The Less Influential Influential

I found this article from Knowledge@Wharton, the magazine from the UPenn B-school of the same name to be incredibly interesting. The key take away for me was, in short, that it is not the person who says, "Listen to me!" that gets listened to the most but rather the person who is asked, "What do you think?". It makes all the sense in the world but yet it was so eye-opening to see it represented this way.

I'd hypothesize that one of the differences in that the self-reported opinion leaders are more focused on themselves and how others perceive them than the Physician 184 types, who are focused and committed to their vocation, interest, cause or what have you. Maybe they're more interested in accomplishment and advancement related to their passion than self accomplishment and self advancement.

Particularly interesting to me — and I've been thinking about it a lot as it relates to me, my colleagues — is the thought put forth by one of the researcher that contends "...self-reported opinion leaders are less interested in what others are doing...'I know I'm important. I don't need to care about what other people are doing.' "

As stated in the article, "...just because people think they're important doesn't mean it's true." I'll keep my eyes open for the second study to see if it still plays out the way it did in the first one.

Luxury Versus The Empowered Consumer

Here's a link to an article on the Marketing Daily site written by Greg Furman. I posted a response that's shown at the bottom and thought I'd add a little more here. What I alluded to in my comment on the article but I'll say more boldly here is this: most luxury brands just plain don't have a clue.

Why? They look at the world only through a lens of how they perceive themselves; they are the center of the universe. Greg tells us not to worry, that this universe is safe and, at worst, just inconvenienced by the economic turmoil everywhere; if you're a luxury brand, just keep doing what you're doing and the world will come back around.

Some other thoughts:

• If I have a closet full of Armani suits, are they luxuries? Or just my clothes?
• If I spend $2500 a year on new golf clubs because I'm passionate and competitive about the game, is that a luxury or a necessity?
• If I spend a few hundred thousand dollars on a Tesla, a brand that's been around for only a couple of years, how important is heritage?
• By this definition, ''the best that the mind of man can imagine and the most sophisticated hand of the virtuoso craftsman can achieve", is Juicy Couture a luxury brand?

In short, I think luxury brands is a misnomer; what we really have are products and services that people are willing to spend a premium or super-premium price on in order to get some level of satisfaction, gratification, enjoyment or experience from. But that is in the eye of the beholder not the purveyor.

Pork-Barrel Advertising

It looks like a bailout program for Detroit's big three automakers is getting closer to being approved in Washington although it's no done deal yet. And we're all familiar with the many billions of taxpayer dollars that will be doled out to various financial services firms (what it's being spent on I can't tell you).

Not surprisingly, all of this money comes with government involvement in the way these business are actually run. Including, presumably, something of a say — or possibly a big say — in the marketing and marketing budget.

Think about the (potentially) imminent "car czar". According to AdAge, this car czar would control a media budget upwards of $7.3 billion. That's the biggest media budget of any advertiser in the US. Not to mention agency fees associated with all those (unnecessary?) GM, Ford and Chrysler brands (note: not to be insensitive, but you know all of these numbers will be shrinking).

All I can say to this is "Holy shit."

Can you imagine what special circle of hell it would be to have the "car czar", the Senate, Congress and White House as a collective client? Imagine trying to get a creative brief approved. Or getting any actual creative work developed, much less approved. Think about all of the special interest groups that would be lining up to get in on the action: film this on my state road; show my biggest campaign contributors in the ads; hell, put me in the ad...I'm a senator; only use the cars from the plants in my state. It could go on endlessly. It will go on endlessly.

I'm getting ahead of myself, though. Just think about what's going to happen with product development and design. With the approval ratings of our politicians at the lowest levels ever, it's obvious that they're completely out of touch with the general public and don't seem to have any idea what citizens want.

Arrogant, out-of-touch, self-serving people trying to run a business that needs fresh, innovative and compelling thinking.

Wait a minute...that's the way the car companies are today. Maybe I'm over reacting; looks like it might be status quo. Let's all sleep easier.

Poor Jerry Yang

According to pretty much everyone, troubled Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang is leaving troubled Yahoo. Hard to say whether he was a victim of poor timing (trying to do big deals in a deal-averse market), supremely arrogant or a little out of touch with what the rest of the world (read: board) wanted but, whatever the reason, things just weren't working out.

And compounding Mr. Yang's misfortune, his timing for departure was off by some matter of months so that, if there is any justice in the world, he won't receive a Bob Nardelli-esque payout on the way out the door.

Thinking in terms of time and money, it probably would have been a better deal for Yahoo investors had Mr. Yang departed a year or so earlier, received a big payout but left some value in the company in terms some sort of deal with a Google or Microsoft. It might have stung some but at least it would have been a lopsided swap of millions for billions.

Lastly, I have to say that I have only seen Jerry Yang on WSJ's website tonight and in the photo above from Wikipedia. That said, I am a huge fan of the comb-over/comb-back being sported in this photo; I'm putting money on white socks to round out the ensemble.

PS — please don't confuse this Jerry Yang for that Jerry Yang.