Archive for October 16th, 2008

Debate: Missed opportunities, no kill shots …

October 16, 2008

Among the things that I harp on with students is that each slide in their pitches should be explicitly “conclusive” or “prescriptive”. 

That is, tell the audience the answer, don’t make them figure it out on their own.  Otherwise, they might draw the wrong conclusion or no conclusion at all.

I wish McCain had taken one of my courses.  Last night, Obama artfully dodged and weaved. He gave McCain opportunities, but McCain never went in for the kill. For example,

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On the subject of tax cuts to 95% of Americans, here’s what I was hoping McCain would say:

“Senator, since 40% of workers don’t pay any income taxes (thanks largely to the Bush tax plan) how can you give them tax cuts?  You’re not giving tax cuts, you’re rebuilding the welfare system that Pres. Ciinton dismantled.  What don’t you just call it what it is — welfare?” , or

“Senator, the core of you tax plan is to tax businesses — large and small — and give $500 credits to 95% of workers.  That works out to be about $1.37 per day. Higher taxes on businesses will raise prices (which is bad for all) — and will cut jobs. Do you really think that workers are willing to bet their jobs for a little over a buck a day?”

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On the subject of Obama’s sleazy associations:

“Senator, you attended Rev. Wright’s church for 20 years and didn’t hear his anti-American rants — the Rev. Wright of today isn’t the man you knew; you worked with and for Bill Ayres — a self-admitted terrorist — who isn’t the man you knew; you funneled government money to Tony Rezko — a convicted felon — but not the man you knew; your campaign gave almost $1 million to ACORN — an organization that has been tied to voter fraud in the last 2 presidential elections and is being investigated in 11 states as we speak — but that’s not the organization you knew.  Senator, if these despicable characters can fool you for so long, why should we have confidence that you won’t be fooled by people like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad?”

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Instead, McCain let it to the audience to draw their own conclusions.  My bet: they concluded “so what?”

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Green bubble bursting ?

October 16, 2008

Excerpted from LA Times: “The green bubble bursts”, Nordhaus and Shellenberger, September 30, 2008

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Amid the energy crisis, Democrats are losing the high ground on the environment to a GOP that is pushing oil drilling.

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As the election enters its endgame, Democrats and their environmental allies face a political challenge they could hardly have imagined just a few months ago. America’s growing dependence on fossil fuels, once viewed as a Democratic trump card held alongside the Iraq war and the deflating economy, has become a lodestone instead.

Republicans stole the energy issue from Democrats by proposing expanded drilling — particularly lifting bans on offshore oil drilling — to bring down gasoline prices.

Whereas Barack Obama told Americans to properly inflate their tires, Republicans at their convention gleefully chanted “Drill, baby, drill!” Obama’s point on conservation and efficiency was lost on an electorate eager for a solution to what they perceive as a supply crisis.

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Democrats and greens ended up in this predicament because they believed their own press clippings — or, perhaps more accurately, Al Gore’s. After the release of the documentary film and book “An Inconvenient Truth,” greens convinced themselves that U.S. public opinion on climate change had shifted dramatically, despite having no empirical evidence that was the case.

Global warming remains a low-priority issue, hovering near the bottom of the Pew Center for People and the Press’ top 20 priorities.

By contrast, public concern about gasoline and energy prices has shifted dramatically. While liberals and environmentalists were congratulating themselves on the triumph of climate science over fossil-fuel-funded ignorance, planning inauguration parties and writing legislation for the next Democratic president and Congress, gas prices became the second-highest concern after the economy, according to Gallup.

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This summer, elite opinion ran headlong into American popular opinion. The train wreck happened in the Senate and went by the name of the Climate Security Act. That bill to cap U.S. greenhouse gas emissions would have, by all accounts (even the authors’), increased gasoline and energy prices. Despite clear evidence that energy-price anxiety was rising, Democrats brought the bill to the Senate floor in June when gas prices were well over $4 a gallon in most of the country. Republicans were all too happy to join that fight.

Republicans have been bludgeoning Democrats with it ever since.  Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich quickly announced a book, “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less,” a movie and a petition drive.

Seeing the writing on the wall, Obama reversed his opposition to drilling in August, and congressional Democrats quickly followed suit.

But the damage has largely been done. In following greens, Democrats allowed McCain and Republicans to cast them as the party out of touch with the pocketbook concerns of middle-class Americans and captive to special interests that prioritize remote wilderness over economic prosperity.

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In a tacit acknowledgment of their defeat, some green leaders, such as the Sierra Club’s Carl Pope, have endorsed the Democrats’ pro-drilling strategy. But few of them seem to realize the political implications.

With an economic recession likely, and energy prices sure to remain high for years to come thanks to expanding demand in China and other developing countries, any strategy predicated centrally on making fossil fuels more expensive is doomed to failure.

A better approach is to make clean energy cheap through technology innovation funded directly by the federal government. In contrast to raising energy prices, investing somewhere between $30 billion and $50 billion annually in technology R&D, infrastructure and transmission lines to bring power from windy and sunny places to cities is overwhelmingly popular with voters. Instead of embracing this big investment, greens and Democrats push instead for tiny tax credits for renewable energy — nothing approaching the national commitment that’s needed.

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Environmental groups, perpetually certain that a new ecological age is about to dawn in America, have serially overestimated their strength and misread public opinion. Democrats must break once and for all from green orthodoxy that focuses primarily on making dirty energy more expensive and instead embrace a strategy to make clean energy cheap.

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Full article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-shellenberger30-2008sep30,0,5840948.story

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Reducing Carbon Footprint Confusion for CPG’s

October 16, 2008

Excerpted from The Wall Street Journal “Six Products, Six Carbon Footprints” by Jeffrey Ball, October 6, 2008

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A new concept is entering the consumer lexicon: the carbon footprint.

First came organic. Then came fair trade. Now makers of everything from milk to jackets to cars are starting to tally up the carbon footprints of their products. That’s the amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that get coughed into the air when the goods are made, shipped and stored, and then used by consumers…

So far, these efforts raise as many questions as they answer. Different companies are counting their products’ carbon footprints differently, making it all but impossible for shoppers to compare goods. And even if consumers come to understand the numbers, they might not like what they find out.

For instance, many products’ global-warming impact depends less on how they’re made than on how they’re used. That means the easiest way to cut carbon emissions may be to buy less of a product or use it in a way that’s less convenient.

So, what are the carbon footprints of some of the common products we use? How are they calculated? And what surprises do they hold? What follows is a look at six everyday items — cars, shoes, laundry detergent, clothing, milk and beer — and the numbers that go with them.

…The U.S. emits the equivalent of about 118 pounds of carbon dioxide per resident every day, a figure that includes emissions from industry. Annually, that’s nearly 20 metric tons per American — about five times the number per citizen of the world at large, according to the International Energy Agency.

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CARS

The simplest statistic in the carbon-footprinting game may be this: For every mile it travels, the average car in the U.S. emits about one pound of carbon dioxide. Given typical driving distances and fuel-economy numbers, that translates into about five tons of carbon dioxide per car per year.

…an American-made midsize sedan emits the equivalent of about 63 tons of carbon dioxide. That number includes all emissions, from the making of the car’s raw materials, such as steel and plastic, through the shredding of the car once it’s junked.

The vast majority of those emissions — 86% — came from the car’s fuel use, the study found. Just 4% of emissions came from making and assembling the car. That means consumers can lower their footprint by buying a car with better fuel economy.  Sometimes, the differences between models can be substantial….

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SHOES

You may think you’re at one with nature going for a walk in the woods in your sturdy hiking boots. But those boots pack a lot of carbon. The big reason: the leather.

Timberland Co., a Stratham, N.H., shoe company with an outdoorsy image, has assessed the carbon footprint of about 40 of the shoe models it currently sells. The results range from about 22 pounds to 220 pounds per pair. Each of the shoes that has been carbon-footprinted comes with a label assessing its greenhouse-gas score on a scale of zero, which is best, to 10, which is worst.

Flip-flops tend to have footprints of 22 pounds to 44 pounds…Shoes typically range from 66 pounds to 132 pounds. Hiking boots typically pack between 154 and 198 pounds, Mr. Girard says.

…transportation typically accounts for less than 5% of the carbon footprint. By far the biggest contributor is the shoe’s raw material…The average dairy cow produces, every year, an amount of greenhouse gas equivalent to four tons of carbon dioxide, according to U.S. government figures. Most of that comes not from carbon dioxide, in fact, but from a more-potent greenhouse gas: methane…

Timberland officials concede shortcomings with their method…the calculations fail to recognize that some shoes require more electricity to assemble in the factory than do others. And Timberland’s calculations omit the carbon impact of the leather and other materials that fall to the cutting-room floor.

“No question, it’s crude in some ways,” Mr. Girard says. “But it’s a step more information than our designers were making a decision on before.”

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LAUNDRY DETERGENT

The recipe for a low-carbon load of laundry: Use liquid detergent instead of powder, wash your clothes in cool water and hang them out to dry…

The carbon footprint of a load of laundry done with Tesco detergent varies from 1.3 pounds to 1.9 pounds, depending on what form of detergent is used…According to P&G, the average American family does about 300 loads of laundry per year, or about six loads per week. That suggests a per-family carbon footprint from doing laundry of about 480 pounds per year, or about 10 pounds per week. And that doesn’t include running the dryer.

Solid capsules of detergent have the highest carbon footprint, according to Tesco. Powder has a slightly lower footprint; liquid has a lower one still; and concentrated liquid has the lowest of all. That’s because making solid detergent uses more energy than making the liquid variety.

But consumers who care about their carbon emissions should do more than switch detergent forms, the labels advise. Doing the wash in cooler water — 86 degrees Fahrenheit instead of 104 degrees — will shave the carbon footprint of each load by 0.3 pounds. That’s as much of a reduction as you get from switching to liquid from powder.

The biggest way to cut the environmental impact of cleaning clothes, however, is to stop using a clothes dryer. Drying laundry outside on a line, Tesco says, will cut the carbon footprint of every load by a whopping 4.4 pounds…

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JACKETS

Patagonia Inc.’s Talus jacket looks like a naturalist’s dream. In fact, its carbon footprint is 66 pounds. That, Patagonia notes on its Web site, is 48 times the weight of the jacket itself.

Over the past year, the Ventura, Calif., outdoor-equipment maker has computed and posted on its Web site the carbon footprints of 15 of its products. Because most of Patagonia’s products are made in Asia or Latin America and sold in the U.S., the company expected that a big chunk of the carbon footprints came from transportation. It was wrong.

The fabric for the Talus is made in China, the zippers come from Japan, and the jacket is sewn in Vietnam. Yet all that transportation adds up to less than 1% of the product’s total carbon footprint, Patagonia says. The majority of the footprint — 71%, or about 47 pounds — comes in producing the polyester, which originates with oil…

“Consumers are starting to put environmental values into their purchasing decisions, but it doesn’t always translate into their being willing to pay a higher price,” Patagonia’s Ms. Dumain says…Patagonia lays out this conundrum on its Web site, saying it “reflects the complexities involved” in balancing concern for the environment with the need for performance.

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MILK

…A recent study by National Dairy Holdings found that the carbon footprint of a gallon of its milk in a plastic jug is either 6.19 pounds or 7.59 pounds. The difference rests in what kind of cases the jugs are placed in during transport from the milk-processing plant to the distribution center. Plastic cases, because they take more energy to produce, yield more carbon-dioxide emissions than do cardboard ones.

But National Dairy Holdings’ study doesn’t count all the emissions created by a gallon of milk. It includes those from the cows themselves (more than half of the total), from the processing of the milk and from the transport of the milk to a distribution center. It doesn’t count the emissions earlier in the process: growing the cows’ feed. Nor does it count the emissions later in the process: transporting the milk from the distribution center to the store and refrigerating it there…

National Dairy Holdings measured only its piece in the supply chain, explains Howard Depoy, the dairy’s director…That’s “the CO2 that we can control and manage,” Mr. Depoy says…the single biggest chunk of emissions from milk production comes from all that action in the cow’s gut…

The dairy industry doesn’t plan to put carbon-footprint labels on milk cartons, says Rick Naczi, an executive vice president for Dairy Management. “It’s something that would be very, very difficult to make understandable to consumers,” he says.

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BEER

When New Belgium Brewing Co. set out last year to compute the carbon footprint of a six-pack of its Fat Tire Amber Ale, it figured it would find transportation was the biggest problem…The microbrewer, based in Fort Collins, Colo., has been expanding into more states, necessitating more trucking of its beer.

When the numbers came in this summer, they showed that a six-pack’s carbon footprint was about seven pounds. The real surprise was where the bulk of that number came from: the refrigeration of the beer at stores. Transportation came in fourth, behind manufacturing the glass bottles and producing the barley and malt….

Now, New Belgium is considering switching to bottles with more recycled glass, because making them consumes less fuel. It’s also considering buying barley and malt produced organically, rather than with chemical fertilizers, which are big emitters.

Refrigeration poses a tougher problem. Stores selling Fat Tire aren’t owned by New Belgium, so even if the brewer wanted them to stop refrigerating the beer, they might not do so…

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Full article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122304950601802565.html

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Wendy’s Changes its Target, Leaving the Red Wig Behind

October 16, 2008

Excerpted from the Wall Street Journal “Wendy’s Comes Up With a New Strategic Recipe” by Janet Adamy, September 29, 2009

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Wendy’s plans to target older customers, change its value menu and improve items like its french fries as its new owner takes over.

Wendy’s new chief executive, Roland Smith, says the chain plans to market to older customers…Wendy’s has struggled to increase sales and profit since Mr. Thomas died six years ago, and that led directors to put the chain up for sale last year.

In an interview, Roland Smith, president and chief executive of the new Wendy’s/Arby’s Group Inc., said executives plan to reverse the previous’ management team’s strategy of courting 18- to 24-year-olds and will instead aim its marketing at customers ages 24 to 49. A new marketing campaign that focuses on the quality of the chain’s food “is a breath of fresh air from the red-wig campaign,” a more offbeat series of commercials that Wendy’s ran last year featuring young men wearing red wigs, Mr. Smith said.

Mr. Smith said that, like rivals McDonald’s Corp and Burger King Holdings Inc., Wendy’s plans to change its value menu, which includes three items for 99 cents, as it faces higher ingredient and labor costs. He said Wendy’s is considering higher price points for some items and looking at putting different items on the menu…

Mr. Smith acknowledged that Wendy’s hasn’t done a good-enough job of creating products to bolster sales and fend off competitors. After talking to franchisees, he decided that the chain also needs to improve the quality of existing items and emphasize a message of freshness in its marketing. In particular, he wants Wendy’s to offer better french fries, sandwich buns and bacon.

For Wendy’s, one of the keys to increasing its sales and profit will be breaking into the breakfast business…Wendy’s has been serving breakfast at some locations but has yet to hit on a successful strategy. Mr. Smith said the company needs to reformulate some of its breakfast items and improve its coffee, which is made by Procter & Gamble’s Folgers. Wendy’s also is testing espresso drinks in some stores.

Another key to improving sales will be remodeling thousands of Wendy’s restaurants…The credit crunch is likely to make that more difficult for franchisees who need to borrow money to fund the renovations. “It’s going to be tougher to get money to buy stores and rebuild stores”…

Edit by SAC

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Full article:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122270629158386159.html

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Buzz Words: “Brand Accretion”

October 16, 2008

Excerpted from BusinessWeek “The Case for Brand Accretion”, by Steve McKee, September 12, 2008

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Brand accretion. With respect to branding, accretion is the simple principle that the more you invest—and the more consistently you invest—the better your long-term returns will be.

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In a branding context, accretion means that none of your marketing efforts exist in a vacuum. Sure, you want them to have an impact today, but they also add to, and are interpreted within, the context of your past and future efforts.

Think of branding as a process, not a static point in time; if your message is steady and consistent, you can build significant brand equity. If, however, you continually change your approach, carelessly cut your budget, or seek only short-term benefits, you’ll be compromising your own long-term interests.

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James Gregory’s marketing firm, CoreBrand, has conducted years of research about the long-term effects of marketing investments. He says it’s rare for even a one-year surge in advertising spending to generate measurable results in image development; it’s usually at least three years before you see real change. That’s a long time if you’re starting from zero, but if your efforts are continuous, the power of accretion will continually work on your behalf.

Edit by DAF

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Full article:
http://www.businessweek.com/print/smallbiz/content/sep2008/sb20080912_752256.htm

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Its His Turn: Marketing to Dad’s

October 16, 2008

Excerpted from Marketing Daily “Marketing to Today’s Dad Requires New Approaches” by Karlene Lukovitz, September 22, 2008

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Many Generation X and Y fathers, in particular, are a new breed who are more involved with their children’s lives and more likely to make day-in, day-out types of product purchases–not just the home electronics or riding lawnmower buys, confirms a new study from Packaged Facts authored by Silver Stork Research.

Marketers looking to reach beyond appealing mostly or only to mothers to tap into this “Dad Factor” need to stop reflexively “thinking pink,” say the analysts. They should gear their brands’ media outreach and benefits positioning to these new fathers–who have a markedly different purchasing behavior than moms…

Who are these new generations of dads? They are less defined by gender stereotypes and see much less of a dividing line between men and women…these dads approach parenthood with a team attitude. Gen X and Y dads are positive, comfortable with their gender, optimistic about being parents …and much more active consumers than dads of previous generations.

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Key facts about newer-generation dads and marketing effectively to them, per the report:

Dads are men–meaning that parenthood doesn’t change their overall approach to the world; it just expands it.

Like mothers, fathers’ key concerns regarding their children are education and health…

Dads don’t like to browse and shop, at least when it comes to family-oriented products… However, they do have a propensity to make impulse purchases–an opportunity for marketers.

Electronic media and the Internet are key…

New dads are attracted to products that are practical and solve a problem. They put quality before price…At the same time, marketing should seek to leverage these dads’ appreciation of a humorous element in…and seek to add an element of fun to the products themselves. Fun and play are cornerstones of interaction between these dads and their kids.

Marketing/advertising should reflect these dads’ parental motivations to give their kids what they want, make their kids happy and be perceived as heroes by their children.

Marketing should include images of dads interacting with kids, especially “real” dads/kids, to reflect the more positive, involved image to which younger dads relate… Product packaging should take male-appeal into account…

Including products or product appeals geared to dads within promotions primarily targeting moms can also be effective.

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Full article:
http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=91038

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