Insight of the Day: Marriage is Becoming Extinct

Read this and it blew my mind: Marriage with children has become the exception rather than the rule.  Given that I work on a few clients that target to the nuclear family of: mom, dad, 1.5 kids and dog it was shocking and expected.


Shocking because I've tried many times, in many different ways to tell clients the world isn't what it was back in the 50's.  Leave It To Beaver or Father Knows Best isn't a reality any longer.  Side note: I actually think these two shows were never the American reality but people at least tried hard to aspire and admire this ideal.


Expected because my always observant nature has seen everything but this happening in my personal life and in the news, in entertainment, in statistics.  I know a lot of married couples who know kids are not for them, I grew up with many single mothers, I know plenty of divorced singles co-parenting, and now that I re-look at it my single (non-married, but maybe in a relationship) outnumber my married friends.  So what does that mean for these Fortune 500 companies?  Well, a lot.


If they haven't seen behaviors changing or new insights coming out of their multi-million research reports, I'd start re analyzing.  The mere fact that "married couples with one or more children now constitute less than one quarter of all HH’s in the US" is very telling that times are a changing...


More facts:

• The greatest demographic change over the past 50 yrs is the surge of people living alone 
• The marriage rate among young Americans continues a decades-long downward spiral
• Nearly four out of every 10 births are now to unmarried women.

What might change, well to start off there will be more people living alone & working.  That means many convenience services will be needed, cleaning, cooking, laundry, etc. Things will need to be condensed to single servings. Costco sized items will be left to multi-generational-family-households. A rise in single parents while moms are natural at nurturing they will need male role models for their children and vice versa dads will need to be more nurturing and help in parenting.  Of course they'll probably a rise in dating services that are even more specific, hello Millionaire Matchmaker.  Children will be growing up in 2 different households, parenting as we've known it will have to change in how to give children a good upbringing as it used to be based on two role models in the household.  People in the outer circle of children will play a much more important role: teachers, coaches, other parents in helping out.   

Don't Underestimate the Power of Customer Service

I had a lot of errands to get done this week.  Get my oil changed, rotate my tires and check out a few beauty products I was interested.  This list is nothing out of the ordinary though the extraordinary customer service I received compelled me to write about why I continue to frequent these retail brands and why its so important that the brand's values are at all levels of the company, whether you're the CEO or the guy behind the cash register.

My first stop was America's Tire.  Now I don't usually interact with this brand unless I need tires which is not very often but what I didn't realize until recently is that they provide free, FREE tire rotations which saves me a lot of money since you're supposed to rotate every 5,000 miles and I drive lots.  I give the guys at the store credit for drilling this fact in my brain and actually taking time to walk me through why this is important and how it affects my car in layman's term.  I give them kudos for not treating me how almost every mechanic and car salesmen treat most women, like a dope.

Next was Jiffy Lube.  I am a die hard fan of theres.  Now why would anyone be a lover of oil change places? Well because like America's Tire they've never treated me as dopey and have taken all of my questions seriously.  "What's an air filter again?"  And I've visited many locations in both North & Southern California and I've always gotten the same treatment. They are always able to give you straight answer on how long things will take vs. the generic mechanic answer of  I won't know til I take your car apart.  They always, ALWAYS walk you through what they'll be doing before they even start the labor so you are fully aware and for those, like me, who don't know why the engine needs flushing or what coolant is, Jiffy Lube has these awesome tutorials with big simple pictures and easy to understand terms.  I always relate them to kindergärtner's picture books and I want them all!  The service I appreciate the most is that they log all of the services completed in their system and regardless of what location you go to they have a history of what you've gotten done.  They even take notes if you said you'd wait until next time for blah, blah, blah service which makes it so convenient given that you only come in a few times a year.  Plus the fact that I got 50% off my service because I've been consistent at that location is definitely a bonus and much appreciated.  They have TV's with news & celebrity gossip in their lobbies with free coffee and water and the fact that they also wash your windows and vacuum your carpets is like the cherry on top.   I know that oil changes can be found much cheaper but its the service that keeps me coming back

Sephora is by far my all time favorite retailer.  They had it right from the first store they opened and they've only gotten better over time.  Sephora is like the Disneyland for women.  You can spend all day in there and come back repeatedly and you'll always find something new you didn't see last time.  I believe the all time fascination with that store is that you can try EVERYTHING.  EVERYTHING!  I sometimes just go in to give myself a make over and not one sales person looks at you weird.  They actually encourage you to try and have all of the tools necessary to facilitate that like q-tips, cotton pads, eye make up remover and so on.  They even offer samples you can take home and test out!  They're return policy rivals Nordstrom's.  You can bring anything back even if you've used it which is rare in the beauty industry and much needed given that products look different on a person's skin than it does on the actual packet.

These extra perks, the helpful attention, and the thought out details always help me make the decision on what place I'm going to go because it makes a REALLY BIG difference.

Insight of the Day: Young people don't think the birth control pill works

and have sex anyway!!! Most young people have sex, but over 40 percent of them think that they've got a one in two chance of getting pregnant on the birth control pill that year. (It's one in 100 if they take it correctly, eight in 100 if they do it the haphazard way many do.)  Which could explain why nationally the U.S. teen rate increased for the first time in 15 years in 2006 and has increased since.


While I'd love to vent on how ignorant young people today can be, I'd rather focus on the awesome research The National Campaign To Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy has done on attitudes and beliefs about contraception in young people.  This new research was definitely eye opening. Given the amount of information available and easy access young people literally have at their fingertips, I would have thought this information to be false if it hadn't been conducted by a credible source. Goes to show, once again, 1) never assume and 2) research done thoughtfully and thoroughly can produce great insights.  

Given the shocking news, I wouldn't be surprised if young people these days believe standing on their head is a valid form of birth control.     

Oh Tar-jay, How Much Do I Love Thee, Let Me Count The Ways...

I heart Tar-jay!  Who doesn't?  Even if you shop at Walmart, you still find yourself in there wondering what cool new designer they brought out (as of late, Jean Paul Gaultier and Liberty of London) or cool new marketing push they've rolled out (the last one I was head over heels for was the Target gift card that doubled as a digital camera).  So it was not so surprising to hear that Walmart is losing ground to Target.  Why say you?  Well because it comes down to experiences.  This is a great example of branding 101, yes everyone  will run to the retailer who offers the best price but its only a short term strategy at best.  With all things being equal, in this case price, giving people a thrilling experience, an added benefit, making their life easier (no matter how big or small - see Target gift card) they'll be back for more.


The interesting thing about Walmart is that its now considered being the middle ground for higher end retailers (a la Target) or bottom discounters (think 99¢ stores).  While Walmart's core positioning as the low price leader rang true to everyone regardless of class level, retailers at both ends didn't have a hard time attacking it.  Actually Target did so well it has under priced Walmart, according to Kantar Retail's Management Ventures competitive pricing-tracking survey, while Walmart has actually raised prices. Walmart is also increasingly losing out in pricing battles to conventional supermarket operators in addition to dollar stores, hard discounters and discount clubs. What do you do when you've strayed away from you're core positioning that you've spent your entire brand life building? Not sure where to begin with this one but I will tell you what Target is doing which brings me to reason 3,845,241 of why I love Target.   


Maybe I'm late to the game on this one but nonetheless I'm in love with Target even more because of it. Target Text Alerts are my new favorite thing!  It's mobile coupons for you're phone that Target texts* you every week  No more printing out coupons (but Target has that option too), placing them in a "I hope I don't throw these out by accident but actually remember them when I'm at the store" spot and putting them in your purse if you do remember just to dig around the bottom of it to realize you left them in your other purse.  Now all I have to remember is to carry my cellphone which is permanently attached to my hand and find it in my text msg folder.  EAAAAAAAAASSSSY!  And everyone loves easy regardless of income class.  


*standard text rates apply of course

Brands on the Fence

I recently had the pleasure of analyzing a mass amount of healthcare websites to view how they were portraying themselves to the public.  I learned many, many, many interesting things but the one that got to me as I see this with many many other brands in different industries is this.  One of the sites, see below:

relative to the other sites I analyzed looked pretty run of the mill site.  Not to spectacular but not to shabby either.  The only thing that was intriguing to me and I'm sure anyone else who wandered onto the site was the funny looking man with the glasses next to The Flu and You article at the bottom of the site.  So of course I clicked on it and when opening found a very interesting and engaging sort of campaign effort:

From what I gather this micro site is supposed to help change the way people view their insurance, as boring and the driest of the dry subjects of all.  This execution attempts to dish out health tips through videos and odd but funny topics. Seemingly simple and pretty hilarious it struck me as odd why this would be such a minor part of the main site when this idea could have been integrated further into it to give the brand a unique look, feel and point of view. Especially given the fact that the main site itself is nothing spectacular.

I've seen this happen with many brands I've worked on.  Many conservative brands briefs us and want edgy ideas.  They're ready this time for a change, to show the world they can keep up.  They want to be the next Apple, Nike or Google.  Then once its ready to make a decision, they falter and want to extract anything not within their comfort zone or they buy it but don't give it much push as we can clearly see from the example above.  Now I understand these types of ideas aren't for everyone or for every brand but if everyone does come on board and actually buys into it why hide it?

If you're going to try an idea, consume it, own it, live it breath it eat it otherwise save your money and don't do it because a mediocre effort is like no effort at all.  Boringly good is a great idea but sitting in that corner it really doesn't have much value as an execution or for the brand at all.

Which brings me to another topic of what marketers are scared of.  I take it that its a huge investment on their end and ruffling of any feathers could not only hurt their bottom line but in this day and age their job as well.  But in this day and age as well not taking a risk is just as risky as taking one and continuing to sit on the fence doesn't put you or the brand anywhere.  It just leaves you on the fence.

For those living in dread, never has the PR adage of any new is good news been so true today.  In case of a true hiccup of accepting an edgy campaign and falling on your face, we have to remember if it moves the needle for your brand in terms of attention, opinion, awareness, this is always better than sitting  in the middle and having no one know you at all.  We have to remember that the American people are very forgiving, we have short memories and we are suckers for a comeback story.  Regardless of the falter, we like to see people and brands revive themselves from the dead.

I get that these failings can be costly but many brands even the not so good ones have come back from it - Hello Mattel and lead paint.  What about Firestone & Ford's faulty tires, JetBlue and the delays - these are all brands, good brands, that took major spills but picked themselves back up and still survive today.  People forgive if you're genuinly sorry.  I mean we welcomed Britney Spears back with wide open arms, right?  And look at her now........