Monday, October 27, 2003

I was gabbing with Jeremy when I looked at my watch, which said 12 o’clock. And I said I can’t be an hour late for class, can I—it’s 12 o’clock! No, no, no, it’s 11 o’clock. It will probably take me six months before I figure out how to get the one in my car changed.

My wife was looking at her owners manual, when I said, “What are you doing with that?” And she said, “Well, I can’t get my maintenance required light to go out, and I have to change the clock.” And I said, “Well, you for your maintenance required light, you have to go in to the garage, where they have to do something…” And that means to go into the garage and get service.

It’s amazing how unmechanical people are…me included.

[Well, with those trouble lights, all you have to do is put some electrical tape over it…and that takes care of it.]

Elements of Promotion

Alright, we’re going to move on to the marketing subject, here. We’re going to talk a little bit today about the elements of promotion. And then we’ll look at one of those elements in a little more detail. And we’ll do list of the major advertising media and talk about some advantages and disadvantages of each of those. And then on Wednesday, we’ll look in more depth on the personal selling aspect, and we’ll look at the steps of the sale.

But for the time being we want to get our list up here as to what are the elements of promotion. The promotional mix would consist of personal selling, and what else?

[P R…]

PR, ok public relations…and we’ll ad on to that publicity. What else?

[Oh, advertising…]

Advertising…absolutely. Often the first one on the list, because it starts with A, right? I like to put personal selling up there, because I taught sales for many years, and that’s how I’ve made my living; and I truly believe in the effectiveness and the value of personal selling. But I was also in the advertising business, so I love this one. And we’ll talk a little bit more about these in some depth, here, in a minute. What else to we put on the list?

{Packaging?}

Packaging…actually sales promotion is what I was looking for. And often times, packaging is an element of sales promotion. So sales promotion would include things like POP, what’s that? Point of purchase…so point of purchase displays, things that are triggers to get you to buy in the store. Sales promotion can also be contests….

One of the biggest sales promotion organizations in the Twin Cities is Curt Carlson’s company. And Curt Carlson is the world’s largest booker of airline seats. He’s booked more airline seats than anyone else. It’s not because they used to own Wagonlit travel or because they were in the travel agency business. They have a company that puts together promotional programs, and they do point of purchase, they do trading stamps, and the do other things, which is all a part of sales promotion, right.

Well, how do you get a competitive advantage. Well, your company gives something away. I was in the add specialty business, so much of what we did was sales promotion work. But in Curt’s case, he realized that a lot of salesmen would go out and sell your particular product. And if they had a chance to win a trip somewhere, they’d work even harder at it. So the contest would be doing a trip to Hawaii and if you sell a certain amount of product, you will do that. So they put together those packages and they put together those promotions, and they did direct mailings. So for a big insurance company, if you want to increase sales quickly, right? You’re the new CEO in charge of sales and advertising, and if you want to increase sales quickly, you come up with program and you mail out stuff to all those insurance agents and they get excited, and they go out and increase their sales and win a trip to Hawaii.

Actually, one of the orders that I ended up not getting, which was a great piece of creativity, was for IDS, which sells mutual funds and that kind of thing. It’s now a part of American Express. But at the time, they were a fairly new player in the mutual fund business, and the IDS tower was built downtown for them. And their sales manger said, Well, ok, we have a trip to Hawaii that we’re doing and we want to promote this to our sales people to get them excited. The asked me to come up with something I can put in an envelope and cheaply mail to them to get them excited. So my product idea that I had for them was a packet of suntan lotion. And we had a company that we represented that sold eyeglass cleaner tissue in what looked like match containers. And they also made little sewing kits, and hand lotion, and suntan stuff. So it was small, it was light, it fit in the envelope. What was brilliant, or what I was proud about it, was the copy that I came up with that would accompany the mail in piece, and you could see pictures of the hotel they were going to stay at, and some of the fun activities that you could do if you won this trip. And the copy…one was printed his, and the other one was printed hers. Because, obviously, if you’re a sales rep, and you’re out there, you want your wife supporting you, and you want her getting you up early, and if she gets excited about winning that trip, you’re going to sell more, right? So one was printed his, and one was printed hers, and the copy on it was, “It’s your choice, use here or use it there. So you could choose to get active and sell product and go to Hawaii, or you could use it at Lake Calhoun…it’s your choice.

It was a brilliant stroke of creativity, though. By the way, they didn’t buy that from me. I wouldn’t have even known that they even went with the program, but later on I happened to be in the factory with another order, and I saw these things spitting out of the machine. I said, Wait a minute, let me see this. And he said, yeah, it’s a big order; we just got that. It’s one of the best orders we’ve had all year. And I said, Wow, that’s my copy. And I ask, Well, who did you get this from? And he said, Well, I can’t tell you that. Anyway another competitor came in and under bid me and got the business. It was that simple. He asked me if I’d quote a lower price. And I said yes, that I would. It was only a few cents less. I said, you ought to reward me for my creativity; this is really good. I was feeling really confident that I would get the business…but sometimes you don’t get the business do you. So this other guy got it. From then on, I wasn’t real happy with the folks at IDS. But it was good copy.

But that’s an example of sales promotion campaign. Actually, probably my most favorite story about sales promotion campaign nightmares was when we printed for the equitable…we printed t-shirts. And they wanted to get their folks all excited about this trip, where we qualify and go… And we printed 1,200 t-shirts for people who were actually qualifying. And when they got to the airport, they were given this t-shirt, so they would all look the same and be identified as a group to the tour leaders. And now that I do tour guides, I understand more about how important that was. But it was a rush job. They had given us photo ready artwork, and so I delivered it from their regional office right to the printer, and then I hand delivered the product two days later. And that’s how quick I had turned that around. It was a miracle that I was able to do that. Unfortunately, they had misspelled Hawaii. No one noticed it at the airport when they handed them all out. No one noticed it in the airplane, but when they got to Hawaii, people were giving them a hard time, right. They didn’t want to pay for the whole order, and that was of those nightmares. Communication is a problem in the ad business, where you need to get things right.

I called the printer back and I said, Why didn’t you notice this? I didn’t even look at the art. It was there photo ready artwork, it was their responsibility, I just delivered it; I probably should have looked at it, but I was in a hurry and I was more concerned about getting the job done. Well, he had said that for the same reason you did, we did as well; we were in a hurry. He said, Actually, one of my press operators said, “Gee Al, Hawaii is printed wrong…” But we just thought it was all part of the theme, part of the campaign, and that was spelled wrong intentionally. I said that it would have really been nice if you had given me a call. He said, I would have but you gave me a deadline, and I was cranking them out. We were half done by then. He said, so we just assumed that… You don’t have to pay for these t-shirts, it’s the client’s responsibility. They gave you photo ready artwork. I said, Yeah, I know but they’re upset and it makes me look bad.

{On that last contract, how much would you have made?}

The former one that I was talking about with the IDS thing? Oh, that probably would have 2 or 3 thousand dollar order. So I would have probably made about $750. That was a nice piece of business…not bad for a couple of days work.

Anyway, so sometimes promotions…if you’re not on top of things, that things can go wrong.

Is there a lot of work being a marketing manager…being on top of stuff, and having to plan ahead, and have all of your time deadlines squared away? If they had given me adequate time, would that mistake have been corrected? Yeah, because normally we have someone in our office who proofs every order before it goes out. But this order had been typed up in advance…you know, the client had provided photo ready artwork, and that’s all that was included in the copy section of the paper work. So…yeah.

[Did you do anything for them?]

Oh, of course, I had to do something for them. I took all of my profit out of the order, so Mitchell Advertising didn’t make a penny. But my t-shirt guy, he had to get paid; we had to pay Haines for the t-shirts. But they were mad enough that I never got any more business from them after that. Which is unfortunate, because I had spent 2 or 3 years trying to build that account, and build that relationship.

But Equitable had screwed me on another deal too. I should have taken this thing to corporate on my own, but I let them do it. It was a little nightlight. And the night light had a picture of their rock, you know? No, that was Prudential, not Equitable, but anyway…

That’s when you want to buy insurance…when you have kids, right. Well, it’s a nice gift for the insurance agent to give. And they’d done that before, but I had a custom designed piece of artwork that I we created… And that one got away from me as well. And later on, I had found out that they bought it direct or they bought it through another distributor. But I couldn’t go to Chicago. And that’s where the decision was made, and somebody in Chicago got that sale.

There’s a lot of premium business that goes on that relates to this part of it. But this is the fun and exciting stuff. Do some of these promotions back-fire on you? I won’t mention the name of the bookstore, but there’s a bookstore, right now, that I get mad at every time I go in there. They ask me, Do I have my frequent buyer card? And you have to pay for the card. Is that a good deal? I don’t think so, but they make you do that. And if you have it, they give you a 10 percent discount. But every time I go in there, I feel like I’m being penalized by 10 percent. Does that just get people mad? Yeah, so I think that’s an example of bad sales promotion…bad public relations that revolve or relate to this.

Ok, what’s the difference between public relations and advertising?

[Advertising costs money]

It’s usually mass communication in major media. So we’re usually communicating to large numbers. And it costs dollars, doesn’t it. Public relations and publicity is usually free. Now, that doesn’t mean that there’s no costs associated with it. You have to hire employees and manage that, right? So if Jason and Charley and those guys in our marketing office spend 10 hours writing press releases and making sure that those press releases get picked up, there’s some cost associated with that. But we didn’t pay for those community papers to run those articles. Did anybody see any articles either before or after that Bo Johnson Reunion Event? We sent press releases out to the Minneapolis Star and Tribune, the St. Paul Dispatch, and every community paper in our service area. Did anybody see any of those? I didn’t see any. I don’t think they picked them up. We need somebody in that office to call one last time just to make sure that they are going to run the story. And some times you actually have to go and bring them a picture or something, right? That takes time, doesn’t it.

When I used to run the small business program, all of my press releases got run. Why? Because I knew every one of those people in those news papers. And I not only would send them something, I would double check, and I would call them on the phone, or I’d bring them something, or sometimes I would send them a little thank you card in the mail after they ran the press release. Are we doing that? No. Is it good management to do that? Yeah, even though it takes some time and effort.

By the way, we created a small business program commercial. Students made it, it was made by students for students. They got experience in filming a commercial. We filmed it here on campus. It was wonderful.

And I knew that every TV station in town, by law, had to run what is called a PSA. What’s a PSA?

[Public Service Announcement]

A public service announcement. And they have to give some free advertising time to public service causes like the anti drug ones that you see. Those are usually created by the Advertising Council. People donate their time to create those adds. My favorite one “This is your brain,” the egg, and “This is your brain on drugs.” where they fry the eggs. That’s a really powerful statement. There’s a print add one where it shows the picture of a gun, and instead of loading bullets into each chamber, he’s loading cigarettes. That’s a pretty strong message, and those are PSAs.

Well, in terms of the one we produced here, we made copies of it in the one inch format, because that’s what they used at the time at the TV stations. So that all they had to do was to put it into their machine, hit the button, and play it. And every single station played that add. And what did it cost us? Just a few dollars to produce it. And, actually, we had the vo-tech students and the Film In The Cities students do most of the work, and people volunteered their time and effort. It didn’t cost us hardly anything. That was a really good thing.

By the way, did that set Inver Hills apart from every other community college in the metro area? The fact that we had an add promoting, on TV, our small business management program? We’re still receiving the benefits of that today. And many of the employers who came to workshops, seminars, and what not, benefited from our program, and hired our students. That’s part of the networking relationship that I want to be a pivotal part of even in my retirement. But that worked out pretty well for all of us.

[Can not-for-profits avail of PSA? Or is it primarily institutional?]

Yeah, if you’re creative. So the Malt Shop had a contest. And they invited every food critic in the Twin Cities to come for this contest. And the money raised went to charity. Now, they are a for profit organization, but every newspaper in town ran the article about the competition, and it was a really pretty smart move on their part. As a mater of fact, it’s in their brochure that talks about my first summer with them, and how we took the lifeguards on our sailboat, and they were part of the Aquatennial  Parade. Well, for all of these years, the Minneapolis Aquatennial, the lifeguards had never been invited. Wow…it’s the Minneapolis Aquatennial, and the lifeguards don’t get to be in the parade? The policemen are there; the firefighters are there, why not the lifeguards? So did we get a lot of…. And we had to pay to be in the parade, but did we get a lot of good PR from that? The TV people talked about it as well as the radio people, because it was covered live. I mean that was just good public relations.

The thing is about PR…is because it’s not paid for, it’s not controlled. Now, how many of you have seen the wonderful article with Tom Johnson in the school newspaper with his big cake? Ok, I went with Liz, and we went over to Cub Foods and I picked up the cake, and we got most of that cake donated. We had to pay a little bit, but…it was a nice picture. A student wrote that article. And Dave Page, who edits the school newspaper, has final say on what goes into the school newspaper, right? So, of course, it’s going to be a positive thing, and it turned out very well.

But whoever writes something for a press release…well, it could be negative, couldn’t it? So they could come to the event and say Inver Hills had a reunion event and nobody showed up, and nobody cares, and Inver Hills is a losing school; it’s on the down-slide. That would be horrible, wouldn’t it. So you have to be kind of careful, because sometimes things can backfire.

Most of the people who write these kinds of things want to help organizations and what not. It can work out well. But in the case of the Malt Shop, when I got my cease-and-desist letter from the Minneapolis Park Board, I said here’s a chance to get some really really good PR: The big bad Minneapolis Park Board beats up on entrepreneur, kicks him off lake.

Anyway, if I had had a liquor account, they would have loved that wouldn’t they? But because of the kind of restaurant he had, and the kind of relationship that he wanted to have with the Park Board…they were promoting the picnic in the park campaign, we ended up not making a big deal out of it. We just kind of let it slide. By the way, my attorney says that they can’t kick you off of the lake. Yeah, it’s illegal to put a sign on Park Board property; this is true. But you’re not a sign on their property, you are a DNR licensed boat, and the DNR owns every lake. The Park Board doesn’t own Lake Harriet, the State of Minnesota DNR owns that lake. So if you have a lake in your back yard, you don’t own the lake; you own the shore around it, but they own the lake.

As long as there’s a DNR public access, no one can deny you from having a access to that lake. Now, the Park Board can say you can’t pull up on the beach or you can’t pull up on our dock, but they cannot keep you from coming and going via the public access. My attorney to me that I could just go ahead. He also said that we could fight this and make them look stupid, but I didn’t want to make them look stupid. So we just went to St. Paul. So we sailed in some of the St. Paul lakes, because he had a restaurant in St. Paul anyway.

I was on the river a few times until I was almost run down by a barge, but… You know, those barges can’t stop and they can’t turn… And a sailboat, when there’s no wind can’t do much of anything. So I was paddling like crazy.

[Sailing vessels have the right away, though…]

A sailing vessel has the right of way, but it doesn’t matter, does it. That captain came by, and he gave me one of these big time—he was not happy. He had to put the engines in reverse, we were right down by the Robert Street Bridge, where there’s not too much room to maneuver. And I’m like, “Oh my God, he’s going to run us down and wreck my boat!” Fortunately, I was able to get out of this way, and he slowed down just enough to where he missed me by only about 2 or 3 inches.

{Were you scarred?}

Yeah, I was a little bit scarred, as a matter of fact. So was the guy who was with me on my boat—he was paddling with his hands!

But that’s a commercial waterway, isn’t it. Nobody can keep a craft from being on that river. So that’s a good thing.

I had a client, though, who put an add in the paper…and talk about publicity and PR…he put an add in the paper that showed Liz Taylor. Did anyone see the Liz Taylor special on channel 2 this weekend? My wife made me watch “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof,” which was an old movie that I had seen many years ago. But right after words, they would run another one and another one. And I ended up waking up with my dog pretty early in the morning and the were still going on.

But anyway he ran…remember when Liz Taylor became really fat and ugly? She had been drinking, and she looked real bad. There were a bunch of her pictures floating around of her looking really bad…. She’s gotten her life straightened around now, but…. Well, this liquor store took one of those pictures, and because it was public information, which had been published by multiple papers, and on TV, and they ran this ad with her picture that said, “This is what you’ll look like if you buy the competition’s liquor.” When I opened the paper, I went, “Holly Moley, that’s Jay Mangers account! What the heck is going on here?” I called him on the phone, and I said, “Jay, you’re going to be in a lot of trouble…” And he says, “Well, I hope so.” That’s going to make a lot of sales for my client. And I said, “What were you thinking?” And he said that he was looking for controversy. And I said, “There’s a lady down in Mankato whose career I’ve been following. I didn’t have her as a teacher, but she started when I was there. And she loves to jump all over this kind of stuff.” And sure enough, the next day she was on TV, she was on the radio, there was a big thing in the newspaper. Did that thing get a lot of coverage for that liquor? Yeah, it was a big thing. Did he do it exactly on purpose? He knew exactly what he was doing.

By the way, I asked him what triggered that. And he told me it was Coke-Cola. And I said, “Really?” And the account was for G. Will liquors, and they had expanded. When he first started with G. Will, they only had one store. And now they have multiple stores and have done quite well. But he said, “When I read in Marketing Times that Coke-Cola intended to drop the old Coke formula. That it was all planned.” And he went on to say, “I thought that this would be a great campaign for these guys.” And they had had the picture, they called their attorney, who said that they had every right to run that add. She cannot sue you, you can’t get into any trouble. Run the add, you’ll get a lot of…. And people would come into the liquor store and say, “You guys are getting beat-up by the media, and that’s not fair. And they would buy extra cases of liquor.

By the way, people who are up-tight about that kind of thing, and think it’s a little wrong…are they the kind of people who sit at home and don’t drink? Yeah, I mean, it wasn’t their…. The clientele who would say your being wronged by this was exactly their clientele. It was all planned out and it was huge.

By the way, back then, they only had a few dollars to spend on media, because this media costs money, doesn’t it? Is that why Calvin Cline walks the boarder? And he does walk the boarder, doesn’t he…between insanity and great marketing, between morally right and morally wrong.

{In what way?}

Oh, look at the adds. Look at the ads; look at the exploitation of women. I mean, he puts… he had gotten into big trouble for putting a 13 year-old girl into a pair of pants half naked. And her parents had given her permission. But people became upset by that add. Almost as upset as the people who called into Dayton’s and said, “That ad is unacceptable that you ran in last Sunday’s paper!” They had run a full, glossy add where they could see that girl’s nipples. And that was unacceptable. Well, it turned out, according to Dayton’s, that they didn’t know you could see them. They didn’t know it. And they had stated that they were just as mortified as they were. Now, was it some body in the ad agency that did that at the last minute as a joke, who was maybe suicidal and wanted to get fired? Who will ever know exactly what happened.

But in terms of Calvin Cline, they had done that on purpose. And it got them world wide publicity. And it paid-off quite well.

[But that could back-fire, too…]

Oh, yeah, so when you’re doing this stuff, you’ve got to be really careful, you really have to think it through.

{Did you watch 60 Minutes last night?]

No, I was watching channel 11 and Date Line. What was 60 Minutes about?

{They had an article about a new brand of cigarettes that’s coming out, and how they hire people just to go into bars to market them, and they don’t advertise them at all.}

No advertising…it’s a sampling campaign, and…yeah. You see, the media has been banned. You can’t advertise cigarettes anymore on billboards; you can’t advertise on TV or the radio. They’ve been prohibited from doing that, so that’s one method that they use.

When we were in Poland, a few years back, I was mortified, because I saw these young girls dressed to look very American, and they were handing out free cigarettes, the little sample packs just like the ones you used to get on the airlines, the tiny packs with 4 cigarettes in it. They kind of went along with the little bottle of liquor…you’d get a little bottle of liquor and a little package of cigarettes. Anyway, they were handing those out as samples. And I watched them for about 20 minutes. We were at this historic site, and my wife was in a store, and I didn’t care to shop anymore, and I like looking at and observing people, so went up to them and asked, “Are you girls Americans? I mean you sound like Americans, but you look Polish.” They laughed and said, “Yeah, we are Polish girls, and we’re supposed to sound this way. They teach us how to say what we’re supposed to say.” And they were giving samples out.

What bothered me was that they were giving samples out to little kids. I mean they didn’t care. In Poland, anyone can smoke. And it’s amazing how many people are addicted to cigarettes in Poland.

So when the tobacco companies were being shut-down, here, in America, what would they do? They just turned to other countries. And everywhere you went, you would see pictures of the beautiful and hottest Polish model, and she’s got a cigarette in her hand. I mean, it actually upset me, it was some what of a bother to me.

So, basically, what they are doing is they’re not handing them out in public, but they are handing them out in bars, where they have been invited in to do their sampling. That’s upsetting, though. Now, could that backfire? Well, people who like to smoke cigarettes like that kind of stuff, don’t they. Any body remember when we were talking a bit about advertising, a great campaign was Joe Camel. He’s fading into history as we speak, but they used to have posters and billboards. And every store that you went into had a camel display standing right there looking at you right in the face at the cash register. Because they store the cigarettes right above it.

By the way, is that a great point of purchase, is that great display for them, and positioned perfectly? Yeah.

Well, I remember going into a brand new gas station up in Two Harbors. I had my little daughter with me. And as I was checking out, I’m looking at Joe Camel, and just lost it. I know I shouldn’t do this, I know I’m smarter than this, but I lost it and took it out on the poor gale; and I should not have bothered her with it at all, because it’s not her fault. But I said, “You know, I’m offended. You have a brand-new store, but I’m never buying gas here again. I’m not coming back here. I’ll go to the Holiday instead.” And since then Holiday has remodeled their store, and it’s actually better than Super America. But I said, “I don’t really want my daughter and I to have to look at Joe Camel.” And I didn’t go into any detail, because I didn’t my daughter to hear any of that. But here I am, I’m looking at a phallic symbol, aren’t I. If you look at Joe Camel, what is that? It’s a penis that’s staring you right in the face. And it’s pretty offensive. To me, anyway, when I go to the cash register, and, here, two inches from my nose is this penis thing hanging there.

Now, why do they do that? Why did that cigarette company choose that character? Who were they aiming their product at? Who’s their target? By the way, just because you’re doing marketing, doesn’t mean that all marketing is good. I mean, there’s more ethical debates going on about marketing all the time. People talk about wasted resources going into advertising. On the other hand, if companies don’t communicate, how are they going to show their product. They won’t be able to sell it, so they have to be able to communicate. Do we push desire? Yeah. Do we push people to want more than they need? Are we a wasteful society because of the marketing community? Probably. I don’t think that necessarily all bad, unless we use up all of our resources.

But anyway, back to Joe Camel, who’s the target audience for Phillip Morris or whoever the tobacco firm is?

[Kids…]

Young kids…teenagers. Remember when we talked about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? Are they in that very formative/social thing, where they want to be cool? Well, who is likely to smoke? Kids who rebel against what? Authority…people who rebel against authority. So if you’re the tobacco company, and if you’re so bold and so out-there saying, we don’t care that society thinks that we’re the bad people here. Is that going to influence young people to smoke and to buy your product? Can you see the psychology that’s going on there? Is that a little scary? Yeah, and did it work? Oh, hugely.

People ask me, does advertising work? Yeah, look at Virginia Slims. Women previous to Virginia Slims didn’t smoke much. It was mainly the men who smoked. And they made cigarettes cool, and sexy, and social. And they showed women with these fancy little cigarettes, which were thin like women like their legs to be. This was an amazing piece of psychology. And after 6 or 7 or 8 years of running that campaign, what happened to number of women smoking? It jumped right up there. It was absolutely amazing. So if you wonder, can advertising effect society? Yeah. Does advertising reflect society? Yeah. Can you get people to be aware of your product and all of this? Well, yeah…I want to be like that person. So Calvin Cline shows everyone looking pretty hot and pretty sexy. Actually, we were in Turkey this summer, and the two girls in the family that we were visiting, were wearing the low-rise pants, that’s the big thing, right now, in fashion… And their midriffs were showing, and they had short shirts, and their belly buttons were showing.

Well, when we’re in a Muslim community, is that acceptable? I mean two of these girls were Turkish, and my daughter was American—and obviously American looking. The Turkish girls obviously looked Turkish. But these Muslim women would go tisk-tisk-tisk to the group. At one point, when we were in the cemetery, and my wife walked by this gale who was completely veiled. All you could see was two slits in her face, that’s all you can see. And my wife said, did you hear what that Muslim lady was doing? And I said no, and that I didn’t hear very well. She said that she was saying to the other woman that she was with, she was saying tisk-tisk-tisk, as if to mean that it’s not acceptable.

Now, can you imagine in a Muslim community what it would be like to turn on the TV or to look in a newspaper, and see this every day? Is Turkey a very westernized, and probably how we want to set the model in the Middle East?

[Yes, it’s very secular.]

Very secular, very westernized. And so, yeah, they are amazed by this. By the way, I think we went to a new all time low…if any of you saw Charles Osgood’s show yesterday morning on channel 4, they talked about the naked news. Have any of you tuned into this on cable? We don’t get the whole cable package, we just get the minimum basic package. At least I was able to watch Sunday night football on ESPN. But there is this cable channel where they show news castes…the whole channel, they do 24 hour a day news. And the only thing that is different is that they have men and women that give you the news, and while your getting the news, they strip. It’s serious news, it’s the same news you get on any other channel, but they’re doing it naked. And I yelled up to my wife; I said, “Did you see that; did you hear about this?” She says, “Yeah, I’m on the computer, I’m kind of listening, because you have the damned TV on so loud.” And I said, “You’re mother would be rolling over in her grave if she had seen that story.”

So are there boundaries that we cross that we probably shouldn’t? Yeah, I think so.

[…welcome to America]

Yeah…anyway, can you blame Hollywood for that? Yeah, you probably can, although what Hollywood will say is all we’re doing is reflecting back society and what society wants. And so can you ever solve that puzzle? Probably not.

But anyway, back to public relations and publicity… It’s free, it takes some time and effort. It’s not controlled and usually not paid for. So advertising…the key, here, is that it is paid for. Now, you’ve all heard this statement, “Word of mouth is the best form of advertising,” haven’t you? Do you agree or disagree with that?

[It can’t happen fast enough…]

Can’t happen fast enough. It’s great, and hopefully you guys are out there saying great things about Inver Hills, hopefully you’re saying good things about my class; hopefully, you are learning; hopefully, this experience has been good for you. Inver Hills can’t afford to spend much on media can they? So we depend upon you to do that.

By the way, add specialties are a great tool to get you to do word of mouth. If I give you something for free, and then when people ask, “Well, where did you get that?” And you say, “Oh, I got it at Joe’s Sporting Goods, and that’s a great store…” Well, you’re telling the story again, aren’t you? And that’s what you want. So advertisers try to encourage you to do word of mouth. And they do a lot of sale promotional things to encourage that.

But is word of mouth advertising?

{Yeah…}

No, no…

[It’s got to be paid for and sponsored.]

It’s got to be paid for and sponsored. It’s public relations isn’t it. So word of mouth is the best form of public relations, but it is not advertising.

Because advertising, according to the strict definition is paid for directly towards a target audience, usually via mass media. Now, if I do direct mail, that’s advertising, it’s communication. If I send one at a time, however, that’s not mass media, is it. But if I send out 100,000 or 100,000,000 that’s mass media, isn’t it. So, usually it’s mass media.

It always gets a little dicey is something advertising or is it personal selling? Well, if I do personal-direct one-on-one communication, that’s personal selling. Now if I have a recorded message and a computer that calls 10,000 people in one night? Is that personal selling? It feels and smells and looks like it, doesn’t it? But it’s actually mass communication and it’s advertising.

Because personal selling is direct, and it’s two-way. And the beauty of personal selling, and it’s the most expensive, by the way, per message of all the ways to do promotions. But it’s also the most effective, because if you didn’t get my message, I can ask you, right, “Now, you do understand the benefit, here, don’t you?” Oh yeah, “The benefit of this is if I do this, this, and this, I get an A…” If you got, you got it. Now I know you understand, right? And the purpose and goal of communication, and that’s what promotion usually is, is communication, is to understand. And we’ll talk a little bit more on another day about the communication process.

So direct-selling is person, it’s direct, it’s two-way, and that’s different than advertising. Advertising is usually one-way, isn’t it. Now, I can put an add in a magazine with a coupon that you fill out and respond. And that becomes, then, interactive, doesn’t it. But, still, I don’t know that you saw that, I don’t have any way of calling on your attention other than through my copy, or maybe I do scratch and sniffs, or something, so sometimes it’s a little hard to figure out which is which. But most advertising is one-way.

So we have to test advertising to see if it’s effective. We have to create the message and then sample it. And if it works, then we’re going to go big time, right?

Does Target’s supplement in the paper get your attention? Is that, by the way, mass communication, and paid for to a target audience? Yeah. It goes out to a lot of people. Is that a whole lot of psychology and science into how they print that and what kind of paper they use? And does it work? Absolutely. It works so well, and they made so much money, that in Duluth, they built a whole building, just a huge factory, to make that clay-based glossy paper. You come down the hill in Duluth, and just before you turn to the left, when it looks like you’re going to head into the bay, there’s a huge brown building there. And that’s where that paper is made. They sell it, now, all over world.

Integrated Marketing Communication Program (IMC)

But those supplements, they work quite well. Well, if Target is in your home once a week, and then that little bit on TV, and that little bit on the radio…have they done a good job? Have they pulled this together in what is called the INC, an integrated marketing communications program? Yeah, and it’s very effective. And you repeat these things that do very well.

When I worked with the County Seat stores, they had a newspaper add that was directed to the moms. Because it’s usually the moms who buy the kids school clothes, right? They had a radio add that was directed to the kids, “Just direct your feet / to the County Seat.” Hey, kids! Come on it it’s cool…we’re going to do this and we’re going to do that. They had paid an orchestra to create the music and it was wonderful. By the way, once they paid for that orchestra, could they use that over and over again?

Cost Per M Impressions

And the cost per thousand or the cost per M impressions? Does the cost go down and down and down each time they use it? Yeah. They take that and they send a tape to the local stations, and those stations takes that tape and just does a voice over.

[Cost per…]

Cost per M, cost per thousand impressions. But, yeah, it’s incredibly effective. So they use radio, and they also use something I sold them, which was imprinted bags. Well, an imprinted bag in a high school is like a billboard in a high school, isn’t it. Only they could do that for a lot less. They had to give you a bag anyway, so why not have an ad on it? Now, when you go to Cub Foods, you not only get the ad on the bag, but you get ads for other businesses on the cash register receipt...pretty smart. I mean they use everything, they try to take advantage of every opportunity. In the case of County Seat, though, what they found out is that, particularly throughout much of North America, kids in the cold winter months, except in Florida or Texas, bring different shoes to school. They bring Galoshes…we don’t use that word anymore, but that is essentially what they are. They are either rubbers or some kind of winter boot. And they didn’t want to look like a dork in school, did they? Wearing you’re big old rubber boots. So what you do is you change shoes. Well, if they gave away really nice bags, kids would take those bags into school. And it was cool to be seen carrying a County Seat bag and not some other bag. So you didn’t want to have a Redwing Orthopedic shoe bag or anything, but the County Seat bags were cool, right? And we sold them lots of bags. It was a big with a 3 color logo; they were nice bags that lasted, instead of the cheap ones.

…value on their advertising dollar. So it was an orchestrated campaign. Later on, they got into sponsoring races. I printed bibs for them for down-hill ski races. I didn’t have anything to do with it, but it was brilliant, they found out that high schools couldn’t afford the basketball time clocks. You know how they have the foul buzzer and all of that? Those are expensive pieces of equipment. Grade schools wanted them, junior high schools wanted them, but the school districts couldn’t afford to pay for all of that. So someone at County Seat was approached by someone, or they figured it out on their own, I don’t know, but they said that they would give the school this if they would allow us to put up an ad for the County Seat on the clock. So it has the two sides and the time above their ad, because you’re always looking at the time in basketball, aren’t you? Did their ad get looked at a lot with a room full of people? Yeah. So what did it cost them? 6 to 8, or maybe $10,000 to put up a clock in a grade school? Some of those clocks are still out there. I saw one of them when my kid was playing basketball, and it was so faded that you could hardly see the County Seat ad. Somebody should go along, for County Seat, and redo those and make another donation to the school, right…just to get them updated. But it’s not locally run or managed anymore. So they they’re not around to be given advice….

But wasn’t that smart? By the way, what is that? Is that publicity or is that and public relations? Or, is it a combination of sales promotion, a little bit of advertising, and…well, it’s kind of a combination, isn’t it. It’s good PR, the school is happy, and….

By the way, was their target audience clearly grade school kids? Oh, absolutely…grade school, and then junior high, and senior high kids. The one program that I gave them that worked very well was book covers. Book covers? Why would county seat pay for book covers? Have any of you had to pay for your books in high school, or have to pay if your wasn’t in the condition that you received it in? Yeah, almost every school has something like that. Well, kids want book covers, and they would get a really nice book cover for free for each book. Was County Seat a part of that school then, every day? Now, you didn’t have to worry if they were bringing their bags to school… So we put together some nice programs that worked out pretty well for them.

We also talked them out of using the Bic pens, that they got at the local office supply, and got them into imprinted pens. So, at least, if they stole your pen after they wrote the check, you got some benefit from it, right? Instead of their having to go out and spend 79 cents on a pen, we sold them a 29 cent pen. We printed a lot of County Seat pens for them.

By the way, they bought those pens on a contract price that we also had for Northrop King and all of their dealers, Cennex and all of their dealers, so they got a really good value on that pen. But it’s one of the ways that you put together publicity public relations.

So, advertising is mass communication, it’s usually via major media, it’s directed towards a target audience… Is it always positive? What do you think?

[Advertising?]

Advertising, is it always positive?

{no…}

[But you have a lot of control…]

You have all the control, and it’s absolutely positive where you assume it’s going to be. To the best of your knowledge, it’s going to do what you want. Why would anyone pay money to offend their clients? But people do, sometimes, don’t they? Why? Because they don’t do their research. They don’t check it out.

General Mills had an add that they thought was really funny. And, by the way, we use humor a lot of times to get your attention. Remember, we talked about attention, interest, desire, and action… Well, humor works. General Mills had a new product they were coming out with that was called Mug A Lunch or something. And it was a packaged food product that you pour into a cup and then you add hot water to, and you’d get soup. Now, General Mills is going to compete with Campbell’s Soup. Was that a big deal? Yeah, a big deal. They wanted to show that this was a full and complete nutritious meal. So they hired these twins, and they were big guys. At the time, the University of Minnesota was doing a twin study, which is still a long-term study that they are still working on, but at the time, it was getting a lot of press and twins were coming from all over the world to participate. Well, they hired these twins and they were huge. They put them in lumber jack-looking shirts, and they did all of these up-angles.

Kind of like when Johnny Carson was on TV…did he ever allow the camera to take a straight-on shot of him. Look back at some of those old episodes…they never did it. They would hardly ever do it unless it was a stunt or a gag of some kind, because he was concerned about his height. He was a short guy who wanted to look tall.

So they did these shots of these twins, where all of the angles were up, and they put them in these lumber jack shirts, and they got on there and had some fun, while talking about, “Well, this is a full-meal, and we’re both full!” They thought it was a great ad. The concept sounded good; they tested it with a pre-test first, and then in concept, and then in copy. And they bounced it off of some people, and then they actually paid to produce it. Now, they’re about to spend hundreds of millions to buy the media… Because the actual buying of the media is the most expensive part. We’re not going to do that, though, unless we’re sure that this commercial is the right commercial. So they did a test.

They take people into a trailer, at a shopping mall, much like they do at the Mall of America, where they do market testing. And Burnsville, by the way, is one of the leading shopping centers in the world for customer interrupts, where they actually interrupt customers while in the shopping process. They say, if you come out to our trailer, where we want to show you some commercials for a couple of clients. And if you come out to our trailer, we’ll give you some General Mills coupons. So they sit you down, and it’s just like an airplane, ok? You walk in, there are seats on either side, you sit down, and then you respond to either a written thing or a touch screen. They show the commercial, and when they were all done, they would talk to thousands of people. And they were actually amazed that the majority of the people who saw that ad thought that General Mills was making fun at fat people, because these guys were big guys. And they kind of looked like big football players or wrestlers. They had some big gut going, there, right? But they actually had one comment, “Are you selling beer or are you selling soup?” They look like guys who drink beer.

Well, the more they looked at it, and the more they analyzed it, and the more they thought about it, what happened to the commercial? It went into the trash, they scraped it. Because you don’t want to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to repel customers, you want to sell to customers, and have a positive image. Can that happen in advertising, where an ad can backfire on you? Oh, yeah. It may not have happened intentionally, but because you didn’t study it, and you didn’t know how people were going to react, so in that case, General Mills made the right decision.

Buy the way, we used to have a day where we went with all the Vo-techs and the community colleges, all the marketing students…we’d go out for a marketing day at General Mills and we’d hear all of these stories…so some of this stuff, I got from their advertising people directly. It’s pretty amazing, and it’s kind of fun.

For example the story about Yoplait, and how they started shipping that product, and the tops were popping off. And, fortunately, they knew they had a good product; they researched the size, and the shape… And Yoplait gives you an conical package—so packaging is a part of this—they give you very little product for a lot of money, don’t they? But, actually, what they had found out in their research is that was the exact quantity that people wanted. Most yogurt containers provide too much product. And yogurt isn’t safe to keep around, is it. You want to eat it up at the time you purchase it. So, (a) they were covering their liability, and (b) they were trying to get more money for what they were pushing, promoting, and positioning as a premium product. But they failed to understand in the packaging department, and in the execution of the delivery, as it were, of the marketing plan, that they had a heat-sealed product from 3M. Well, when you take yogurt and you add heat to it, what happens? It’s a cultured product, isn’t it. You activate the culture; so the little heat sealed capping process that they had was just enough to start that yogurt to do what it is supposed to do in your stomach, right?

And, so the tops were popping off in the grocery stores, and the store managers and the grocery chains were calling up General Mills saying, “We knew you didn’t know anything about the dairy business. We shouldn’t have bought this shit from you. You’re proving that you don’t know what you’re doing. Get over here and clean this crap up. You’ve got a mess in my dairy case!” God, they thought it was the end of the world. Well, fortunately, they knew they had a good product, they knew it was going to make money, they had bought the rights to manufacture this in America from a very successful French dairy cooperative, and they bought the name…They knew that Americans were going to be eating healthy, and the yogurt was the next big thing. So they called 3M and said, We’ve got to solve this problem!

Well, they went around and they cleaned every one of those dairy cases, and gave every one of those stores, that complained, a couple of extra hundred bucks, and apologized saying that the problem was solved 24 hours ago. We had a hot process, but 3M is now giving us a cold-seal process. It is now a cold adhesive seal.

By the way, 3M makes a lot of money, because they can solve customer’s problems, and they do it quickly, just like that. It was kind of a simple thing to overlook, and the 3M guys said that no one told us that this would be a concern, and you wanted the least expensive method in sealing these. And here’s what we suggested. I guess we should have thought it through more, but…. Anyway, they solved the problem, and away they go.

The other story about excel or repel with advertising that I love to tell is about Stroes Beer. Does anybody know the Stroes Beer story? Stroes Beer bought Hamm’s Brewery. And Hamm’s had gone out of business, because Hamm’s had hired a bear-man. And he had got paid for every image, which literally broke the brewery. He was a Grizzly Adams-looking guy. And he would go around to liquor stores and grand openings, and his trained bear would be there. And he had a great agent, who negotiated for Hamm’s having to pay royalties for every cardboard cutout that appears in every liquor store. And if you put his image on the can, or your six-pack, or your whatever. Every time you reproduce and use his likeness, you will pay this amount.

My daughter is a model, and I am very familiar with those kinds of arrangements. By the way, when you get to be a good enough model, you can do that, right. Well, Grizzly Adams was very popular at the time, and he looked like Grizzly Adams, and Hamm’s thought that, well, we don’t want to do the, “/From the land of sky-blue waters…/” theme anymore, as they thought they had worn that out.

By the way, that ad campaign, and that cartoon character made that brewery what they were; it made them filthy rich. The Hamm’s family became so rich, that people wanted to kidnap the family members for ransom, right, which was a very famous St. Paul crime story.

But they had hired this bear-man, which was just about the time that I took over the Hamm’s account from my dad…was when they had hired this guy, and they no longer had money to spend on ad specialties. It was a bad deal. Moreover, this is when they invented pop-tops, and so they wouldn’t buy our can openers that we printed out. So, I was screwed twice-over. It’s too bad, but I learned a few things by getting to know that guy, and talking to him, but…. I learned all about their contract. Well, they had hired this bear-guy, and they decided that they were going to promote him more, and he was selling and moving product… Pretty soon, he was on every can, he was on every six-pack, he was on every case. And what was happening to all the profit? Well, that guy was getting it. And at that point, they were bought-out by Hue Blind. Hue Blind was in the liquor business, but didn’t understand the beer business. They thought they would be in the beer business, but they didn’t understand it, so that took another notch down.

Then Stroh’s bought it. And Stroh’s struggled until they finally bombed. And now the whole thing is shut-down, right, and it’s kind of a sad story. But how did Stroh’s screw-up? Well, Stroh’s screwed up with one ad, which is famous in marketing history. It’s the most famous foul-up in the history of beer advertising.

By the way, who does it right and hasn’t screwed up once, that I know of? Although, just recently, I think Budweiser might have…

{Miller}

Well, Miller Light made some mistakes…the dog licking the guys face. That was a mistake; that’s written up as a mistake. But Budweiser, with their frogs…and have you seen the latest one, where they are making fun of the guy with the tope? That’s Budweiser, isn’t it?

{Yeah…}

Yeah. I think that’s crossed the line, and I think they’re might be some ramifications. On the other hand, people who drink beer think it’s great fun. Well, anyway, the frogs, by the way, are designed for kids, aren’t they. That’s what it’s all about. Budweiser…the chairman of the board would say, no, no, no, but I mean, that’s what they’re all about. I know that for an absolute fact.

Anyway, Stroh’s ran this add, and here’s what the ad was all about. They had a stagecoach, and there’s a guy riding shotgun and a guy at the reins, kind of like the Wells Fargo coach that you see in the parades. It’s a beautiful old stagecoach. And they’re driving through South Dakota, or out west somewhere, it’s a western scene, because Stroh’s is a western brewery, right.

And by the way, they claim they have the best water, but the best water in the whole world for brewing is right here in the Twin Cities. It’s ancient water, water that was laid down on this Earth, when dinosaurs ruled. It’s ancient artesian water…some of the best water on Earth. I have a friend from Harvard who told me that.

But the breweries all say that they have the best water, but he’s convinced me that we have that. By the way, the aquifer, if you go down to what was the Schmidt Brewery, you can still get well water there for free. And that aquifer runs from the Grain Belt Brewery, the Hamm’s Brewery, the Schmidt Brewery, and all the way down to La Cross. Unfortunately, La Cross makes some pretty bad beer out of it, but that’s where that water goes.

But Stroh’s was bragging about their water and all that stuff. And I love it, because Budweiser say’s that we’re the king of beers… Budweiser gets part of their water from the Mississippi River, did you know that? They don’t have enough wells to produce the gallons. They take city water…. It’s the cheapest beer to brew, because it’s a rice-based beer. It’s the cheapest beer on Earth to brew in terms of the quality and the content. But people love it, especially young people, because it’s a light beer, right? It’s very easy to get into…it’s not a heavy beer.

But anyway, I was on a tour there, and they were bragging about how many gallons of beer they produce in a summer. And I said, “Wait a minute, you told me you have 9 wells…” And she said, “Yes, sir, we do…” And I said, “And you told me that those well, on average, produce this many gallons of water. Is that true?” And she said, “Yeah.” And I said that it didn’t add-up; I said, “Your nine wells only produce enough to actually give you about a third of your brewery output. You must be using city water.” And she goes, “Oh, no, sir—no, no, no! We have other wells that we pipe water in from.” Well, it could be true, but who knows.

My dad called on the breweries and they talked about this for years. Budweiser takes City of St. Louis water, and they make beer. Now, do they have their own wells? And is that the best place to get water from? Probably not. But the Guys at Grain Belt used to laugh…we’d take good water, brew beer, you go to the Metrodome, you piss it out, put it into the Mississippi River, it goes down to St. Louis, and then they take it in again to make their beer. By the way, would it be a good idea to put that on an add, and take on Budweiser directly? Holly Mole, the wrath of God would come upon you, and you would never hear the end of that.

Anyway, back to the Stroh’s story. These guys are riding along, and they’ve got cases of Stroh’s where you would normally find luggage, right? Except there’s a couple of bags of luggage up there. And so the bad guys are coming, and the bad guys are shooting at them, and so they one driver says to the guy riding shotgun, “We got to lose some weight, if we’re going to lose them!” And they’re bouncing along, and the horses are going faster and faster, and he’s whipping the horses. Then he says, “We’re going to have to lose some more weight!” So they show a suite case flying out and the petty coats and the clothes go flying out of the suite cases. And the other suite case goes. And they looked at the beer and they looked at each other and they go, “No way, we’re keeping the beer!” So they both turn around to look inside the stage coach, and there’s two women in there. So the next thing you see are these petty coats and these women, one out of each door goes flying along the road. And the coach manages to get away. And in the last scene, you see these two guys going, “Yeah, we beat the bad guys, we made it!”

Was that a good ad or a bad ad? Offensive ad or a fun ad? Everybody at the brewery loved it. When I first saw it, I was literally on the floor howling. My wife came in and said, “Are you ok?” And I said, “Honey, I teach advertising, and I just saw the best, most funniest ad I’ve ever seen in my life—God, it was great!” And she’s like, “Well, what was it?” And I said, “Well, I don’t know, I think it was a beer ad for Stroh’s. I’m not sure, but it was so funny.”

Well, the people who created it thought it was funny; the people who approved it thought it was funny. But what did the women think of it?

{They didn’t think it was funny.}

They didn’t think it was funny at all. Now, in the case of the earlier story, for liquor people maybe it’s ok, and maybe that’s what they were thinking, but they turned out to be wrong.

Who buys most of the beer in the world?

[Oh, the housewives…]

Women buy most of the beer. Men drink more beer. And most of the ads are aimed at the men. I mean, look at a Miller ad, look at a Budweiser ad, look a Coors ad with the Twins. Those are aimed at men. That’s who they want to say yes to their product, and to keep them loyal, right? But who buys the product? Often women buy the product.

And do women, on their own, drink a fair amount of beer? Why, of course they do. You bet they do. So that ad ran, and then there was comment in the media about it. Johnny Carson made fun about it… What happened next? What happened to the sales?

{down…}

You know, what you want is, when you run an add, you want your sales to go like this [up], but what happened to the sales? They went down. And it tanked for quite a while. Were there women who said that they would never, ever buy Stroh’s beer or any Stroh’s related product. And they found out that Hamm’s was a Stroh’s related product. And it’s a really sad story. So you’ve got to be careful with the images you put out there, and the images that you create.

That’s why Betty Crocker…they don’t want anybody making fun of her. They don’t want Mr. Bill beating up on the Dough Boy for Pillsbury. That’s a big thing to make sure that you do that right.

It would be fun…if you want to produce an article that I would enjoy seeing, see if you can in Advertising Age, Ad Week, or Promo magazine, Marketing Times, or The Wall Street Journal, which has a whole section dedicated to marketing and advertising everyday. So find one of those articles that relates to that current Budweiser campaign with the tope. I’d love to hear what they are saying. I might go to the library on my own just to look for fun, but I might not catch it on the right day. So if you see something like that, that would be fascinating.

Ok, let’s finish up with the Coke thing. Did we talk about that the other day? Was that an accident or was it on purpose?

{What…}

That whole Coke thing…the old taste of Coke, and the new taste of Coke. The Classic Coke? Yeah, I believe, and there’s no way that any one could prove it 100 percent, but I believe it was on purpose, as do about 68 percent of marketing and advertising professors who were poled. Most people believe that was done on purpose. And the reason that I believe it was done on purpose is because of the turn-around time that they had for the new packaging and the new cans and the new advertising for the new taste of Coke. And it takes six months to a year to turn something like that around, and you don’t just snap your fingers and have new product in the stores and new displays. And so I’m convinced that that was all a very clearly and cleverly orchestrated campaign. Did they find out who their loyal customers were to the original flavor? Absolutely. They all wrote; they sent in letters stating their displeasure. Were they able to take care of those people and send them coupons and whatnot? Oh, you bet. They really did that well. To this day, Coke-Cola corporate claims it was a mistake. I think that they are being deceptive, but I don’t know that anyone will ever admit to that.

I was there when they launched… when I was trying to sell them the idea for my Signs For Sale thing, the new Diet Coke. And I had an appointment with their head advertising guy. I had an appointment. I drove all the way to Atlanta to see this guy. I hauled my Hoby Cat with me. But he bowed out of his appointment. And the secretary was mortified and said, “I’m sorry, but we’re just launching this Diet Coke product, and he’s too busy, he can’t see you. Can you come back next week?” And I said, “No, these were my travel plans, I mean this it.” And she was somewhat upset. Then I said, “Well, while I’m here, can you tell me why it is that he is not here?” And she said, “Well, we’re launching this Diet Coke thing, and we’ve been working on it for years, and it took this long to do the packaging, and this long to do the add…” When they launched that product, in that commercial they had every known Hollywood star that they could book. It was unbelievable.

By the way, Pepsi spent the same amount of money to compete against Coke, and they hired Michel Jackson. Was that a good decision or a bad decision? It turns out, now, to be a bad decision. But at the time, he was really popular with the young folks. But Coke had realized with the Pepsi Challenge, which was a sales promotion thing, where they did sampling all across the country and on college compasses and such, Coke realized that they were losing the young people; they were losing their future. And so they had to respond; they had to launch something new that would directly compete with Pepsi. And they’ve gotten much of that business back from them.

{As far as bad advertising goes, is it true that Pepsi, like a couple of years ago, when they had this Pepsi point thing, where they were offering to give away a jet?}

Yes.

{Do you remember that?}

I do and I followed that story very closely, and I actually have some follow-up information on that. But go ahead and explain what the deal was.

{I thought that some like college students took out loans and bought enough Pepsi points to get the jet, and then they wouldn’t give them the jet, so they took them to court, and they actually got more money than what the jet cost.}

Yes, they had a Harrier jet in their commercials. And it was like you could get a Pepsi hat, or a Pepsi jacket…And most people are going to collect enough points to get a few things, right? But these points had dollar values, and ultimately, they had said, and I quote, “in jest”, and the jet, and they showed the picture of the Harrier. Well, some people thought we could get that jet; we’ll get enough coupons… Well, they never thought that anyone would be able to do that, they had no intention of ever giving anyone a jet. So when these, and I think it was college students, submitted, and they had collected as many coupons that they could from friends and on their own, and they also borrowed money. At any rate, they demanded that Pepsi make good on their promise. And Pepsi made the mistake of saying, “Well, that was just a joke in a commercial. I mean, everyone in the world knows we weren’t going to give away a jet.

And they made a claim, they had an attorney, and they took it to court. And they actually did get paid a dollar amount that was either equal to or greater than the price of the jet. Could Pepsi buy a Harrier jet?

[No]

No, Pepsi couldn’t buy one if they wanted to. And another part of their point was that no one could buy one. Maybe a terrorist could, but no legitimate…. You know, you can’t buy a Harrier jet. But that created some negative feelings and bad PR, and hurt them in the college market in particular. And there’s been quite a few articles and there’s a whole long line if you wanted to study all of the press that went on about that.

{________________________}

No, I think they did it, originally, thinking, cool, let’s do it, let’s get the jet. And as they were going through with it, I’m sure that somebody sat them down and told them that it was a joke. And then somebody else said, no, they have to do it, because they don’t want to screw up their goodwill. I think as it turned out, to get them to shut-up, they gave them more than what their points were worth.

This shook the whole ad world, because many things have been said in jest. Not to be real, but to be funny, to get attention. And so, now, people in the ad industry are thinking that they could be held accountable for what we say in our advertising, which is partly true.

{When’s our next test?}

You know what, I can’t tell you off-hand.

{Are you going to do take-home tests for both of your classes or for just one?}

You know what, I was thinking about doing it in the marketing class, and not in this class, but I might talked out of it.

{____________}

Yeah, do you want to do take-home tests? Well, the really good students wouldn’t like that, but, yeah, there’s a pretty good possibility that I might do that, because I….

[For which class?]

You’ve had tests 1, 2, and 3 in this class…. Oh, we still have to do test number 3.

{Here?}

Yes, in this class. But test number 4, I could do as a take-home, and test number 5.

{So test 3 will be in class…}

Three has to be in class. I have to get at least 3 decent tests.

{I have a quick question. Did you send around the attendance sheet for the last class?}

In marketing?

{no, in this class.}

Oh, in this class, for last Wednesday? Ok, at the end, I’m going to ask you how many days you missed, and so it’s not a big deal. As long as you’re here on a regular basis, and I see your name a certain number of times. At the end I put people on the honor thing, and if someone says, and I’m looking that them going, you were? I don’t really remember you that much. And then go back and look at these.