Accenture Dumps Tiger: Branding by the Numbers

Management consultancies like Accenture are paid to be decisive and ruthless, basing their decisions on data and acting without equivocation.

It is interesting to note that Accenture stood by Tiger Woods during the moral outrage portion of his adultery scandal, but as soon as he announced an indefinite absence from the the PGA tour, Accenture cut him loose. The firm’s official comment circumspectly states that Woods is “no longer the best representative” for its brand.

My hunch is that it’s not the vagaries of public opinion polls and Tiger’s personal brand image at issue, but rather the documented impact of Tiger’s absence from the PGA tour on TV audiences and corporate hospitality at PGA events. Woods likely would have been able to weather the awkward silence and careful distancing by his sponsors with his lucrative endorsements intact as long as he kept winning and kept pulling in viewers and A-List hospitality tent visitors. But  in announcing his self-imposed exile from the tour and public life, he sealed his own fate.

In the boys club of corporate America, sexual infidelity can be a “there but for the grace of God go I”  moment of forbearance, but in sports marketing, no one likes a quitter.

Divorce Becomes Her: Jenny Sanford for….

Today Jenny Sanford filed for divorce.

When the news broke about her husband South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford’s extramarital affair, his dissembling and hypocrisy did not strike me as odd. He was actually playing out the standard script in these cases for bible-thumping Republicans (Act 1: Denial & Incredulity, Act 2: Righteous Outrage/Blame the Liberal Media, Act 3: Steely Resolve to Seek Vindication and Act 4: Unconvincingly Humble Admission). In this case it was Jenny Sanford’s Faithful-Wife-Mother-Wall-Street-Wiz-Political-Kingmaker-Philanthropist-Super-Glamorous-First-Lady-Turned-Christian-Martyr statement at the time that really caught my attention.

“I would like to start by saying I love my husband and I believe I have put forth every effort possible to be the best wife I can be during our almost twenty years of marriage. As well, for the last fifteen years my husband has been fully engaged in public service to the citizens and taxpayers of this state and I have faithfully supported him in those efforts to the best of my ability. I have been and remain proud of his accomplishments and his service to this state.

“I personally believe that the greatest legacy I will leave behind in this world is not the job I held on Wall Street, or the campaigns I managed for Mark, or the work I have done as First Lady or even the philanthropic activities in which I have been routinely engaged. Instead, the greatest legacy I will leave in this world is the character of the children I, or we, leave behind. It is for that reason that I deeply regret the recent actions of my husband Mark, and their potential damage to our children.”

For the first two paragraphs it reads like a resume cover letter with a clear subtextual message: I gave up my own career and used my own considerable talents and money to make this a**hole into what he is today, and this is what I get in return? “God and children” is usually the money note in these tragic arias of Republican marital betrayal, but the word children doesn’t even appear until 156 words, but then not again until the second to last paragraph. God is featured in the big finish.

Well, good luck to you Jenny. Given the religious right’s love of salacious scandal redeemed through family values rhetoric, you might end up back in the governor’s mansion — this time in the title role — soon enough.

A Closer Look at the Dell Twitter Meme

It seems that every time Dell has a run of bad news  — falling profits while the rest of the industry rebounds, dropping to #3 in global market share — they trot out their social media trophies. And the social media fanbois dutifully ooh and ahh and breathlessly retweet the glad tidings every time as a win-win for Dell and social commerce.

The latest news is that Dell has hit $6.5 million in revenue attributable to @DellOutlet on Twitter. If Dell were primarily a computer discounter/liquidator, this would be a clear indicator of success and momentum, but their bread and butter is selling pristine new systems online and through retailers — and they have the overhead to prove it.

So while it makes a great social media story, is their current Twitter model really a home run for Dell?

• Cannibalism – Dell Outlet sells returned and refurbished items, which likely eats into new system sales.
• Margin erosion – Add in the costs of refurbishing, repackaging, etc. and already slim PC margins get even thinner.
• Channel conflict – How well are online affiliates taking all this fabulous disintermediation news.
• Freezing demand for new systems – Why buy the latest and greatest right away when you can wait a little longer for either 1) the price to drop on Dell.com or 2) the returns to start showing up at the Dell Outlet.
• Pulling focus from Dell.com - When the choice is between the labrynthine click path and full prices of the online mother ship and simple, streamlined bargain hunting through the Twitter-Dell Outlet nexus, which experience will customers gravitate toward?

Whether it was lazy parrot reporting or Twitter worship, usually skeptical outlets have been transmitting the Dell Twitter meme as a validation of both Dell’s marketing strategy and Twitter’s commercial potential. A post yesterday on BloggingStocks lays out some of these dots, but doesn’t connect them nor draw obvious conclusions from it’s own argument:

“So, is this a good example of a company using a social media presence to sell bargain product? You bet it is. By its own account, Dell has doubled its sales related to using Twitter in the last six months and, amazingly, Brazil has contributed more than three-quarters of a million dollars to that figure. So, not only is Twitter working well in the U.S. for Dell, but it’s been great for them globally, too.”

Again, Dell’s business model is not predicated on selling factory seconds, but what happens if that becomes what customers want most from Dell? Could social media success be undermining profitability? Even Dell.com?. Further, is it really a great idea to aggressively market Twitter’s fast lane to the Dell discount mall in new and emerging markets when the flagship online operation and offline retail profile aren’t well-established there?

Perhaps the most naive coverage on this topic was a blog post by PC World’s Daniel Ionescu entitled “Dell Proves That Twitter Can Be Profitable.” Actually, there’s no publicly available proof of that at all, as profit was not part of Dell’s announcement. For all we know it could be a breakeven operation. Even if  the tactic is profitable, is it enough to offset the problems it poses for the rest of Dell’s online sales.

Dell has made a lot of money through Twitter, racked up some positive headlines and burnished its social media reputation, but at what cost?

 

Minor Designer Lobs Major Diss at Michelle Obama, Catches Flak in Return

I get a kick out of how the superfluity of outlets for celebrity gossip combines with the hunger for personal publicity by marginally relevant opportunists to create viral catfights of the moment.

Yesterday’s New York Post noted that fashion designer Douglas Hannant caused a stir at a fashion event by declaring from the podium that while everyone compares Michelle Obama to Jackie O, “she is not Jackie O.” In turn, that “news” item was picked up by politico-cultural zeitgeist bulletin board Huffington Post, and that post is, as of this writing, the top listing in a Google search on Hannant.

OK, who is this guy, and why should his opinion matter to anyone? According to the NY Post blurb, he’s “dressed Charlize Theron, Beyoncé and Sarah Jessica Parker (sic).” But who hasn’t?

Michelle O might not be Jackie O, but Douglas Hannant is no Oleg Cassini, either.

Seizing on his moment, Hannant’s publicist sent HuffPo a follow-up note from the designer:

“I did say ‘Michelle Obama is not another Jackie Kennedy and I do not consider to be a style icon.’ But in addition, I also said ‘She has so much more to her and has mass appeal. I admire her as a role model and think she will achieve great things in her position as First Lady.’ And by the way, I voted for Obama.”

OK, so now he’s Doris Kearns Goodwin, too?

Ultimate Mid-Life Crisis Brand Hits the Skids

After decades of selling the boy-toy of choice for straight men of a certain age (and income), how is Harley-Davidson going to rediscover itself? A road trip to India, apparently.

A Milwaukee Journal-Sentinal story this week lays out the rationale — growing middle and upper classes, aspiration for classic American luxury brands. Apparently it took the Great Recession for Harley to figure out what the rest of the world has known about and been chasing for years — new money in BRIC.

When the “Easy Rider” image of Harley outsider rebel chic has been supplanted by the doughy, affluent sadness of “Wild Hogs,” something is terribly, terribly wrong.

As Rick Barrett recently noted in his Harley enthusiast blog for the JS:

Harley-Davidson Inc. motorcycle sales are rumbling along in low gear as the riding season winds down across much of the country and consumers continue to be cautious in their spending.

From October through early November, sales of new Harleys were down 25% to 30% from a year ago, according to a motorcycle dealership survey released Monday by Robert W. Baird & Co.

Used bike sales fell just 7%, as they were less affected by the recession, the report notes.

Inventories of new Harleys increased even as the motorcycle company slashed production. The average U.S. Harley-Davidson dealership had 54 bikes in September, up from 38 a year earlier, the Baird report says.

“Most dealers are disappointed with low levels of marketing/advertising and a lack of Harley promotions,” Baird analyst Craig Kennison wrote in his analysis of the survey.

Still, the Baird report anticipates a turnaround for the company in 2011. Based on what? Harley’s aging demographic in its core U.S. market? Lower incomes and lower marginal propensity to consume? The Baird report apparently does not say. And we all know how accurate and reliable the analysis of sell-side investment firms has been over the past several years.

 

 

 

Why Windows 7 Will Not Drive a Monster PC Hardware Refresh Cycle

Why do conventional wisdom and analyst palaver assert as a matter of metaphysical certitude that the launch of Windows 7 will rapidly drive a robust PC refresh cycle?

Dell, in its attempt to move past its startlingly poor quarterly results announced last week, once again pointed to this theoretical groundswell of enterprise spending as the engine for its increasingly more theoretical turnaround. But even as Microsoft touts the record-setting sales pace of Windows 7, new PCs don’t appear to be riding those coattails.

Two reasons why:

• No new hardware required: Unlike previous Microsoft OS platforms, Windows 7 does not require upgraded hardware to run as speced.
• Learning to love lean and mean IT: The corporate recovery, as anemic as it is, is being driven by cost reductions and tighter controls on expenditures. Now that companies are much used to doing more with less — and getting good at it – CTOs and COOs will likely wring more value out of their current systems and upgrade more slowly and cautiously than they have in the past.
• For consumers, PC deals matter more than the OS: While it has made sense to wait for Windows 7 to arrive before buying a new PC, Windows 7 has not been a driver. Cheap netbooks and low-cost laptops are the stars of the consumer space — which has been driving the computer industry recovery – and Windows 7 just comes with it.

Shrugs Greet the Tech World’s Worst-Kept Secret

To no one’s surprise, Dell finally “officially” announced it plans to introduce an Android-based smartphone for the China and Brazil markets. No specs, just fulsome prose extolling the Dell’s (yet to be fully articulated) grand strategy for global growth through small devices. So the news here is the ongoing lack of news.

The Mini 3 will arrive late to the party, apparently a decent but unexceptional device, firmly nestled in the middle of a crowded field. As Saul Hansell aptly described it in the New York Times:

“What Dell is doing is not starting by fighting head-to-head with Samsung, HTC, Motorola (not to mention Apple and Research in Motion) in the United States. Rather it debuting its products in two big developing markets where, presumably, its core strength in delivering generic technology cheaply will be valued.”

“Core strength in delivering generic technology cheaply…” Ouch. For a company that is spending gobs of time and money on hipper-than-thou art works, nail colors and MLB logos to tart up it’s lids, I expect that’s not quite the marketing hook they were going for.

The one publicity upside in this announcement  is for Google and Android, now arguably a bigger momenum OS story than Windows 7.

Meanwhile, Apple hums along, focused on surprising and delighting customers on its own terms.

Dell’s Adamo is So Thin, So Stylish…So What?

With the twin arrivals of the Dell Adamo XPS and Windows 7, there’s a new wave of Fox News-esque ginned up drama about the arms race against Apple’s Mac Book Air for the title of world’s best ultrathin laptop.

Apart from tech bloggers and gadget foamers, who cares? Has anyone actually seen any of these exotic creatures outside a test lab? How many have been sold in this category?

And how is it a competition when Apple hasn’t bothered to do a follow-up to the original? They made their design statement and  have moved on to innovate in categories where people actually buy lots of stuff. Meanwhile, Dell’s R&D resources are mired in a competition to sell a few hundred units of executive desk candy.

Even among tech bloggers who are excitedly pumping out reviews pitting the Dell Adamo XPS vs. the Mac Book Air, the net effect is a commentary on fantasy objects rather than something they would/could actually buy/use outside their test labs. Sort of like discussing who’s the more powerful superhero, Superman or The Sentry: whoever wins, what does it matter in the real world?

 

Who Run Bartertown?: Lessons for Gay Activists from “Thunderdome”

The movie Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome has been a longtime GLBT favorite, but mostly for its S&M fashions and drag dominatrix iconography.

However, it also offers some important lessons for political activism in the reign of Obama the Timid and the Blue (Lap)Dog Democrats.

1. “Is it Tomorrow-morrow Land? No. Bartertown.” — If it is not clear by now, the Obama Administration is not going to usher in some Golden Age of equal rights for gays et al. In fact, now more than ever, American national politics is a post-apocalyptic nightmare (the apocalypse, of course, being the Bush Administration) wherein the naked exchange of money and votes is the true and only basis of social order.
2. “Embargo on! Main valve off!” — Like MasterBlaster’s demonstration for Auntie Entity, the despot and his/her enablers must be reminded periodically that even the freaks shoveling pig shit — in this case, a metaphor for gay money, votes and party activism –  can disrupt the system. Hoist with her own petard, as it were, Auntie avers, “MasterBlaster runs Bartertown.”
3. “Bust a deal, face the wheel” – In order to maintain the integrity of a social system, there must be significant consequence if promises are broken. Democratic politicians and black-tie enablers like HRC must be held accountable for not fulfilling their commitments. And the consequences should be genuinely punishing. Cut off their money. Don’t give them a platform for rhapshodizing empty promises (e.g. don’t invite non-performers to headline/speak). Banish the Democrats to the desert wearing a donkey’s head.
4. “Justice is only a roll of the dice. . .a flip of the coin, a turn of the wheel.” — Gay marriage proponents in California and Maine should take heart. Even after Max is betrayed and driven out of Bartertown, presumably to his death, he finds a tribe of young idealists who help him return and upend the corrupt and corrupting capitalist dystopia. The fight for justice can be arbitrary, but regardless of the outcome, it can be reversed.

It’s clear now that there never was a real window of opportunity for equal rights for GLBT Americans, only a trompe l’oeil version, and “gay leaders” have been foolishly paying the Democrats for the privilege of banging their own heads against that idyllic brick wall.

No more money. No more votes. No more rallies. No more canvassers and field workers. Just say NO — Make that, just say HELL NO — to anything to do with Democratic politics until voting records match rhetoric. Only then, in the immortal words of Master, “Lift embargo.”

Waifs Wanted: Eileen Fisher’s Mid-Life Crisis Puts Her Cross-Ways With Rosie

Most businesses would love a lucrative niche. But apparently fashion designer Eileen Fisher is tired of her brand’s strong following among older and plus-size women. Tired enough to tick off one of her most vocal and visible unpaid spokespeople: Rosie O’Donnell.

Poor Ms. Fisher, she was tired of not being thought of as a cool, hip designer. Put another way, she’s ashamed of the dowdies willing to shell out major ducats for flowy, forgiving silhouettes who built her business.

Fisher told the New York Times:

“About a year ago I was feeling sad,” said Ms. Fisher, 58, as she paced her light-filled showroom on lower Fifth Avenue. “I thought we’re so much cooler than we appear. We have made the clothes look hipper, but nobody knew that.”

Apparently Fisher sees no need to reassure her longtime “mature” clientele while making her brands relevant to younger women, and told O’Donnell as much. According to an NBC New York report:

O’Donnell has long declared her love for Fisher’s clothing. So when she found out that the designer was actually in the audience of a recent performance of the play she’s been performing in, “Love, Loss, and What I Wore” (during which one of the actors actually declares, “When you start wearing Eileen Fisher, you might as well say I give up”), she say she leapt at the chance to gush about Fisher’s impact on her life.

On her Sirius XM radio show, Rosie claimed she told Fisher about how much stress she’d felt over trying to find clothing that flattered her figure, saying: “On behalf of every plus-sized woman in the world, I just want to thank you.” But then, Rosie claims, Fisher went on the defensive, saying that the store didn’t actually sell plus sizes, and that overall an association with plus-size clothing was “just not the image that we’re going for.”

As Rosie put it, “It was like someone stabbed me in the heart.” And in the ultimate “oh snap” move, she declared she’d be “wearing Donna Karan from now on.”

As we all know, fashionistas are among the most conservative and brand-loyal customers out there, and they deplore rumor and gossip. Once they find a designer, they’re loyal for life, so Fisher has nothing to worry about.*

*Denotes sarcasm.