Message from paradise...

buying the turkey

as we were prepping and shopping for the Thanksgiving Day meal we hosted for 8 people this week, my wife and I got into an argument about what kind of turkey to buy. I've had Butterball for 37 straights years. they're so plump and juicy. why would you buy anything else, right?

well, my wife (who already convinced me that hormone-infused milk is why teenage girls look like they're fully grown adults) encouraged me to consider buying a hormone-free, steroid-free turkey this year.

so I'm standing in the checkout line with my 69-cent/lb. Butterball and I start thinking about Barry Bonds...

remember Barry? over the course of 20 years, all those 'roids increased his hat size from a 7 to a 14.

yeah, I paid a 425% premium for the $2.99/lb. free-range, hormone-free, steroid-free turkey.... and enjoyed every worry-free bite.

got the time?

I start most mornings on Page 2 of the Wall St. Journal. The front page is all doom and gloom, and reminds me of how the 5 PM local news is like a murder report.

For the last month or so, I've been struck at the increasing number of high-end men's watch ads on pages 2 and 3 - and how they all look exactly alike.

The one exception to the "blend in" rule that I've seen recently is Seiko. I was recently flipping through some magazine and in their print ad I noticed that you could text Seiko and they'll send an image of the watch to your iPhone or BlackBerry. The cool part about it, is that the image is life-sized, so you can hold the image over your wrist to get an idea what it will look like on your wrist.

The weird thing is that in such tumultuous times, wouldn't a brand spending the coin on the WSJ want to stand out instead of blending in? 

how $24.99/lb filet became a "deal"

my wife and I are suckers. I admit it.

despite my best attempts to keep her away from EarthFare, our local version of Whole Paycheck (er, Whole Foods), we're now loyal shoppers.

we pay $14.95/lb for imported Manchego cheese and $24.99/lb for filet and leave thinking we got a deal.

why?

because EarthFare has the lowest price in town on our brand of baby food and organic milk. bastards.

we make the trek there once a week to stock up for our daughter and wind up leaving with bags full of overpriced goods.

brilliant pricing strategy, though. get us in for a repeat purchase on our shopping list that's an essential and then upsell the hell out of us.

25-cent wings? I'll eat them all night long....and run up a tab drinking top-shelf bourbon.

what makes this ever so irritating, admittedly, is that I work in marketing. I should know better. I've been trained to be a skeptic (a professional skeptic, no less!). yet, at my core I'm just a red-blooded American shopper like anyone else....and there's nothing I can do about it but tip my hat and say, "nice pricing strategy."

how to NOT entice me(!) to drink

Canadian Club has a new campaign out there that's trying to get the brand back on people's radar. Rather than entice me to give the brand a try, it's had the absolute opposite effect on me - I may NEVER drink Canadian Club again. Here's why.....

My wife and I have a strong, trusting relationship. We love each other. We do NOT want to think about people we dated before we met.

My wife has seen this ad, and if she EVER sees me drinking Canadian Club she's going to start thinking about people I dated before we met. She's going to get into a bad mood. We're going to get into a fight. I am not going to be happy about drinking Canadian Club.

trading down

it probably doesn't matter how much you charge for a product or service - if you're a marketer these days, you're concerned with "trading down."

Goodwill are advertising on tv and bringing people in by promoting that they've got name-brands on the cheap. 5-Buck Chuck wine is a best seller at our local wine store. Brita water filters are flying off the shelves while bottled water gathers dust.

but driving past a Bojangle's the other day, I saw the most shocking example of capturing consumers' proclivity to trade down....

if Amex card holders are dining out at Bojangle's, it begs the question - how low will we go to save a penny here and there? if I were a big-box retailer, Black Friday )the day after Thanksgiving) may become a terrible double entendre this year.