PGA Tour has lost its sense...of branding

Sports marketing has been careening toward the cliff of excess for some time now (the wall-to-wall corporate sponsorship depicted in "Talladega Nights" was more verisimilitude than parody). But the recent revolving door of sponsor-named events in the US PGA golf tour is seriously damaging the history and heritage of US professional golf.

The latest example is something called the PODS Championship, held this past weekend in Florida. (PODS stands for Portable On-Demand Storage, in the form of a shipping container that this company drops in your front yard for you to fill with stuff, where it sits till your house project is done, much to the delight of your neighbors.)

The PODS Championship used to be the Chrysler Championship, and was held in the fall, not in early March. It's always been in the Tampa area, but you wouldn't know that from any of the communication surrounding the event. In fact, for all I knew (and I'm a golf fan!), this was a brand-spanking new event.

I could have said the same thing about the Wachovia Championship, the Fry's Electronics Open, the Buick Classic, the Buick Open or the Buick Invitational, not to mention the late, great 84 Lumber Classic. (Some of these were events with history, and some were new. See if you can guess which!)

What ever happened to the Westchester Classic, the Western Open, or the Firestone Tournament of Champions? At least AT&T was smart enough to retain part of the historical name of its tournament (the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am).

Exclusive naming rights bring tens of millions of dollars yearly to the PGA Tour, helping purses to grow tenfold between 1986 and 2006, according to GolfWorld. But at some point they'll be ruing the day the good old Greater Hartford Open became the Travelers.

branding, marketing, sponsorship, sports

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Yahoo-AT&T: an alliance under pressure

Nothing cures end of the week writer's block better than a front page Wall Street Journal article on one of my favorite subjects: alliances. Today's article about the shifts underway in the Yahoo-AT&T partnership contains lessons for any company in an alliance or contemplating one.

AT&T is seeking to renegotiate the terms of the alliance, under which it pays Yahoo a revenue share for each DSL customer it signs up via Yahoo, and funnels traffic to Yahoo services through its home page. Simply put, the world has changed since the original deal was signed in 2001, and so has the power dynamic in the alliance.

AT&T has made two gigantic acquisitions and now is a behemoth with 12 million broadband customers and a strong nationwide brand. Yahoo has fallen to number two in internet search and advertising to Google. Add the fact that Google is paying people for placement on computer screens and home pages, and Yahoo will have to take a serious haircut as the alliance is recast.

The lesson for those striking alliances--monitor changes in the landscape and be prepared to make adjustments (or have them thrust upon you) as your business and your partner's change. No good thing lasts forever.

(Update: in a tantalizing blog post, the Journal speculates that the endgame of this alliance could result in AT&T acquiring Yahoo.)

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strategy, alliances, negotiation, Wall Street Journal

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Cold calling with dignity (yours and the prospect's)

I had to do some cold calling today, so naturally I worked from Jeff Thull's script. It's simply the best approach I know to keep the dignity of the customer intact while you're interrupting them with an unsolicited pitch. And since I hate getting cold calls, when I do my own cold calling I try to keep that in mind. Here's Jeff's 20-second pitch, outlined nicely in his new book Exceptional Selling.

Convey professionalism by identifying yourself and your company straightaway. "I'm John Caddell with Caddell Insight Group." (Don't ask how they are doing today.)

Give the prospect an easy way out, and show respect for his/her intelligence by admitting that you don't know if they need or want what you're pitching (note: you should have done sufficient preparation and qualification to believe they very well might need your solution). "I'm not sure if it's appropriate we should be talking."

Show relevancy by connecting what you do to companies like the prospect's. "We work with companies like yours who are developing breakthrough technology products..."

Connect more deeply by referencing a generic problem they might be facing. "...and occasionally have difficulty getting their sales forces to embrace the new product."

Ask for permission to continue. "Do you have a moment to talk?"

There's lots more to the method, especially if they say, "Yes, I'd like to talk more." But you'll have to read the book for the rest.

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psychology, sales, spoken post, reading list

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Public radio's Ira Glass on storytelling

Two of my favorite bloggers have posted on Ira Glass' (This American Life) videos on storytelling.

Shawn Callahan of Anecdote discusses the video here and connects it to the work his team does with businesses. (There are still a few days left to register for Shawn's narrative in business workshop in Boston on March 29.)

And Garr Reynolds of the great Presentation Zen blog breaks down the video and summarizes each section.

Storytelling is everywhere.

storytelling, narrative, presentation

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Are CEO's powerless to lead?

That might be the conclusion you draw from an article from last week's Wall Street Journal Business Insight section entitled "Leading from Below" (free link). The authors, James Kelly and Scott Nadler of consultancy ERM, write:

...The truth is that at most companies, senior managers are increasingly hamstrung by the demand from investors and analysts for immediate results. If change is going to come about at these companies, it will be because the managers below the CEO (and below the whole "C suite"...) take the initiative and risks to drive the company in a different direction. Change will have to come from those leading from below, rather than relying on leadership from the top.

Excuse me, but in this scenario, what are the "C levels" doing every day? Going to Davos or TED, I guess.

It sounds as if the authors have seized on a point discussed by Bower and Gilbert in their recent HBR article (link) "How Managers' Everyday Decisions Create - or Destroy - Your Company's Strategy," but, in the case of "Leading from Below," middle managers crafting and executing their own strategy in large companies is a feature, not a bug.

The point of the article may be that senior leaders should foster leadership throughout the ranks, and not micromanage. All well and good if that's the case. But if that's what they meant, I wish they had written it.

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leadership, strategy, Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal, spoken post

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Dispositional innovators -- however you say it, they're not afraid to try something new

This thought didn't fit in yesterday's post on Private Label Strategy, but authors Nirmalya Kumar and Jan-Benedict Steenkamp brought up a fascinating and new (to me) concept with the unwieldy name listed in the title. As defined in the book:

"Dispositional innovativeness is the predisposition to buy new products and brands at an early stage, rather than to remain with previous choices and consumption patterns...." (p. 171)

Yeah, so what? So what is that these types of people (we'll call them DIs) are very important in the success of radically new products and services. Find and reach the DIs, say the authors, and your new product has a chance. Waste your marketing on the rest of us, and you might as well pull the product off the shelves now.

And even more interesting was Kumar and Steenkamp's assertion that different countries have very different levels of DIs. In Europe, the UK is 24 percent DIs, where Spain is only nine percent.

So, if you're trialing a new product, pick the UK over Spain every time. And the best test market of all, at least at the moment? The US of A. We'll try anything once.

(Picture by digital_a via stock.xchng)

innovation, adoption, marketing, product development

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Know a great innovator?

Well, don't just sit there reading blog posts! Nominate them for the Product Development and Management Association's (PDMA's) Outstanding Corporate Innovator award.

innovation, awards, PDMA, product development

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