Be Better than the Gap

Awesome scene from the movie “Crazy, Stupid, Love” but ouch, if you manage the Gap brand. (Every time this movie is on cable I watch).  How did they go from being a brand on the top with the coolest dance commercials that everyone talked about to the butt of a Ryan Gosling joke? Now that I think about it, those cool dance commercials were a long time ago, and I can’t remember the last time I was in a Gap.

Anyone in marketing knows how hard it is to manage a brand in a large company with a million different people delivering the brand experience and a million things out of your control.  A nice brand standards document doesn’t do much if people don’t know about it or ignore it. Well-intentioned co-workers put the logo in a fun new color or shape and your brand equity starts to erode. 

Or you publicly unveil a new logo that should appear to be more modern and contemporary but then roll it back a week later because of all the outrage on social media. The new logo gets its own Twitter handle and there’s more salt in the wound.  Poor Gap.  Logo debacle in 2010, this movie quote from 2011 and it’s still lingering.

Steve Carell’s character goes through his own re-branding in the movie.  Ryan Gosling plays his new brand consultant.  Now we all can’t have Ryan Gosling coaching us on how to be personally relevant but I like the idea of keeping an eye on your personal brand and growing as a human being. 

Last year I started an urban garden and grew my own vegetables.   It’s empowering to be able to grow your own food.  To come home from work, pick some fresh broccoli and peppers and have a nice little home grown dinner. It’s also very satisfying to share the bounty with friends and family when you have more peppers than you could possibly eat.  My mom has already requested that I add radishes this year. 

I also took golf lessons and was immediately hooked.  I love hitting a bucket of balls, playing a par three with my nephew or golfing a full 18 holes at a fancy Palm Springs golf course. I just joined a league.  It’s been a long time since I had a hobby that required practice. 

Who knows if gardening or golf make my personal brand more relevant to the world.  They make me happy and that’s a core value of my brand J

Birchbox: a case study

I really admire innovative marketing ideas. One of my recent finds is Birchbox. Every month I find two of my co-workers eagerly anticipating the arrival of the box and then discussing in excited detail the contents of the box.

Birchbox is a monthly delivery of ”high-end beauty and lifestyle samples from top brands.”

Now, I am not the girliest girl you’ve ever met. I’ve been loyal to Maybelline make-up since my internship in grad school but most women my age have graduated to department store brands like Lancome, Clinique or Estee Lauder. I don’t love shopping. I don’t go to just browse, I go with a purpose.

What I love about Birchbox is that it brings the mall to you. I get to try new perfume, lotion and make-up for $10 a month. And when you like something, it’s super easy to log on and buy the full-size version on their website, all without a trip to a crowded mall. They’ve completely roped me in and I’ve made purchases in the first two months.

Honestly, the coolest part is the entire customer experience. From the very beginning they tease you into really wanting it. You have to submit a form to apply for a subscription. Yes, they have to give you permission to give them money! And while you wait for your subscription to be ready, your anticipation starts to build. Their e-mail marketing is timely and relevant and helps to build your excitement. When the package arrives in your mailbox, you feel a few of the same flutters you get when you open a present. I know, it sounds dorky but it’s true. The box within the box, the tissue paper and the cards really do deliver and exceptional experience.

So if you’re looking for a creative gift idea for the lady in your life, you really should look at the Birchbox. And no, I received no compensation for this blog post. Are you kidding me? I have like twelve readers!

You CAN teach an old dog new tricks

Yes, I am the dog in this story. Since April I’ve discovered two new hobbies/obsessions: gardening and golf.

In April I hired a fabulous landscaping company (Timberline Landscaping) to dig up my entire backyard and put in a brick patio and some landscaping. I spaced them out so I had room to plant my own things. Randomly, I chose red, green, yellow and orange bell peppers, yellow squash, zucchini, cucumber, broccoli and egg plant.

I can’t tell you how thrilling it is each morning to check my plants for new leaves, flowers and vegetables. My iPhone is filled with pictures of my garden. Everything is growing bigger and faster than I ever imagined.

Watering is like a religion especially since we are in a drought. The best advice my landscaping company gave me was to water at the roots rather than use a sprinkler and to water every two to three days. It’s important to let the ground dry out so the roots have to grow stronger as they look for water.

I’m looking forward to eating my first pepper and broccoli in the next week or so!

And my second new hobsession (made that up) is golf. A friend invited me to participate in a five week clinic with three other girls who have been golfing for years. The golf pro was great. She was able to provide simple tips and corrections for all of us even though we were all at different levels. Immediately I saw improvement with my drives. They don’t go far but they generally go straight.

She was adamant about the need to practice, over and over. I took her advice and try to get to the driving range one or two times a week to drive, chip and putt. I love it! It’s fun having something to practice to improve. It’s great exercise. The courses are gorgeous and get you out in nature. And it’s something I can do into retirement.

It’s funny how the universe works. I was recently invited to play in a golf tournament with a vendor…the first time this has ever happened in my career! And we really did talk a lot of business in between shots. What a great time!

So now you know why I haven’t blogged since March. So what are your new hobsessions?

Yes, I'm a Madonna fan!

And I just bought tickets to see her in St. Louis in November! I got them through the regular Ticketmaster online sale at 10:00 am on March 5th. I’ve seen her three times in NY, Philly and Chicago so I wasn’t officially planning to go again. I assumed the tickets would be too expensive and that with all the pre-sales, the seats would be too far from the stage. So I was checking them out just in case… I was giddy after I bought the tickets!

I have to say she’s lost some of her appeal in recent years. I haven’t bought the last few cds and I haven’t seen the last few tours. But something about her halftime show reminded me about what I used to love about her. She really is a fantastic performer and she performed a bunch of my favorite older songs.

Whether you like her or not, there is something fascinating about her. Come on! Her career has lasted almost 30 years all while pissing people off the whole way! Think about all the pop culture references over the years. Here are a couple of random mentions:

1)In both the book and the movie “The Silence of the Lambs.” There was a poster of her from the “Lucky Star” days on the wall of the bedroom of the first victim.

2)In the movie “The Professional” that starred a very young Natalie Portman. There was a scene where she was dancing around entertaining the assassin and she did a version of “Like a Virgin.”

3)The awesomely hilarious spoof of herself she did featuring Wayne and Garth where they redid her “ Justify My Love video.”

4)Swear to God, as I am typing this, the Real Housewives of Orange County are having an 80’s themed bunko night and one of them is dressed exactly like Madonna!

Remember in 1991 she released the movie “Truth or Dare” which was a documentary-style movie that followed her on her 1990 “Blonde Ambition” tour. Being a huge fan, I loved all the back-stage and behind-the-scene footage of her and her dancers. Critics challenged the entire concept saying that everything she did was contrived and put on for the cameras. They insisted there was no way she could forget the cameras were there and actually be real. Well, fast-forward to the present day and ‘reality’ TV shows out-number scripted shows! She was ahead of her time. Brilliant!

Then in 1992 she published her “Sex” book (featured above in the pic). Of course I pre-ordered mine. Once it arrived, everyone I knew wanted to see it. No one wanted to admit to it but they all wanted to see it. And as they turned each page, they would comment out loud “she’s disgusting, she’s so weird, I can’t believe this, oh my gosh.”…as they continued to turn every single page and look at every single image. Whether you like her or not, she’s still fascinating.

There was only one woman I worked with who flipped through a couple of pages and stopped. Everyone one else looked at every page, complaining the entire time! Sometime during every party I’ve ever had, the book comes out. Everyone still wants to see it. The metal covers and the first 10 pages are no longer attached to the spiral binding!

The other book in the picture above is a hard-back, souvenir concert book from “The Girlie Show” that came with a special collector’s edition CD. This was my first Madonna concert I saw at Madison Square Garden! Yes, way cool!

The set of four, picture discs features an unedited, rare interview she did in London. They are vinyl and you need a turntable to listen!

So, yes, I’m still a big fan of Madonna, even though at times it feels like she’s gotten weirder as she’s gotten older, and as my co-worker’s wife says, “She has Gollum arms!” But as a marketer, you can’t ignore people like Madonna because they affect culture, language, fashion, art and life….whether you like it or not!

Pinterest 'liked' my pin!

I didn’t even know that the Pinterest brand engaged with the content like this. I can’t tell you how giddy I was when I received the e-mail notification that Pinterest ‘liked’ my pin!

I’ve only been on Pinterest for a couple of months. I haven’t pinned many things but I really enjoy just scrolling through to see what other people have pinned.

A friend of mine is doing a hike to raise money for breast cancer. I wanted to help promote her web page where you can make an online donation. She has a great photo from the last time she did the hike so I thought it would be cool to ‘pin’ her. Within minutes a stranger re-pinned the photo and Pinterest ‘liked’ it! How cool!

I’ve already completed a Pinterest-inspired craft project, two new recipes and found several cool new blogs to read. I highly recommend Pinterest. Just play!

and PS, if you want to make a donation, click on Jane's photo above. Thanks!

Who buys perfume on HSN?

Well…apparently I do. It’s hard to explain. I’m not a big infomercial shopper and I’ve never purchased anything off HSN. Well…until last Friday.

It’s so random. I came home from an early dinner and started flipping through the channels. This was strange way to start the night because I rarely watch live TV. There’s always something good in my DVR.

I flip to HSN and Kate Walsh is on promoting her perfume. I’m a big fan of hers. Loved her on Grey’s Anatomy, I follow her on Twitter and Facebook and her video blogs are really funny. Why would any of this make me think she knows anything about perfume? I don’t know but apparently she was very convincing.

She was so excited about all the notes and the high quality ingredients and how she didn’t just put her name on a perfume she started her own company and how the bottles are like little pieces of art and how it was such a great deal since it came with a little roller-ball, pressure-point applicator bottle thingy and free shipping!

So I bought a new perfume without trying it on or even smelling it. It’s called Billionaire Boyfriend which, if you know me, is even funnier that I bought it!

And yes it smells great! No buyer's remorse.

How did you hear Whitney Houston was dead?

Crazy world we live in where a guy on Twitter (@chilemasgrande) who has only tweeted 50 times and only has 161 followers is getting credit (via Mashable.com) for breaking the news about Whitney Houston's death.

A later report says that @AjaDiorNavy tweeted earlier "omgg , my aunt tiffany who work for whitney houston just found whitney houston dead in the tub . such ashame & sad :-(" She's tweeted almost 9,000 times and has roughly 700 followers.

I know a lot of people who aren't on Twitter and never plan to be. They're not on FourSquare, Yelp or Google + either. The gap just keeps getting wider. Makes marketing more interesting. My parents are a perfect example. My dad has never used a computer. My mom still has dial up. Neither have a smart phone. They still read every page of the paper newspaper. Lots of brands should be targeting them but not via social media. (They found out on TV.)

ps I found out from my waiter at dinner. His name was Holden. He wasn't named after Holden Caulfield. He was named after a soap opera character.