What’s interesting to me is the dichotomy between the ads from both DirecTV and Dish Network, versus the experience of actually using their services. Since I have Dish Network at home, I have a fair amount of perspective now on both systems.

Lately, Dish has been marketing themselves as a “cheaper” but every bit as full-featured alternative to DirectTV.  That’s definitely an “Avis” strategy (you know…”we’re number two, so we try harder”). I would therefore assume that Dish is running second to DirecTV in sales. (If they aren’t they need to take their marketing team out back and shoot them – this is NOT the right strategy for a market leader.) Dish, on the other hand, markets themselves against cable systems. I’m a big believer in satellite – I’ve had universally crappy service from cable, and there’s no way they can match satellite’s prices, largely due to their inherent disadvantage due to their fixed infrastructure costs.

What’s interesting, is that from their ads, aside from price, there’s little differentiate Dish and DirecTV from each other. That is, of course, until you use them.

As a user interface specialist, I’ve been underwhelmed forever and a day with Dish Network’s clunky U/I. I see so many things I could do better. I’ve been told that DirecTV’s is better. Not sure I agree with that. On the whole, I think the Dish Network’s remote is easier and more intuitive to use. Certainly, the modal nature of the DirecTV remote is a barrier to use – until you get used to it. On the plus side, DirecTV’s menus seem to allow more customization. On the negative side, that customization (which is largely to limit the lists to specific channels)  is harder to figure out, and once you have it customized, it’s difficult to switch modes (back to seeing everything, rather than just the ones you picked for your custom list). What’s interesting is that both systems could stand a U/I reworking, and neither seems to be overly-interested in what is an essential aspect of their product.

So which one is “better”? I don’t know. From a usability point of view, I’d say Dish wins. From a marketing point of view, DirecTV has better ads, and a market-leading strategy.  (I also worry about the DVR offered by Dish, and the fact that they will eventually lose their battle with TiVO, and I’ll probably be out one DVR.) This is largely a case where the edge in marketing (by DirecTV) probably translates to a sales lead – but not because of a superior product – but slightly better marketing.

Think back to when the “green” movement was known as the “ecology” movement. Remember the brouhaha about grocery bags? First, we were told that paper sacks resulted in killing too many trees, so grocers switched to plastic bags. Then the ecoNazis preached that the plastic bags were bad, as they used fossil fuels, and were therefore killing the planet – not to mention their inability to gracefully decompose in landfills. Today, most supermarkets offer your choice of “paper or plastic,” and have recently started shilling “reusable” bags. A recent episode of the wickedly funny ABC prime time cartoon The Goode Family, the social-climbing mom forgot her reusable totes (6:43 to 7:40 in the clip above) when shopping at the grocery store. Faced with disapproving looks from the other greenies at the market, she finally blurted out, “Load me up…I know a lot of people are comfortable with reusable bags, but I’m not. Those bags are made in sweatshops.” The other shoppers are promptly stricken by kind of Liberal Guilt only someone who is desperately trying to live up to an impossible, illogical standard can feel.

Recently, bottled water has come into the cross-hairs of the Greens. You see, the ecoNazis see the bottles as the problem. (If you do the math on what they get for bottled water per gallon, you’d find that it’s more expensive than Premium gasoline. THERE’S your problem. Not the bottle.) So they are doing their best to kill the market for bottled water. Of course, up unitl about 15 years ago, there was no real market for bottled water. You had your Perrier sparkling water, and that was about it. Then the health food craze hit the public consciousness, and (coupled with stories about micro-organisms in the public water supply like cryptosporidium – which sounds like some sort of terrorist-created poison gas), bottled water took off like gangbusters. The bitter irony? The same people that are health conscious in the extreme are – you guessed it – ecoNazis. So the campaign against the humble disposable  plastic bottle begins.

Here’s more irony. When I was a kid, soft drinks came in glass bottles. Recyclable glass bottles. You drank a six-pack or two, then returned the bottles for a rebate of a nickel per bottle. The grocers returned the bottles to the bottling plant, where they were sterilized, refilled, and sold again, over and over. You could easily do the same sort of thing with plastic bottles but now that the supermarkets and bottlers no longer have to mess with recycling, they’d rather not start it up again, thank you very much.

Now, bottlers know a good deal when they see one. Water is cheap to acquire, cheap to bottle, and highly profitable. They don’t want that market to go away. So they are desperately trying to do something…anything…to keep their business, um…afloat. Ozarka has come up with a very PC-esque solution: make the bottles with less plastic. (This is the kind of gesture that torpedoed W’s last term as President, and blew his street cred as a conservative, but I digress.) Ozarka is pitching this as their “Eco-Shape® Bottle,” made with “30% less plastic to be easier on the environment.” They follow this up with a whiney “We can all make a difference — please recycle.”

Um. Yeah. THAT will convince the ecoNazis.

In practice, the Eco-Shape bottles are a disaster. As you drink the water out of the bottle, the 30% less plastic translates into a bottle that tends to get crushed in even the most gentle of grips, spilling water everywhere.

So what’s the real solution? Well, I can’t speak for the rest of America, but I buy one bottle of water, then refill the bottle over and over again. This gives me a convenient container, and I don’t waste so much plastic. At the grocery, half the time we get plastic (and reuse them for cleaning up the litter box) and half the time paper (and use them instead of kerosene, to start our natural wood fires in our grill). By the way, I live in Texas…you’ll get me to stop grilling when you pry my grill tools outta my cold, dead hands.

The idea of reducing the amount of plastic in a bottle has a logical point of diminishing returns. Ozarka passed that point, when they made collapsible bottles, regardless of their intent. If and when grocery stores are forced to stop offering paper or plastic bags, I’ll have to find something else to use for cat litter disposal, and another way to start my fires. That will simply drive the cost up for me to take care of our pets and to cook. But in my experience, so-called Progressives seldom stop to think about the hidden costs of their ideas. They’d much rather strike a morally superior pose, and if they going gets rough, exempt themselves from their own ideas, under the guise that the ends justify their means.

I’m all for cutting out waste. I’m all for “saving the planet” (never mind that I find it the height of egotism that Progressives both believe the planet can’t survive the “assault” of humanity upon it, and that anything we do will have the least effect on it in the long term). But when half-baked ideas are pushed past common sense, and force changes to our lives that accomplish nothing but lining the pockets of opportunistic companies trying to change the rules to make a buck, that’s where I draw the line.

We don’t need to stop selling bottled water, forbid grocery stores to give out sacks (paper OR plastic), or force incandescent light bulbs off the shelves. We need to stop wasting stuff, start saving money, and stop listening to politicians and special-interest groups that would pervert marketing into a propaganda tool to turn consumers into sheeple.

If I have a gripe, I suspect it will be with battery life, but that’s only because I’ve been on it so much. Not sure, short of using an OLED screen, what they could do to fix this, but from what I hear, the 3G S is a lot better than the 3G in that respect.

By comparison, at this stage of the game with the Windows Mobile phone, I was busy making excuses for the OS, doing my best to explain away the problems, like some newlywed who’s desperately trying to believe that their spouse is “just a little stressed” and not really abusive.

Ouch.

That leads me to what I think is a huge mistake that Apple and AT&T are making regarding the marketing of the iPhone.

As a user interface architect, I appreciate the value of a good user interface, and understand that the interface is the most important factor, long-term, in how easy your phone is to use, as well as the long-term aggravation factor involved in using it.

The key phrase here is long-term.

You simply cannot make an informed buying decision based on reading about phones, or in a side by side comparison in a few minutes in a store. Just not gonna get it. So here’s what I think they should do.

The iPhone challenge.

If this sounds a lot like the Pepsi Challenge from the late 90s, you’re right. I propose a side-by-side challenge between the leading smartphone OS and devices. Here’s the way it would work…

AT&T stores would host an event. It might be held using a tractor-trailer that would travel aroudn the country, or simply do it in their stores – or perhaps hold it off site, at a hotel meeting room. The stage would be set up with an iPhone, a Palm Pre, a Google Andriod phone, and a Windows Mobile phone. (Did I miss any?) Audience memebers would be asked to volunteer to pilot each of the phones in a competitive situation. They would each be given tasks to complete – with the fastest time judged the winner. One group of users would be novices to their chosen phone, another group would have experience on their platforms. Each “contestant” would have the opportunity to say a few words about what they liked and what they didn’t like about the phone they used.

The event would then finish up with an opportunity for every audience member to get some hands-on time with the phone they like the best. Then they would be given the opportunity to use a reconditioned phone for 30 days, with the option to either return the phone after 30 days or getting a new one. Users would pay only for their airtime minutes – not the phone – for the first 30 days. After that, they’d get to swap the used phone for a new one, or just return it.

After 30 days, I was ready to throw my Windows Mobile phone through a window. I suspect that after 30 days, I’ll be ready to build a shrine for my iPhone.

You see, the thing about the iPhone is that it’s a big committment. Two-year contract. Higher charges for data plan, insurance, et cetera. That is, as they say, a barrier to entry. But it’s worth it, if you’ve ever been saddled with a similar contract for a Windows Mobile phone. The laughable claims that Sprint has made about their “iPhone-killer” phones would evaporate if prospective buyers could get some real time using the phone, and compare it to the iPhone. But it takes more than 5 or 10 minutes in a store. You need real-world use to really understand the iPhone adavantage. The challenge/30-day trial program would accomplish that .

Will AT&T listen? I suspect they won’t. It’s too “out there” of an idea for it to gain traction with the suits. Apple might like it, but when you’re selling as many iPhones as they are right now, I’m not sure they’d see the benefit. But I wish they would – for I wouldn’t wish a Windows Mobile phone on anybody.

I suffered for years as a water-carrier for Windows and All Things Microsoft. I had a late-model Windows Mobile phone, the Sprint/HTC Mogul. Never again. In the final months of my contract, I grew to loathe the phone, refering to it as the “Wagon Queen Family Truckster” of cell phones. You know how when you meet someone and you’re really attracted to them, but they have some obvious personality flaws, tics, or other weirdness, but you tell yourself “it’s okay…I don’t care about that…it won’t matter,” but in time, you can’t think of anything else BUT the annoying flaws? THAT sums up my relationship with the Windows Mobile OS, and, by extension, the Sprint/HTC Mogul. From the 1/2 day battery life, crappy keyboard, and lame 1x service (in Amarillo…don’t believe that 4G BS they’re pushing on TV) to the idiosyncratic operating system (with an emphasis on the “IDIO” part, as in “IDIOT”) that only an uber-geek could love, I’m glad to be rid of that crapalicious excuse for a phone. Two tin cans and some string would have worked better on occasion.

What impresses me so much about the iPhone is that it’s so bloody intuitive, simple, and…fun. The interface doesn’t make you work to do something – it gets out of your way. That’s the way a tool should be…it’s raison d’etre is to make your life easier by working for you. Not in spite of you.

It’s also great to see that Apple’s marketing team doesn’t over-hype the phone. They don’t need to, but it’s nice to see them sell the reality and not the promise.

So count me as one satisfied customer, at least at this stage of the game. The price of admission is still high, but if you want a phone that just works – but does a LOT more than just let you make calls, check out the iPhone. And stay away from anything that says “Windows Mobile” on it. Remember – I did warn you…

What amazes me, however, is that the media – on both the left AND the right – is confused about why Chrysler (or let’s get real: The Treasury Dept.) wants to can almost 800 loyal ChryslerCo dealers today.

First, a couple of disclaimers – my wife and I both drive Jeeps, I’m a big fan of the Wrangler, and I used to work for an agency that did ads for car dealers, exclusively.

Congressmen, pundits and TV talking heads are all up in arms about the dealer bloodletting, claiming there’s no reason to kill off dealerships, and that “fewer dealers means fewer sales.”

Balderdash.

Here’s the deal, campers: Not only does Chrysler have too many models that overlap each other, they also have way too many dealers to sell the cars that DO sell to the public. (And keep in mind, everything that’s wrong with Chrysler is 10 times worse when you talk about GM.) It’s a little concept called cannibalization, all part of the laws of supply and demand. Let’s say in your city, you can sell 10,000 cars per month. Okay. Only a certain number of those sales – lets say…um…1,700 of ‘em will be a Chrysler product. Keep in mind, there are no fixed prices in the auto industry. Every dealer competes against every other dealer. Also remember that dealers are required to buy a certain number of cars from the manufacturer per month, need ‘em or not. So you have a situation where dealers are, shall we say, highly motivated to sell every car they can. Now if you have only one or two Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep dealers in a given metro area, you will have less competition. The number of cars you can sell into that market won’t change – only a certain percentage will buy Chrylers, Dodges, or Jeeps, regardless of how many dealers exist. But fewer dealers means less competition for the dealers that sell a particular brand, and therefore improve the odds of those dealers making a profit. Too many dealers cannibalize sales, reduce profit margins, and make it that much harder for dealers to survive.

Now, none of this has ANYTHING to do with how the dealers that will be axed have been chosen. As for me, the whole Chrysler deal stinks on ice – there’s no way that bond holders should have to take 29 cents on the dollar, no way any union should end up with ANY ownership stake in a bankrupt company, and no way that our government should be calling the tune so that they can pay back political patrons. But regardless of the corruption in place that has dictated which dealers live and which die, killing off a bunch of dealerships isn’t just a good idea – it’s essential to giving whatever survives from ChryslerCo a fighting chance to prosper.

From a marketing point of view, this is pretty easy to understand – reduce competition = increased profit. But since the ObamaNation has chosen to politicize the process, I can’t really blame people for being a bit confused about why dealers are going away.

Earlier today, I read an editorial by marketer Laura Ries that reflected on the popularity of the iPhone. She offered that she’d originally believed that the iPhone would fail, because “convergence” is generally a bad idea, but owned up to the fact that the iPhone has been a success in spite of – not because of – it’s blending of a cell phone and a PDA. She then cited reasons she believed the iPhone took off (here’s a clue: “marketing”), and finished up by admonishing Apple to “keep it simple” and not continue to add functionality and features to the iPhone.

With all respect to a marketer that usually hits it out of the park, analysis-wise, I think she’s got a swing and a miss here. Here’s why…

While virtually every other device on the market is, as Laura puts it, a “convergence” device, the iPhone, oddly enough, is not. The iPhone is a universal developer platform – in other words, just like it’s kissin’ cousin, the personal computer, the iPhone is a “Swiss Army Knife” device – a tool that can be used in almost any way you can imagine. While my “Wagon Queen Family Truckster” Windows Mobile phone is an inelegant mashup of phone/PDA/computer/music player/battery hog – and performs none of those functions well, the iPhone was designed from the ground up as an integrated platform – allowing the seamless development of a virtuously unlimited number of applications that can do almost anything.

By trade, I’m a marketer, but in experience, I’m not just a marketer, but also a designer, an animator, a writer, and a entertainer. I’ve done all these things professionally, for most of my life. One of the things I’ve specialized in was software user interface design, and what we in the field call “human factors engineering,” or more simply, “usability.” The iPhone stands at the pinnacle of usability. (The Windows Mobile platform wallows at the bottom.) The beauty of the iPhone is that it is so well thought out. The gestures, the zooming, the dearth of buttons – all intuitive. The more intuitive something is, the less friction you encounter using it. Less friction = ease of use. As ease of use increases, the usefulness of a device does as well. Simply put, it is far easier to do even simple things (like make a call) on an iPhone than on a Windows Mobile, Palm, Symbian, or Android device. Period.

Ms. Ries is correct when she cites the iTunes AppStore as the thing that made the iPhone take off like a rocket. Nothing like opening up a platform to free market enterprise and unbridled capitalism to stoke the fires of profit and increase market share. But what she fails to understand is that just as people buy apps to solve problems, and therefore buy hardware to run software, you must constantly improve hardware to keep up with the demands of software.

Bill Gates once famously opined that he could not envision a world where anyone would need more than 512KB of RAM in a computer. Today, even the cheapest PC comes with 2GB of RAM. (For the non-propellerheads in the audience, 2GB is the same as 2,097,152KB. PCs evolved to handle the demands of software, and software evolved to handle tasks that users wanted handled. It’s a simple as that.

Ries makes several points to show why she thinks that the iPhone is not the all-powerful dreadnaught that everyone thinks it is. She cites iPhone’s market share of the cell market (9%), Blackberry’s (17%), the rise of Netbooks, her KiSS (Keep it Simple, Stupid) philosophy, and the inability to use applications to advertise (?!) as reasons that the iPhone still might falter. I disagree. The iPhone is currently in the final year of a 3-year exclusive distribution agreement in the U.S. with AT&T – a move that might have helped iPhone get early market share by way of a partner who needed them as much as they needed a carrier – but a move that is now holding them back. (If I had a nickel for everybody that had asked me about getting iPhones on the Verison network…)

the iPhone is tool. Tools have form factors. Just like no two women seem to carry the same size purse, or pistonheads disagree over the best engine, there’s no need to narrow a market to a single form factor. I worked for a company back in the early 90s who’s CEO once told me they were in the CD-ROM game business. I replied, “No, you’re in the entertainment business. CDs are just a delivery mechanism…if you focus on the delivery platform, you’ll miss the Next Big Thing, and be out of business.” Guess what? He missed a little thing we call “Internet distribution” and his company is now one for the history books.

The thing about the iPhone is that it’s an elegant tool. Netbooks look cool, but as they stand now, I don’t see them used as a phone. Some people prefer separate gadgets. As for me, I prefer carrying one tool – not so many that I end up with Batman’s utility belt around my waist.

If you ask me, the iPhone has succeeded because it put ease of use ahead of everything else, and because of that, became the platform of choice for developers that saw it’s potential as a platform. Until and unless other phones take that same path, they will fail in the same way that other “convergence devices” have failed in the past.

Like Laura, I have no idea what the future will hold. However, I do know that new opportunities require more than just a cool gadget or an a+b approach – it takes people that are willing to come up with ways to solve problems that make life easier, and shun answers that create barriers or make things harder, rather than easier.

The original look.

The revised look.

In what seems like a lifetime ago, I was given the nickname “Captain Digital.” Back when I began blogging, I put everything under this blog’s banner. Eventually, I realized it would be better (for any number of reasons) to refocus this blog to cover just marketing, advertising, and design, and relocate all my political and pop culture posts to another blog, and thus, www.captaindigital.net was born.

When I first created a visual look and feel for Captain Digital, I wanted to evoke a 1940’s style cartoon look. While that worked well as far as the original goal, the reality was that working with the color halftone pattern was a major pain. Nice idea – not worth the extra effort to pull off the look of a Ben Day pattern. Add to that a desire to remake Captain Digital’s image into something just a wee bit more modern and hip, and you have a need for a image refresh. Problem was, I really didn’t have time to work on it. I tried an intermediate step of using a modernized cartoon version of the original, but there were some things I wanted to fix – in particular, I felt like losing the helmet would be a good idea. So As of today, we’ve got a new version of Captain Digital. The old/original drawings will be retired, as I can get to it.

As you can see, the character’s costume has remained fairly consistent. I made things a little more consistent as far as the colors go, but the biggest change is getting rid of the helmet (and replacing it with a headset), and the addition of a little facial hair (which is more consistent with what I really look like (would that I could trade bodies with Captain Digital – he’s in MUCH better shape than I am).

When you get a chance, click on over to the CD blog and check out the new look and feel. I’m hoping that it will reinforce the content with a more consistent visual style.

Believe it or not, this is not a joke…I’m not kidding. It’s not hype. And it’s not make-believe. Now when you’re talking about Trillion-dollar budgets and bailouts, I realize that 1/3 of a million dollars is probably chicken feed, inside the Beltway at least. But to paraphrase Senator Everitt Dirksen (R-IL), a third of a million here, and a third of a million there, and pretty soon, you’re talking about real money. So how can I save the U.S. Taxpayers some major coin? Simple.

You see, when the ObamaNation wanted to generate some of their own stock photography, they looked in the archives, and realized nothing they had on hand would do. I mean, a shot of Air Force One over Mount Rushmore is soooooo last millennium. They wanted to update the stock photo folder with something as new and fresh as Obama himself. And what could be more fresh and exciting, you might ask, than buzzing the NYC skyline? Road Trip!

But there’s a problem. 747s are not, by their nature, the kind of plane you just joyride up to the Big Apple for a photo-op. Especially with all those United States of America and Presidential seal graphics splashed all over the thing. Even if the one you’re flying is a stunt double. Nope. These things take planning, coordination, and about $357,000, to pay for AF One, two Air Force fighter jet escorts, and their assorted crews. Now I’m no aeronautical genius – but I am a thinker – and I think I might be able to save Obama not only some coin, but some future headaches, as well as the inevitable class-action lawsuit from all those traumatized New Yorkers.

Here’s how it works.

First, you need a couple of stock photos, one of your landscape of choice, and one of Air Force One. My total Google images search time was under 10 minutes. You’ll also need a copy of Adobe Photoshop, and a laptop or desktop computer that can run the software. Sure, I already own a laptop and a copy of Photoshop, but this is civil service work we’re talking about here. Why should I scrimp when everybody else working for the government is getting rich? Since I’m in the market for a new laptop, I’m budgeting for one in the project. (Hey – if Obama can afford to jet off to Chicago for a vacation a month into his term, I’m sure he’ll twig to my need for a new computer.) My weapon of choice is a new, 17″ MacBook Pro, with a 24″ Mac Cinema Display. Since I already own Photoshop on the PC, I’m going easy on the ObamaNation, by only charging them for a crossgrade from the PC version of CS3 to the Mac version of CS4. With a couple of other things to throw into the mix (a copy of Apple Logic would be nice) I’m gonna run the total up to $6,500. The stock photos ought to run around $20 each, but let’s be generous and budget another $100. That takes us to $6,600. I’m going to charge $400 for my time. That it’s only going to take me 30 minutes to do the actual photo editing is immaterial…I need to turn a profit on the job, don’t I? So the net savings will be $350,000. Not too shabby…I get a new Mac and pocket $400, and Team Obama gets some photo-realistic stock photography – and nobody need be the wiser.

Don’t believe me? Let me prove it to you.

Load the Air Force One shot into Photoshop. Use your choice of wands, lassos, and masking tools to create a mask that allows us to grab the airplane without any of the background image.

Here’s the mask I created. If I’d had access to a WACOM tablet tonight, I could have done it faster. As it was, this took me about 20 minutes.

Not too shabby, huh. Now we’ll load the other image (the one with the NYC scene), and drag the masked plane layer onto the NYC scene file.

And finally, we can adjust the size and position of the airplane against the background.

The image on the left (above) cost the U.S. taxpayers $357,000. I’ll give the ObamaNation the one on the right for the low, low price of $6,600. Hey – I’ll even be a sport…I’d throw in another half-dozen backgrounds for no additional dollars. (I get to keep the Mac and the CS4 upgrade, though, so I’m still coming out smelling like a rose.) I can put Air Force One any where you like – Chicago, LA, Paris, Beirut – if you can find a stock photo of a city skyline, I can deliver. Plus, my method keeps the panic off the streets and in the stock markets where it belongs.

I think I’m offering Team Obama an unbeatable deal – save money, keep bad publicity to a minimum, and even act a little more green – the MacBook Pro is supposedly the greenest laptop made. Even if it isn’t, I’m still saving thousands of gallons of jet fuel, no matter what. I realize that this runs contrary to Obamanomics (tax & spend…then tax some more), but hey, they need to throw a bone to the great unwashed every now and then, and by their standards, $350,000 is a picked-over bone.

And if there’s $350,000 to be saved here, imagine the other ways we could put computers to work to save the taxpayers money! We could save on overseas travel – just take a photo of some rich guy in a burnoose, Photoshop in Obama, and voilà! – an international incident is averted.

So if you’re working for the ObamaNation, and you’re looking for a way to score some killer pics of Air Force One, but realize that suggesting another flyover is career suicide, gimme a call. I’ll be happy to help. As a patriotic, tax-paying American, it’s the least I can do, to try and soak us all for less than the ObamaNation does.

As I’ve mentioned before, it’s been a few years since I’ve worked a tradeshow floor. (A fact my feet are reminding me of, even as I type. Some things never change.) I’m happy to say that I successfully anticipated most everything that could happen. But not everything. And some things, honestly, I would have done differently. Here’s a rundown on my DGS Tradeshow Experience:

THE GOOD:

The people have been universally nice and receptive. All the vendors share a spirit of camaraderie and cooperation. The attendees are polite. Most people dropping by the booth have been very receptive to my product.

THE BAD:

One guy I saw was walking around wearing a shirt saying “If it’s too loud, you’re too old.” Um…Not so much. I don’t mind loud, but I do mind guys that think the entire Dallas Market Hall wants to hear every riff he knows, cranking the amp to “11″ – over and over again. It gets so loud, you can’t THINK, much less talk.

THE UGLY:

The weather on Friday and for part of Saturday was Dallas’ very own version of the monsoon season. Rain and gusts up to 60 MPH tend to put a damper on the visiting public. Not fun. And don’t get me started on the economy.

THE TRULY STUPID:

I’ve done a lot of tradeshows. Some things I’ve just come to expect. Like booth numbers. Vendors listed on a map, given to each attendee. A P.A. System you can actually HEAR. WiFi access that doesn’t cost $250. (I’m NOT kidding.) A press room.

THE RESULTS:

I’ve gotten a lot of interest, but as I write this on Sunday morning, no sales in hand – yet. I’m not alone. Only one guy on my row has sold ANYTHING – and that was a couple of low-end, used guitars. Everybody else – nada. I don’t know if it’s the economy (I suspect it is), a “keep your powder dry for ‘great deals’ mentality” or something else, but nobody seems to be selling anything of note. The good news is that I’ve gotten a lot of interest from both guitar manufacturers and guitar specialty stores, in carrying my products. And I’ve made a huge number of contacts, which I expect will be valuable.

THE LESSONS LEARNED:

Jeff “Skunk” Baxter, guitarist extraordinaire of Steely Dan and Doobie Brothers fame, said at a clinic yesterday, “Play with everybody. Play everything you can. You never know where the guitar will take you.” He’s right. Much the same can be said of tradeshows. I set out, expecting this to be a show where I’d sell stands to “end-users,” bypassing manufacturer and dealer relationships to “go direct.” Looks like I was wrong. If I hadn’t been paying attention, I’m also learning that the people that are excited about this product want to order it once they get home, instead of at the show. (At least I hope that’s what will happen.) Some of the other vendors there have told me that they’ve found the Dallas Guitar Show to be big for used guitar sales and information gathering – a place for people to touch and see…and order later. Fair enough.

THE SURPRISES:

I’ve seen only two booth bimbos. Babes in short skirts, low-cut tops, and the IQ of a carrot were a staple of tradeshows (both musical instrument shows and computer shows) in the 80′s. I guess some things do change.

There was a time when companies I worked for did a dozen or so tradeshows a year – COMDEX, SIGgraph, PC Expo, you name it, I’ve been there. Back in the day, if your company wanted to be a player…urm “playa”…you did tradeshows. Today…not so much. So why am I doing it?

Aside from my “day job” running a marketing/advertising/design agency, I’m trying to bootstrap a company to manufacture and sell high-end guitar stands and other accessories for musicians. Doing this on a shoestring and a prayer is, to put it mildly, challenging. I don’t have a big budget, nor do I have any cushion – one little misstep can kill the whole thing. In order to jump-start the company, my plan is to exhibit at the Dallas Guitar Show, and take orders for as many stands as I can. This particular trade show attracts thousands of guitarists with discretionary income – my target market. I suspect this will prove to be the most cost-effective way to reach a large number of prospects – far more efficient than display ads or any other method.

Tradeshows are (generally speaking) expensive, time-consuming affairs, that often don’t return in sales what you spend on them. That’s not necessarily the fault of the show. Most of the time, it’s because companies don’t know how to take advantage of them, and get the biggest bang for their marketing buck. But getting the most out of a tradeshow is not rocket science. (Unless, of course, it’s a tradeshow about rocketry, catering to scientists.) Here are some common mistakes – and some ideas of how to do tradeshows the right way.

1. PLAN AHEAD. Most companies I’ve worked for never had a solid plan going into a tradeshow. They never said, “What do we expect to accomplish?” Their thinking was more along the lines of, “If we attend, we’ll get leads.” That’s not an effective way to work. You need to look at attendance numbers from past shows, look at your booth location for traffic, and guestimate how many people will see your booth – then extrapolate how many leads you think you can get. Estimate the value of the leads and you’ll see how much you are likely to earn from the show. If you’re spending more to do the show than that, you’re either engaging in brand-building, or you’re wasting your money.
2. QUALIFY YOUR LEADS. Not everybody who stops by for a look is going to buy your products. Some are just curious. Others are tire-kickers. Some want your product…but not now. Some are ready to buy. How do you tell them apart? It goes without saying that you need lead cards – take down their information so you can build a database. (You knew that, right?) You need to rank the leads with a code – “A” is somebody who’s an immediate, hot prospect. “B” is someone who’s interested, but won’t buy within the next 30 days. “C” is someone who’s interested, but not a decision-maker or somebody without buying power. A “D” lead is a tire-kicker…somebody who’s just wasting your time out of boredom.
3. FOLLOW UP WITH CALL-BACKS. If you learn nothing else, learn this: If you don’t call back your “A” leads within a week, the become “B” leads. If you don’t call your “B” leads within 30 days, they drop down to the “C” or even “D” categories. You have to ask for the sale. If you’re not going to follow up on leads and ask for the sale, why did you do the trade show in the first place?
4. DON”T LEAVE LITERATURE OUT ON THE TABLE. You’ve gone to the expense of printing up some expensive brochures. You’re proud of them. You want them to work for you. Great. Now hide ‘em. That’s right. Hide ‘em. Pull them out for “A” leads no matter what. Give them to “B” leads upon request. By keeping them out of sight, you’ll prevent literature grazers from wasting your money.
5. TREAT YOUR STAFF WELL. Tradeshows are NOT a paid vacation. I once worked for a company that would have me fly out to Vegas two days early for setup, work the show 8 to 10 hours a day, then stay for two days after for booth teardown and pack out. They believed that just getting to go to Vegas was a priveledge, and that we should all be happy to be allowed to work the show. Bull. Tradeshows are WORK. None of us felt like painting the town red after a day of being on our feet. Hire enough booth staff to keep your booth manned with fresh bodies. Working people to the bone is a recipe for offending prospects with cranky, unhappy staffers.
6. DRESS APPROPRIATELY. I’ve done the suit and tie thing, the khakis and polo shirt thing, and even the costume thing. You have to go with your company’s policy on this. But one area where I will NOT compromise is on shoes. You gotta wear comfortable shoes. Rockport makes some great men’s shoes that look like wingtips, but feel like sneakers. Buy em. Ladies – I dunno. If you’ve gotta wear pumps, rotsa ruck. I can tell you my secret for dealing with muscle pain, though. Each night after the show, get a half-gallon of apple cider vinegar. Pour it in the hottest bath you can stand, and soak in it. The vinegar will leech the lactic acid out of your muscles through your skin, taking away your muscle pain. Try it. It works.
7. NO BOOTH BIMBOS. I’m as interested in looking at attractive women as the next guy, but when you hire booth bunnies to staff your booth, it screams “our product is so bad, we had to resort to cleavage and short skirts to distract you.” Unless you’re selling sex to begin with, avoid this.
8. WEAR NAME TAGS. Sounds simple, but your tradshow badge is seldom the best way to get people to identify you. A custom badge is an effective way to tell prospects who you are.
9. FIRST IMPRESSIONS ARE CRITICAL. While you’re “on duty” you are your company. You don’t work for them. You become the physical embodiment of your company. Act accordingly. It only takes one rude remark to turn a prospect into an evangelist who is dedicated to spreading the word that your company is to be avoided at all costs.
10. KNOW YOUR PRODUCTS. There’s nothing worse than walking up to a booth to ask a question of somebody, only to find out they don’t know the answer. (Another reason to avoid booth bimbos.) If you’re gonna represent your company, know your products – features, benefits, and talking points.
11. GIVEAWAYS. People love free stuff. That can work for you or against you. Wanna get people talking about your product at the show? Trinkets and trash are one way to spread the word. I favor things that they’ll wear – buttons or shirts. But speaking of shirts, you can lose yours if you give away so much stuff that you blow your profits from the show on giveaways. Think before you commit to logo’d products, and don’t be afraid to be stingy. Gifting your “A” leads makes sense. Giving some prize to every Tom, Dick and Literature Grazer that stops by is stupid.
12. SMILE. A LOT. Ever seen somebody light up a room? Ever notice someone who is instantly a people magnet at a party? They have a couple of things in common – they smile a lot, and they listen a lot. They make you feel as if you’re the most important thing in their universe. They make you feel special. Find people that have those qualities, and your tradeshow will be a huge success.

That’s about it. Follow those principles, and your tradeshow should be a huge success. Ignore them at your peril. Oh, and if you’re into guitars and around Dallas next week, look me up at the Dallas Guitar Show. I’ll be the guy in the Guitar Furniture booth, smiling and pressing the flesh.