Nice updated video on the state of the internet, by Jesse Thomas. Is there any doubt that the Internet sits at the foundation of culture, globally?
Not long from now, we'll be looking at this video and think how quaint it is. It would be as interesting as a video on the "state of electricity" or "state of telephony*." Yeah, we get it. It's important. Everyone uses it, and a lot of amazing things happen because of it.
Really incredible graphic published by National Geographic comparing the cost of health care, life expectancy and number of visits to the doctor, by country. Notably missing: Germany and the BRIC countries.
In Vancouver, The Bay (HBC) has laid the blueprint
for future retail installations at the Olympics and other events, as it smashes
revenue records for Olympic merchandise.
For the
first few days of the games, lines began at 5:30am for 9am openings,
simply for the right to purchase licensed merchandise. With
word on the street proclaiming minimum 2-hour waits, The Bay
began opening its doors 24 hours, yet maintained a continual lineup
outside. See the exclusive photos below.
While much of the credit goes to the 3.4 million pairs of $10 red Olympic mittens (including 300 of which were given away on Oprah), credit should also be given to the overall merchandising strategy at the Bay's store in the heart of downtown Vancouver. It should be noted that the adult-sized version of the red mittens sold out of the downtown store during the first days of the games, and yet the lineups persisted--so the mittens aren't the only driving force.
The Bay's secret sauce?
It aggregated rights as an official licensee for Vancouver 2010 games PLUS the official/exclusive outfitter for Team Canada. First, HBC is a Vancouver 2010 clothing licensee, and made most or all of its own licensed goods exclusive--including the red mittens. This created an air of exclusivity around all of its Van2010 merchandise, even as much of it is available elsewhere. The Bay coupled those rights with those of the host country's team, making it a store that could not be ignored. For example, a shopper might find Vancouver 2010 gear as an acceptable substitute for Team Canada gear or vice versa. But with exclusivity--real or perceived--on both sides of the coin, the Bay became a worthy destination unto itself.
It cordoned off about half of the 1st floor of its store, creating a separate entrance for the "Olympic Superstore", but left the inside barriers low. This true store-within-a store ensured that the Olympic merchandise area felt contained and special--you could not enter the Superstore from inside the main part of The Bay. The Superstore was also open later, signifying a separation between itself and the rest of store. The inside barriers could have been made higher, but that would have been a mistake--the low barriers allowed Olympic buyers to see other merchandise in the store, and allowed regular patrons to see, and desire access to the Olympic goods.
It worked with other major Olympic sponsors to enhance the retail experience. Within the confines of the Olympic Superstore, the Bay invited fellow Olympic sponsors including Panasonic, Swatch, Coke, and Visa to participate. Panasonic and Swatch both had stores-within-a-store-within-a-store, which added to the atmosphere, even if they did not appear particularly successful on a relative basis. Coke created its own play area and mini eatery. Visa signage was everywhere--and of course, it was the only card payment accepted.
It had great merchandise design for Team Canada. Team Canada gear sports the word "Canada" in a distinctive font that was decidedly different than other Canada gear of old. Instead of taking the heritage route (think "Roots"), the Bay went modern--an undoubtedly difficult decision for a company which was quite literally one of the reasons Canada came into being. The distinctive Canada logo helped separate this gear from Canadian gear of Olympics passed, giving consumers more reason to enter the store. It also helped that the 2010 merchandise and mascots were well designed.
It allowed a line to form. It is not that crowded inside the superstore, which does allow people to browse more freely and pay more quickly, but it also helps to artificially inflate the line outside. This only added to the perceived exclusivity of the store, and most certainly increased revenue per sale--you need to buy what you (might) want now, because you're not going to line up again. Compare this to other nearby retailers: the Bay did not have an exclusive to sell licensed toys or souvenirs, but while London Drugs slashed prices on all licensed Olympic souvenirs by 50%--only 6 days into the games--the Bay was just getting ramped up. The Bay had 2,3, and 4 hour lineups, with customers buying up exactly the same Mascot plushes/keychains/pins/magnets/wallets/slippers/playing cards/water bottles that they could get literally 2 blocks away, with zero lineup and at half the price.
Some photos of the Olympic Superstore:
Coke Happiness Cafe (within the Olympic Superstore)
Panasonic Store (within a store within a store)
Swatch Store (within a store within a store)
Visa Branding throughout the Superstore, particularly and spectacularly at checkout. Coupled with extensive Visa advertising during telecasts, this actually made the store feel more Olympic and more exclusive.
Line up to get in (~10 days into the games) is up to 4 hours at mid-day, spanning multiple city blocks. Lines are many times longer than Best Buy on Black Friday or Future Shop on Boxing day--and in this case, everything was being sold at full retail price!
Originally opened with extended hours, but later opened 24/7 to meet demand
Red Mittens were plentiful, if you had child-sized hands
Official Team Russia (and some Sochi) gear and Polo Ralph Lauren Team USA gear were both available, but outside of the Olympic Superstore. They were merchandised in such a way to be like store window displays for people who were already inside the superstore
With Toyota getting so much bad press, I thought it would be an appropriate time to analyze its cleverly-phrased claim:
"80% of all Toyotas sold in the last 20 years are still on the road today."
If we read this closely, the claim isn't that 80% of all Toyotas sold in 1989 are still on the road today. Rather, it's that 80% of all Toyotas sold between 1989-2009 are still on the road.
Except for the last two years, Toyota has been steadily growing; they simply sold fewer cars in 1990 than they did in 2009. And since newer cars are undoubtedly more likely to be on the road (ok, there's some doubt), the claim sounds better than the reality.
The genius of the spin is in how it is combined with the creative above. Toyota implies that there's an 80% chance that the car could be handed down to the child in about 20 years' time, when really the chances are going to be significantly lower. I've included some data and a hypothetical situation below.
* Some of this data has been difficult to source; for these estimated years, I just assumed linear annual growth between two known numbers.
I don't have access to the figures that Toyota/R.L. Polk uses, but in a purely hypothetical situation:
if 95% of 2004-2009 Toyotas are still on the road
and 90% of 1999-2003 Toyotas are still on the road
then only 45% of 1990-1998 Toyotas would still be on the road.
To put it in another way, in a completely different hypothetical scenario, Toyota's claim could theoretically still hold true, even if 100% of the Toyotas sold between 1990-1995 were in the scrap heap.
Bizarre GEICO billboard with very loose content ties to the normally ad-free show, TrueBlood. The URL truebloodvampireinsurance.com redirects to TrueBlood and not to GEICO, which probably means this is funded mostly (or completely) by HBO.
If the point is to make it seem like vampires are among us, I wonder if HBO wouldn't do better by promoting vampire speed dating. After all, they might even get a few bites...errr I mean a few takers.
Apparently, for the last year or so, CVS has been renaming its PharmaCare specialty stores as CarePlus CVS/Pharmacy. This door in Hell's Kitchen in NYC is an upscale boutique-style pharmacy, with a holistic-medicine feel. Obviously, it caters to a different segment than the regular CVS/Pharmacy but essentially keeps the same name. Seems like it could be confusing to me... as it seems it once was to CVS management.
Apparently, the name of both the back end and the retail portion of the specialty pharmacy division at CVS has gone through a lot of changes, including the removal of the "CVS" moniker as seen in this 2004 press release:
PharmaCare announced today that the
name of CVS ProCare, its specialty pharmacy division, has changed to PharmaCare
Specialty Pharmacy. The name change will reduce market confusion and convey the
synergies that exist between offering pharmacy benefit management services along
with specialty pharmacy services.
I guess the 2004 move didn't really reduce market confusion in the way they would have liked...
JetBlue is offering an all-you-can-fly promotion: 30 days of unlimited flying (Sept 8 to Oct 8) for $600, with last seat availability and a 3-day reservation window. Could have been even more interesting if bundled with MLB as a baseball road trip.
For the financial voyeur in you: several months of Bernie Madoff's Platinum Business Card statements are available for viewing, covering the costs of several family members, among others. Among the charges: $26 for a subscription to Consumer reports. After all, you wouldn't want to buy a product that, uh, how can I put this elegantly.. um, doesn't deliver as promised.
New commercial for Kaspersky antivirus software features Jackie Chan on a segway. Pretty horrible creative, but I bet it is effective in Asia, (provided hackers haven't already cracked the registration codes for this piece of security software).
