McDonald’s – A Terrific Promotion

I’ve always thought “free” is a great price for something I’d like to buy…even for things I don’t want or need. “Free” works for so many reasons:

• no financing
• at a minimum, you should get your money’s worth
• no long line ups to make a return
• no justification or rationalization on the purchase

Each morning, McDonald’s restaurants in Canada are handing out free coffee until Sunday (May 3^rd). Here’s exactly what you need to do to qualify:

1. Show up.
2. Get a coffee.

Promotions, to be successful, have to show the target a perceived advantage when considering the reward/risk relationship. If you expect someone to jump through a few hoops to engage in a promotion, the reward must exceed the investment. The McDonald’s promotion is based on the age-old practice of sampling to increase utility. But (and it’s a big BUT) McDonald’s opened up the promotion to everyone and not just people who had a coupon, not just the third caller, and not people who had already bought 5 coffees to get one free.

In the big scheme of things, not having to print coupons probably offsets the product cost. The profit margin on a cup of coffee falls just short of 100% and I’m sure the cost of the cup may be the biggest line item. McDonalds also knows (as do we) that it is entirely likely that the free coffee may also induce sampling of the muffins, the breakfast menu, etc. and the increase in traffic (and the incremental muffin margin) would more than offset the investment in handing out a few million cups of coffee.

When trying to make an impression, it’s also important to exceed expectations: McDonald’s coffee is really good. And if, for whatever reason, you feel a little awkward about not paying…I recommend the apple caramel melt.

Google Maps / Google Earth

I use Google Earth and Google Maps a lot. At first it was a simple novelty to revisit places I’ve seen or find directions to an unfamiliar destination. I snooped around places I haven’t experienced and tried to find friends and family. My use has progressed to the point where I can usually come up with a handful of excuses each day to look at a map or satellite image of a location and I’ve added the mobile application to my Blackberry and I use it like a GPS. So, I’m a bit of a fan but there is function as well as fancy.

Google Earth has various tools that have saved me a terrific amount of time. The water for our home is drawn from a lake and I needed to measure how long the line is…Google Earth. I needed to get an estimate on gravel for our driveway…I measured it with Google Earth. I’ve used Google Maps on my phone to find a golf course, an Indian restaurant, a men’s room, where a movie was playing and a guy who could unlock my still running car. Admittedly, I’ve also wasted a good amount of time on the application. Have you seen the monstrous KFC logo smack dab in the middle of the Mojave Desert? Or the Coke logo made out of Coke bottles? They're certainly not there because the local traffic would gather enough impressions to make it worthwhile; it’s there because Google Maps/Google Earth gathers enough traffic (and viral spread) to justify the expenditure. A timely application for travelers, at the moment, is an active map that lets you see the proliferation of the Swine Flu (found here).

The Kelsey Group suggests mobile ad revenues (driven largely by search) will double next year to more than $300 million and reach more than $3 billion by 2013. The numbers, while impressive, could be unbelievably higher. While 40% of the available cell phones have internet access, only 14% of users actually use the feature. For businesses (national, regional and local), your ad plan has to include search and mobile.

For the consumer, there are some caveats to using your phone for search. You need a data plan that includes the feature so your heart doesn’t stop at month end when you see the bill and secondly, driving while scouring the web on a two inch screen may cause you to use your phone to call your insurance company…and then search for a body shop.

Vanity 2 – Common Sense 0

For most of my life, I wore glasses. They were the thick ones that change the shape of your face when people look at you and were heavy enough to leave dents in your nose. The medical term “myopia” has Greek roots and, loosely translated, means “unable see own face in mirror”.

My first attempt to rid myself of spectacles happened with my first contact lenses. Contacts come with a whole new set of challenges (and pain) but the price of looking good always seems better than the safer path of common sense. I still wonder why you see so many optometrists wearing glasses. If you know someone who wears lenses, just ask them what it’s like to put a torn lens into the eye and then watch as they squint and tear up. Another important lesson learned, to keep my eyes from gumming shut, is to clean the contact lenses more often than I cleaned my hockey equipment.

About five years ago, I decided to fix my problem once and for all. The answer was clear: I needed the safe, simple and proven procedure called Lasik Eye Surgery. After calling several clinics and surveying staff and surgeons with pointed questions like, “So, does it hurt?’ I gathered my research and began eliminating the fluff. The doctor I chose answered that question with, “You understand we’re going to burn your eye with a laser…so…yes, it hurts.” I clearly had my guy and I went through the bizarre experience of voluntarily burning my eyeballs with a light that can also cut metal.

My laser totin’ OD did explain that my eyes, over time, will change and I should expect the onset of far-sightedness. “Hyperopia” it's called and the term has Greek roots (loosely translated, means “unable to read own watch”). Well, I’m there now and the occasion was marked with a cheap pair of reading glasses. Now, I needed to tell you that…because of this.

A recent emarketer.com article detailed a Harris Interactive poll that shows 66% of American internet users feel that the current economic crisis was fuelled, in part, by ad agencies. Huh?

I know some very clever people who work hard in advertising and they craft absolutely stellar campaigns…but I can’t blame any of them for my purchasing things I just don’t need. It’s not an ad agency that convinced me I needed a big screen television and a surround system you can hear from space. I doubt the ad agency will be responsible when I finally break down and buy a ShamWow…or order the OxiClean (if only to make Billy Mays stop yelling at me). And it sure wasn’t the ad agency that convinced me to stop wearing glasses, put fingers in my eyes daily and burn myself with a laser…only to end up buying glasses. A good ad makes a connection with a pre-existing emotion or need and then ties that emotion to an action. I'm the one who has to take the heat for needing to feed my vanity with shiny things.

On a side note, I’m curious to see which ad agency has the foresight to stand up and take credit for the ads that ruined the global economy. I might put something like that at the beginning of a resume.

Badges? We don’t need no stinking badges!

“Badge engineering”…have you heard the term? It’s when a car manufacturer tweaks an existing model and sells it under another line for any number of reasons. The incredible costs associated with research and development, licensing a vehicle for sale by another manufacturer, creating a brand for foreign markets, sharing product to bolster another brand’s line-up…all can figure as reasons for selling the same vehicle under a different moniker.

Lately, GM has come under fire for their use of similar vehicles sold as different products. No doubt you’ve noticed:

• the GMC Sierra resembles the Chevy Silverado
• the Chevy Cobalt and Pontiac G5 look a little like each other
• Chevy Equinox and Pontiac Torrent could be twins

To be fair, GM is not the only parent passing off one kid as another. When Isuzu needed a minivan, they threw a badge on the Honda Odyssey and when Honda needed an SUV, they grabbed the Isuzu Rodeo and called it a Passport. The Dodge Caravan, the Chrysler Town and Country and the Volkswagon Routan are all the same animal. Volkswagon, to be fair, also shares their Sharan with Ford’s Galaxy and, not to be outdone, the Toyota Corolla and Matrix are dead ringers for Chevy’s Prizm and Pontiac’s Vibe, respectively. Look closely and you’ll see Lexus ES and LX have some strong familial resemblance to the Camry and Land Cruiser from Toyota. And you really would have to be related to spot the difference between a couple of Acuras and their Honda cousins.

The practice isn’t new and it has, seemingly, toned down a bit. At one time you could have stood in front of the Opel Kadett (UK), Vauxhall Astra (UK), Chevrolet Kadett (South America), Isuzu Gemini (Japan), Pontiac LeMans (US), Asuna SE (Can), Passport Optima (Can), Daewoo Nexia (Europe), Chevy San Remo (Colombia) and Daewoo Racer (Chile)…and SWEAR you were looking at the same car.

CNN is reporting that GM may throw the Pontiac brand in the same trash bin they tossed Hummer and Saturn. I’m waffling about how broken up a guy should be for not having the Pontiac brand on the road while knowing I can still buy the vehicles. Henry Ford started this free-for-all when he mentioned you could have a Model T in any colour you want…as long as it’s black. Years after Henry, Flip Wilson refined the Ford marketing strategy in a skit about the Good Time Ice Cream Company. Flip was extremely proud of the company’s 27 exotic flavours…but…he only ever had chocolate and vanilla. Maybe there’s an option in here for the car manufacturers? Instead of telling us the vehicles are all different, just make one truck and one car and sell them with a box of interchangeable nameplates. If the badges had Velcro on the back, we could drive a Hyundai one day…an Audi the next…and who wouldn’t want a Ferrari?

“Success”…is Subjective.

I’m watching the “Man Vs. Wild” show on Discovery with Bear Grylls. If you haven’t seen the show, Bear (the host) is usually dropped off in a remote part of the planet like the Arctic, the Sahara, the Amazon Rainforest and, yes, even Canada. To help him survive his wilderness ordeals, he is typically provided a fantastic array of tools like a hat, one sharp stick and a red gummy bear. Today, he’s fighting his way through a Yukon glacier, wandering through an abandoned goldmine and stumbling across a mind-numbingly cold glacial river. At this very moment, he’s noticed the sleeping platform he’s constructed isn’t quite as high as some Grizzly claw marks on a nearby tree. I’m doing everything I can to assist by sitting comfortably in front of the television, tapping away on a notebook and hoping someone grabs me another cup of coffee.

Assuming this guy just didn’t leap into the Canadian Rockies and “wing” it, I did some very sharp investigative research on this “Bear Grylls” (namely I "Googled" him). Here’s the short bio:

• at age 23 he became the youngest Brit to summit Everest
• he has circumnavigated the UK…on a jet ski
• he crossed the North Atlantic in an inflatable
• he has hosted a dinner party…under a hot air balloon at 24,500 feet
• he completed the French Foreign Legion’s gruelling basic training
• he has flown over Everest (29,500 feet) on a paramotor.

The last one is interesting as a paramotor (to my knowledge), needs both atmosphere and oxygen to function…neither of which would be in abundance over Mt. Everest. ALL of these are just dumbfounding knowing that he did them AFTER snapping his back in three places during a stint with the British Special Forces.

The show has become an invaluable resource to guys like me. Should I ever be stranded on my driveway or without quick access to a "Starbucks" , I know I’ll be able to work within my environment, taking full advantage of nature's tools and resources to find my way to the neighbour’s…or build a small fire to signal where help can arrive…with the coffee.

Thumbs Twiddled…Check!

Recently, National Association of Broadcasters President David K. Rehr crafted a letter to Apple COO Timothy Cook asking that future releases of iPods and iPhones be fitted with FM receivers. The NAB points to the almost 10,000 radio stations, a new Motorola phone that will include an FM receiver and the potential of reaching almost 260 million subscribers to the benefit of all.

The timing on this is interesting as radio revenues continue to decline, two full generations do not list radio as a priority in their lives and Blaupunkt and miRoamer have announced plans to release the first WiFi enabled car receiver. For the moment, the new receiver requires a 3G connection and a mobile plan that gives the user an affordable means to access the data. We also know there are several applications being developed that will provide a java enabled phone with access to internet streams. Even as portable mp3 players began to gnaw away at radio does younger audience, broadcasters knew the mobile distribution franchise was, for the most part, intact.

I’ve spent a good chunk of my life in radio and I believe the solution for broadcasters arrives with a little common sense and, likely, a little luck. While difficult to understand why Telcos would be interested in a plan that includes using less air time, it is conceivable that there will be a ceiling on bandwidth and premiums charged against heavier usage, making the pay-to-tune model less desirable than the traditionally free radio offer. Equally, there has to be a concerted effort among broadcasters to get back in the entertainment business and compete for the attention of a listener…and win. Winning will happen when the focus shifts away from reducing the cost of distribution to providing a product relevant and valuable to a group of like-minded individuals. The solution has little to do with making people listen to a specific device; it has everything to do with providing engaging content wherever and whenever the listener wants it. To radio’s advantage, we know exactly where the listeners are…we’ve been watching them move for the last 10 years. They’ve been following the content.