Monthly Archives: February 2015

Marketing, Media, Politics, Sports

We’ll Never Hear About Those Balls

Ball Pressure

Hypertense?

January 18, 2015 the Indianapolis Colts had their hats handed to them by the over-ripe New England Patriots. Moments later the incredible tale of the deflated game balls levitated the media for two weeks until the Super Bowl eve.

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“Quickly Roger! The game is afoot!”

By then, suspicions were suspended long enough for the NFL to crown Tom Brady, dispense Rings, get Bill  Belichick a new hoody, rush Roger Goodell back to his limo, hustle Katy Perry and her Sharks back into her bus, pack Lenny Cravitz into his box, and to astutely hire Ted Wells, locker room attorney, to chase down every possible lead to get to the bottom of this horrifyingly regrettable schmozzle, and effectively bring a calm rational end to the controversy that has rocked the very foundations of the NFL.

In other words, kill it.

Mr. Wells however has been diligent, and we have been able to get an inside look at his case book.  Dates are omitted, but you can follow the subject line pretty well:

Iron Ball

Volume X Temperature = Pressure

~ Pigskin or Naugahyde? ….  Steer hide!   Who knew?

~ Cage free steers… more relaxed?

~ Check laces.  Proper bow?

~ Left handed or right handed balls?

 

~ “Let it Go”… Roger singing this…why?

~ Bratwurst steamer in locker room.  Why?

Aaron Rodgers

“I had trouble getting these in so I bled them off a bit…”

~ BP station in Glendale.  Check pumps.

~ Gluten free steers… more relaxed?

~ State Farm “Pump You Up” commercial.  Code?   What’s with Aaron Rodgers?

~ Belichick… Ideal Gas Law??  Physics degree??

~ Mythbusters test lab– put in call 

~ Mental state of footballs?

~ Presidential PAC for Roger.   Too much?

Mythbuster Lab

“Yunno what we need to try next?”

~ Get plane tickets, sunscreen

~ Set up out-of-office voice mail

~ Empty shredder

   The report may come out soon, but it will be as light as the victimized footballs.   The next time we hear about the infamous footballs will be on Cold Case, or on Discovery Channel’s expose on Stonehenge.  Stay tuned!

 

 

 

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direct mail, Marketing

How To Make Your Mail Indispensable

No Dumping

Direct mail: hard to pitch!

One of the key benefits of hard copy mail is it is harder to throw away. Unlike emails.

So with this thought in mind, take a look at how these marketers deliver the message that can’t be ignored.

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Father Flanagan sends 7 cards & envelopes to write and mail.

Father Flanagan’s Boystown is doubling down on their request at our household after they received a modest donation last fall.

This lumpy package delivered 2 notepads, 7 greeting cards, 1 novelty gift bag, and best of all, just like the old Time Life subscription offers, a ball point pen!

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Stickers, note pads & gift bag, maybe a little pretty for some crowds, but still…

Not surprisingly, they are asking a minimum of $20 for a gift, which is pretty much what they got last time.

Wounded Warrior Project is much simpler in their acquisition package, merely asking for a first time gift of $10.

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It is a real stamp, and let’s remind you.. Federal property!

What is nagging in this kit is their gift of one Purple Heart postage stamp.

Paper-clipped to show through the double window, it is impossible to throw away. But could you use it without sending back a donation?

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March of Dimes seems just like that!

The March of Dimes continues its efforts with the symbolic gift of a dime. Pocket the money and start the car? Probably not.

Lastly, and possibly the most insistent in a subtle way is the Catholic Relief Services which have enclosed a quarter-sized brass plated Guardian Angel coin. Unlikely that many will show up in a vending machine any time soon.

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What fates are you tempting by pocketing this coin, gratis?

Generally, the public, and more specifically, the digerati generation snicker at direct mail as a past art.  Something to view under glass.   These marketers can tell you otherwise, and to that end enjoy their day in your mail box.

The driving force in each of these packages is an indispensable gift.   It trades on these principles:

1.   What will you give in return?

2.   You have a branded token to remind you.

Boystown Pen

“Here, use my pen, please!”

3.   You can’t use the gift without breaking a trust.

And for the stingiest curmudgeon, the hardest rogue, the admission: “AAARRRGGHH, I can’t throw the D$$%^^## thing out!

And therein is the value of direct mail.

 

 

 

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Media, Politics, Sports

Complicated Is Right

blue_bloods_cbs_dinner_a_l

Will Estes and Tom Selleck tackle a dilemma.

Our favorite TV police commissioner is Frank Reagan (Tom Selleck, Blue Bloods, CBS) who presents at least one pithy moral judgement at the Reagan family dinner table on Sundays.   Lately, he said: “Doing the right thing may be hard, but it’s not complicated.”

So it probably was hard, and not complicated for NBC to say ‘anchors away’ to Brian Williams, who will go without work or pay for 6 months.

As a loyal fan of the NBC News show, I will miss Mr. Williams, but at the same time, the quick action of his management will save his reputation for another day.   (It begs the question, when he returns in August, will he have a weathered tan, beard and shaggy hair, shod in Birkenstocks?)

This week the American audience had another cold shower when the International Little League stripped the Jackie Robinson West baseball team of their 2014 U.S. Championship title.

The flames haven’t quite burnt out in this issue, as a legal suit is now underway against the League contesting the decision.   But there might be kudos for the individual or group who made the vacating decision.   We’ll wait to see.

In these two instances however, one must respect the gumption of the decision makers, to essentially throw away the enormous investment of public goodwill and the positive momentum directed at both Williams and the Little Leaguers during their respective arcs.

The Jackie Robinson West team, reputedly disadvantaged Chicago south siders, practiced and played their way to the top of the heap, a great story.   Brian Williams, hardly disadvantaged, but still trusted and loved as America’s #1 rated news anchor… could he just be a celebrity entertainer after all?

These are huge disappointments.   But due to some tough decisions, the integrity of the Little League, and of the NBC News can be preserved.   There won’t be any nagging thoughts and “yeah-buts” in the future.

Which raises another troubling question: what about those deflated footballs?

Is it possible that the NFL will escape the painful compression point of making a decision some day?   Does the investigation, effectively in place since January 22, continue long enough that the public loses interest as MLB Spring Training hovers on the horizon?

It must be tough in NFL headquarters, especially when the public saw one of the best games ever, with impossible catches, Tom Brady with his 4th Super Bowl ring, Katy Perry and her sharks, and the incomprehensible Lenny Kravitz dazzling us at half time.

Against that euphoric background, and pumped up with countless $4.5 million ad spots, it will be very, very hard for the NFL to stick a pin in the balloon if the investigation turns up any factual details of malfeasance.

In the mean time, we’ll coast through to the next Super Bowl, but always with a nagging thought, a “yeah-but” on our conscience.

Which brings me back to another observation that Frank Reagan tells his family a week later at the table: “Doing the right thing is easy.   Deciding  what is right is hard.”

 

Just my point of view obviously, but tell me if you have another perspective I didn’t consider.  Thanks for reading!

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Marketing

Mark Twain Would Get It

The mailbox delivered an ominous warning from Sports Illustrated magazine today.

“Please contact us now if you don’t wish to receive the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue.”

Really?

Can there be a current SI subscriber out there with at least one Y chromosome who would prefer to drop that issue?

There must be.  Perhaps Sports Illustrated has had repercussions in the past. So, as empowered subscribers, who wish to avoid fast moving frying pans, icy stares and “Nothing…” responses to the question, “What’s wrong?” we can now dictate our preferences, setting up a no-fly zone for the magazine.

tom sawyer

“If you was to tackle this fence and anything was to happen to it…”

It is good marketing though.   SI has distinguished itself as a graduate cum laude of the Mark Twain school of the negative tease, majoring in the iconic lesson of  Whitewashing 101.  Tom Sawyer dupes his unwitting victim, Ben Rogers, into finishing Aunt Polly’s fence.

As Twain wrote: “Tom had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it—namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.” 

That’s the lesson we all learned back when Mark Twain was still persona grata.

Of course we want our swimsuit issue, because it is February.

Here’s the post graduate thesis on the same technique: “Please Bre’r Fox, you can hang me, burn me, drown me, but don’t throw me into that briar patch!” Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus, also under the same P.C. cloud as Twain, delivers this line for Bre’r Rabbit who plots his escape.

The negative tease lesson has stuck, and now we can see the current rendition, heavy in nuance, pertaining to certain male drug prescriptions.  You can bet this one would have raised Aunt Polly’s eyebrow in the parlors of Hannibal, MO back then:  “Ask your doctor if your heart is healthy enough for sex.”  

Never mind.   As long as the noxious side effects of all those other prescriptions don’t click in, we’ll be fine.

Still, the envelope has been pushed dangerously farther into each corner with this, the ultimate winning teaser, magna cum laude, the mind-addling warning “...for-more-than-four-hours-you-should-seek-medical-assistance“, courtesy of the makers of– you know, the one with the two tubbed bathers watching the sunset on the cliff.

The challenge on Madison Avenue today is to invent the next tease that eclipses any of those above.   It’s not easy.

For instance, the $1,000,000 term life insurance policy tease: “Your beneficiaries better have investment counsellors in place by 3:37 tomorrow afternoon.”

See?  It needs work.

In any event, Sports Illustrated readers are standing guard by their mailboxes around the clock, prepared to intercede in the imminent delivery attempt of the magazine.

It’s a very challenging task.  Risky.  Not done easily, nor successfully by many. Still, thousands will want to try.

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