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Thursday, April 10, 2003
Signs of Spring in Toronto 
| | On the other head, he probably won't tell the one about how I rolled him for his hat and instrument a few weeks back ... |
Markets vs. Marketing, Part N, cont'd
| | If I type "bird watching" into Google, I find not only the usual motley array of sites but also ads for binoculars, birdhouses, and guidebooks. It's like giving the Yellow Pages a college education. |
| | For all the flash and animation that marketers have put into building Internet ads, the geeks have figured out the real trick: Relevance is more important than style. We're turning to the Internet more and more in the ordinary course of our lives. Whether I'm researching a person or a company, finding the distance between Phoenix and Santa Fe for next week's vacation, seeking a movie review, buying a book, or learning about bird watching, I turn to Google first, then move out. The marketer that can reach me with a relevant message while I'm searching will win. |
| | Years ago, while my career took turns through radio and advertising, I took the losing side of many arguments against those who believed in negative correllations between quality on one side and mass appeal (with low prices) on the other. "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public," H. L. Menken said. McDonalds, commercial television and Coke all proved him right, and approximately nobody would even try proving him wrong. |
| | But then Starbucks came along. Also Nordstrom, Target and Costco. And now Google is doing the same to advertising itself. Making it better. Making it something that doesn't "work" by insulting the shit out of you (because, after all, you're just one of those humanoid fish they call "consumers"). |
| | Not that selling Highest (or at least High) Common Denominator products immunizes a company from prevailing marketing stupidities. The Brainy Quote page contains two banner ads, one from The Gap and the other from Starbucks. Both have annoying shoot-the-monkey-type animations that promise a $25 prize for marksmouseship. And both lead nowhere after you miss. In other words, they succeed at annoyning you, the sucker consumer, and fail at promoting a damn thing. |
Better book now
| | Concordes won't be flying after October. With a fleet of just twenty planes, it only took one crash to turn the Concorde from the most accident-free passenger jet to the worst. That accident, more than anything else, is what did it in. |
| | [Later...] I'm being told that lack of market demand is the real issue. Fewer high-dollar CEOs are spending big bux to get across the pond in high-altitude luxury. Maintenance costs, too. |
| | Still, a bummer either way. They are beautiful planes. |
Right arm
| | I watched the statue come down this morning. There were a couple thousand people around at most -- in a city of five million. A report on NPR was particularly telling: The reporter said she talked with some older Iraqis standing by while young men were dancing, who said that a week before these same youngsters were in lock step behind Saddam. "It's more complicated than you think," the reporter was told. |
| | Mitch and Thomas Friedman both point out that winning a war isn't the same as securing a peace. How do we bring rule of something other than martial law? The Coalition has plans, of course. (I'm looking... they're around here somewhere...) Meanwhile, chaos rules. Tom summarizes the challenge: |
| | America broke Iraq; now America owns Iraq, and it owns the primary responsibility for normalizing it. If the water doesn't flow, if the food doesn't arrive, if the rains don't come and if the sun doesn't shine, it's now America's fault. We'd better get used to it, we'd better make things right, we'd better do it soon, and we'd better get all the help we can get. |
| | In fact the war isn't over. It may not be over in two months either, just as it isn't over in Afghanistan. If winning the war means fulfilling the war objectives, rather than merely exterminating Saddam's ruling clique, then victory may be some time coming. The cheering Iraqi crowds on the streets, such as they are, have little bearing on the burdens to come. |
| | No, Tom, America did not break Iraq. Saddam did that. We liberated it with astonishing precision and with an amazing lack of damage to critical infrastructure. The fact that there's chaos in the interlude between Saddam's thuggery and a new government is a simple fact of human life. Tom's absolutely right about the need to invest time, money and care in rebuilding Iraq. But part of the impetus in America for such a task must come from genuine pride in what we have achieved; and a deeper understanding of its moral significance. Let's take a moment to absorb that before we launch into yet another spasm of self-criticism. |
| | Here's the moral significance to me: might made right. The lesser evil of war prevailed over the greater evil of oppression. I believe we made a faustian bargain here. (An example in the particular: All we know so far about the last bombs intended for Saddam was that collateral casualties included an old man, a woman and a boy — but not Saddam, so far.) I also believe the Administration deserves a chance to make good on what President Bush promised the Iraqi people today: |
| | In the new era that is coming to Iraq, your country will no longer be held captive to the will of a cruel dictator. You will be free to build a better life, instead of building more palaces for Saddam and his sons, free to pursue economic prosperity without the hardship of economic sanctions, free to travel and speak your mind, free to join in the political affairs of Iraq. And all the people who make up your country — Kurds, Shi¹a, Turkomans, Sunnis, and others — will be free of the terrible persecution that so many have endured. |
| | The Administration intends to establish a new democratic government in Iraq, and apparently do that with little help from the U.N. It'll be harder than screwing in a new light bulb, but maybe not as hard as all the cynics — myself included — imagine. (What's their model conquered-country government? I wonder. Japan? Germany? Panama? Grenada?) I have no idea. But I'm curious to see how this one goes. |
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