Frozen Twinkies

Twinkies (Hostess Twinkies is a trademark of Hostess Brands LLC). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Before last winter, the most prevailing story, or urban myth, about Twinkies was the one about the guy who found a 20 year old Twinkie behind his couch and it was still soft and consumable.

Twinkies were right alongside cockroaches as the things most likely to weather a nuclear holocaust unscathed.

Then last winter disaster struck. Hostess, the company that made and sold Twinkies filed for bankruptcy.  More importantly, they announced the end of the United States production and distribution of Twinkies and several other brands.

Suddenly, Twinkies were the most popular formerly ignored snack on store shelves.  People stocked up with  cases and cases of the cream-filled sponge cake treats, anticipating a healthy black market of contraband snack cakes.  Besides, they last forever, right?

Then the white knight arrived.  Investors came and bought the Twinkies brand, as well as those of several other snack cakes, with the intention of returning them to production.

There was joy in Snackville...except among those who were sitting on cases of Twinkies.

Then strange things started to happen.  Hostess Brands LLC, the new owner of Twinkies, started issuing press releases that included terms like shelf life and talked about selling frozen Twinkies to some retailers to help extend expiration dates.  This was very confusing and contradicted just about everything I "knew" about Twinkies and their lack of a need for an expiration date.

I have come to the conclusion that the masterminds behind Hostess Brands LLC are actually marketing geniuses.  First, they manage to "rescue" a suddenly beloved brand from the expiration bin at fire sale prices, waiting long enough that a frenzy had been built up about the brand that hadn't been seen since the likes of New Coke.

Then, they wait six months to bring back the lunch box delicacies, further tamping up demand.  Then, announcements about the reintroduction include talk of expiration dates and freezing for selective retailers.  Suddenly, we are comparing Twinkies to more delicate baked goods instead of cockroaches.

Well played, Hostess Brands!  Well played!

Quality vs. Control

In today's marketplace, a communicator needs to focus on clarity of message and connecting with key audiences more than controlling the message.

Occassionally a communicator may have the illusion that she can control the message.  It is only an illusion.

Today's marketplace provides us with an opportunity to have a dialog WITH our key audiences (new media) versus a lecture AT our key audiences (old media).  Everyone knows that in a dialog, you can only realistically control no more than one half of the conversation.

So what are we professional communicators to do if we can no longer realistically claim the super-secret ability to control the message?

The answer is something we should have been focusing on all along.  We need to refocus on the clarity and the quality of our messages.  We need to sharpen our pencils (most likely metaphorically) and pay attention to creating carefully crafted, concise messages that clearly communicate one or two key messages.  (For the mathematically inclined reader, or those of you who are aspiring marketing consultants, you would state this as 6C=Q.)

When you can only control your half of the dialog, you need to make sure that is a high quality half!

We need to focus on making sure we are delivering messages that communicate our key message as clearly and engagingly as possible.  THEN, we need to listen for feedback that will tell us if our messages are as clear and engaging as we anticipated.  If they aren't, you adjust and start over again.

If your quality is good, I guess you don't need to worry about control.

Is Voter Turnout a Communications Issue?

Yesterday,  someone commented on my March 21st post on local elections with this question:
"I am active politically at the local/state level. We have had declining voter turn-out over the years so that the last city council election garnered less than 10%. I used to think that those elections would have higher participation for exactly the reasons you mention - council & school boards being so close to home. any thoughts on this?"

After responding, I continued to think about this issue.  I suspect that low voter turnout, in part, is a communication issue.  Venturing a risky step into political blogging (just for today, I promise!) I wanted to expound on some of my thoughts.  Please join in on this discussion if you want to add to the discourse!

I suspect that there are several reasons for the decline in voter turnout.  

• I think that many "could be" voters stay away from the polls because they question whether or not their vote makes a difference.  I suspect we will see a significant drop in the percentage of people voting in the national election this fall (as most states saw during the primaries) because there has been a lot of attention paid to Citizen's United issues.  "I don't have millions to contribute so how can I change things" is how many individuals are viewing things this political season. 
• Related to that, many erstwhile voters question what impact, if any, one candidate will have over another.  If you view all politicians with the same suspicion-colored glasses, they all look the same and then why take the time to go to the polls?  
• While they were set up to make it easier for people to vote, I suspect that the preponderance of options like Early voting and Absentee voting can be intimidating and confusing for those not fully engaged in the process. It also has the impact of lessening the special aspect of Election Day. 
• When I was growing up, I remember hearing leaders of all shapes, sizes and political flavors talk about the importance of getting out to vote.  I grew up believing it was EVERYONE'S civic duty to vote.  I don't hear that from our leaders nearly as much.  Voting no longer is held out as a sacred duty of citizenship.  
• It is harder and harder for politicians and political parties to cut through the communications barrage we are all subjected to every day.  With an ever-increasing number of communications venues and an exponentially increasing number of message that most of us have to contend with every day, it is hard for your voice to be heard.  It is hard for McDonald's and Chevy, who can market 24/7/365.  Imagine competing with that with an uncertain source of funds and a limited time frame.  On top of that, try communicating complicated policy issues and positions in a 30 second ad or a two minute "news" story.  Perhaps that is why candidates and PACs turn toward negative ads.
• Negative ads.  Proponents say they work.  But they work not by bringing out your voters but by discouraging the voters of the other guy.  

More specifically on local elections, 

• I think it comes down to people not realizing the impact that local elected officials have on their day-to-day lives. There are fewer and fewer independent, local media sources to tell us the value of those local elected officials.  When all you have is national and regional media, who is covering the city council meeting?

As any good marketer knows, in order to get people to act, you have to move a prospect through certain steps of interest and affiliation before you get them to consider taking action.  I suspect that our political system, used to a bygone era when stronger party affiliations provided automatic interest and affiliation to a candidate.  They still have to adjust to a new political reality in which more and more voters identify themselves as being independent and even those who identify with a party are more willing to cross over to vote for a candidate or an issue that captures their imagination, their interest and their affiliation.

In the end, voter turnout is tied to interest in the candidate and the system.  For some of the reasons I suggested above and many others, eligible voters have lost, or never obtained, that interest.  From time to time an issue or a candidate will fan those flames and generate new interest, and new voters.  Ronald Reagan  in the 80s and Barack Obama in 2008 both come to mind.  And both of those candidates were touted as being Great Communicators.

11 year old boys

Everyone in marketing and public relations knows that they should be involved with social media and the internet.  Every company that markets (which means every company) knows that they need to have a presence on the internet because 1) It makes them look modern and "with it," 2) that is where they think their customers might be, 3) everyone is talking about social media so that must be where things are happening, 4) it doesn't cost anything to send an email so why not? or 5) all of the above.

The trouble is knowing you should and knowing how are two different things.  As I read recently in Fast Company magazine, "[companies and] brands on the internet are like 11 year old boys.  They know that they want girls to talk to them, but when they do, they don't know what to say."

It seems to me, many companies are putting the cart before the horse.  Instead of deciding you want to jump into social media and then figuring out what you should say, instead you should be deciding what your story is BEFORE thinking about the best venue or venues to tell it.  Often the nature of the story will dictate the appropriate media to tell it in.  While many stories work well on the internet, some are best told on radio, or by postcard, or an in-store display.

Like that 11 year old boy, you should figure out what you want to say before you start passing notes in class!


Some of my other posts you might enjoy:

• Tell Stories http://allismarketing.blogspot.com/2011/10/tell-stories.html

• The Marketing Value of Social Media http://allismarketing.blogspot.com/2012/03/marketing-value-of-social-media.html

Babies and Bathwater

There is an old saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater."

My interpretation of this saying is that as you are getting rid of things you don't want, or no longer need (in this case the bathwater), be careful that you don't also get rid of something valuable (i.e. the baby).

In our current media and communication milieu, many companies are throwing out the bathwater of their traditional PR plans.  With tools like Twitter and Facebook, the thinking often goes, who needs newspapers (or radio or TV)?  With websites and e-newsletters and video conferencing, who would ever again pay to place a print ad or struggle to get their message into 30 seconds with music?

But here's the thing:  very similar things were said about newspapers and magazines more than 100 years ago when commercial radio became popular and the same thing about radio (and newspapers and magazines) when television joined the media fracas.  And newspapers and magazines and radio are still around and by most accounts, doing OK.

More importantly, those "traditional media" are still delivering visibility and audiences for those advertisers who use them wisely.

You see, I think new media tends to be additive, not replacing, in nature.  Each new media adds something new to the customer experience, but most don't really replace the old.  And even if it does replace those experiences for some, there are still many many many people who cling to their newspapers or radio programs with strength and conviction.

Traditional media also evolves.  Radio stations we have today are remarkably different than the first radio networks, but no less vibrant or vital of a media.  

So, when you are thinking of throwing "traditional media" out the window with that bathwater, you really need to calculate if you really can do without all of those customers who don't have access to new media, who don't care to have access, or that want access, but can't figure out how to use it, so they don't.