SeeMartin

To me Toyota Corolla symbolizes the total lack of personality. I’m not even worried that I’d offend people who drive it because they are probably so pragmatic that being offended seems like a waste of emotions to them. Year after year Toyota manages to “design” the non-descript, unnoticeable sedan perfect for a surveillance vehicle that you can park in front of buildings for days without anybody noticing the car. The 2011 model is no exception – the design finally caught up with what Hyundai Elantra looked …in 2000.

Almost a year ago I wrote a blog post Fairweather fans are the cash cows, it’s time for an update. For the Washington Capitals the weather is not fair anymore as this season they are a mediocre team at best. Let’s not worry about them, however, and see what’s happening with the cash cows. I consider myself a cash-cow for the Caps and NHL because I occasionally buy overpriced tickets, merchandise, subscribe for hockey channels etc. I also happened to have a son who plays hockey at the mite age group (7-8 years old) and pay handsomely for him to do so. Yes, the money goes to a different league but in the grand scheme of things indirectly benefits NHL. Last year, when the Caps had a great season, the interest in youth hockey was such that my son’s team management had to cramp 21 kids in one team so they don’t turn any parents (and their money) away. This year? Not so much, as Borat would have put it. Team management and coaches are scurrying to recruit kids and it seems that the interest is winding down. I bet the situation is the same for all regional teams. On the positive side the interest in ice hockey must be picking up sharply in Tampa, FL as their team is doing great – too bad they don’t have many ice rinks there.

A few years ago my wife bought one because we were going to Rome for a week. We didn’t want to haul our bulky camera with us all the time and the compact was perfect for the abundant daylight and very convenient to carry in either a pocket or a purse. Today my cell phone has the same resolution and pretty much the same optics for Facebook and Flickr purposes. Why would I take a compact camera for marginally better quality and worry not to forget or recharge one more thing? Human anatomy and practicality play a role here – two factors that determine the faith of many  categories in consumer electronics. The smart phones are wiping up the compact cameras – a natural selection as Darwin would have put it.

I like infographics in public spaces, that’s the way to eliminate language barriers. A distant relative of the heraldic symbols and logos they have their own peculiarities and requirements — to be minimalistic and yet descriptive, to be culture-independent, to be in high-contrast, not to offend, …and as in my case yesterday, to entertain drivers stuck in traffic. It is much better to have the infographic on left instead of: “Expanded strollers are not allowed on bus. Put it under the bus and the driver will flatten it.”

The expectations people have in terms of responses to their social media posts, photos and comments vary vastly. I think that the laggards who are new to the vortex of social media expect more engagement and responsiveness than the Internet-savvy extraverts with hundreds of ”friends” in their networks. The latter group knows that, unfortunately, online social networking is becoming more “broadcast” and less “dialogue”.
A few years ago a friend who had just discovered ICQ was offended when I failed to respond to messages he sent. He though I’m ignoring or mad with him. I told him that if my name is “green” that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m in front of the PC and also told him that yes, I saw the link but just didn’t feel like writing back “cool link, thank you”.

Nowadays, when Facebook-ing I’m trying to be aware of the differences in the expectations my friends have. As a result, I would not comment or comment on the very same article depending on whether it is recommended by a prolific social media junkie or a person for whom I know has 5 “friends” in the network and I’m one of them. This is not to say that the former is a less dear friend than the latter – s/he is just aware that not all who read the article would “like” or comment on it, exactly as s/he doesn’t “like” or comment on all of the updates (which are disproportionately more in comparison with the second person).

This FRM (Friends Relationship Management) that I employ for myself, however, is not applicable for businesses. If a business entity wants to leverage social media to advance their agenda, they must be ready to put the energy and persistence to engage with all of their “friends” and show them the personal attention I have the luxury to omit for the understanding part of my friends.

I bought a home brew kit last week and my first brew is happily fermenting in my basement. If all goes as planned in about two weeks I’d be able to enjoy a mug of German Altbier while brewing the next keg. I paid a little over $200 for the setup of which $160 went for the hardware and $42 went for the malt, hops, yeast and sugar. These consumables yielded 4.5 gallons of wort (the beer before it turns into beer) which is approximately 8 six packs of beer. $42/8 = $5.25 per six pack. If I forget about the sunk cost of $160 or assume that it would be spread over many many gallons of beer, $5.25 is a good price. It is equal to a six pack of Budweiser and I am sure that unless I totally messed up, my brew would be better than Bud (actually, I think it takes a special skill to brew something as bad as Budweiser).

 So I think that the price of $42 for the package with the ingredients is just right. The time to brew notwithstanding as this is a hobby, the price allows me to think that I’m getting a fair deal as I get better beer for the price of Bud and at the same time is the maximum price at which I can make this justification.

 Yes, I probably paid premium for the package as it was for newbies like me with everything measured and neatly packaged and if I were to buy the ingredients separately or in bulk it would’ve cost  much less but I’m not there yet. Plus, once you start to vertically integrate upstream you have to buy more equipment and subsequently brew more beer to be cost effective which is not what I want for the moment. Cheers.

The Verizon Center was packed for all Capitals games this season. Last season too. During the 10 previous seasons, however, the Caps could only attract a few thousands per game at most. Those were the loyal fans that are now somewhat annoyed by the flock of newbies that makes it harder to find tickets and parking. The fairweather fans, however, are what really makes particular sport more popular—sounds like a statement of the obvious but there are some behavioral economics aspects worth speculating about: For NHL as a franchise it would be best if every few years different teams climb and stay at the top of their respective division as opposed to having a few traditionally strong teams dominating the game for a decade. Even better, if different cities can be awarded the franchises every few years that would benefit NHL even more, although that’s not feasible for other reasons.

Why? Let’s say the Caps lose steam and revert to the mediocre team they were 5 years ago (it was not easy to write this, even as an example), what would happen to the interest in hockey in area? It will probably go down but not to pre-Ovechkin levels. Unlike the interest, however, the awareness and the familiarity with the sport will remain: we’ve been infected and the hockey fever will return at full swing as soon as the next talented team makes several good games in a row (case in point last week were the Montreal fans that poured on the streets after 10 years of disappointments). Until that happens we’ll probably not buy hats and jackets like crazy, but we’d prefer to watch whatever Stanley Cup playoff game is on instead of Hell’s Kitchen and that’s what makes the difference for NHL as a franchise. The more dormant hockey fans you have out there, the more you can charge for commercials. In the best case scenario, they’d be in every metro area and the way to get there is by having different teams in the spotlight every few years. Let’s go Caps!!!

In their quest to cut costs and maximize profits Spirit Air announced that their two newest Airbus airplanes come with “pre-reclined” seats which are really “non-reclining” seats fixed in upmost position.  I don’t want to comment on the low-cost/convenience tradeoffs but rather on the choice of wording. In ad copy “inexpensive” is used instead of “cheap”, “value brand” instead of “cheap brand”, in surveys “concerned citizen” is euphemism for “unemployed”, etc. The difference between these examples and “pre-reclined” seats is that they do not lie but rather mitigate the negative connotation by choosing alternative words. On the contrary, “pre-reclined” is exactly the opposite of what the seats really are.  An NPR radio host commented that – to call a non-reclining seat a pre-reclined seat is as to call a crashed airplane a pre-landed airplane. IMO, the choice of wording adds insult to injury for the passengers who are already annoyed by the recently introduced carry-on fee. Whoever came up with the “pre-reclined” idea put too much marketing theory behind it and only managed to offend passengers’ intelligence. A “fixed seats so we don’t have to raise prices when everyone else does” explanation would have sufficed  for us to swallow the news, after all we are already accustomed to the trend of turning airplanes into Mumbai trains so this innovation was somewhat anticipated. “Pre-reclined” seat, however, is almost as asking us to be happy about it.

Once in high school, for lack of better things to do my friends and I tried to come up with the nastiest thing to eat. The only condition was that the ingredients are legit food items.  I think the winner was a sandwich made of two slices of pig fat spread with butter with a glass of cooking oil to wash it down—or at least this is the one contender I remember.

The memory of this pastime surfaced the moment I read about the KFC’s Double Down—a sandwich of two chicken breasts with bacon and cheese in between. Sure enough, CNN picked up the story the same day and put a quick vote – “have the fast food companies gone too far”, the food sections in most media are buzzing with the news and some health activists are going berserk.

I don’t know how (un)healthy the sandwich is, although perusing through foodies’ blogs it appears that it is salty, greasy and around 500 calories which is on par with most junk food meals, or even “inferior” in terms of calories. I know, however, that I will definitely try it soon. It is one of those things like the beer-milk shake in Steinbeck’s Cannery Row that you’d love to try if the occasion presents itself but wouldn’t mix at home for the sake of trying it.

I think introducing the Double Down is a well-calculated gamble on part of KFC. Today, when social responsibility is a major factor in the business environment, the DD chicken breast (pun intended) sandwich debuts as outrageous, over-the-top, how-dare-you, menu item that has the potential to become a fad in certain circles. Plus, in an industry where all players are moving in lockstep towards healthier meals, someone should stay behind and claim the pig-out category—KFC is the best suited player to do so as the F in their name stands for fried after all.