Susan Borst - Curiosities 133.0

I've been told that I'm intellectually curious, and that's a good thing. I rarely post here. You can find me on twitter - @susanborst, or email at [email protected]. Thanks for stopping by.

[susanborst]

Calling BS on the naysayers.... I  LOVE Mother’s Day.

I've seen many posts about women who feel that  Mother’s Day is suggestive that moms are somehow “better” than non-moms. I’d like to call BS on this.

I offer my opinion, here. 

As background....

- I was adopted at birth.  > So, yes, Mother’s Day, is a bit sad for me. 

- My adoptive mother, my “mom”, passed 15 years ago.  > Again, sad.

- My mother in law passed this year. > Again, sad.

- I have a step-mother, who was the love of my deceased father’s life. > She remains a part of my life.

- I've raised two wonderful young women. > That makes me a mom. And that makes me tremendously happy.

Saying Mother’s Day is a negative statement about women without children makes no sense to me.  Everyone has a mother - whether that mother is alive or deceased, birth mom or adopted mom, or even mother’s in law and step mothers.  

To me, Mother’s Day is a celebration of family, the same way Father’s Day is a celebration of family. 

Mother’s Day is more than just a Hallmark holiday. In this world of digital where we prefer text over talk, how about we celebrate relationships? 

[susanborst]

[susanborst]

Pro-Biotic Nation - It's Not Just for Digestive Health Anymore

Dannon's Activia yogurt first educated the USA in 2006 about the "cleansing" benefits of pro-biotics.  People may not have understood how this "worked", but they bought it in droves, yielding huge sales and a slew of competitive fast followers.  (Even with a FTC claim crackdown and claim settlement, Activia sales grew +16% in 2010 to $444m.)

Now, we are on what I think is the cusp of a pro-biotic explosion across multiple categories.

Beyond Anti-Bacterial Cleaning

Debuting on QVC yesterday was a new line of specialty pro-biotic household cleansers from "PIP" - Probiotics in Progress.  This line claims to clean down to the microscopic "biofilm level where dirt and unwanted germs hide" and "because they do not kill anything, they cannot create resistance like anti-bacterial products and disinfectants." Cleaning bad bacteria with good bacteria? Yes. The PIP website does a good job at explaining the science. (pipcleaners.com.) QVC focused on the household cleaning line, but the company is marketing probiotic products across many categories from allergy, to pet and also aquaculture.  There is also a "Pure Clean Hand Gel"/sanitizer.

- Prediction:  Move over "anti-bacterial" products and make way for a surge of pro-biotic household cleaners at mass retail.  With advanced claims, expect higher price points.

Pro-Biotic Beauty 

PIP also has a probiotic beauty line - cleanser and hygiene spray. We are also seeing "probiotic" products from specialty/derm beauty brands including Bliss' No Zit Sherlock, Bioelements' Probiotic Anti-Aging System and Eminence's Clear Skin Probiotic Masque.  Clinique Medical launched and discontinued  "Clinique Medical Probiotic Cleanser", a facial cleanser sold exclusively at dermatologist offices that "dissolves all makeup....while restoring the skin's bacterial balance."  Search and you'll find more probiotic beauty products online, although mostly from smaller companies.

- Prediction:  Whoa!  This is new language in a category that thrives on new language and "hope in a bottle."  I don't know why Clinique Medical discontinued their probiotic cleanser given favorable online user reviews, but my guess is this is a company to watch in this space to take this idea mainstream in everything from make-up, to cleansers (including acne) to moisturizers.

Anyone launching any product in the probiotic space should thank Dannon for the basic education on "good bacteria."  It will be interesting to see how/if mainstream probiotic products can succeed beyond the yogurt category. 

Would love to hear your thoughts on this.

[susanborst]

The Dawn of the Digital Agency as Lead Strategic Agency

Sheraton yesterday announced that Razorfish (digital) will be the lead strategic agency, with The Kaplan Thaler Group in tow for "traditional" media content.

Granted, Sheraton has been deep into digital in the past few years, at the expense of traditional, but this represents a huge shift.

I was at KTG for six years and worked on a lot of (successful) new business pitches.  In those days, we'd call in a "digital partner" who would attend brainstorming sessions and work their butts of on interesting digital efforts (in those days, mostly banners, landing pages, etc)  But when it came to pitch day, the digital agency would get 5 minutes to present, if that!  They were always short shifted.

Oh how the times have changed.

[susanborst]

Trending:  Retro, "throwback" grocery items, including Banana Twinkie.  I didn't know that banana was the original flavor of Twinkies. It changed to vanilla during World War II when there was a banana shortage. Funny history behind a silly snack cake!  They'll be available for a limited time.

Is this trend nostalga?  A desire for a "simpler time?"  Backlash against all the "artificial" in today's foods? A play at both Boomers and Millennials?  I don't know, but whatever it is, I like the trend.

Link to the MediaPost article by Karlene Lukovitz, that recapped this retro trend is here:http://bit.ly/eszaSr.  Thanks, Karlene.

[susanborst]

Yesterday was my lucky day as I won a contest on Twitter to attend the AdAge Digital conference in NYC in early April.  This is a very expensive contest with many excellent speakers so to win is a pretty big deal.  

To win, one had to post a question to one of the many featured speakers, and include appropriate hashtag information - they're picking one winning entry each week until the conference. 

My question was for Drew Panayiotou, Best Buy SVP:  "I love the insight behind the 'buy back' idea.  Has it been an effective strategy?"

I really do love the insight behind the Best Buy program. It builds on the frustration of waiting until the latest and greatest technology comes out only to learn that an even better version is coming out in a week (and you can't return the gadget you just bought.)  Their heavily aired commercial is well done and truly captures the frustration.  What I want to hear is Drew's take on the effectiveness of the idea which is billed as "future proofing" your investment...like insurance for new technology. Are people buying the $59.99 price tag to make sure you can trade in your "not so old" gadget for some money to buy the latest and greatest version of the same gadget?  What feedback are they getting?  

Harvard Business Review did an excellent blog entry that describes the Best Buy program in detail. The author, Joshua Gans, likes the idea, but does not come out positive based on the math of the program.  Read it here yourself:http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/03/in_june_2010_i_queued.html

Can't wait to hear Drew's response in April.

[susanborst]

Wordle(tm) word cloud of my 45 LinkedIn recommendations.  I cut and pasted every reco without editing, and I didn't link together words that should stay together (e.g., social media.) Wordle gives you so many cloud options in terms of font, colors and shape.  It's a great program that my kids turned me onto. 

While I've obviously read all my recommendations and had a sense of the key themes that were repeated, word clouds make anything come to life.  

[susanborst]

South by SouthWest

Seems half of the people I follow on Twitter are there now.  I enjoy the ifc.com videos and all the tweets - day and night.

I have three words for SXSW 2012:  "I'm so there."  

[susanborst]

St. Patrick's Day 2011 spending expected to reach $4.14 billion - that's an average of $33.97 per person.  For some perspective, this is less than the average Super Bowl and Valentine's Day spend per person ($60 and $116, respectively.)

Once again, I'm relying on the National Retail Federation, and their BIGresearch survey to track spending trends for major holidays or events. 

Their findings:

- 54% plan to celebrate (a big jump from 45% last year): Of these folk: 83% will wear green, 31% say they'll attend a party at a bar or a restaurant, 33% will make a special dinner and 25% will decorate their home or office.

A little known fact (from David Hoffman's "Little Known Facts about Well Known Places - Ireland": "Customarily, the only green the Ireland Irish wear on St. Patrick's Day is a twig of shamrock, usually on the lapel of a jacket or coat."

[susanborst]

Let's give that loud mouth respondent in your focus group some love.

Oh, we've all been there...a big argument against focus groups has always been the fear of "group think" led by one or more vocal respondents who sway the discussion.  

I would argue that now, more than ever, this very group think mentality is precisely what marketers need to be paying more attention to in today's digital age. That loud respondent in your focus group, you know, the one whose opinion silences the others and drives those behind the two-way mirror crazy, is likely loud online as well.  Whether her opinions are right or wrong/good or bad, this person is also likely to be vocal with her friends/community (WOM), and is most likely to write reviews on amazon/tripadvisor/etc. and possibly even to blog to get her opinions heard.  Even if people don't necessarily agree with her, she will be influential and for that reason, instead of trying to shut her up, we should celebrate her and the role she plays.  A skilled moderator should be able to turn this into a more real life learning experience within the forced focus group setting, probing into how the group reacts and evaluates the loud one's opinions and gaining insight into the other group member's decision making process.  It seems this approach would provide more real and actionable learning... whether the group was conducted in person or online. 

To avoid this group think, especially for more sensitive subjects such as pharma, marketers often turn to one-on-one or smaller group interviews. But even with pharma, we know that consumers don't operate in an isolated decision making vacuum.  They turn to many sources - WOM, blogs, websites - to help guide their decision.  And that loud mouth respondent is probably there for all to hear.

So, without turning this into a discussion about whether focus groups have relevance at all given all other online/social media research options, given that this methodology is still used by many leading marketers, let's rethink the group atmosphere and make it be more productive toward our goal of understanding the consumer and their needs.

[susanborst]

Are blogs dead?

There has been a lot of discussion this week, especially on Twitter, about the "future" of blogs.  I have to admit, it's hard to keep mine up to date, when my focus is more on Twitter. 

My less frequent blog posts do not in any way indicate lack of interest in social media/topics/writing/sharing/communicating, it's just that Twitter has become a more effective forum to learn and share.   

Like everyone, still figuring all this out.  Need to identify relevant posts for each "platform."  

In the meantime, I remain curious about many topics.  I love social media research, Swedish Fish and Iceland.  I can be found at @susanborst on Twitter.  

Thanks for stopping by.  Suggestions more than welcome~ thanks.

[susanborst]

Do you agree we need more creative, critical thinking in our schools?

I sure do, but I think many need to be educated about it first.  Take a look, if you like the idea, show your support by clicking the little heart.  Together, we can impact change.http://bit.ly/hx6LCZ 


[susanborst]

For #gladwell fans and of interest to #nrblb...sort of long but a good listen.  Thx #Radiolab

[susanborst]

Four ideas submitted for No Right Brain Left Behind challenge-#NRBLB-great to be part of this.  Tons of wonderful ideas - will take days to read them all.

[susanborst]

I have entered the No Right Brain Left Behind speed innovation challenge to address the creativity crisis in schools. I have good competition and more to come.  Wish me luck!  More info, and to vote on my idea(s) beginning 2.14.11, please visit rightbrainare.us.com/theidea

[susanborst]

Entered the "No Right Brain Left Behind" contest so have creative learning on the brain.Click link to read more.

This link, accessed by clicking the headline, found on edsocialmedia.com (Exploring the Role of Social Media in Education) caught my attention.  It's a hot topic and this teacher "gets" it.  The collaboration aspect and the thinking that is going on outside the classroom, yet in a forum the teacher can monitor and participate in, is great.  Good for you, Nate Green.

[susanborst]

Favorite site of the day: malcolmgladwellbookgenerator.com. Thx Cory & Brett.