January 2015 - Otis Regrets... or not

The USPS has eaten my cookies and drunk my maple syrup

UPS can send a package from one bulk mail center to another, but not deliver it — The latest news on my wandering package from the Post Office (click to enlarge the picture and read the complete itinerary)

When last we checked in on my missing package, and the Post Office fail after I used an old address, it was just before the New Year. I had filed a Package Intercept request, agreeing to pay a fee plus new postage if they would simply redirect the package to the appropriate address. In addition, I happened to be on my way to San Francisco myself and I mailed a letter to the current occupants of the address where I had originally sent it (to relatives who’d moved away some time ago) asking them to call me if the package showed up so I could come claim it.

Sadly, it was all for naught. The package got tantalizing close at a San Francisco post office down the hill from the erroneous address, then USPS decided it would be better to send it to ZIP code 90052 in Los Angeles. About the same time, I got an email informing me that, even though the USPS had the tracking number and the corrected address, there was nothing they could do so my Package Intercept purchase would be refunded.

The package was not welcome in Los Angeles so it was returned to the mail processing center in Richmond (northern California). They didn’t want it either so they sent it to Bell Gardens, a Los Angeles suburb. It was then forwarded to the original Los Angeles ZIP and from there back to Richmond. Of course, Richmond wanted no part of it and sent it back to 90052. Finally the package “departed” 90052 two weeks ago and has been in transit ever since, and presumably will be so forever more.

Good thing there was nothing irreplaceable in there. Just some cookies and maple syrup which, I have a feeling, have not gone for naught. Enjoy, men and women in blue. You’ve worked hard for your prize.

Brands get their (big) game face on for Super Bowl FSIs

Big Game FSIs 2015 — *How many ways can you say “Big Game”? Not that many, apparently.*

The big day for football fans has come and gone. Of course, I’m referring to the Sunday before the Super Bowl when the newspapers are full of FSIs touting snacks of all varieties (except healthy) as super savory, fan favorites or a tasting touchdown without ever using the actual name of the event which requires an exclusive and very expensive license from the very litigious (unless you are a wife-whacking or child-whipping pro athlete, in which case you are exempt) National Football League.

Except… hardly any of the headlines are anywhere near as creative or alliterative as the descriptives I tossed together above. Take a look above… a majority of the ads have “Big Game” in some variation as their headline with only the lamest attempt to tie it to the product. We have two incidences of “big flavor for the big game” and one “big taste for the big game” along with “big game lineup”, “stock up for the big game” as well as “game plan” and the ever popular “game changer”. You’d think that copywriters have a vocabulary of 50 words, but that’s wrong because a lot of the non-Super Bowl ads in the same edition are very clever. (My personal favorite, “What the Yuck?” for a super strength detergent that gets the “yuck” out of deeply soiled clothes.) They are bored with this tiresome yearly charade and as a result get sacked for a loss, creatively speaking.

Super Bowl P&G ad — Look! A Super Bowl ad that says Super Bowl!

Interestingly, the words “Super Bowl” actually do appear, in a spread in the P&G Brand Saver. Their Gillette shavers, it turns out, are indeed an official sponsor. All the senior people were in the jet on the way to Phoenix (where this year’s game will be played) so the playbook was left in charge of a novice copywriter and a too-cute art director. “Smooth moves and fresh plays?” I don’t think so. And can you find the Roman numerals XLIX, for 49, hiding in the ad? Sadly, Ex-Lax is not a sponsor and this will be the last Roman-enumerated Super Bowl; we’re moving to 50 next year.

My prediction: Seahawks by seven.

One-of-a-kind at CES 2015

One of the pleasures of attending the Consumer Electronics Show is seeing new concepts making their debut for the benefit of prospective investors and manufacturing reps. Many of these are clustered in the “Eureka Park” area which, unlike last time I was here, was part of one of the main exhibit halls.

Some products are very very niched yet seem like they’d be highly attractive to their intended audience. One example was Easy Sim 3D, a web application that quickly recreates a 3D representation of an event that can be viewed from multiple angles. It’s designed for news reporters. Then there was the GoTenna, an antenna that turns your phone into a homing device if you should be in trouble and out of cell range.

GoTenna — goTenna turns your cell phone into a homing device

But there’s also the “first case for your Mac charger”, probably first because nobody knew they needed it. The first ever handheld dashboard camera. And Belty™, The New Belt Experience.

Mac Charger Case — Mac Charger case solves a problem you may not have realized you have

I wondered about the broad application of Social Media Counter, one of those “visual radio” displays you see in restaurants that scrolls news headlines and sports scores, except this one scrolls your updated count of Twitter followers. Then there’s Smart Sine Food Minder, a collection of little radio equipped scales you put a carton of milk or other staple on; the scales know how much it’s supposed to weigh and send you a message when it’s running low.

Smart Sine Food Minder tells you when you’re out of something. The question is whether this is easier than a shopping list, and I fear not.

But I could be wrong. Or a buyer could be looking for exactly that niche kind of solution.

Witness the interest in Teddy the Guardian (watch the video), the sensor-loaded teddy bear that collects a wealth of information about your baby, then transmits it when you touch the bear’s paw.

You never know when the next big thing will come along in the form of something which you never imagined, but that now makes you say “of course!” That’s the magic of CES.

Smart homes and smart marketing at CES 2015

Oomi Smart Home system — What’s Oomi? Tell me why I should care.

“Smart homes” is a useful topic for a marketing review because, while it’s exciting (or maybe ominous) to think about gadgets turning out the lights, managing security or monitoring our baby’s heartbeat, it’s up to the marketers to tell us exactly what their specific products do. Witness a few examples, good and bad, from the recent Winter 2015 Consumer Electronics Show.

Smart Home famil — Generic smart home marketing

Oomi makes the mistake of thinking others are as interested in their product as they are. “What’s Oomi?” was the headline of their booth at the Showstoppers press event. Without a benefit or point of reference, it’s not likely many will stick around to find out. The subtext “the first smart home that’s actually smart” provides context but is too clever for its own good: I don’t know that there’s a perception of lots of smart home products that are stupid. It’s a solution for a problem that may not exist. And meanwhile, we haven’t learned anything about the product. (Like many others, it’s a set of modules that work together to handle various home automation functions.)

Not much better are a number of OEM booths I passed in the nether regions of the second floor in South Hall. By focusing entirely on technology, these importers make their systems generic. There’s a “home” graphic but otherwise they lean heavily on the “what” rather than the “why”. This is a common problem with marketing at the CES where thousands of new products and unfamiliar concepts jostle for attention simultaneously. In a few seconds as I stumble down the aisle you need to tell me not only what you are selling, but why I should care.

For smart homes, it’s obviously about emotion, and the shoestring display for “Teddy the Guardian” does this very well. In fact, the signage doesn’t even say what the product is but the baby tcotchkes make a strong emotional appeal and you hang around long enough to find out it’s a teddy bear with all kinds of baby monitoring built in. There was a lot of interest in this one.

Finally, WeMo is a family of devices that monitor and automate activity in the home. Belkin created a mock home and then stuck devices all over the places with captions describing hypothetical problems and “can I WeMo that?” Compare this to Oomi, which seems to do the exact same thing, and you can see why Belkin’s marketing is so good. It’s a complete conversation that combines technology and the human factor and is fun to interact with as well. The booth was packed.

The Idiot of Things visits CES 2015 Las Vegas

Internet of Everything Now Open — *Qualcomm’s takeoff on the Internet of Things*

I saw IoT all over Las Vegas on buses and billboards, and asked a booth staffer for an explanation. She said it stands for the Internet of Things and then proceeded to explain what that meant. I already knew the concept, just not the acronym but too late; I felt like a clueless Luddite. Anyway, it is indeed the Year of the Thing at the Consumer Electronics Show with heavy emphasis on apps for connecting mobile devices to all aspects of your daily life.

Pet monitoring gadgets — *Lots of pet monitoring devices at CES 2015*

Over two days I saw many gadgets for monitoring every aspect of your fitness, or your child’s, or even your pet’s. You can buy an electric toothbrush that has Bluetooth that connects to an app to show you how effectively you’re brushing. You can control your home remotely or turn your car into a nerve center for managing what will happen when you arrive while hopefully not getting into an accident due to distracted multitasking. (As a car company executive pointed out in a keynote, one thing that has to be sorted out is liability when a self driving car gets into an accident.)

3D family — *3D printing and printed 3D products are huge at CES. Here, your family miniaturized for posterity.*

What’s hot this year, in addition to things? Drones, lots of drones. 3D printers, and products and services connected to 3D printing. Smart cars that can be controlled with hand gestures (Volkswagen), will park themselves (Hyundai) or run on fuel cells (several). Fitbits and other performance monitoring electronics on steroids, so you don’t have to be because your conditioning is so efficient and awesome. And endless lineups of 4k televisions and monitors, each more vivid and breathtaking than the last.

What’s not? 3D television. (I saw just one at the show, billed as the world’s largest glassless meaning you don’t have to wear goggles.) Google Glass is ice cold… again, just one showing. And very few laptops, tablets or conventional PCs…. This was a gadget show, and it’s fully returned to its roots as a “consumer” show with very little business spillover. (Microsoft, which had an enormous presence in years past, was behind closed doors with a single hospitality suite.)

I’ve got a few reports coming up over the next couple of weeks:

Some interesting “mobility experiments” described in the keynote by Ford President Mark Fields
Best and worst of CES: some niche concepts that fill a narrow but credible role and others that left me shaking my head
Marketing makeover: I look at how, and how not, to present the “smart home” concept based on examples from many exhibitors
A historical retrospective on CES—an institution that would seem to have no history, since it’s always looking for the next big thing

Stay tuned.