Tully's Letters

Over the New Year’s holiday, I was speaking to an acquaintance about the prospects for the coming year when he began lamenting about “the problem with branding.”

His concern was that a college in a nearby town was celebrating the coming of a Starbucks, slated to open sometime this month on the same block as an independent, local upscale coffee shop. What was different about this conversation from the typical “down with the big bad out of town company coming in to compete with the local player” argument?

My acquaintance was not putting down Starbucks for their “open up next to a successful local competitor” citing strategy. He wasn’t putting down the college for their insensitivity to the local business owner, either. He acknowledged that they had reasonable motivations for wanting a Starbucks near campus: it would help to make the college more attractive to prospective students and their parents.

Instead, he cited “the problem of branding.” From his perspective, branding has given companies that have strong brands an unfair advantage over those who have weaker brands.

I could only think of one response: “What's the problem with branding?”

Incidentally, my acquaintance runs a very successfully branded local business that has gone up against the big out of town competitors who aren’t so well branded, and he has succeeded. He also serves Coca Cola to his customers.

Go figure. 

Once upon a time, the car one drove defined the person behind the wheel. For a generation gone by, how it was customized said a great deal about the owner, much in the same way as the type of phone one carries today.

According to an article that appeared in The Economist: In today's congested cities, you can no longer make a statement by pulling up outside a bar in a particular kind of car. Instead, you make a similar statement by displaying your mobile phone, with its carefully chosen ring tone, screen logo and slip cover.

Mobile phones, like cars, are fashion items: in both cases, people buy new ones far more often than is actually necessary. Both are social technologies that bring people together; for teenagers, both act as symbols of independence. And cars and phones alike promote freedom and mobility, with unexpected social consequences.

So, our question today is, how often have you changed your phone over the past two-three years and what was the main reason for the change? Was it style, a better calling plan, advanced features or just plain vanity?

A long time friend of mine, Cathy Frank, has a son named Josiah (Ze, as he is affectionately called by family, friends and strangers alike). Ze is rather talented, like his mom, who is an accomplished artist, chef, jeweler and past gallery owner.

Josiah is also quite smart, like his dad, Joachim Frank, Ph.D. In addition to being an investigator for the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Dr. Frank is also Professor of Biomedical Sciences and Adjunct Professor of Biology at the State University of New York at Albany, Adjunct Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics at Columbia University, Research Professor of Cell Biology at New York State University Medical School, and head of the Laboratory of Computational Biology and Macromolecular Imaging at the Wadsworth Center.

You get the idea. 

Unsurprisingly, Ze has taken a pioneering role in creating content for the web. He's kind of an icon, having been a featured speaker/presenter at numerous industry conferences and private company functions.

In case you've missed him, Ze has one of the most popular Podcasts on the iTunes Music Store: The Show with Ze Frank. In case you don't have iTunes, you can find Ze's Podcast here.

What's wonderful about this web content, in addition to being incredibly entertaining, is that The Show is short (usually 3-5 minutes), there's a new episode every few days, the content is current, you never quite know what to expect next AND it's funded through advertising revenue.

Regardless of whether or not you agree with the point of view of the author, you have to admire his energy, whit and capitalist sensibilities. Here's an artist who has developed content that others are willing to support financially by placing ads, not at the beginning or in the middle (where they would be an interruption), but at the end.

I want to watch them and admire the advertisers who sponsor this content.

Black Friday is, for many, the most anticipated shopping day of the year. Select high profile items such as flat screen televisions, digital camcorders and a smattering of diamond jewelry accessories are ear marked by retailers as 'door busters' -- limited quantities of items with a normally high price point that are drastically reduced to lure consumers into the store at the unheard of hour of 5:00 am. 

While this tactic may work in the short run, it is up to a retailer to define strategies that will continue to draw the spending public to their wares and facilitate brand advocacy.  A key component to success is the ability to integrate a bricks and mortar operation with a easy-to-do online shopping experience.  

As the big day looms near, is it too late for retailers to put some strategies into place that maximize both in-store and online sales and will also pave the way for repeat purchases from consumers that came door-busting so early in the morning?

As the day approaches, countless Martha Stewart wannabes are preparing their Thanksgiving menus. For many, the goal is to not only feed the masses gathered around their dinner tables, but to 'wow' them with their culinary talent and deliver an upmarket epicurean experience. The centerpiece of this annual event is, of course, the turkey.

With the kick off to the holiday season starting with one of the most stressful of gatherings, is it really so bad to do what many, especially Martha may think is, well, unthinkable? That unthinkable idea is...

The pre-cooked mail order turkey.

They arrive looking and smelling exactly the way they are meant to be, but they come at a price. Smithfield Collection is offering a 9-11 pound smoked turkey for $50, plus taxes and a $10 shipping charge. Burger's Smokehouse is $63 for a 12-14 pound, including shipping. and Gourmet Grocery offers a 9-11 pound bird for $49.95, plus $25 for overnight shipping. All of which are 'ready-to-eat'. Then there's the supermarkets, where a frozen turkey is selling for .59/pound... so an 11 pound bird would run $6.49.  

So, who's the real turkey? The genuine chef who slaves away in the kitchen, arising at an unheard of hour to prep and cook a turkey for family members who are only going to fall asleep after dinner? Or, is it the mail order cook who slept in, dreaming not of her guests but instead the mother of all shopping days, Black Friday?