Wise Ideas

Car Talk

I'm driving A BRAND NEW CAR!

Well, at least for three days.  It's a loaner while the increasingly beat-up and dirty family van is in the shop getting its annual maintenance check and its not-so-automatic-anymore sliding passenger door fixed.  I'm pretty sure that after new brake pads, oil clean and change, filter system and engine cleaning jobs and the as-yet unknown tweaks and fixes that are probably "recommended," I'll be at least $2,000 poorer -- but a lot safer.

But it's a lot cheaper than getting a new or used car.

And that's exactly what's putting America's car dealers out of business.  That - and the fact that the auto makers are on their deathbeds. 

America's auto dealers - everyone from giants like Cal Worthington's family of dealership groups to small town small frys like Paradise Motors in Moscow, Idaho - are watching businesses they've operated for decades wither and die.  But it hasn't happened in the blink of an eye....it's been going on for more than a year now, as this NYTimes blog from last November explains. 

As part of its pitch to stave off bankruptcy and get more bailout money, GM is planning to close 2,640 dealerships across the country.  As the Detroit Free Press reports today, by May 11th GM will start notifying dealerships nationwide of their "elimination," with the company expecting "attrition and consolidation to force additional closures."  

And while this is indicative of the over-expansive "eyes bigger than its stomach" approach to car sales that helped land GM in the predicament that it's in --- it also means that's Detroit's economic nightmare will now stretch into pockets of the country that never expected to be impacted by the self-imposed suicide of America's auto industry.  As the Wall Street Journal's John Stoll reports, GM and Chrysler's headaches are being passed down to thousands of already struggling dealers who are left holding the proverbial (air) bag.

Prior to GM's announcement about the massive dealership closures, the National Auto Dealer's Association expected about 900 dealerships to close this year.  And, as you can hear in this enlightening and sometimes depressing discussion on NPR's Talk of the Nation, this will vastly change the landscape not only of the car industry, but of small town America -- where the local car dealer USED to be the guy next door. 

And although you may be rooting for the come-uppance of those high falutin' auto executives -- it's hard not to feel bad for the family you grew up and went to high school with - and who run the local GM dealership - watch the business they've built up over 40 years come crashing down.  

Now the question becomes, as I hang up my cell phone and reel from my $4,000 car repair bill, what happens to all those dealership service centers we take our cars to be fixed.  It's enough to drive you crazy. 

Friday Short Takes

The hot teen trend is spending less at the mall.  The Obama Administration is stepping in to save us from evil credit card companies.  Unemployed high-powered dads are taking over PTAs in suburban New York.  And who among us HASN'T wanted to just kick the kids out of the car and drive off?

These are just some of the stories I got to read all the way through this week, as I spent some quality time in medical waiting offices.    So I thought I'd save you the time, link you to these gems, and provide a bit of pithy commentary because I don't Twitter and they haven't come up with a way to actually show people's thought bubbles, although isn't that basically what Twitter is -- the thought bubbles of the technologically-enabled?.

First - you can take the cash away from the teen, but you still can't take them out of the mall. The NYTimes reports that "spending by teenagers, a closely studied but rarely understood segment of the population, is off by 14 percent." This is having a "profound impact on mall culture," where teens are lining up at once-shunned deep discounters in search of the deal.

The Village Voice found the news heartening, because gay porn retailer - er, I mean Abecrombie & Fitch -  has lost its appeal among teens who no longer think it's cool to pay $30 for a T-shirt.  However, The Voice found fault with the Times' premise that teenagers are no longer brand-driven. "Kids might have less money now because their parents lost a bundle in the market, but they will always spend on trendy shit and never care about anyone but themselves," writes the Voice's Karen Benedikt. 

Second - Washington is finally taking on the credit card industry, which thinks that it's been transparent with consumers about its shady-and-bordering-on-illegal business practices just because it sends out "Changes to Your Credit Agreement" letters on a daily basis, which, if you look really close at the extra fine print, it's just the unabridged text of Moby Dick.

The President met yesterday with executives from major credit card companies to discuss their industry's roll in this recession, and what can be done to keep America from being crushed by its self-made mountain of credit debt.   The words "increased accountability" and "Credit Cardholders' Bill of Rights" were bandied about.  Strangely, no one is proposing the solution provided by a simple pair of scissors.

Third - The Times reported this week on the recent influx of unemployed "Mr. Moms" into the world of the suburban mom, as evidenced by the testosterone increase in the pick-up, drop-off, and check-out lines, and at local PTAs meetings.  “I hope all these good guys who need good jobs find them,” Gina Fidele, a New Jersey PTA president tells The Times.  “But I also hope that maybe this taste of what it’s like to be more involved — not just taking the kids to school, but really helping to organize and direct the policies in the community."  Let's hope they constructively help all these mother-heavy PTA boards find solutions to real world problems....and not take-over for a few months only to be abandoned again when they find new jobs.

And finally - the now famous "Don't Make Me Stop This Car" case, which in some circles is being called the "Monster Mommy" case -- while in others it's the "I Can't Wait To Tell My Own Bickering Kids About This Story Because There's Got To Be A Lesson In There Somewhere" incident

Personally, I hope the Scarsdale lawyer/mom isn't prosecuted for her parenting tactic, which has provided us all food for thought as we swerve through traffic trying to break up the bickerfest in the back.  And while ditching the kids on a street in White Plains may not have been the smartest of moves - at least she had plenty of quiet time in jail overnight to think about it.

It's a hecka way to get away for a much-needed night alone, donchathink?

Have a good weekend.

Doctor's Orders?

You'll pardon me, but I'm going to veer off the marketing/media/advertising trail today because to be honest, I'm a little stunned after a visit to my doctor yesterday.

Everything's fine - which I suppose should actually be the headline. 

But as we were discussing my newly reached milestone (turning 50), the normal, female-related issues that come with age, and the five stress-related pounds I've gained in the past three months --she pinched my newly sprouted love handles and calmly said "you should consider liposuction."

WHOA!  You turn 50, gain a little weight that still puts you in the lower range of BMI for your age, height and weight --- and a primary care physician with YEARS of experience suggests liposuction?  Was she serious?  "I had a little done," she said smiling -- and then moved onto taking my blood pressure.  And that was the end of that.

The liposuction-bomb has had me reeling ever since.

When I got home, I immediately consulted Dr. Google and started my educational process on fat-sucking.  Within a half hour I had learned that there's a new, quicker, less painful and less invasive form of liposuction called SmartLipo or LaserLipo - which also reduces a patient's recovery time.  

I started reading testimonials by doctors and other plastic surgery "experts" on sites I'd never heard of before, like this one on MakeMeHeal.com:  "one of the disadvantages of (traditional liposuction) is its tendency to leave behind unattractive, loose skin. This is where Smartlipo, an innovative laser-assisted device, enters the playing field. It is also one of the reasons it is rapidly becoming the gold standard for the removal of unwanted body fat."

""Smartlipo works well as a standalone body contouring option, but it is also very effective when combined with traditional liposuction, a tummy tuck, or other cosmetic procedures," a Los Angeles plastic surgeon says in this PR release issued by his practice.  

And - if you can stomach it (pardon the pun) - you can read a "review" on RealSelf.com from a San Francisco woman who walks readers through her entire SmartLipo procedure including her recovery:  "I don't have much bruises on front and back, just 2 spots like quarter sizes. and they are mostly gone."  She posts "before and after" pictures to back her claims.

(FYI, since RealSelf is a review site, "76% say Smart Lipo was worth it.  24% say Smart Lipo was not worth it.")

According to this press release from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, over 10.2 million cosmetic surgical and nonsurgical procedures were performed in the United States in 2008. The most popular nonsurgical procedure was (not surprisingly) Botox injections.  But in the surgical category, there was a surprise.  For the first time since the ASAPS began keeping statistics, liposuction slipped to the second most popular cosmetic surgery - behind breast augmentations.

Liposuction has an excellent chance to regain it's Number One ranking however, as word spreads about SmartLipo, which is exactly what my doctor was doing today when she dropped the Lipo-bomb.  Not coincidentally, the offices next to hers are those of some high-end plastic surgeons.

Come to think of it, I guess I'm not as stunned by the suggestion as I thought, because as you can tell, I DID end up talking about marketing and advertising today. 

Halting the Gravy Train

The gravy train may be nearing its final stop for a niche group of opportunistic mommy bloggers.

In what could be a ruling with wide ranging implications in the Internet world, the Federal Trade Commission is considering cracking down on bloggers and chatty people on social media sites like Facebook, who endorse or review products and/or services -- and get something in return from the people who offer those products or services.

"Consumer endorsements and testimonials have always been viewed as extremely effective types of marketing," FTC spokesperson Richard Cleland tells ABCNews.com.  "But the concern is about those instances when 'testimonials' area delivered and it's not made obvious that it's an advertisement for a company."  

As AdAge reports, "This could present a significant issue for marketers, including the likes of Microsoft, Ford and Pepsi, who spend billions on word-of-mouth and social media."

It also presents a significant issue for bloggers who happen to be moms, and who blog about all-things-mom including things moms buy.   Because as we all know, moms read a lot of blogs (85-percent of American moms say they read blogs), and moms are the most powerful consumer group on the planet.  And as The Wall Stree Journal's blog "The Juggle" points out, word-of-mouth is a very powerful tool among the mom community, with 80-percent of moms say they buy products at the recommendation of other moms.

Take for instance the case of "The Eleven," which I wrote about back in November.  "The Eleven were chosen and assembled by Wal-Mart stores, which paid for 11 Mommy bloggers to travel to the store's Bentonville, Arkansas headquarters in order to participate in a "Salon Secret" panel," which turned out to be Pantene hair products.   

And of course, those Mommies then went home and blogged about their adventure and began spreading the good word about Pantene and Wal-Mart to their countless readers - thus creating a viral buzz worth millions to P & G and Wal-Mart.  And although one member of The Eleven, Katja Presnal - who runs the Skimbaco.com online retail site and SkimbacoLifestyle blog - told AdAge at the time that she wasn't paid with money for her positive posts, one can't deny that these particular mommies are benefiting from their blogging - as indicative by the limited of offer of "free P&G sample products" offered on Prenals's blog.

In this new world order where bloggers could be held liable for products reviews, the FTC says a blogger who crosses the line from innocent product mentions to outright endorsements-for-profit could face a cease-and-desist order, or even be forced to reimburse readers who claim to have bought a product under false circumstances.  

Blogs held accountable?!  This will either

A)  result in a sudden rush by advertisers to find mommy bloggers to officially sponsor - and visa versa,

B)  open the food gates to federal regulation of all blogs (watch out all you Politicos!),

C)  force a whole lot of mommy bloggers to send personal checks to all sorts of people they never heard of who claim they were mis-led by a post on the Elmo Color Change Bath Tub Fun Toy, OR

D)  all of the above

Could this be the beginning of ethics in blogging?  Can the Internet, the Wild West of the 21st Century, actually be regulated? 

I'm not studied enough in this issue to venture a guess or an opinion on that.  But what I can tell you....is that Gatorade 12-ounce bottles which come in a handy six-pack, can keep your kids hydrated, healthy and happy all at the same time.

(did you get that - FTC?)

Blame the Messengers

Just when you think Americans had grown media and marketing savvy, this happens.

By this, I mean a new Harris Interactive Poll in which a surprising percentage of consumers blame the media and in particular, the advertising industry, for the recession.  According to the poll, "Two-thirds of Americans (66%) believe advertising agencies have at least some responsibility for the current economic crisis because they caused people to buy things they couldn’t afford.  In fact, one-third (33%) believe they have complete or a great deal of responsibility."  Blame for the economic crisis was also laid at the doorsteps of newspapers and news channels.

The absurdity of this kind of "blame of messenger" reaction is encapsulated in this AdAge article today, which points out that "the findings come despite the obvious irony that advertising and media have been deeply affected by the economy, with massive layoffs at ad agencies and the folding of dozens of newspapers."

The poll must come as particularly disturbing news to the Obama Administration, which has worked hard to put the President "out there" to explain the root causes of the crisis to the public, promote his solutions, and encourage everyone to accept their role in the disaster and make changes in their lives that will help in getting the country back on the right track. 

I guess that despite our growth as a consumer nation, we still haven't matured enough to take responsibility for our own actions.  Just like little kids, it's easier to blame someone else rather than take the rap yourself.

True Moms or Media Moms

Today in New York, NBC Universal is trotting out it's all-star (emphasis on the "star") panel of women for the first time, to help pitch its Oxygen and Bravo cable channels, as well as other NBCU properties, to potential advertisers.

The estrogen-rich panel includes NBC personalities Meredith Vieira of "Today" and CNBC's Maria Bartiromo, as well as marketers like Lisa Caputo, Citigroup's exec VP-global marketing and corporate affairs; and agency executives such as Starcom Entertainment's Laura Carracioli-Davis. As you can read in this AdAge article, NBCU is using its powerful panel to not only show how in-touch they are with "real" women, but also to promote its cross-platform approach to ad sales.

I first mentioned this panel in a post back in January called "Celebrity Women vs Real Moms: Who Do You Believe?"   I reported that the panel, which was created by a woman, "will be offering marketing and general business advice to NBC Universal and its clients on how to reach women."  Coincidentally that same week on AdAge.com, the founders of marketing research agency (and my blog host) MomWise advised that frank, informative and realistic discussions with focus groups and panels of AVERAGE women can help crack the powerful spending power of moms,and reveal "how businesses can tailor their products and marketing campaigns to address this valuable demographic's needs during this hideous recession."

The key words here are "average" and "real," adjectives that don't come to mind when talking about the host of the number one morning show on TV, and the woman known in financial circles as CNBC's "Money Honey."   It's not a stretch to assume these women, who are very talented and good at what they do, have not been losing sleep over paying the mortgage, worrying about how they're going to  take the kids to simultaneous events on opposite sides of town, or declare it "Cereal Night" because they didn't have the supplies, time or energy to get dinner on the table.   

My husband has a name for this kind of celebrity parenting:  "Hide The Nanny."

And Meredith, of all women and mothers, should know better.  Just yesterday, she interviewed the author and creator of True Mom Confessions -- in which real women disclose their deepest thoughts and feelings about the joys and pitfalls of parenting on tape, in a new book and on this website - often anonymously. 

Their revelations veer from sad to hilarious, pathetic to pithy.  And we've all been there.  Meredith's probably even been there  - although she's got a highly lucrative escape valve as well as a highly-paid support system that most of us can only dream of.

I'd venture to even guess that Meredith, who is on this panel at the behest of her bosses, knows that a 48-year old mother of three from Oregon, Minnesota or New Jersey should be the person sitting in her chair in New York today -- giving ad and marketing executives an honest version of "what women really want." 

But that would make too much sense.  It is TV afterall.

Boy Crazy (aka All The Young Dudes....)

Lately it seems that my 11-year old son and I are living on different planets.  Every time I ask him a question, even something as innocuous as "what do you want for breakfast," he goes into uber-defense mode, over-reacts and begins complaining bitterly about my treatment of him.  My reaction is often only a stunned "Whaaaa?  Huh?"  Then, more often than not, arguing occurs.  Ahhhhhh.....good times.

So imagine my interest in this week's front page NYTimes article about "the kid whisperer," a woman by the name of Kelly Pena who was given that nickname by executives at Disney who are paying her to tell them what boys want. 

According to the article, Ms. Pena earns her salary by digging through the drawers and rummaging through the rooms of pre-teen boys - and deciphering what it all means.  She then translates this into some kind of TV-talk that Disney can understand, in order to help them develop programs boys will actually watch.

Among the "psychological nuggets" Pena has provided:  "that boys identify with protagonists who try hard to grow. 'Winning isn’t nearly as important to boys as Hollywood thinks,'" she says.  She obviously hasn't met my son.

Disney says it needs this kind of anthropologic field work in order to crack the notoriously mysterious 6 to 14-year old boy market -- which accounts for $50 billion in spending worldwide according to researchers. And they are working harder to mine these riches because of Disney's new XD cable channel and website, which are competing against Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network for the hearts and minds of all those boy$.

Meantime, instead of using a "kid whisperer," the competition is using a different filter to figure out what boys want.  "We're looking at content through the lens of making it for that 13- or 14-year-old boy who asks, 'What would my older brother be watching?'" Stuart Snyder of Cartoon Network tells USA Today.  Snyder thinks Cartoon Network's take on boy programming is grittier than Disney's.  It's also more....well...cartoon-ier.

However, what the people at all these kid-centric channels are NOT talking about, is how many boys have abandoned their channels altogether....tuning instead to the offerings on Discovery (Deadliest Catch, Survivor Man) and The History Channel, the old-school networks, (American Idol, Two and a Half Men, Survivor, The Amazing Race), and increasingly, YouTube. 

What do boys want?  What does my 11-year old son want?  I don't need a kid whisperer (who incidentally does not even have kids) to tell me.

Because the fact is that even HE doesn't know what he wants.  And if he did, I guarantee he wouldn't be confiding in some strange lady who's rifling through his stuff. 

Twitter Rage

When a pack of angry, Twittering moms was able to get the makers of Motrin to see the error in their advertising ways last fall -- companies should have noted the potential power - both positive and negative - of the new, cool media tool in town.

That's why it's fascinating that Amazon.com, a company whose success is greatly based on the social media trend, is the latest to get burned by a Twitter firestorm.

As The NYTimes reports, "in response to nearly two days of angry online commentary, particularly on Twitter, Amazon.com said on Monday that 'an embarrassing and ham-fisted cataloging error' had caused thousands of books on its site to lose their sales rankings and become harder to find in searches."  The incident involved primarily books with gay or lesbian themes.  Amazon's slow and limited early response over the weekend, blaming "a glitch in our system," fueled the Twitter fire even further, creating cries of discrimination and cover-up.

But the damage was already done.  And the PR, marketing and advertising whizzes, like B.L. Ochman in AdAge, and like the millions in these industries who are always the first on the chopping block when recessions hit, are saying "I told you so."  

Let's back up to last November.

The story of millions of Twittering moms, who were angry about a condescending Motrin ad and were able to annoy Johnson & Johnson with enough "tweets" to convince the company to pull the ad and issue an apology, went virtually unnoticed by the mainstream media, which was rightfully busy at the time with the election of the first African-American President. 

However, the so-called Motrin moms were a huge hit in the blogosphere and among the Twitter crowd itself.  And the incident did NOT escape the attention of the advertising and marketing worlds, which have been debating how to best wrangle the Twitter beast ever since. 

Is a Twitter rage something companies should be worrying about and preparing for?  As one AdAge reader puts it, it's "the social media crowd that keeps crowing about Motrin. Motrin sales weren't hurt. It was a tempest in a teapot in an echo chamber."  As an article (subscription only) in AdAge after the Motrin incident pointed out, the Twitter rage existed only among a small sub-set (moms with Twitter) who were part of yet another small sub-set (moms who blog or who read blogs).  The rest of us, frankly, couldn't give a damn. 

Truth be told, the Amazon Twitter incident is a whole lotta nothing as well, and will blow over quickly with no financial damage done. 

However, Twitterers will be tweeting about it for some time to come.  And that's the point.  The very thing that makes Twitter so successful among its users - it's randomness - is what also makes it so dangerous.  

What might set off the Twitter crowd next is anyone's guess.  There are a lot of people out there with a lot of time on their hands, and as the old saying goes, "idle hands are the devil's playground."  And although companies can't really prepare for a random Twitter attack - they also can't afford to ignore a crowd of thumbs when it strikes.  But in this round-the-clock Internet environment, companies also can't afford to babysit their brands 24/7.  

Unless, of course, they fight fire with fire and "hire" a Twitter team of their own........

Aging Up

Since the last time we "spoke," I've aged up to the feared, dreaded 50.  The good thing is if I should ever lose my mind and miraculously gain some serious "me" time to train and compete in a triathalon, I would be at the bottom of my age group and could probably kick some 54-year old a--. 

The bad thing is.....obvious.

And even though there's a whole magazine devoted to women-of-a-certain-age who are allegedly celebrating their mature lives -- it's not called "Fabulous" or "Wonderful."  It's called More.   More of what?  Wrinkles?  Menopause symptoms?  Fat around the waist?  Mood swings?  Frankly, at this point, I'd be a lot happier with less - not more!

"It's just a number" is what I keep hearing from people who are predominantly under the age of 45 and haven't thought much about the implications of the big Five-0.  "You don't look a day over 40" is the other common reaction.  I never thought I'd ever be 40, much less 50.  

However, according to the hot website RealAge.com (as seen on Oprah, O Magazine, The Today Show, Good Morning America, Good Night Afghanistan and every other media outlet on the planet), I could start "Living Life to the Youngest" by taking a 15-minute questionnaire to find out my "biological" age versus my "calendar" age.

So, I grabbed a box of white cheddar Cheese Nips (no kidding) and proceeded to answer a number of health and lifestyle questions about my diet, my exercise routine, my sitting heart rate, my driving habits, my immediate family's medical history, and what's in my daily vitamin supplements. (lots of calcium it turns out, no folic acid or potassium). 

Voila!  After only some minor lying  - (Did I ever smoke?  I said "no" because there wasn't a box to check which said "only in bars in college during "Happy Hours," which covered opening to closing time) - my Real Age was emailed to me.

Amazingly - I lost 6.2 years during the survey and am really only 43.8 years old! 

And what does RealAge.com get in return for turning my clock back 6.2 years?  It turns out it gets money from big drug companies, which is paying RealAge for access to the 27 million or so people who've taken the RealAge test.  "Pharmaceutical companies pay RealAge to compile test results of RealAge members and send them marketing messages by e-mail," reports The NYTimes.  "The drug companies can even use RealAge answers to find people who show symptoms of a disease — and begin sending them messages about it even before the people have received a diagnosis from their doctors."

This news has consumer advocacy groups like Public Citizen debating the legality of this business model, raised privacy concerns, and created a lot of buzz in the marketing, advertising and Internet  worlds about how to clone the RealAge juggernaut in other niches to actually make money off of websites. 

But one of the most interesting reactions to the RealAge phenomenom comes from a blogger on SeattleSt.com, who rhetorically asks "Who owns RealAge.com?  Hearst Magazines, that's who. They bought the site for $60 to $70 million in 2007. And, yeah, they also own O, the Oprah Magazine." 

And yes - it's the same Hearst Media Corporation which recently gave up on the print edition of the Seattle Post Intelligencer newspaper, and continues to threaten the existence of the SF Chronicle newspaper -- because they allegedly can't find a profitable newspaper/website business model to compete with the Internet? 

Does it really take a 43.8 year old woman to see through Hearst's spin? 

Wisdom must come with age.  Either that, or you just develop some incredibly sensitive BS-radar. 

Ahhhh, Nuts!

What is it with nuts, anyway?

First salmonella-laced peanut products -- now pistachios.  It seems the Food & Drug Administration finally learned a lesson from its deadly peanut mistake, and is warning the public about tainted pistachios from a California plant BEFORE anyone gets sick or dies.

As Newsday reports, "the rarely used tactic - announcing a recall before illnesses strike - was meant to put the U.S. Food and Drug Administration 'ahead of the curve,' said the agency's commissioner for foods, Dr. David Acheson."  Call me naive, but it seems to me that such a "rarely used tactic" which saves lives ought to be standard operating procedure.

However, while announcing a recall before anyone gets sick is pre-emptive and cautious - it will also prove more costly and potentially damaging for clean growers, processors, and other down-the-line businesses, which the LATimes says are "shell-shocked" by the recall, which will "almost certainly be a blow to (California's) $539-million pistachio industry."

But why wait for this pistachio thing to blow up into another peanut, tomato or spinach nightmare?  Reports this morning are that Frito-Lay is recalling its salted pistachios, as is Kraft (Planters brand pistachios as well as some Trail Mixes) and Kroger Markets.  No doubt you can expect that list to grow this week.

But pistachios and peanuts aren't the only nuts impacted.  "Consumers don't have the time to pick apart which nuts or nut products are affected by recalls," says AdAge.  "Most people will eschew the category altogether." 

It seems to be an all-or-none gamble here.  Don't report contamination - people get sick and die.  Report early, and kill an industry for an entire season.  Is there any in between?  

Again, the entire federal process of food inspections, testing and contaminate reporting has been called into question.  And again, the potential solution to these on-going food issues point to wholesale changes within the FDA, or even creation of an agency devoted entirely to keeping our food chain safe.

When might it be safe to go back into the nut aisle?  Unfortunately, that's another important bit of information the FDA doesn't tell people either.