Ideas, Leadership, and Vision

Whole Foods is reinventing the grocery store

I think that this is a great story on how a business is trying to reinvent it's self.  I applaud all those at Whole foods for taking the initative to change the way they currently do business and try some thing new.  In USA Today this morning there is a fantastic article on the Whole foods grocery store chain and what they are doing to bring more people into their stores.

In this article they make the point that Americans love to shop and love to eat but see shopping for food as a chore.  To change that up they have created unique experience that sounds just amazing.  They have big plans for this new concept which include opening 50 new stores just like this one in the next 4 years.  I love their ambition, and wish them all the best of luck.  I hope they open one near me.

Super Bowl Ads

Did you watch the big game?  Did you watch all the commercials?  Which commercial did you think was the best?  According to the Fox opinion survey   with over 38,000 votes tallied here is the results of the top 5 commercials.

1.  Fed EX / Kinkos "Top 10"
2.  Anheuser - Busch  "Honoring our troops"
3.  Ameriquest  "Bad Kitty"
4. GoDaddy.com  "Committee Meeting"
5. Careerbuilder.com  "Monkeying Around"

By the way did you know that GoDaddy.com had originally purchased two ads in the game but due to content issues Fox and the NFL decided to pull the ad during the game.  you can read all about it at Bob Parsons blog.   

Skiming the USA Today

This past week I attended a 3 day seminar focused on creativity and brainstorming.  The interesting part of the conference is that while it paid attention to the fact that creativity is important and that brainstorming can produce some fantastic results it was primarily focused on how to facilitate great brainstorming meetings.  More on this subject and my review and recap of the conference later this week.

In the mean time....  When I travel I read the USA Today.  Why?  because the hotels I stay at leave it outside my door.  Here are some of the highlights from last week.

Fairy tale sends readers on a treasure hunt.  Yep, someone has written a book that gives clues for a real life treasure hunt.  The contest is open for anyone to participate (the hunt will officially end on Dec 31st. 2007).  If you are interested in this you should pick up the book A Treasure's Trove.  By the way, what you are trying to find are 12 gold, leaf shaped tokens.  The tokens can be redeemed for $1 million in Jewels.

Sopranos hits the big money.   In case you did not hear the Sopranos (one of my favorite TV shows)  will live on in reruns.  That's right, the Sopranos the HBO mega hit has been purchased by A&E for a record setting $2.5 million an episode (78 episodes all together...  you do the math).  Here is the real interesting part A&E may or may not run the explicit versions of the show as they will have a choice.  It seems that the folks over at HBO had alternative sense produced so that it could be run on non premium channels just in case.  Very smart.

IPOD.  I can not go anywhere with out hearing about ipods and the huge success that they are having.  I know that they are popular and I think that their advertising and marketing is very smart.  Seems as though they have really figured something out. It is a useful device with many applications and they made it very easy to use.  Now the new thing is called Pod casting and if you are interested in that you might want to check out what Todd has got going on this week as he dedicates this week on his blog entirely to podcasting.  Back to the article in the paper, here are some stats that I found to be impressive.  Since 2001 10 million ipods have been purchased.  Of the 10 million, 8.2 million were purchased in 2004.  Itunes which is where you can go to download a song for just 99 cents reports that they are downloading 1.2 million songs per day.  "This past Fall at Duke about 2000 incoming freshman were given ipods.  Dubbed the "ipod first year experience"  the program is meant to make language classes and lecture heavy courses easier by providing students with the handy audio tool."  Very cool.  It is certainly a story we should all continue to track closely.

Need a good idea?

I have people come into my office all day long and say these 4 words.  "I Need An Idea".  It is difficult to always be able to come up with an idea and certainly to come up with it on the spot.  A great way that I have found to help people come up with ideas is to facilitate brainstorming sessions.  This concept works and it works well.   The idea of getting a group of people together (in person or even on line) and posting a question or even better a marketing objective and then jamming on lots of ideas is a great way to come up with many possible solutions.  Where the magic really happens is after the list is completed and you start to narrow it down to the 4 or 5 ideas and concepts that might work.  Once those ideas have been chosen you can dive in and really start to make these concepts come to life.

Starbucks is at it again...

The Marketing people at Starbucks do a fantastic job of keeping their brand alive and relevant.  About a year or so ago they came out with their official guide book on how to order a drink.  This is just a brilliant idea as anyone who has ever been in a Starbucks knows that ordering a drink is an art form.  Their marketing of Music is very smart as well, they have partnered with huge names only then to put out a CD of that artist's favorite songs.  Again, very clever and very smart.  Well they have done it again.  This morning as i was ordering my daily Veti,Soy, no Water, no foam, Extra hot, Chai tea I saw a brochure on the counter that read....  "The Way I See It"  here is the deal Starbucks is now looking for us, the consumer to help them to find a way to  "Bring conversation back to the coffeehouse".

Keeping a brand alive and relevant is no easy task.  Starbucks seems to be figuring out new and creative ways to stay one step ahead.

Product Placement...

I think we are all familiar with the term "product placement".  I do not know where this concept first started but certainly over the past 5 to 10 years product placement has become the big thing in advertising.  Think about it, when you are watching your favorite show and the major character is drinking a COKE that is not by accident, Coke has worked hard and in some cases paid a lot of money to make sure that there can shows up in just the right places.  You see this all the time in the movies, form the sunglasses Tom Cruise is wearing to the Phone that Keanu Reeves uses in the matrix it is all product placement.  Well NBC and VW have struck a big deal   that will incorporate VW products and brand into is films, DVD's, Theme parks and other entertainment properties.  Look for more deals like this to be announced in the months to come.