every car that shows up 2 hours before the game (maybe, eventually, this won’t even be necessary).  Let them borrow a mini grill for free (leave your keys at the window & get them back when you bring back the grill, or something).  Sell uncooked hot dogs, buns, burgers, sausages, etc., and let everyone go back to their cars and tailgate up until game time.  Fans win because they have a great time, hang out with other die-hards, the event becomes bigger and more valuable than the game itself, and they get to park for free.  The Islanders win because their fans are winning, and they’ll probably even cover parking costs ($7 / car) with the additional concession sales.
  2. Every time an Islanders player wins a fight, let him take off his gloves and throw them into the stands.  How cool would that be – you just won some game-used memorabilia that was mauling some guy’s face a second ago.  If the fight was any good, it might even still have some of his blood on it!  And instead of “Section X, Seat Y,” put whoever catches the gloves on the Jumbotron – this attaches a human face to the winner.  Now, instead of looking down at my ticket stub and shrugging, I’m thinking “man, I wish I was that guy.  That was awesome!”  Maybe I’ll even try to buy closer seats next time.
  3. Every time Sidney Crosby (or whoever the opposing team’s best player is) comes on the ice for a shift, and goes off without scoring a goal or an assist, put a guy in a Penguins jersey on the Jumbotron and give him a free Let’s Go Islanders t-shirt.  Maybe it’s just my perverse sense of humor, but I’d be on my feet jeering every time Crosby came on the ice, and on the floor laughing every time he got off.  I know we’ve got the supply reserves on the tee’s.  I’m already giggling hysterically as I type this.  I think the dude sitting at the computer next to me in the lab is furious.  But this idea needs to happen, NOW.

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In the end, give us fans a reason to love the game, and we’ll love the game.  Keep distracting us and looking for quick-fix solutions, and we’ll be sure to find something that can hold our attention.

Any other ideas you guys want to share?