Category Archives: marketing and promotion

the new china syndrome

Last week’s news about yet another defective Chinese export — this time, automobile tires sold by New Jersey importer Foreign Tire Sales — begins to point to a potentially serious trouble spot for the powersports market.

The tires in question suffer from tread separation as a result of a glue strip left out in the manufacturing process. The product joins a list of recent stories that include poison toothpaste and toy train sets, adulterated seafood and deadly pet food.

What’s this got to do with powersports? Several years ago, in a very limited product category, one distributor went to it’s Chinese vendor for a wide tire tranny extension. Cost effective: sure. At least partly because the critical heat treat portion of the process was left out, resulting in a very expensive stripping of the splines from the main shaft after about 50 feet on the highway.

It’s safe to say this aftermarket industry would be on life support without the economic advantage provided by Chinese manufacturing. It’s also self-evident that the continuing pr disasters of Chinese exports as a whole could very easily taint the powersports product segment.

Obviously, what’s needed here is a quick application of Good Housekeeping’s Seal of Approval. It may not be out of the question for our industry to perform a sourcing check to assure consumers our products are safe — ahead of the curve.

ad spending up, traditional channels suffer

According to last week’s AdAge.com report on the Top 100 Advertiser’s annual ad spending outlays, budgeting in the measured (print, broadcast) categories continued to shrink. Overall spending was up a modest 3.1% to a record $104.8 billion, but the growth areas continue to be in non-measured digital and internet alternatives. In what AdAge authors called a troubling sign, traditional media grew only 0.6%.

Parsing the planet’s number one advertiser’s allocations, Proctor and Gamble’s spending (estimated at $4.9 billion in 2006) was up 15% in non-measured media versus 3.9% in traditional channels, adding even more legitimacy to a mixed media advertising and promotion strategy.

Given Detroit’s significant problems, no surprise learning that automotive spending was down. In the powersports community, consumer print continues to be the media of choice even though a lack of audited titles means results are difficult to quantify. Adding to the confusion is the virtual explosion of new titles with no track records to support their claimed audiences.

Conclusion? Coming up with a comprehensive media plan that actually hits the existing market and targets emerging ones becomes more and more problematic. Better sharpen up that spreadsheet.

i vanna that phona

In case you’ve been on the dark side of the moon the past six months, today’s launch day for Apple’s much touted iPhone.

The past week has been a barrage of news about the device. Network television, major print, every periodical from fashion to child rearing to brides to construction has run multiple pieces on the fashionably bundled technology from Cupertino.

Which is the point I want to make. The iPhone rollout is officially the most highly touted new product intro ever. Ever. And while Apple’s thought to have budgeted $100 million on the campaign, the unpaid media effort is many multiples of that number.

In the world of public relations, this is a certifiable coup. Looking for case studies on best practices? Look no further.

uncharted territory – ebay a target?

Yesterday’s reversal by a 5-4 Supreme Court majority of 1911’s Sherman antitrust prohibition of retail price maintainence agreements, in which the manufacturer can set and enforce the price at retail, causes my brow to wrinkle trying to anticipate how this sea change will affect the aftermarket industry.

Off the top, I don’t agree. The Bush administration, arguing in support of the appeal brought by a designer of leather products against a Dallas reseller of fashion items, cited some economists opinions that price fixing can promote competition.
Continue reading →

mickey d on the move

Monday night’s network broadcast news included a feature on McDonald’s move to recruit in the know moms in two capacities: food tasters to the realm, and evangelistas to the masses. Two separate strategies, one common goal. And it seems as though it might just work, as the noose continues to tighten around Wendy’s continuing struggles.

Tuesday morning, my daily AdAge inbox brief ran the same news. Coincidence? So what do moms and burgers have to do with powersports?
Continue reading →

creativity counts – woo-hoo!

Just ask Starch Reports, the respected measurement arm of GfK Custom Research responsible for tracking and measuring ad effectiveness. In a nutshell:

No surprise that powersports (consumer/enthusiast) media tends to fall in the high involvement category of readership. But just because readers are engaged with the magazine doesn’t mean advertisers can count on Pavlovian ad responses.
Continue reading →

sema – the ultimate aftermarket show

SEMA - the ultimate aftermarket show

I’ve just posted my web account of what it’s like to be a freshly minted initiate to the SEMA aftermarket trade event. Words aren’t enough. Neither are pix – this show dwarfs anything I’d previously attended.

I’ve been asked a few times about what SEMA (and Globalshop, PRI, etc.) have to do with our powersports industry. My answer is – everything.

Continue reading →

“we don’t sell tic-tacs…

Thank You For Smoking

…we sell cigarettes. And they’re cool, and they’re available, and they’re addictive. The job is almost done for us.” BR, the head of the Academy of Tobacco Studies, goes to work on his media star, Nick Naylor, in this sharp, sassy sendup of pr flacks in 2006’s “Thank You for Smoking”.

Funny, clever, and dead-on accurate in it’s portrayal of anything for a buck, er, mortgage, this film, along with it’s bookend from 1993, “Barbarians at the Gate”, skewers Big Tobacco in a fast-paced mockumentary that introduces viewers to the MOD Squad: tobacco, alchohol and firearms, aka the Merchants of Death.

It’s all good, especially when you can be entertained and educated at the same time. Highly recommended for any company that finds itself – or wants to be – in front of the camera to make their case. This is how it’s done.