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some things just ain't right!

7/3/2019

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PictureImage © by Brian E. Faulkner
There’s a storm of change in the air these days – nothing new there. But sometimes too much change can be … too much.  Consider Ford’s decision last year to all but get out of the sedan business in favor of selling more SUVs and pickups, except for Mustang and a “crossover” version of the Focus. Of course, you can’t compare loss of Taurus and Fusion to anything truly world shattering, such as the Red Sox losing the playoffs, but for a guy who cut at least some of his teeth on Ford cars, the news is disconcerting. Chevy fans also can start working up a tear or two, because the venerable Impala is on the way out, as well.
 
So why all the angst over a business decision?
 
Because for those of us who came of age in the post-war American car culture, Ford and Chevrolet were the brands we obsessed about most. They were the big sales guns and most families’ bread and butter choices. You could buy one with an AM radio or no radio at all, two doors or four, V-8 or six, standard shift or automatic, power steering and brakes, a heater and most assuredly whitewall tires (blackwalls were boring and for cheapskates). That’s about it. Sure, some folks purchased Plymouths and Dodges, my dad for one, but they were perennial also-rans despite Chrysler Corporation’s successful Forward Look designs launched in 1955 and brought into full flight beginning in '57.
 
My teenage bud I were smitten with cars – we liked them all, including the odd-looking Henry J driven by a neighbor who was pretty odd looking himself.  There were Pontiacs and Buicks, DeSotos and Chryslers, Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs -- Packards and Studebakers, too, for a while.  But it was Fords that grabbed most of our attention, especially the white and pink ’55 Fairlane Crown Victoria owned by my friend’s older brother, the car with a distinctive chromed arch across the roof that was supposed to emulate the look of a fancy horse-drawn carriage.

“I can understand why a '55 pink and white Crown Vic would smite you,” my car nut friend Ron agreed recently as we swapped stories one morning during a diner-style two-eggs-over-easy breakfast at a local eatery. “It was so cool and oozed the glitz and promise of the 1950's – and by the way,” he proclaimed with the authority of a man who was there when the classic car thing began, “the darker pink was called Tropical Rose, the light pink, Coral Mist.” You gotta understand that we didn’t know Coral Mist from Lustful Red at fourteen and fifteen. We just wanted to drive THAT CAR and plotted to make it happen (vs. only sitting in the thing and listening to Chuck Berry on the radio, which best I recall would play without need of the keys).

After a while, we noticed that my bud’s brother took a nap most afternoons. But not before exhausting himself singing arias along with the hi-fi in his bedroom (another object of our envy) while the two of us snickered about his taste in music and waited on the screened porch for the guy to aria himself to sleep. Ten minutes after “all quiet” we had filched the keys and opened the doors to our dreams.

Not being complete and total dummies, we pushed the car back ‘til it stood in front of the house next door, where we could crank it up somewhat out of earshot.  However, a problem soon arose that would short-sheet our dream: the Crown Vic was equipped with a stick shift, the operation of which quickly became the object of much heated hilarity as we stalled and cursed and lurched our way right back where we’d started from, abandoned our quest, returned the keys to their hiding place and retreated to the porch to discuss the finer points of clutch technique and come up with excuses in case older brother had awakened and found us out (he hadn’t, and he didn’t).

Predictably, my first car was a ’55 Ford.  It was a seven-year-old Country Squire that had “wood” on the side.  It set me back $300 and was an essential tool for a delivery job I’d taken between college and the Army. To this day I can’t see a ’55 and not think of the old Squire and how my buddy and I spent time scheming up another shot at driving that pink and white tease of a car up and down the street.  As it was, we only got that one chance (he was pilot during our 40-foot run while I kibitzed from the passenger seat). And though I still prefer Fords over Chevrolets from that era, the truth is that more Chevys were sold in the mid to late ‘50s than Fords, including the stylish second-generation Bel Airs. 

PictureImage © by Brian E. Faulkner
These days, the Ford-Chevy sales battle largely seems limited to lavishly equipped pickup trucks that can run higher than five figures. My long-time mechanic recently purchased a bright orange Chevrolet crew cab. He couldn’t imagine buying an F-O-R-D, which he claims stands for Fix Or Repair Daily. Of course, there are plenty of Ford fans who’d sooner walk barefoot on a hot gravel road than hitch a ride in somebody’s Silverado when their 30-year-old F-150 blows a head gasket ten miles from town.
 
After all, some things just ain’t right!

Whatever brand you choose – or not, it will remain virtually impossible to dislodge either from the hearts of true believers. As sure as the sun keeps rising over Detroit, spirited Ford vs. Chevy discussions will continue unabated during neighborhood car meets and slow days at the auto repair shop (as long as there’s still gas to run ‘em). But not many minds will be changed, at least if the old guy from New Jersey I heard about a while back is any example.  He was culling his collection and had six cars up for sale, all Fords. “If you have a Chevy,” he told people who wanted to come by for a look, “You don’t come in my driveway, you park out on the road.”
 
I like that guy. 

Takeaway:  Create a product for true believers and you'll never lack for sales.

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Preston Tucker And The Future.

1/29/2019

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During a neighborhood walk with friends several mornings ago, we got talking about Preston Tucker and his innovative automobile from the late 1940s. Thirty years ago, I had written a client speech on the subject, so went searching through basement files (the old paper kind) ‘til I found it. The subject seemed just as fresh today as it did back then.   

It was just after World War II when Preston Tucker, a former policeman, car salesman and engineer/tinkerer, grabbed the future by its collar and shook it. New cars hadn’t been produced since 1942, and the fresh-from-Detroit 1946 models were warmed-over prewar designs. Tucker, however, imagined something radically different, an innovative design that would turn heads and help build the fortune that had always seemed to elude him.  His vision of tomorrow’s automobile took shape in the barn back of his house in Michigan, which housed the Ypsilanti Machine & Tool Company where Tucker had designed (but never could bring to market) an armored car,  an innovative tank turret and a fighter plane.

He called his prototype the Tucker Torpedo for its daring new shape. It was a revolutionary car. A safe car. A fast car.  A fuel-efficient car.  A car that could stop on a dime.  A car that knocked your eyes out.  

The production model Tucker 48 was incredible, although toned down a bit from the prototype. Even so, nobody had ever seen (or imagined) anything this car shaped like the future. It was built low to the ground and featured a windshield wide as a picture window that was designed to pop out in a crash, saving the driver and passenger from popping it out with their heads. It had a third headlight in the center, which pivoted for a better view of the road as the car turned. The 6-cylinder engine, adapted from a helicopter engine, was in the back. It was fuel-injected and there was a double transaxle to drive the rear wheels. The Tucker 48 wasn't clunky looking like most other post-war cars. And wasn't slow, either; it could go 120 mph and had handling and endurance to match. A prototype Tucker ran around a test track for 24 hours and got 25 miles per gallon. When the car was rolled over at 90 mph during a test track run, the driver walked away from the wreck unscathed, and the car was driven away after one tire change. The windshield popped out, just as planned.

People loved the audacious Tucker Torpedo and wanted to buy them (priced at $2,000, when the average new car cost around $1,200). Crowds surrounded the car everywhere Tucker went. Over time, he raised enough money to put together the people and facility to manufacture and market the car, and although his future seemed assured, the Tucker was a failure. Preston Tucker's dream to produce the finest automobile ever made never got to spread its wings, partly because of his own business and financial limitations but also because of crushing political pressure said to have been engineered by the Big Three American auto manufacturers, who perceived the Torpedo as immediate threat to their future. Only fifty-one Tuckers were ever produced.

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The "competition” may have helped assure a lack of his cars in our future, but Preston Tucker had something to say about that future. It was a sharp warning for America.

“If big business closes the door to the little guy with new ideas,” he said (quoted in a 1988 film about his life and dream), “we might just as well let the Japanese and the Germans walk in here and tell us what to do. We’re going to wake up one morning and find ourselves at the bottom of the heap instead of being king of the hill. We’ll end up preferring things from outside the country to things that Americans build right here. There will probably come a day when we’ll be buying our cars and radios and appliances from our former enemies.” 

People laughed at Preston Tucker’s predictions. They had no concept of a time when American-made automobiles, radios and televisions would nearly be overrun by well-designed, well-made products from Japan and Germany. All they could think about was now. The war was over and heretofore scarce consumer goods had begun reappearing on American shelves. There was a huge demand for new cars as a promising future reached toward the second half of the century. With the demise of Tucker Motor Company, American automakers knew exactly what their near future could have looked like had Tucker’s “car of tomorrow today” succeeded. 

There’s a scene in the film where Tucker is in the barn trying to convince his small development team that there was just about enough steel in a tank turret prototype they had laying around from which to build an automobile prototype.

“Can anybody look me in the eye and say we can’t do it?” Tucker challenged.

The prototype did get built, despite Detroit's scheming, and so did fifty more Tuckers. Forty-seven are said to survive today, at least one of which sold not long ago for close to $3-million. The company didn’t make it, however, and the reasons for that remain controversial, but the car was ahead of its time before it left the sketchpad. The mere reason that Preston Tucker tried and almost succeeded gives us reason alone to admire this man who looked fifty years into the future and got to work making things happen.

Takeaway:  If you believe your product has enduring marketable value, do everything you can to tell the world about it in a way that it takes hold in your prospects' minds -- and doesn't let go until they become your customers.

 
Note: This reflection on Preston Tucker and the Tucker Torpedo was adapted from a 1989 client business presentation about Future Perfect Thinking.    © 2019 by Brian E. Faulkner

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Steinways For Peace.

11/8/2016

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Pictureimage © by Brian E. Faulkner
There is uncertainty afoot in the land. Confusion reigns: political confusion, economic confusion and often just plain life confusion. It was in light of all this certain uncertainty that I found myself musing about a most intriguing bit of information that crossed my desk recently: that of all the people who buy Steinway & Sons pianos, something like 25% of them are physicians.
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Consider two possibilities that may draw so many doctors to the piano in general and to Steinway in particular. ​​First, physicians tend to be achievers, and achievers take on multiple challenges, even as children. So you can imagine more future doctors taking piano lessons than the rest of us and achieving a respectable level of competence, showing early on the perseverance it takes to make it through eight or ten years of medical training.

Pictureimage @ by Brian E. Faulkner
And second, physicians tend to be extraordinarily busy people entwined with the needs of their patients, research, teaching, etc.  And since they are not made of stone, it isn’t always easy for them to let go of their day’s work.  Clearly, some docs relax on the drive home, cocooned within their luxury automobile, while others wind down with a cocktail before dinner - or even a soothing cup of chamomile tea. But a surprising percentage of physicians turn to the piano for relaxation. Just placing their hands on the keys can have a cathartic effect.  And then the music takes them away.

What is there about a piano … especially a Steinway … that can move someone so profoundly? 

For the most part, it has to do with the touch and tone crafted into each instrument. A Steinway simply gives back more, reaches out and connects at a deeper level (people say) than other pianos that cost as much or more. Which makes what a doctor may experience while playing his Steinway at home not much different than what Lang Lang or Martha Argerich may experience onstage.  A concert performer’s experience occurs at a more rarified level, to be sure, but may be no less heartfelt. 

“It’s immersive -- and such good therapy,” one Steinway-playing physician told me.  

Where does this highly personal resonance between player and piano come from?

There are, of course, many design and manufacturing variables to consider in the creation of a Steinway.  But what it comes down to most is … wood … the care with which each piece is selected and the way in which all 12-thousand or so endlessly fussed over parts connect with one another and then speak to the player with a single voice.  The most shaded nuance, the most passionate fortissimo is given birth in a touch of the key and strike of the hammer, then is amplified in the piano’s soundboard heart and shaped by the massive maple rim that helps enrich every note.   

But it is here we must stop and return to the world and its worries.  For it is in that context that a Steinway rewards most eloquently, whether doctor, lawyer, corporate chief -- or even a blog writer.  It’s a great escape for busy minds and weary bodies … and so peaceful.

​Expensive?  Yes.  But for those who can afford it, worth every dime.

​As that same physician says, “It's such good therapy.”
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TakeAway:  If your brand touches the heart and improves people's lives, there always will be demand for your product.

© 2016 by Brian E. Faulkner.  All rights reserved.

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Dumb Phone VindicAtion.

2/22/2016

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Picture- image © 2016 by Brian E. Faulkner -
Tags: refuseniks, Joe Hollier, Light Phone, iPhone, flip phone, dumb phone, Republican presidential candidates, typewriter

Live long enough, I have discovered, and you will be up-to-date from time to time.  Even if you own (and use) an older-style cell phone, a flip phone – what’s disparagingly referred to these days as a “dumb” phone.

That’s me.   My phone may be stupid as a stopped clock, but now I’m finding that it’s as up-to-date as the day after tomorrow, thanks to revitalized dumb phone demand confirmed in no less august a publication than the Financial Times, whose stories are always … interesting.

Seems that one enterprising fellow has created a business out of meeting the needs of two kinds of folks: smart phone “refuseniks” like me plus people who have dived headlong into the ever-deeper, ever-connected digital pool and come up gasping for breath.  Yes, Joe Hollier’s new company, called Light Phone, offers an alternative product, a new dumb phone that you don’t have to dig out of your junk drawer.  His credit-card-sized device is as simple as a stump: no email, no online data connections, no beeping and blathering every time something “important” diverts your attention from something that’s really important, like getting work done, spending time with your family or watching the Republican presidential candidates destroy each other (and perhaps their party) in the latest debate.

As I have reported earlier in this blog, my kids have wished an iPhone on me for a long time.  And, so far at least, I have resisted their well-meaning imploring – all except my son, of course, who finagled an old flip phone from his mother when she finally got an iPhone to go with her iPad and her laptop.  But then again, my son and his family don’t even have cable TV.  Yikes!

The Financial Times article about Joe Hollier’s new dumb phone, which he cleverly positions as Your Phone Away From Phone,  provided some revealing information about a market that I knew in my stubborn old bones was lurking somewhere out there beneath the dash and flash of the latest, gotta-have-it-now-or-else-I’ll-die smart phones.

* 44-million basic phones were sold in 2015 (about 2% of the global market), probably to people like me or to users where high speed connections aren’t available.

* Nokia sells a dumb phone with a standby battery life of 38 days!

My dad resisted getting a cell phone ‘til the day he died.  When he needed to talk to one of us, he just reached for the old-style corded phone beside his "ejecto"-chair and hit speed dial.    I’m a lot like him, I realize more and more, so maybe my obstinate refusal to join the iPhone world (or its competitive equivalent) is no more than confirmation that this apple is falling a lot closer to the tree than I’ve dared consider.  

Wait!  I think I hear my dumb phone squalling (or whatever that whiny noise is that it makes). 
Gotta go! 
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TakeAway:  There may be a viable market for technology left in the dust of the latest and greatest.  What about the typewriter?  The kind you don't need to plug in, of course.

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It Used To Be Easy!

10/23/2015

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Remember when all you had to do is make one call to Ma Bell to get your phone and its installation underway?  In short order, a guy (almost invariably a guy) showed up at your house and hooked up the phone to a jack he installed on the wall.  Then plugged in the phone he'd brought with him. It’s still that way, in part -- that is, if you have a simple residential setup and don’t expect too much.

But if you have a small business, it’s an entirely different proposition these days, especially if you’re blissfully unaware of the changes time has wrought in the phone business – even when it comes to the phone that sits on your desk, stays put and doesn’t fit in your pocket or purse, take pictures, track your whereabouts or have that super-smart (but clearly very tiny) young woman inside the thing answer most any question you care to come up with.  

The changes began in the early ‘80s, when the government broke ginormous AT&T Corporation into an array of regional Baby Bells.  That led to more competition – especially as the underpinnings of the communications business became so utterly transformed by digital technology over the next 20-plus years, vastly enlarging the competitive playing field and enabling an infinite variety of whiz-bang phone features.
    
Recently, I had the opportunity to help start a retail store (one reason why the frequency of my blog posts has decreased so much in the last few months).  We began with four blank walls and a carpeted floor, did some minor construction work, applied some paint and started inquiring about a phone system, which seemed relatively straightforward on the surface. But it turned out more like comparing apples and kumquats; they both grow on trees but there the similarity ends.

First up was Time Warner Cable, not one of my favorites.  However, the lady who represented them on the phone was delightful and well acquainted with her system’s many features.  She also was eager and efficient about giving me a quote, which I thought included the phones.  We also conversed with Vonage, who clearly did include the phones. The competitors' prices were similar, as were many operational features, which lulled me into thinking that they were more alike than not.  So we decided to go with TWC, arranged for installation and went about tackling other tasks.

It wasn’t long before the TWC tech showed up and hid himself away in our utility closet for a while, busily making sense of the jumble of wires and connectors the previous tenants had left behind.  When he was ready to go, he told me what our phone numbers were and how to access the Wi-Fi, after which he packed up his tools and got ready to hit the door.

“Where are the phones?” I asked in complete and total ignorance. 

“We don’t provide the phones.”

“What?!”

“We just connect the phone lines up to your system here.”

“WHAT?!”

“You’ve got to buy the phones from somebody else.”

He might well have told me that I had to materialize the phones out of thin air.

“And what about the wall jacks?” I asked, not really wanting to hear the answer.

“You’ll have to call in an electrician to do that,” he said, climbing into his truck and heading off to lunch.  “Good luck!”

So we called in an electrician, who did a masterful job pulling bright blue wires from the utility closet through the walls to the two desks that were supposed to have phones on them. Then he, too, headed off into the lovely autumn weather, leaving the ends of the blue wires sticking out of the wall at both spots, with a small pile of wallboard dust on our just-cleaned carpet as if to prove that he’d been there and done something.

I never did get to talk to that guy, but I’m sure had I inquired about where the wall jacks were, he would have informed me in the matter-of-fact way that tech people sometimes talk to non-tech people that “We don’t do wall jacks.  You’ll have to call somebody else.”
I should have known.  So then I got busy Googling up an IT person who might consider installing two wall jacks in a tiny retail store.  And actually found one, who proved both helpful and instructive; he even straightened out some stuff in the utility closet that he declared hadn’t been done quite right by TWC.

Kazaam!  We were almost in business.

So I called the helpful TWC sales person with the pleasing manner and asked her how I’d missed that they didn’t supply the phones.

“Oh, a lot of people ask that,” she said. “You can get phones at the Big Box store if you like. We only provide the phone lines and the phone system – not the phone itself.”

That’s when it hit me that the features TWC sold as part of their “Business Class Phone” reside in their software, not in the instrument that sits on your desk.  I almost felt shamed to have missed that bit of information, but then again, isn’t it logical to assume that if your product is called Business Class Phone that you’d actually be INCLUDING one as part of the deal?
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Apparently not.  You’re actually buying Business Class Software!  And I did, indeed, head across the street to Office Depot and buy a phone, which works just like TWC advertised.

Then I got thinking what would have transpired had the nice TWC sales lady communicated all that stuff up front? Would that have been a competitive advantage for her company? Would my experience have borne out the Marketable Truth© of their tagline (Enjoy Better)? Probably not – and to give Vonage credit (The Business of Better), they did tell me in advance that they didn’t provide the phone lines, only the phones themselves (plus their version of feature-laden software).

Of course, none of this confusion should rest on my broad shoulders, right?  Believe that and I’ve got a copier story to tell you, too … maybe next time!

Marketable Truth © by Brian E. Faulkner         Content © by Brian E. Faulkner

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How Trump and Apple ARE a Lot Like selling CARS.

9/12/2015

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Two of the biggest deals occupying the media of late are Donald Trump and Apple Computers.  Neither the 9/11 observances nor the Pope’s upcoming New York visit (not to mention start of the new Fantasy Football season) could match the fervor with which reporters awaited pronouncements from these two cultural phenomena.

The revolutionary new product star hoped for from the Cupertino crowd didn’t show up, although evolution of the iPhone continues unabated; a stronger case, better camera, new touch feature and Rose Gold color captured a moment’s attention each. The windowpane-sized iPad Pro was announced, along with “The Pencil”.  And there was a hint of disruption to come with Apple TV.  Thousands of devotees watched the product reveals unfold online and speculated about what Tim Cook and his subordinates had to say anew while watching Apple stock prices bounce up and down on their computer screens.

Viewers also anticipated something fresh and raw this week from The Donald -- and he failed to disappoint, although there wasn’t much substance in his pronouncements, just the usual mix of shocking lines about the continuing stupidity of the current bunch in D.C. or Carly Fiorina’s face. That Trump has tapped into an angry underground river of frustration about the country’s social, political and geo-political direction cannot be denied.  The question, however, is now that he’s got everybody’s attention what is he going to do with it beyond entertain us with more indignant blathering? – other than help the media make more money (as CNN staff complains about how much Donald appears on their channel, and Huff Post now has a whole section devoted to nothing but Trump).
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Trump and Apple hawking their respective wonderfulness reminds me of selling cars.  Years ago, when I was but a pup, one of the biggest deals around was each autumn's announcement of the following year’s new models.  Folks looked forward to getting a peek at the latest designs, such as Chrysler’s Forward Look. And automakers worked hard to give people the new styles they expected, especially in the decades immediately following World War II (during which automobile manufacturing had been suspended in favor of producing war materiel).  

These days, most new car announcements produce all the excitement of a morning yawn, unless you’re a true aficionado, and I for one think we’ve lost a little something, because that wedge of the American can-do spirit represented by our automobile industry back then has all but vanished.

I have neither the expertise nor prescience to suggest what Apple may come up with next – if anything.  But I do hope they have at least one more out-of-the-park home run in them, an innovative new product that we can anticipate with the kind of excitement that used to surround the announcement of next year’s cars.

As for The Donald, who tends to speak loudly and carry a big geo-political stick, and who changes his mind all too often about whatever's in his gun sights, including the phalanx of progressive social concerns that so concerns a wide swath of Americans, I’d like to think that he’ll eventually bow or flame out of the presidential race.  In an odd way, the election process may have been refreshed for his having passed through it, like the sun after a violent rainstorm.

Content © 2015 by Brian E. Faulkner.  All rights reserved. 



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Communicating Powerful Product Benefits.

9/2/2015

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Picture- Images © 2015 by Brian E. Faulkner -
I was brought up short in the supermarket the other day by a bag of pretzels, which is not typically on my radar.  Last time I had a pretzel probably was some time in 1978.

But this bag of pretzels intrigued.  Yes, it had snappy packaging, done up in colors to attract the eye.   What was more intriguing, however – and more important in convincing me to stop for a closer look, was the product’s prominent positioning. 

The first word that caught my eye was “UNIQUE” – equal in weight to the product’s name: Splits.  A banner at the top of the bag proclaimed “The Original Split-Open Pretzel.” 

Since I’d never heard of a split-open pretzel and had no idea whether being split-open was a marketable pretzel attribute, I read on.  Further down the package, three prominent arrows pointed to a big pretzel, along with a few short lines of text for each benefit:

Bubbles: Bursting with Tantalizing Flavor.
Deep Grooves: Packing a Serious Pretzel Crunch
Beneath The Surface: Hollow Pockets Create a Crisply, Flavorful Bite.
It’s abundantly clear from their key message that Unique Splits Pretzel Bakery of Reading, PA has decided that slightly bulging surfaces, grooves and tiny pockets of air buried in their pretzel would make them more crunchy and appealing.   True or not, they got my attention!  And the taste test later at home convinced me that they had a good pretzel, although the added value of the benefits they cited were lost on me, although I’m ready to admit that a pretzel aficionado may have picked up on them immediately.

The benefits don’t stop there.  The Splits package also proclaims that their product has more flavor, fewer ingredients (no sugars, malts, preservatives, colors, trans fats) … and smarter baking.

“The Spannuth Family started baking hard and soft pretzels back in the late 1800s,”according to their Web site and a blurb on the back of the package.  “The demand for our hard pretzels increased rapidly because of our ‘Unique’ baking process” that allowed the raw pretzel to “burst open,” creating bubbles and crevices that are “crispy, yet crunchy, and filled with flavor.”  Which is why they started calling them “Splits”. 

Splits come in multitudinous varieties, too: multi-grain, extra dark, unsalted, chocolate covered (yum!) and my future favorite, Bacon Cheddar Flavor Shocked “Shells” (they’re hollow, which makes them more like a potato chip than a pretzel).

If the pretzel itself isn’t the non plus ultra of pretzels (at least for me), the company’s positioning and benefits presentation -- their product story -- is close to perfect and certainly approach “UNIQUE”.  

TakeAway:  Don’t be hesitant about stepping forward with your product benefits – especially if they clearly set your offering apart from competitors. 

Content © 2015 by Brian E. Faulkner   

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Lose The Battle, Win The War.

8/17/2015

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Picture- Damaged Millionth Corvette, National Corvette Museum -
Bad News.  It knocks on all our doors eventually -- the kind that arrives unexpectedly, like a sunny day thunderclap.  Perhaps a fast moving tornado rips without warning through your neighborhood, leaving incomprehensible destruction behind.  Or a fire destroys your house.

For the staff, members and fans of the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, Kentucky, bad news came during the early morning hours of February 12, 2014 when a sinkhole opened up under its Skydome display area.  Security camera footage shows something like a million dollars worth of prized Corvettes tumbling thirty feet into a 40 x 60-foot chasm where they were crushed by tons of dirt, rocks, concrete and other Corvettes.  Fortunately, three were not damaged beyond repair.  Five of the iconic sports cars, however, were crushed nearly flat and can’t be fixed.  Eighteen months later, the hole has been filled in, and the museum awaits restoration of the final damaged Corvette.

The fascinating twist in all of this is that museum attendance has increased significantly since those dark days two winters ago as Corvette aficionados in far greater numbers stop by to see the hole and inspect the damaged cars on display.  The sinkhole has been filled in and the floor repaired.  And the museum staff, who work among seemingly endless displays created around the Corvette theme, remain optimistic that publicity generated by the event will keep fans coming.

“People just really enjoy hearing the story and like seeing the damage,” spokesperson Katie Frassinelli said, in a story reported by Associated Press.  “I guess it’s the rubberneck effect.”

We all get that.  It borders on shocking to see violent damage inflicted on a Corvette or some other finely crafted machine that’s been whacked or crushed or flooded – like the rows of new Volkswagens destroyed in last week’s Tianjin, China explosion and fire. 

But what I don’t get is how little story about the sinkhole event there is on the Corvette Museum’s Web site, which, given all the notoriety and increased attendance, should be featured more prominently – or at least be directly accessible from the site’s landing page.  I had to hunt and hunt and hunt before I found mention of the sinkhole ‘Vettes and even sat patiently through a breathlessly paced video that I thought might contain footage of the cars tumbling toward their fate – or the sinkhole’s after effects; it did not. 

To their credit, the museum has embraced what at first must have seemed like a nightmare and has turned it into a plus.  They just need to let the world know about it more effectively – front and center.  They need more story, because as no less a personage than The Donald has said,

“Sometimes by losing a battle you find a new way to win the war.”

TakeAway:  Shine up that bad apple and put it to work for your business.

Content © by Brian Faulkner

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GooGLE Divides to Conquer.

8/13/2015

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The news that Google was creating a new entity to contain itself plus the company’s more speculative ventures came as welcome news to the investment community today -- and to armchair business strategists, as well.   Google will become a subsidiary of Alphabet (www.abc.xyz), which also will hold (and develop) a portfolio of products aimed squarely at the future. 
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As the illustration shows, Google's vision allows it to continue marketing and growing its search business, YouTube, Google AdSense and other endeavors while Alphabet concentrates on creating leading edge opportunities, thus giving the company a mix of separately managed business units in different stages of development.  It's all very much in keeping with what Peter Drucker declared some time ago:  

                “Business has only two functions: marketing and innovation.”

Google’s move is not surprising given a 30-something friend’s recent hiring by Google after an exhaustive assessment process to determine whether he’d be a good cultural fit.   Apparently he is, because three weeks into the new job he’s off and running, although I don’t know exactly what he’s doing.  It wouldn’t surprise me to discover that he’s working on some high-potential Alphabet project given his unusual mix of talents and experience: a coder who can discern and dissect client problems with an eye toward solving them in a practical, profitable way.  He's also a talented graphic artist and has a mind that allows him to imagine products into being and help make them successful. 

I am reminded, in thinking about Google’s fascinating strategic move, of a quote by Bob Waterman in the landmark 1980s book In Search of Excellence -- something like “The best businesses are always in the process of becoming something new.”  I may not be remembering the quote precisely, but you get the idea.   It’s a perfect description of what Google is up to.

“As Sergey (Brin) and I wrote in the original founders letter 11 years ago,” says Google co-founder Larry Page in his introduction to Alphabet’s new Web site, ‘Google is not a conventional company’ …  we did a lot of things that seemed crazy at the time.  Many of those crazy things now have over a billion users, like Google Maps, YouTube, Chrome, and Android.  And we haven’t stopped there. We are still trying to do things other people think are crazy but we are super excited about … (because) in the technology industry, where revolutionary ideas drive the next big growth areas, you need to be a bit uncomfortable to stay relevant ..."

Of course, the wags on Twitter are all about making fun of the novel company name, such as calling the new campus “Alphabet City”.  Or check out this would-be headline: “Google restructures under ‘Alphabet.’ - Corp headquarters to move to Sesame Street.  Bert & Ernie to be co-COOs.”

Yuk it up all you want.  To my way of thinking, Google has scored big with its new structure, and at the end of market trading today, investors appear to have agreed -- on an otherwise down day for stocks.  With the Dow having fallen more than 200 points on China’s currency revaluation, GOOG was up, somewhere north of 4%. 

Somebody in Mountain View must have been reading Drucker.

TakeAway:  Build on your present successes while investing in imaginative new opportunities that your future customers don’t even know they need yet.

Content © by Brian E. Faulkner

sources:  http://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/10/google-announces-plans-for-new-operating-structure.htmlhttp://www.cnbc.com/2015/08/11/why-investors-like-googles-alphabet-news-analyst.html



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Car Insurance Seen in a Whole New LIght.

7/27/2015

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For some time now, I've been aware of -- and impressed by -- Liberty Mutual's Whole New Light TV campaign.  Every time I see one of their spots, which feature everyday folks musing by a shoreline with the Statue of Liberty in the background, I pay attention. The ads work because of their simplicity, because of  story, because of the “real” talent they’ve chosen and because each spot presents a common insurance frustration that viewers can identify with immediately:

“You’re driving along, having a perfectly nice day, when out of nowhere a pickup truck slams into your brand new car.  One second it wasn’t there, and the next second – BOOM! – you had your first accident.  Now you have to make your first claim.  So you talk to your insurance company, and – BOOM! – you’re blindsided for a second time: They won’t give you enough money to replace your brand new car. 


        (pregnant pause)

Don’t those people know you’re already shaken up?”

I love the reference to “those people”.  We all know who they are.

The story goes on:  Liberty Mutual not only replaces the new car but also includes the value of depreciation.  Another spot in the series offers to replace a policyholder’s older car with one a whole model year newer. 

“You should feel good about your choice of insurance,” Liberty Mutual’s Web site informs us.  “That’s why our new campaign aims to shine a light on this otherwise confusing category.”

Amen to that! Insurance, whether auto, health, homeowner or life, all too often seems like a costly crap shoot, despite the assuring words used to sell us our policies.  So it’s refreshing to see a straight-talking sales pitch based on credible slice-of-life situations – without yammering on so much about price (the up to $423 you can save to switch is slipped in toward the end of the spot -- frosting on the cake compared to the main benefit). 

If I hadn’t experienced such consistently good customer service from my State Farm agent over the years, which is a personal rather than corporate competitive appeal, I’d be tempted to give Liberty Mutual a shot at my business because of their common sense advertising – but would be less likely to change companies for a 15% price difference, even if offered up by a cute green gecko. 

Pure and simple, Liberty Mutual has done a superb job of communicating their competitive advantage.  Their tagline is so strong that price may not even matter: car insurance seen in a whole new light. 

TakeAway:  Create an authentic and credible competitive advantage.  Then, present it in terms that people can rally around; they will be more likely to want to buy your product or service.

Content © by Brian E. Faulkner



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    sample blog:

    This is a sample blog  for writer Brian E. Faulkner.  It presents stories about brands that do (or don't) communicate competitive advantage effectively. Stories have been gleaned from the business press, personal experience and occasional interviews. New articles are added from time to time, and every so often there will be a post of general interest -- about things like success, passion, social trends, etc. 

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    Brian Faulkner is a writer and strategic communication consultant who helps business clients explain their competitive advantage in compelling and enduring ways.
     
    He also is a five-time Emmy award winning Public Television writer & narrator for a highly-rated and well-loved magazine series.

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