Travel Thursday: Do You Really Have to Check Luggage?

Gadling, a travel blog, has a good article this week outlining six reasons not to check luggage:

1. Security has made checking bags a major hassle
2. The price of checking a bag
3. You can't trust the airlines (or the baggage handlers, the TSA, fellow passengers or the airport staff)
4. Retrieving your bags takes too long
5. The great unknown of where your bag goes
6. Why check when you don't have to?

In related news, The Toronto Star had an article yesterday morning about a cat missing because its cage was dropped by a Westjet baggage handler at Toronto's Pearson International Airport, validating my long standing decision never to take my dog on a plane.

Fortunately, things worked out for the cat and its owner, with The Star reporting last night that the cat was found, "a little greasy, a little dirty and a little worse for wear, but otherwise safe and sound."

Toy Tuesday: Chief Amusement Officers

MediaPost New's Marketing Daily website has an article today about Mattel's and Hasbro's Q1 performance. While the article isn't particularly interesting, the opening line is outstanding: "It looks like parents all over the world are relaxing back into their role as chief amusement officers".

With the proliferation of positions with titles like Chief Marketing Officer, Chief Technology Officer, etc., I love the "Chief Amusement Officer" title that accurately reflects the role of parents in their kids' lives.

Marketing Monday: Clever or Greedy?

Just renewed a one year magazine subscription, and received this notice from the publisher:


What is Canadian House & Home trying to achieve here? Why would anyone renew an annual subscription 11 months in advance in order to save $2.00 in tax? Will their direct mail piece generate sufficient response to encourage many early renewals?

Love the magazine, but my take is that it's a greedy move rather than a clever one. I would never bother my clients with an aggressive pitch that yields minimal benefit to the customer, and would counsel them to focus on benefits that are truly meaningful to the consumer that will genuinely enhance their relationship with a brand or product.

Travel Thursday: Your Own Amazing Race

Came across an intriguing program from Competitours, a US travel company that runs "The Amazing Race" type tours in Europe. According to the company,

Competitours is a team travel competition that pits your creativity, ingenuity, and wits against 16 other teams – picture "The Amazing Race^TM" without the stress, weird food, and extreme stunts. Over a 9-day trip, you will compete across 4 European countries, from bustling big cities to off-the-radar countryside. Along the way, you'll enjoy playful rivalry with the other teams by day, and cheerful revelry by night.

If their tours are as well thought out as their website, then they're something truly amazing, because the website does an outstanding job of anticipating every question or concern you might have about the program.

While I'm planning to travel in North America this summer rather than Europe, the opportunity to do what The Chicago Tribune calls "The Amazing Race for regular people" is definitely tempting.

Web Wednesday: Four Functional Fixes

I try to pay attention to security and privacy issues on the web, and also try to make my web browsing experiences hassle -free. Here are four tips that will help keep your online life running safely and smoothly.


1. Bypass mandatory registration on sites with free access like The New York Times. Go to bugmetnot.com and get a temporary username and password and avoid the hassle of registration. Doesn't work 100% of the time, but it's very helpful when it does.




2. Safely provide an email address using temporary email accounts, available from a variety of sources.





3. Conceal your password from hackers by following this great advice.







4. Evacuate PC dust bunnies by following these instructions. I cleaned my computer and was amazed by the performance improvement as well as how much quieter it became.

Toy Tuesday: The Next Generation

I've been fortunate to establish a relationship with Professor Susan Chuang at the University of Guelph in Guelph, Ontario, which is about an hour outside Toronto. Prof. Chuang runs an annual "Next Generation of Toys" contest in her Developmental Studies class, where about 200 students are challenged to create new toy concepts that are appropriate for children 0-24 months old.

My recent visit to the Guelph campus to see the toys being presented was both interesting and fun. In many respects, the students, who had no real background in toys, did a lot of things as well as toy industry veterans. In particular, there were some students who were excellent presenters and could have easily persuaded parents to buy their toys. Whether or not they could effectively persuade toy buyers, though, is another story, because the rules are quite different in that world.

The themes and play patterns among the dozens of toys presented met the course's objective of incorporating strong child development attributes. While there was a lot of repetition among the contestants, there were a few toys that really stood out with innovative form factors and play patterns, and that could be commercially viable. I'm excited to be following up with some of the students to explore opportunities to present their items to real toy companies, and am grateful to Prof. Chuang for her warm welcome. With some hard work and some luck, you may see some of these toys on the market some day.

Marketing Monday: Compelling Commercial

Entertaining. Eye opening. Effective.

Enjoy!

Marketing Monday: Benefits of Licenses

I'm a big believer in licensing and in pushing the boundaries of licensing for "commodity" type products, but a recent visit to a Walmart store in upstate New York left me somewhat perplexed.

I needed some vacuum bags for my old Eureka vacuum cleaner, and found that Walmart had two 4' sections of vacuum bags, each one with similar products, each one licensed, and each one with identical prices.

One section had 4 feet of Febreze branded vacuum bags from Home Care Industries Inc., with the claim that the product "eliminates odor and freshens as you vacuum". The other section had Arm & Hammer branded vacuum bags from Electrolux Home Products, marketed as "odor eliminating vacuum bags".

With identical pricing, both sections featured licensed products with identical consumer benefits. There were no generic vacuum bags available at all.

Obviously, both manufacturers are paying royalties to licensors, driving up the cost to Walmart and in turn to consumers. Vacuum bags are a low-involvement purchase and it's inconceivable to me that consumers would buy more bags or buy them more often because of the licenses. I fail to see how having two licensed brands and no generic product in a low-involvement category benefits Walmart, the consumer, or even the manufacturer. And even with two vendors in the category, Walmart's assortment still didn't include the bag size I needed, for which I eventually found a cheaper generic version elsewhere.

Can you explain Walmart's position in this category? Maybe it has something to do with their overall support of the Febreze brand and their close relationship with P&G. As someone who frequently develops products and programs for Walmart, I'm always interested in learning about how they strategize and plan their assortments.