Author:
Jason Voiovich
Ecra Creative Group
Key Points:
1. It may be a response to the globalization of the food supply, but locally-produced foods are a growing trend.
2. Following the same broad strategy as organics, local food producers use emotional appeals as well as raw facts to convince us to pay more.
3. In the end, however, globalization (and resulting efficiencies) may be too powerful a force for anything but a niche market presence for “local” foods.
I had every intention to buy Gold’n Plump chicken.
My wife and I were at the grocery store (which shall remain nameless) last weekend. And I was ready. I had seen the ‘local chicken’ ads on television and on billboards during my (some days too many) trips around town. They made sense to me. I was ready to ‘take a stand’.
When we arrived at the meat counter, I noticed a competing national brand on sale for 20 percent less money. But I was prepared. Locally produced food was important to me. I put it in the cart anyway.
That’s when I noticed the I-can’t-take-you-anywhere look.
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Author:
Jason Voiovich
Ecra Creative Group
Key Points:
1. The US Army spends 10 times what the average college or university spends for each new recruit. That just is not sustainable.
2. A combination of regulatory changes and careful data-mining - combined with smart sponsorship and coaching for the popular video game Halo 3 - are likely to turn the tide.
3. The inevitable targeting of younge r and younger children by recruiting messages could be seen as both a threat to the innocence of youth as well as an opportunity to communicate civic virtue to young citizens.
It costs the US Army, on average, $24,500 for each new recruit.
$24,500.
That may not sound like a lot of money until you consider the average university spends just over $2000 to achieve the same result. Street math: The Army spends 10 times what the U of M spends. Yikes.
Let’s do more math, shall we.
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Author:
Jason Voiovich
Ecra Creative Group
Key Points:
1. Build-A-Bear Workshop and Ridemakerz use the same business model, with a different product, to target girls and boys respectively.
2. BABW invested in the Ridemakerz concept, and helped it along. It really should work.
3. But Ridemakerz really doesn’t work as well. My guess is that the real reason lies in the subtle differences between mother/daughter and father/son relationships.
My wife collects Build-A-Bears.
But not just any Build-A-Bear, she only collects the limited edition World Wildlife Federation “bears”. Last weekend, we stood outside the Build-A-Bear workshop at the Ridgedale Mall in Minnetonka, Minnesota - before the store opened - to be the first in line to purchase the newest WWF wolf.
We stood and waited alongside a group of 9 and 10 year old girls getting ready for a Build-A-Bear birthday party with their moms. We waited as early shoppers stood and gawked at the new (limited edition as well) Portuguese Water Dog Build-A-Bear, no doubt encouraged by the Obama girls’ choice of puppy. My wife chuckled at the fathers and husbands kept physical distance from the store. I didn’t chuckle. I was working on increasing my distance.
The whole surreal experience reminded me of an eerily similar experience about a year ago.
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Author:
Jason Voiovich
Ecra Creative Group
Key Points:
1. Lund’s and Byerly’s entered into a partnership with the Double R Ranch to provide premium beef for its retail grocery stores, taking advantage of building its footprint in a rapidly growing segment.
2. However, it can be hard to distinguish the Lund’s and Byerly’s effort from similar efforts at other major grocery chains, where the “partnership” is more marketing creation than physical reality.
3. In the long-term, however, an authentic branding position has better staying power than a simply imaginary one.
I love the meat counter at Byerly’s.
They still have actual butchers. Not that I would blame most people for not knowing one when they saw one, but nowhere else can use ask tough questions about meat preparation and cooking and actually receive intelligent answers. It’s just about heaven for an armchair chef.
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Author:
Jason Voiovich
Ecra Creative Group
Key Points:
1. Abercrombie & Fitch publicly said is abandoning its premium price strategy and focusing its offerings in order to boost earnings.
2. Lowering prices, however, is a dangerous slippery slope in the fashion world. Shoppers devalue the brand, and will only buy when there’s a bargain.
3. Youth trends are fickle, but Abercrombie & Fitch could have positioned itself for success if it had only reinvented itself sooner. It is likely too late now.
I thought I’d never see it.
A sale. At Abercrombie & Fitch.
Middle school has arrived for our family, and so has a certain sensitivity toward the clothes we buy our oldest son. Needless to say, I found myself at the kid-version of the popular Abercrombie & Fitch. This is the store with less soft core imagery than the adult version, but basically the same clothes, the same undeniably pungent over-cologned aroma, and the same lucky-I-have-rock-n-roll-ear-damage music volume.
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Author:
Jason Voiovich
Ecra Creative Group
Key Points:
1. FantasySoapNet.com was a short-lived experiment bringing the fantasy sports idea to soap opera viewers.
2. The temptation is strong; fantasy sports leagues are huge moneymakers, in addition to providing a wealth of psychographic data.
3. But soap enthusiasts didn’t buy in like the guys did; what sounded like a great idea simply died on the vine.
Last week would have been a good fantasy soap week.
ABC’s General Hospital featured no less than complications from a miscarriage, a tearful admission from a son who ran his mother off a deserted road, and a character seemingly back from the dead.
From my count, that would have been in the 100 to 150 point range.
Points? Yes, at FantasySoapNet.com, you watched your soaps for points. Just like a fantasy football league, the soap league allowed you to select your “team” from among several soap actors and actresses. You could even add specific “moments” to your team (such as “wearing red to a funeral) just like you might add a guess on the point spread for Sunday’s game.
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Author:
Jason Voiovich
Ecra Creative Group
Key Points:
1. Minnesota-based Victory Motorcycles leverages its parent company’s expertise in small engines to break into the motorcycle market.
2. But it doesn’t shy away from the fight: The company focus on high-end touring and custom bikes boldly puts them up against Harley-Davidson.
3. Victory has a fighting chance, but its growth will remain stunted unless it defines more clearly what it stands for, rather than focusing on Harley.
I am not a motorcycle guy.
That’s not a negative statement. Nor is it a positive statement. I just have no real experience with motorcycles of any kind.
But despite that, an ad at the Blaine, Minnesota Green Mill caught my eye. The basic ad copy read: If you were interested in an American-made bike, and if you cared about performance and reliability over “just a brand name”, then you should ride a Victory Motorcycle.
The ad mentioned a few specific performance and reliability measures, but made no specific mention of the “other” American-made motorcycle in question. But for a branding guy, there was no question to which brand Victory was referring. Of course, Harley-Davidson.
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Author:
Jason Voiovich
Ecra Creative Group
Key Points:
1. Plastic water bottles are an undeniable environmental disaster, contributing tons of plastic each year to the Texas-size Pacific Garbage Patch.
2. Bottlers have an incentive to fix the problem and save their $11 billion cash cow.
3. But canteens - repositioned as fashion accessories - are making a strong return, and could eventually cannibalize 30 to 40 percent of the market.
In the middle of the northern Pacific Ocean, the currents converge just right.
They form a giant loop of swirling water attracting floating debris from the entire Pacific basin into just one spot. In the middle of this immense area of ocean is a growing island of floating garbage twice the size of Texas. It is a sea of unbelievable foulness filled with all manner of trash from North America, Russia, Japan, China, and Southeast Asia. And it’s growing.
By far one of the biggest contributors: The humble plastic water bottle.
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Author:
Jason Voiovich
Ecra Creative Group
Key Points:
1. Conventional wisdom tells us the down economy should negatively impact Weight Watchers International and businesses in its category.
2. However, Weight Watchers has positioned itself ideally in the public mind and within the medical community.
3. When the times comes (sooner than we think) for sliding-scale, health-impact pricing, Weight Watchers will benefit from insurance plans who adjust premiums based on health metrics.
We all know what it supposed to happen in a “down” economy.
We all know discretionary purchases will take a hit. We all know recurring monthly fees in the household budget will get another look. We all know people will forgo expensive healthy food in favor of cheaper options and greasy comfort food.
Apparently, investors and analysts also know those things, and have pummeled Weight Watchers International stock (NYSE:WTW) over the past six months, down some 40 percent.
All of which begs the question: Are the analysts correct?
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Author: Jason Voiovich Ecra Creative Group
Key Points: 1. Hemorrhaging job losses in the financial sector make recruiting easier for the CIA’s financial counter-terrorism division. 2. The agency should experience short-term success with a combination of decent pay, patriotic appeals, and challenging work. 3. Long-term image problems remain, however, and the CIA must act to retool its image to retain its young and talented financial agents.
Out of a job in the financial sector?
The CIA wants you. And they know they’ve got your attention.
Times are (comparatively) tough for freshly minted Ivy League MBAs. Hopes of six-figure investment banking careers are gone; this new crop of grad students has entered a brutal Wall Street job market.
To put it in real terms, the Financial Times reports over 130,000 financial sector jobs have been shed in the past 12 months. And as employment is often a lagging indicator of economic growth, this summer’s (and this fall’s) graduates had better keep their options open.
As (comparatively) sad as this situation may sound, the news is music to the ears of hiring managers at the Central Intelligence Agency. (more…)
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