experience matters

At the annual investors meeting last week, coffee brat Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO, went on the offensive regarding the perception that his coffee is expensive.

Howie (I feel like I can call him that since Howard is my middle name) made two key points. First, that Starbucks has “…become the poster child for excess…” Man, Ozzy Osbourne might have an argument with that if he could still form a sentence.

The second point he made was that because of the extraordinary taste of his coffee, it is a great value. “Don’t let anyone tell you their coffee is the same as Starbucks because it is not.” Oh, and by the way, they have plenty of coffee under $4.

Finally, Howie announced a forthcoming ad campaign that will convince people Starbucks is not as expensive as they are perceived. He said that recent campaigns have generated strong response. So here is my question – what exactly is a “strong response”?

I’m a believer that all campaigns should be driven by an insight, a consumer truth as one of my colleagues here likes to say (thanks for the line, Roger). So, yes, the fact that we are in a recession/depression/AIG induced spiral and people want to save money is an insight. But is it the right insight for Starbucks to act on?

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Video by @matto
This is my first attempt at writing anything since attending the SXSW conference for the first time—it was quite an experience, from the panels to the parties to the conversations in the hallways, cafes and sidewalks. I spoke on a couple of panels but there was something really special about the “Friendship is Dead” salon that friend Russ Unger and myself “moderated”.  I use the term loosely because it felt like a casual conversation more than anything else. Some even joked around about it feeling like “therapy”.

We started off the panel with the premise of friendship in the basic sense and quickly moved into social media territory. It became clear that few people in the room felt that there is a need for social applications to offer better controls around how we can classify “friends”—from those who we may have met online, to the ones we work with to the ones we’ve known from childhood that may ore may not be close with anymore. The conversation quickly moved into a very organic space where many of us felt the need to express opinions on the subject, and were clearly wrestling with the notion of managing our relationships as they soar into higher and higher numbers. If you reference “Dunbar’s Number” (below), there is an assertion that once we exceed the number of relationships past “150″, that our relationships become less meaningful and more difficult to manage.

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Preface: This article is written by and addressed to marketers. While it certainly addresses very serious questions in the publishing industry, many pieces of this puzzle are left out as they pertain less to the advertising industry.

The concept of “Separation of Church and State” has long been the model of publishers who generate the majority of their revenue from advertising. They have been two separate departments that have had little influence on each other. But given the current economy, bankruptcy of publishers, and the now prevalent move to online-only editions, should (or rather, is it necessary for) professional content producers and their promotional counterparts to start working a lot more closely? If so, how does this effect advertiser? Consumers?

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Related Links:
Wall Street Journal & WSJ part 2
USA Today
MediaPost
LA Times
Gawker
Financial Times
Fox News

Yes, it was originally advertising agency Modernista! that threw away their Website in favor of simply patching together all of their information across various social networks and services. Nearly a year later, Skittles has done the same thing.  If you point your Web browser to Skittles.com, you will not be greeted by the familiar sight of a highly “experiential” or branded site complete with games and promotions—instead, you will go to a Twitter search result page that shows you what people are saying about the brand in real time.

The “siteless website” then places a “widget” above the Twitter search result and lets you navigate to other destinations, mostly distributed across the Web, from product pages on Facebook, to video channels on You Tube, to simple product information on Wikipedia and don’t forget photos on Flickr.

While I would not recommend agencies or professional services firms to go the Modernista! route (people aren’t talking about you like they are about products)—this is an interesting tactic and raises a few issues. For one, as Modernista! has taught us, you can’t fool around with your Wikipedia entry. And secondarily, the tactic is still experimental. (currently Skittles requires you to enter your date of birth every time you visit the “site”—a less than ideal experience probably caused by a tech glitch.)

Another reason this is worth watching closely is because we’re seeing a social media reality play out in real time. While you can listen in on, respond to and potentially even influence conversations—you cannot control them.  Currently, pointing your browser to Skittles.com will also result in some profanity showing up (via Twitter). Note: Skittles does have age verification in place, as mentioned earlier but you can see the updates behind it.
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