Monthly Archives: October 2014

What an Epic Fail Integrated Marketing Campaign Looks Like

Posted on October 27, 2014 by davetuchler

Monday’s Wall Street Journal delivered a rather amazing example of how NOT to promote a product, along with the news and pithy commentary.

Most marketers know that messaging can be maximized if deployed consistently across vehicles. This is apparently more difficult than it seems.

Page A7 of today’s WSJ featured a full-page color ad for €5.99/$7.99 dress shirts, from a manufacturer somewhat oddly named ‘Mosegi & Haberdashery’.

It is important to keep in mind that a full-page color ad carries a price tag of $386,865.98.

A cursory scan of the ad shows a few obvious errors:

CEO Earl Mosegi’s promise includes: “…will not lose their shirt off there back” (sic)
Featured product claim: “Women shirt now available”
Key contact called “Sale Representative”

It gets worse.

Ad contains a QR code that is inactive
Ad implies a Facebook page (but no URL) which if you find it, not only doesn’t reference the ad, it features products not remotely like a dress shirt. Seems to be targeted at kids. And it hasn’t been updated since July 2014.

But wait – there’s more!

The website itself is remarkably incomplete but also quite entertaining.
- Of 8 main tabs, only 3 have content. There is no contact info.
- The all-important ‘ORDER’ page contains just a static image – – there is no ordering mechanism for all the consumers who have seen the ad to take action online!
- The ad shows a minimum order of 12 shirts; the website lists minimum orders of both 100 and 300 shirts. Clearly this is a wholesaler trying a direct consumer appeal.
- Most remarkably, an unfortunate keystroke error removed a key letter from the word ‘shirt’, resulting in an entirely new word, which shows up on the home page as well as every single header.

This brings up a few key questions:

Is the entity who placed this ad a) the playboy son of a Turkish billionaire setting up shop online? b) an unemployed Russian hacker? c) a Nigerian scammer? or d) a third-grader?
How does an ad that has a bargain-basement pitch, contains so many obvious errors and leads to an online dead-end, get approved by the Journal’s advertising department? (guess: maybe $387k has something to do with it?)
Is this our official notification that QR codes are truly dead?
Does a re-integrator exist?

This is a campaign that seems to have been thrown together with not much thought other than a price point and a photo.

These people really need to get their shirt together.

One thing this ad is excellent at is demonstrating, by omission, some obvious basics of an integrated campaign:

Start with a compelling message/offer (arguably they are ok here)
Infuse every element of your marketing mix with the same consistent message, offer and look
Make it easy for customers to take action
For crying out loud, have someone who knows the language check for accuracy. (The Armchair MBA is particularly pained at this last point, as its companion business, Peregrine Advisors, specializes in helping clients avoid online gaffes).

The Armchair MBA works hard to scour the globe for stories worthy of your attention. This one fell into our lap.

As the saying goes, better lucky than good.

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Posted in Branding, Marketing and Media, Marketing Strategy, Retailing and tagged discount shirts, Earl Mosegi, Facebook, full page ad, Integrated Marketing, Marvin the Martian, Mosegi, Mosegi & Haberdashery, mosegishirts.com, Peregrine Advisors, QR Codes, The Armchair MBA, wall street journal, WSJ. Bookmark the permalink.

Unexpected game-changers for our future food supply

Posted on October 12, 2014 by davetuchler

[NOTE: If you are getting this post in an email, click on www.thearmchairmba.com to see the accompanying graphics.]

I recently participated in an IFT (Institute of Food Technologists) workshop on the long-term future of our food supply. These are the same food scientists that midwived the difficult births of Count Chocula, Betty Crocker and Chef Boyardee, but they have also developed fortified, functional and better for you foods and beverages. And they play a critical role in defining our food future. (I previously wrote about IFT’s FutureFood2050 initiative).

Supply Chain as rendered by Chipotle

You may think: How complicated can food be? Haven’t we been farming, shipping, making and eating for quite a while now?

It turns out that managing the food supply to meet future consumer, economic and regulatory needs is about as simple as airline scheduling logistics.

Supply Chain – Actual

And as the workshop revealed, it will only get more complicated going forward. Why?

First, consumer demands continue to increase: lower cost, variety, customization, easier/faster shopping, nutrition, natural, sustainable…and of course great tasting. Not all simultaneously compatible.

Second, farmers, manufacturers and distributors are pressured to meet these needs and still make a profit.

Finally, innovations, often seemingly not food-related, will play a critical role as the food industry evolves.

This future could be very interesting.

Consider these trends /technologies that might impact the future of food, all of which are happening now:

– Farm drones/robots/blimps – – to monitor crop conditions continuously, greatly increasing farming efficiency

– Resource-sharing – – rather than time-sharing a car, how about meat-sharing a cow? More accurately matching supply to demand.

– Crowdsourcing product design – – leading to higher success rate of new products

– Versatile manufacturing – – economical short production runs, allowing more customization

– Urban farming – – new technologies enable repurposing declining urban areas (Detroit-like)

– Automated delivery – – driverless delivery to homes (drones, copters) – taking cost and time out of supply chains

– Rise of B Corporations – – (“a new type of company that uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.”) Transparency in social benefit, an additional differentiator.

– Shorter IP protection – – forcing faster innovation and creating increased competition

– Remote smell – – transmitting tastes/smells through the internet, making product development quicker and more successful. (Were this previously available, we may have been able to avoid Brussels sprouts.)

oPhone

– Genetic consumer cohorts – – low-cost genetic typing enables segmenting consumers by health-driven factors like allergies, facilitating meeting needs of key segments.

– Expanded definition of acceptable food – – e.g. ground insects as source for cheap, high efficiency protein, creating an affordable ingredient for billions, and one heck of a marketing challenge for some.

What does all this mean?
Well, we don’t know yet. That’s why they call it the future.

One set of outcomes could be:

Greater ability for consumers to quickly get foods customized to their wants/needs
More tools for farmers, manufacturers, retailers and distributors to drive down costs

A parallel set of outcomes could also be:

Benefits limited to those who can afford customization and speed (and the tools that enable them)
A more commoditized supply chain complementing the customized offerings, with lower cost, slower delivery and less choice – – for those who cannot afford (or just do not value) the more tech-enabled offerings

There would likely be huge collateral impacts, like increased complexity in regulation, labeling and distribution; new retailing models, etc.

Like it or not, food science and technology professionals will need to be prepared to meet these potential future challenges.

The rate of change in the food industry is accelerating. I’m all for it, as long as there’s still bacon.

…and Botswana makes it 100 Countries!

Posted on October 9, 2014 by davetuchler

In a shameless act of self-promotion, this announces that as of today, The Armchair MBA has now reached 100 countries served! A sort of crazy milestone considering its quite humble and uninformed beginnings, some 70 posts and 2 1/2 years ago.

But beyond cocktail party braggadocio, what does this say about the state of blogging? Or, who cares?

First, some info.
Below is a map of where my readers have come from. Darker colors indicate more readers.
– Clearly a bias toward English-speaking countries but plenty from elsewhere.
– While the US is by far the strongest reader source, average daily readership comprises about 5 or 6 countries, which shift daily.
– Notable in their presence: China (a single rogue reader!), Botswana (which got me over the 100 hump today) and Papua New Guinea (only because I can’t not think about the combination of loincloths and laptops).
– Totally expected absences: Cuba, Russian satellites, Iran, N. Korea, and most of Africa. Is there media repression? Of course.

While I have a strong base of followers (thank you!), most readership is not subscribed and comes from 2 sources: LinkedIn (on one page or another) and online search results. The latter group accounts for the majority of non-English country visitors.

Lessons learned?
– The global pull of The Armchair MBA has been surprising. Part of the reason is that topics often have global relevance; one more support point for the theory that borders are increasingly irrelevant as it relates to business news/learning/sharing.
– Posts have long tails – – there is a bump in initial readership but even the oldest posts get recurring views. The internet is a great accumulator. Full disclosure: I recently experimented by taking a SEO approach and including all African nations in text form — it has resulted in some visits from Africa, but to the point below, it is slow. But it is possible to proactively solicit traffic.
– Propagation is steady but slow – – but even if initial readership is modest, much value is still retained as a post transitions from ‘news’ to ‘reference’
– Having a blog like this pays nothing, but it does have its benefits:
– Provides an outlet for my voice and is encouragement to continue to explore, think and opine
– Occasionally merits a media credential, enabling privileged access to trade shows/seminars and continued learning for myself and for my clients
– Solicits feedback and additional points of view, often from some surprising sources
– And, every once in a blue moon, provides validation in the form of a ‘Like’. Sort of like Facebook, only with much more work (including checking my sources).

Thanks for reading. And thank you, Botswana.

We Tested it On You, So It’s Probably OK for Your Pet

Posted on October 1, 2014 by davetuchler

I had the pleasure of attending a brand new trade show – Petfood 2.0 – in Chicago recently.

Not surprisingly, this show is still getting its furry legs under it – – a very manageable group of 35 disparate exhibitors made for a quick and interesting, if not yet cohesive, experience.

Overall, though, a larger theme presented itself:
Following thousands of years of dogs serving man, the tables have turned.
Man now serves dog.

Exhibit 1: Hemp for Pets.

Now available from our friends at HempMeds, is a line of products made from hemp to benefit your pets. aNew™ Pet Nutrition‘s products provide essential fatty acids (EFA – – Omega-3 and -6) and are made from a blend of hemp seed oil and raw hemp stalk oil (which is rich in cannabidiol – CBD). EFAs, as we know, are highly beneficial – – just don’t ask the industry to agree on what the top benefits are.

This innovation in pet health could not have been possible without the committed testing of hemp products by millions of Americans in the 1960s and 1970s. So while the outcome of all that testing is up for discussion, your cat or dog is possibly benefiting now from what you did in college then.

OK, that’s not accurate.

While hemp is illegal to grow in the US, it is perfectly legal to import any part of the hemp plant in all 50 states.
And while the prospect of Fifi or Rover lying on his or her back contemplating the ceiling tiles for hours on end and giggling is intriguing, these products contain virtually no THC – the active ingredient that makes marijuana psychoactive.

Although it would be interesting to see if Nigel would behave any differently with the munchies. Doubtful.

Exhibit 2: Functional ingredients for pets – – it worked on Man, so it’s probably safe for Rover.

We long ago realized that we could do better than feeding our pets Ol’ Roy (WalMart). Thus emerged added value feed (e.g. Iams, Eukanuba, Science Diet, etc), offering different formulas for large breeds, older pets, etc. as well as some medical needs.

Meanwhile, human foods and beverages have increasingly been stuffed with a dizzying array of functional ingredients, many of which have no empirical basis in efficacy. But we humans have shown that we’re willing to buy them anyway. What did Charles Revson say about hope?

Based on this massively-scaled test market on mankind, it apparently has been deemed that animal-kind is now ready to safely ingest all sorts of functional ingredients that may or may not actually ever benefit them.

Incorporating things like ancient grains, fiber, medium-chain triglycerides, probiotics and ionic trace minerals, your pet can now get benefits heretofore only considered for the human species (notwithstanding hairballs and a healthy coat).

One company, PetNaturals of Vermont, offers products to address the following areas:
– Agility, Antioxidant, Bladder Support, Breath, Calming, Daily Multivitamin, Digestion, Hip & Joint, Immunity, Slim-down, Urine pH balance (really – to avoid yellow spots on the lawn), Periodontal health, Fecal function, and Skin/Coat health.

You dog and cat owners will probably recognize some of the benefit areas in the products below.

We live in a world where the things we eat promise magical powers to fix whatever marketers insist needs fixing. And regardless of the effectiveness, manufacturers have made a tidy business catering to hope.

Now, due to the significant sacrifice, expense and effort expended in testing on humans, our pets will soon be able to have their diets enhanced, and your wallet may end up just a little lighter. So when your pet looks up as if to say ‘Thanks, Man’, now you know what’s going through that little brain.

I have no doubt that many of these ingredients can provide real benefits to some of the 150 million dogs and cats out there.

Except I’m not believing anything that promises intelligence to an Irish Setter.

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Posted in Marketing and Media, Marketing Strategy, New Products, Product Management, Trade Shows and tagged agility, ancient grains, aNew Pet Nutrition, antioxidants, bladder support, breath, calming, Cannabidiol, cat food, cats, CBD, Charles Revson, digestion, dog food, dogs, EFA, Essential Fatty Acids, Eukanuba, fiber, functional ingredients, hairballs, Hemp, Hemp Oil, hemp seed oil, hemp stalk oil, HempMeds, hip & joint, Iams, Illegal, immunity, ionic trace minerals, Marijuana, medium-chain triglycierides, munchies, Ol’ Roy, Omega-3, Omega-6, pet, Petfood 2.0, PetNaturals, Pets, probiotics, psychoactive, Science Diet, THC, Urine pH, WalMart. Bookmark the permalink.

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Monthly Archives: October 2014

What an Epic Fail Integrated Marketing Campaign Looks Like

We Tested it On You, So It’s Probably OK for Your Pet

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