TomBomb.Com

Yahoo Should Join Forces with Google to Defeat Microsoft

My message to Yahoo: Do No Evil Empire.

Okay, maybe it's a Silicon Valley thing, but for all the durm und strang surrounding the Microsoft seizure of Yahoo, has anyone fully thought about the unpleasant implications of a world where MFST rules the Net? For the press, the deal points are all the rage, along with he drama and the desperation (Yang eschews Ballmer for Murdoch?), but the ballyhoo has permitted a false premise to take hold. The rationale for the acquisition is that Microsoft needs Yahoo to protect itself from Google. Hell, after that, who is going to protect us from Microsoft? Fight on little friend, fight on. Maybe Yahoo and Google could Think Different and come up with an alternative scheme to save the world from the jack boots. Stranger things have happened.

Worst Super Bowl Ads Ever Constitute Attention Theft

My attention was stolen on Sunday and I can never get those lost moments back.  And I am riled up. 

Sorry, but that is how I feel about this year's crop of of anemic Super Bowl Ads.  I, like 100 million other people, allowed my attention to what I really cared about --the Game--to be hijacked every few minutes by mostly boring, often amateurish schlock.  After every change of ball possession, every injury, every time out, we viewers were assaulted with a parade of pathetic pitches--including wrap-arounds, embedded graphics and sponsorships.  What made it worse, is that I had high expectations that this annual display of what is supposed to be our best commercial videos would actually be entertaining, and therefore worth my attention.  It was not.  Computer-generated forest animals, talking babies and a sophomoric send-up with Carmen Electra?  That is the best Madison Avenue can do for $3 million a pop? 

As the worst year for overall ad quality in modern memory, this year's Big Game fallout gives us all a chance to reconsider the sanctity of our attention.  After my family, my attention--my capacity to receive new information--is the most precious thing in my busy life.  What advertisers did on Sunday was steal from me--and you.  And, the problem is bigger than the Super Bowl.  Look around.  Every time you are confronted with unwanted ads and misplaced messages, someone is trying to steal your attention for their benefit.  Ask yourself: what's in it for me?  In exchange for 22 minutes of mediocre television programming, we are bombarded with eight minutes of intelligence-draining dreck.  Is that a fair exchange of value for value?  I don't think so.  There has got to be a better way.  Life is too short to live in a fog of cognitive larceny.

It may be time to launch the Attention Rights Movement.

The Starbucks Effect: Don't Let Others Define Your World

You know you've become a cultural phenomenon when they name a sociological effect after you.

In the case of Starbucks, the pioneer in high-end coffee and street corner third places, their pricey espresso concoctions--costing an average of $3 per--gave rise to the so-called "latte effect" of incremental discretionary spending. Do without the $3 a day habit, financial advisors held, and you'd save a bundle over the course of a year. Spawning that sort of pop phenomenon is not what Starbucks had in mind. Letting it cure into folklore was their big mistake.

I am sure there are numerous economic theories governing the utility of a cup of joe. Who is to say that the pure enjoyment or cognitive boost from a hot foamy beverage doesn't yield productivity or other tangible benefits? I don't know. And who is to say that the thousand bucks saved on a year of lattes wouldn't be just as easily squandered on the NASDAQ--in less time than it takes a barrista to throw down a double mocha? What I do know is that Starbucks should have seen the latte effect as a genuine threat and should have done something about the percolating paradigm.

Over time, the message that a stop in Starbucks should be a sometime thing has caught on, putting pressure on the mermaid's ability to grow. Bad news for a for a company opening five new shops a day somewhere in the world.

Today, word dripped out that Starbucks would be experimenting with a $1 cup of brew and perhaps a free refill scheme. I don't think Dunkin' Donuts is wetting themselves with worry, but the move says that Starbucks needs to back track a bit. It is a risky move--price competition is a slippery slope. And, when it's a buck, it's a buck, no matter how elastic the costs become. It will be hard to get the same buzz with a $1.20 cup of Americano in two years. Besides, it is never a good idea to turn your core business into a loss leader. But I digress.

My real issue is not with matters of economics or pop culture, but rather the cautionary tale of letting untoward information live on uncontested on the Internet or anywhere else today. Leave an untruth or unattractive comment--or questionable economic law--go unaddressed for more than three months and it becomes a de facto truth in this day and age.

Remember the old three-second rule--retrieve dropped food from the ground in less than three seconds and it is still cool to eat? Well, we now have a three-month rule. Ignore a piece of FUD on the Internet for more than three months and it will stick forever, maybe even reshape reality. I call that the Starbucks Effect.

Calvin Klein: A Star Brand Self-Destructs

With the release of CKin2u, the Calvin Klein death watch begins.

I took only one semester of astronomy in college.  Unfortunately, its was a second semester course, and I will never forget the wicked winter winds blowing off Boston's Charles River as I stood on a frigid rooftop studying the heavens.  I will also never forget the lessons on how stars die.  From red supergiant, to blue giant, to white dwarf and eventually a spectacular and rapid disintegration.  Dustbunny.com puts it simple enough for kids to understand: "When a star's furnace starts to run out of fuel, the star starts to fall off the main sequence and begins the dying process."

We are now witnessing the very public implosion of what once was a star brand in the fashion and lifestyle universe.  Calvin Klein has run out of fuel, is way off the main sequence, and has begun its death throes. 

CK has been on the fade for a few years now.  The latest attempt at reincarnation involves what is evidently a comprehensive go-to-market strategy aimed at connecting with today's socially-oriented, mobile consumers, a cohort I call the Bubble Generation, a group they refer breathlessly to as "technosexuals."   The quixotic strategy includes a new iteration of the CKOne fragrance, a supergiant hit from a decade ago, renamed CKin2u.  The texting language is meant to be hip (right, maybe in Y2K lol ;-/). 

To make matters worse, they've launched a social community for the brand, called whatareyouin2.com.  I can't speak for the people who join the community, but I know what Calvin Klein has stepped in2: deep space doo doo. 

Forget New Coke, the biggest marketing misstep of our times is the New CK.

Whether due to arrogance or ignorance, the current stewards of the CK brand have shown themselves to be way out of touch with the new consumers.  Their new brand day dawning lacks the essential authenticity and veracity today's young consumers demand from the get go.  And, as I said last week, nobody today wants to smell like BS.  Moreover, a Flash fragged social community with no center of gravity, that knows so little about you it asks what you're into, is anathema.  People join communities (or neighborhoods therein) where they know others are into the same things they are.  Can you imagine the fatigue factor of hanging out in a community that is so lost in space it is asking you for guidance?  I doubt the folks at Hi5 or Twitter or Imeem are losing any sleep--or members--over this. (Although, not sure which is the bigger bonehead contrivance this week, CK's launch of whatareyouin2.com or Cisco's acquisition of Tribe.com, but I digress).

Truth be told, brand managers today need to realize that you can no longer hide behind clever marketing; this is the anti-marketing generation.  BubbleGen consumers are generous of spirit, but quite unforgiving.  They do not suffer gladly fools or phonies.  And, they talk among themselves, decide for themselves what is hip and what is not.  Hard to steamroll this group.  CKin2u may smell as delicious as The Killers sound and it still won't connect with these consumers if they get a whiff of artifice.  And, everything about this product's marketing reeks of me2 pandering.

Message to the suits at CK:  you can borrow the language, you can borrow the symbols--like the iPod-inspired bottle you've ginned up, you can even put bloggers in your ads, but at the end of the day you didn't earn it and your customers know it.  You've lost their trust, probably lost their business, and I predict, you may soon lose the entire franchise. 

I'm Tombomb and I'm from Silicon Valley.

Calvin Klein: Smells Too Much Like Teen Spirit?

First, we get mysterious sewer odors wafting through NYC, now this olfactory challenge emerges: CKin2u. 

The eager folks at the faded brand, Calvin Klein, are hoping to sniff out a new generation of loyalists with a re-introduction of the CKOne perfume that hit it big way back in the 1990s.

From the New York Times:

"Next month, Calvin Klein Inc. and Coty, its fragrance licensee, will introduce a sequel to CK One for a new generation, the so-called millennials, and in doing so, they will attempt to capture lightning in a bottle for a second time. Calvin Klein, now without its namesake designer, hopes to rejuvenate a fragrance embodying the essence of hip 20-somethings — even at the risk that such a notion is as outdated as a Prince song about partying like it’s 1999."

The CK gambit is nothing short of shameless.  The too-cutely-named product (as if texting shorthand makes it hip) will be packaged in a phallic-shaped rocket bottle cast of iPod-like plastic and will be hawked by BubbleGen actor Kevin Zegers (who played the son of a pre-operative transsexual in “Transamerica”) and model, Freja Beha Erichsen.  The company describes the target demo as "physically bold but emotionally guarded."  Use of computers, evidently, makes them thus.

We can poke fun of the late-to-the-party pandering, but the real fatal flaw: lack of authenticity.  No one of this generation wants to smell like BS. 

CKin2u is another sign that brands and retailers are simply bolloxed up when it comes to figuring out the mindset of the Bubble Generation consumer.  Can it be saved?  Maybe.  But the old suits in the stark white offices won't have a clue what to do.  Key is, do they at least know that much.

Message to the Calvin Klein management:  I invite you to come to Silicon Valley and get a primer on the new consumer before you launch a dud.

Baby Boomers Vs. Bubble Generation

	Baby Boomer	BubbleGen
Work	Career	Cause
Politics	Polarized	Matrixed
Belonging	Hierarchies	Networks
Family	Nuclear	Post-nuclear Nodes
Worldview	Nations	Communities
Media	Corporate	Citizen
Culture	Mono	Multi
Environment	Exploitative, Unsustainable	Renewable, Sustainable
Spirituality	Centralized, Dogmatic	Decentralized, Enigmatic

With a tip of the hat to Stowe Boyd for his insights on Edglings versus Centroids.

Grok the Vote: How the Bubble Generation Voted

Looking for meaning in the dramatic results of Tuesday's elections?  At least 10 million young voters (18 to 30-years old) cast ballots in an election that swung control of the House and Senate to the Democrats.  The turnout was the highest in 20 years--up 4 percentage points from the last mid-term elections in 2002.  This from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (Circle).

What works to catalyze the 18-30 voter?  Many of the same things that move them as consumers.  From Circle:

• Personalized and interactive contact counts. The most effective way of getting a new voter is the in-person door knock by a peer; the least effective is an automated phone call. Canvassing costs $11 to $14 per new vote, followed closely by phone banks at $10 to $25 per new vote. Robocalls mobilize so few voters that they cost $275 per new vote. (These costs are figured per vote that would not be cast without the mobilizing effort.)
• The medium is more important than the message. Partisan and nonpartisan, negative and positive messages seem to work about the same. The important factor is the degree to which the contact is personalized.
• Initial mobilization produces repeat voters. If an individual has been motivated to get to the polls once, they are more likely to return. So, getting young people to vote early could be key to raising a new generation of voters.
• Leaving young voters off contact lists is a costly mistake. Some campaigns still bypass young voters, but research shows they respond cost-effectively when contacted.

Bubble Generation Americans born from 1974 to 1994 -- raised on the Internet, shaped by the September 11 attacks, the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina -- will in nine years make up a third of the electorate.

Dedicated to Wayne Sayer, who would have loved it.

On Election Eve, Don't Expect Politics-As-Usual from Bubble Generation

From Nielson/Netratings via Media Post:

Nielsen//NetRatings finds that 36.6 percent of U.S. adults online are Republicans, 30.8 percent are Democrats and 17.3 percent are Independents in a recent release.

Nielsen//NetRatings analyst Ken Cassar, said "The fact that the online population is more heavily composed of Republicans than Democrats is principally a function of the Republican party's higher composition within the overall electorate. This is exacerbated by the fact that online penetration continues to be deeper among affluent households, which have historically skewed Republican."

When respondents were asked about their political leaning:

• 36.1 percent, identified themselves as "Moderate"
• 32.5 percent, identified themselves as "Conservative/Very Conservative"
• 19.8 percent of respondents identified themselves as "Liberal/Very Liberal"

With regard to party allegiance demographics, neither party seemed to favor a particular gender or age group. Among racial groups:

• African Americans skewed Democratic; with a composition index of 231, they were over twice as likely to be Democratic as the average Web user
• Asians were 36 percent more likely than the average Web user to be Democratic
• Hispanics were 28 percent more likely to be Democratic
• White people were slightly more likely to be Republican

YouTube Must Clean Up its Act on Cyberhate

I started this blog in Helsinki and am finishing it in Stockholm. Both of these cities are are at the vanguard of mobile telephony in the world today and a good place to see the latest in communication technology and applications.  I am sure to talk more about that in the days ahead. 

But my mind today is not on these two Nordic capitals, rather it is on another European city, Warsaw, where a recent gathering of human rights experts from around the world met to combat the use of the Internet by hate groups.  The meetings, held in the shadow of Auschwitz, showed just how sophisticated the Neonazi and white supremacists are in using the net to promulgate their ideas and recruit new members.  Their weapon of choice? Video. 

From an International Herald Tribune article:

In Poland, the experts on Internet hate speech viewed a kind of "hate film festival" - slickly produced videos promoting white power and demonizing Jews, blacks, gays and other minorities, all available online. The music videos and film were Hollywood quality. A kid looking at what effectively are recruitment ads to join the intolerance movement would be impressed with the production values.

What's the favorite way for hate groups to distribute their videos online?  YouTube.  While YouTube has been resolute in fighting porn on its site, and claims to prohibit "harassing, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive" content, the truth is the site management has been lax in policing these hate-mongers.  That is unacceptable.  YouTube is a great global service and needs to act as a great global citizen as well.  Knowing the serious approach Google takes to warning viewers of cyberhate, perhaps YouTube will also clean up its act.  Let's hope so.  In the meantime, if you'd like more information about the fight against hate online, or to get involved, click here.

Podcastrated: Why Radio is History

The New York Times is apparently getting hip to the peccadilloes of the Bubble Generation.  In a sure sign they may be reading Tombomb.com, yesterday the Times broke the news that "youngsters aren't listening to the radio as much."  That is, of course, a vast understatement of a huge problem as I have written here before.  The truth is, radio as a medium, is in a coma and barely clinging to life.  For the BubbleGen consumer, commercial radio is just Shuffle mode on somebody else's Playlist. With annoying interruptions to boot. It's boring and it's irritating.  If the whole experience doesn't change, radio will be an anachronism in less than a decade.

According to the Times, citing a report from Edison Media Research, translating an Arbitron study, radio listenership among the 17- to 24-year old demographic has declined 22 percent since 1993.  And the trend line is even uglier.

Commercial radio is just Shuffle mode on somebody else's Playlist. With annoying interruptions to boot.  It's boring and it's irritating.  If the whole experience doesn't change, radio will be an anachronism in less than ten years.

The Times sees two reasons for the drop off in radio popularity:

The first is the intense competition for media audience time that has developed in the last dozen years. In addition to Web surfing, cellphones, video games, movies, television and the chime of instant messages, portable music players and downloadable songs are vying for teenage ears.

But, it would be a serious mistake to assume that the audience is simply distracted.  It is more than that.  Way more.  There is a sweeping cultural change underway.  Technology has changed behavior, changed expectations, and there is no going back. 

Today's connected consumers prefer to make their own musical choices, do not need intermediaries to tell them who's hot, and don't want to be bothered by imposing commercials.

And what are the consequences?  Our young consumers are being weaned off of radio.  The only contact the new connected consumer has with commercial radio is at Grandpa's house. By the time they become the driving force of the economy, radio will be irrelevant to them.   

Can anything be done to save radio?

I like Tom Webster's take on it:

My dream radio for the terrestrial radio industry would let me have access to streams from Pandora or Live365, and also go out and get podcasts I am interested in. But it would only let me listen to those things--not interact with them. Instead, the really cool "tell-a-friend" and "post to my blog" and "thumbs up/thumbs down" buttons would only work with HD broadcasts--allowing instant feedback to the station and instant sharing. That would be addictive. That would be cool. That would be the future radio worth buying.

When commercial radio becomes humbled, when it transforms itself into a two-way experience, driven by the consumers, easy to share with others, and committed to listening more than pontificating, it has a chance to awake from its vegetative state and earn a new lease on life.