Sage Thoughts

I feel like the kid who just found out about Santa Claus, or, in keeping with the season, the Easter Bunny. My illusion has just been shattered.

Ozarka® water is not made in Arkansas.

I just assumed it was. But what do I know, I live in Arkansas. Nonetheless, I was just being logical, or intuitive, at least. “OZARKA” sounds like it’s from around here, our “Natural State” of hot springs and rolling hills and trout fishing. And the Ozark Mountains.

Ozarka’s packaging boasts it’s made in Texas. Texas? Texas water? Is that supposed to be good? I grew up in Houston. I think the tap water in Little Rock tastes better. And there’s no such place as Hot Springs National Park, Texas.

Pull back the curtain, Toto. Egad, the Wizard of Ozarka is just one of many brands pumped out by Nestlé Waters North America. Thus we have an Arkansas-sounding label coming from the Texas operations of a North American company based in Switzerland. Yodelayheehoo.

Oh well, it’s just water, the commodity that’s increasingly never common. Last time I checked, a liter of Evian was selling for $1.99 at the local Kroger. A liter of Kroger’s store-brand water was 69 cents. That’s a 188% premium for Evian. Some people take this brand thing way too seriously. And the marketers smile.

See an update on this article here: https://paulsagemarketing.com/2022/12/13/a-post-of-mine-remains-popular-year-after-year/

Trying to get my head around Tide Dry Cleaners

February 11, 2014

Brand Strategy, Sage Thoughts

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It’s as difficult to grasp as seeing Michael Jordan wearing a minor league baseball uniform.

Tide, the iconic Procter & Gamble brand of heavy-duty laundry detergent, is now a dry cleaners.

https://www.tidedrycleaners.com/WebPages/Home.aspx

Their website says, “We’ve been in your home for over 60 years. It’s about time we got our own place. Discover a fresh approach to dry cleaning…We combine GreenEarth® technology with amazing stain removal, color maintenance, and a clean so fresh you can smell it. All to bring your clothes back to life with an experience you’ll love from your very first visit.”

A bold move in brand extension. It will be interesting to see how this goes. Will consumers, awash in a mix of mostly local and regional dry-cleaning brands, move to something so popular yet so foreign? Will Tide lead the pack?

Bottle Shock

January 30, 2014

Brand Strategy, Packaging, Sage Thoughts

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Maybe it was just a bad run of their label-making press. Maybe it’s my inability to discern fifty shades of pink. Maybe I just don’t grasp the concept of subtlety in packaging.

I’m having a hard time reading the label on this bottle of Aquafina Flavor Splash Sparkling Berry Loco Four Berry Blend Flavor, a product of Pepsico under its popular Aquafina bottled water brand.

I like the beverage, but I can’t read the label easily. It doesn’t jump off the shelf at me.

In British slang, the word “bottle” means “courage” or “mettle,” as in “He’s a skilled footballer, but he lacks bottle.” Pepsi had the bottle to design a pink-on-pink bottle, but I don’t think it scored a goal.

No more waiting at the deli counter!

December 11, 2013

Customer Service, Marketing Trends, Sage Thoughts

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IMPORTANT UPDATE – 11 DECEMBER 2018: THE KIOSK HAS BEEN REMOVED! THERE IS NO LONGER THE KIOSK OPTION AND THE CUSTOMER HAS TO WAIT IN LINE AT THE COUNTER! WE HAVE GONE BACKWARD IN TIME!

“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” – Henry David Thoreau

I have spent too much of my life waiting at the Kroger deli counter. A fortnight of quiet desperation and longing for my Private Selection Honey Turkey to be sliced at 1.5 thickness. It has always been a dreaded task, especially during peak shopping hours. A necessary sacrifice of time to get the good stuff. Prepackaged meat never tastes the same.

My wait is over. Kroger’s self-service, touch-screen deli ordering system. Kroger must have taken a took a cue from the queueless – the Fastpass® system that’s made visits to Disney theme parks so much more efficient and enjoyable.

Kroger’s process is very similar to getting a place in line at a Disney World ride. You enter your order in detail, you get a ticket, you come back fifteen minutes later, and wham-bam there it is, sitting in a wicker basket with your number on it. The greatest thing since sliced pastrami.

Kroger has smartly included a cross-selling function. When I ordered turkey, Kroger pitched me some Swiss cheese. I almost took them up on it. Maybe next time. And there will be a next time. This is how I roll now.

On the busy, pre-ice-storm day I was at Kroger, I seemed to be the only one taking advantage of this automated ordering system. Other shoppers stacked themselves two-deep, ignoring the new process and loudly repeating their desires for meat and cheese across the glass case to the deli staff. Good service includes self-service. It takes time for customers to catch on to that.

My order was there on time and Kroger even attached a $1-off coupon. Who said you can’t have “Good, Fast and Cheap” all at the same time? Oh yeah, I did.

Roses get schooled

October 10, 2013

Marketing Trends, Sage Thoughts

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A most ingenious new product. How DID they get those flowers to grow in all those school colors? Even LSU purple and gold. You geaux, FTD.

Yadda Yadda Yadda Served Here

September 24, 2013

Brand Strategy, Sage Thoughts

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Aladdin’s: KABABS, PHILLIES, MEXICAN & MORE

No thanks, Aladdin. I’ll just take the Subway.

Be true to your school. Even if it’s not your school.

August 30, 2013

Brand Strategy, Sage Thoughts

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Today is College Colors Day. http://www.collegecolorsday.com/ It looks like an event cooked up to sell more NCAA-licensed merchandise. An incremental lift in t-shirt sales on this first weekend of college football. Group shots of people wearing the names of their schools in the workplace are scattered across social media. Lots of “my school can beat up your school” Friday chatter.

People like to affiliate, to belong to something, to join a brand. Around the world, we cluster around professional sports teams, especially soccer clubs. Here in America we are blessed with the bigness of collegiate sports AND our pro leagues. And here in Middle America – the towns and states without major league franchises – big college brands fill a void.

Some schools own their territory. Others, not so much. I live in Arkansas. And here in Arkansas, the school that calls itself “Arkansas” is not just the flagship university of our state. It’s our state’s brand. The red Razorback is worn proudly by the masses: people who went to the University of Arkansas, people who went somewhere else, and people who never went to college at all. We have other great schools here in the Natural State: Hendrix College, Arkansas State and Arkansas Tech, to name a few. But nobody sports those schools’ colors unless, at some point, they really went to college there.

Affiliation with a college team is easy. Nobody asks to see your diploma. There’s an old saying in Texas: “Somebody who wears a Texas A&M shirt went to A&M. Somebody who wears a Texas Longhorns shirt went to Walmart.” I said that was an old saying. The recent success of A&M and the phenomenon known as Johnny Football have turned the tables in the Lone Star State. Now being an Aggie is cool, even if you aren’t really an Aggie.

As for me, even though I walk through the valley of cardinal-clad “Hogs” fans, my colors today are purple and gold for LSU, with a touch of red and blue for SMU. Because I actually went to school at those places. Imagine that.

The Pointawfulessness of Stock Photography

August 14, 2013

Brand Strategy, Packaging, Sage Thoughts

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Stock photography in marketing communications: It’s pointless. It’s awful. It’s pointawfuless.

There’s an old saying in advertising agencies and other purveyors of promotion production: “Good. Fast. Cheap. Pick any two.”

Stock photography is cheap and fast. But it’s not always good.

I bought this package of Kroger potato chips because they were half the price of the Lay’s brand. Results: They taste good.

Note how Kroger’s logo sits atop the ho-hum tagline, “From our family to yours.” That’s the connection to the photo of the happy, romping family of four: the family is running joyfully through tall, green grass to get those delicious potato chips at their nearest Kroger store. I can almost see the thin thread connecting brand to imagery to product. Almost.

A bland photo on a package doesn’t add or subtract anything. It’s just there. An excuse to print in four-color process.

You might luck out and find a stock photo that’s exactly what you want. In that case, save the money and go with stock. But remember that same photo might show up in other places. You didn’t take that picture. You don’t own it.

I’ll be looking for the potato-chip family to pop up in a life insurance ad.

Say it ain’t so, Bud!

July 19, 2013

Sage Thoughts

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Earlier this week longtime commissioner of Major League Baseball, 78 year-old Bud Selig, stated, “I’ve never sent an e-mail and I never will.”

What’s the matter, Bud, do you think you’re too old for e-mail? Everybody e-mails. And the Pope tweets.

I guess Bud can do what he wants to do, but as the head of baseball for the past 21 years, Bud Selig IS baseball. And what does this say for the brand of baseball? The old ballgame. The sport without a clock or a tiebreaking system to end an endless game that trickles into the wee hours of a Wednesday morning.

Bud calls the shots, but not by email.

It’s the “and I never will” part of Selig’s statement that bugs me most. It reflects a stubbornness, an unwillingness to ramp on to the freeway of 2013, or 1995, or whenever the rest of us started e-mailing.

We do have Bud Selig to thank for interleague play, a beautiful way to break up the monotony of a 162-game season, and for putting World Series home-field advantage up for grabs in the All-Star Game. Bud, you’re not a complete fuddy-duddy, and if you had an e-mail address I’d write you to tell you so.