As you already know, Gliebers Dresses is a fictional account of an Executive Team struggling with management of the future of a traditional catalog business. If business comedy is not your thing, then move along, there's nothing to see here.
But if you want to hear the team have an omnichannel strategy discussion with Woodside Research sales executive Ashley Pearson, just click here to download the latest episode.
Showing posts with label Gliebers Dresses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gliebers Dresses. Show all posts
February 06, 2013
November 13, 2012
Gliebers Dresses: Cyber Monday
As you already know, Gliebers Dresses is a fictional serial about an Executive Team dealing with a changing marketplace. If business fiction is not your thing, then there is nothing to see here, please move on. If you enjoy a diversion from your regularly scheduled work-based events, then give this a read.
Glenn Glieber (CEO, Owner): Welcome everybody! Wow, that was quite an election last week, don't you think?
Roger Morgan (Chief Operating Officer): You know, I just read a Woodside Research report that says that Nate Silver was the real winner of the election.
Glenn Glieber: Who?
Pepper Morgan Pressley (Chief Marketing Officer): Ignore him, Glenn. That's what the rest of us do.
Meredith Thompson (Chief Merchandising Officer): Sales are up fifteen percent since the election ended. It's fun to come to work these days!
Lois Gladstone (Chief Financial Officer): Yes, we're on our way to the best month against plan we've had since early 2007.
Roger Morgan: I guess my omni-channel strategies are finally paying off.
Meredith Thompson: Since business is good, we don't have to discount during Christmas. The last time we didn't have to discount during Christmas was 2005, right?
Roger Morgan: You mean the Holiday season?
Meredith Thompson: Christmas.
Roger Morgan: Holiday.
Meredith Thompson: Christmas.
Roger Morgan: Woodside Research tells us that we have to call it "Holiday". They say, and I quote, (thumbing through a series of documents) "... in these volatile times, why provoke time-pressed consumers who can easily amplify anger via the social graph, potentially destroying a brand in a heartbeat over something as meaningless as the naming convention of a holiday?"
Meredith Thompson: I don't want to offend God.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Shouldn't somebody from HR be here to tell us what we can and cannot talk about?
Roger Morgan: Woodside Research has a report on HR excellence, too.
Lois Gladstone: Can we talk about the next holiday on the calendar?
Meredith Thompson: Thanksgiving?
Lois Gladstone: No, Cyber Monday.
Roger Morgan: I've got this one. I heard that most of our competitors will offer at least 25% off plus free shipping on Cyber Monday. I think we need to make a splash. Why don't we offer 35% off plus free shipping?
Meredith Thompson: We can't do that. Lois just said we're having the most profitable month in years.
Roger Morgan: Of course we can do it, everybody else is doing it.
Meredith Thompson: My bonus depends on gross margin dollars. Discounts, like 25% off, count against gross margin. By running 25% off on Cyber Monday, I cost myself bonus dollars. I won't be able to buy myself a new Lexus in January.
Roger Morgan: I said 35% off. We need to make a statement.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Maybe we should offer 100% off. That would make a statement.
Roger Morgan: Look, Woodside Research recently issued a statement. They said, ... wait ... I'll find it (thumbing through a pile of documents) ... here it is, they said that "... brands must remain competitive on Cyber Monday, if they want to pursue relevance and increase engagement in today's highly volatile marketplace".
Meredith Thompson: What does your report say about brands that want to remain profitable?
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Roger, does Woodside Research ever offer you research reports at 35% off?
Roger Morgan: Oh, heavens no. They don't want to cheapen their brand.
Meredith Thompson: Pepper, what percentage of annual sales happen on Cyber Monday?
Pepper Morgan Pressley: 1.6%.
Meredith Thompson: That's what we are arguing about?
Roger Morgan: Think what we could do at 35% off, or even 40% off?
Meredith Thompson: Let me get this straight. Say that we don't discount, and our sales are cut in half because we aren't competing on Cyber Monday. We'd lose 0.8% of annual sales, is that right? I'd lose out on a new Lexus over 0.8% of annual net sales?
Roger Morgan: I don't care about a new Lexus, I only care about Gliebers Dresses.
Pepper Morgan: Meredith wants to do the right thing to get a new car, Roger wants to do the wrong thing for the right reasons.
Roger Morgan: I'm thinking that we offer graduated discounts, based on customer loyalty. We'll put 30% off plus free shipping on the website, then we'll offer 35% off plus free shipping to all prior customers, and 40% off plus free shipping to best customers. Then we'll make this go viral via Twitter and Facebook. Maybe we'll give an extra 5% if you pin a dress on Pinterest. Yes!. This is going to be HUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE. This is where Cyber Monday meets Social CRM! I'll talk to your team, Pepper, and get this started. I'll reserve the CYBER30, CYBER35, and CYBER40 discount codes.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: I'm in charge of marketing, Roger.
Roger Morgan: That's what every person who ever held your job told me, Pepper.
Lois Gladstone: I don't see any reason to participate in this nonsense, Glenn.
Roger Morgan: Word of these discounts will spread like wildfire. We'd be known as the place to go to celebrate Cyber Monday. It would be a lot like free marketing.
Glenn Glieber: I love free marketing!
Lois Gladstone: Pepper, what is the cafeteria making for our big Cyber Monday meal? I mean, turkey is popular on Thanksgiving, ham is popular on Easter. What are we going to eat on Cyber Monday? Cyber Chicken?
Roger Morgan: Leading brands are in the game, folks, they aren't sitting on the sidelines.
Lois Gladstone: We shouldn't openly talk about the Cyber Monday holiday. It's offensive to people who don't believe in it.
Meredith Thompson: Gene, help us out.
Dr. Gene Feldman (Vice President of Global Brand Direction): The year was 1999. Bill Clinton was President, hobbled by impeachment. TLC topped the charts with their smash hit "No Scrubs". And Pets.com pursued a strategy called "monetized eyeballs". The theory, as you all remember, was to rapidly gain market share. In fact, it was considered a best practice to lose money on every single e-commerce transaction. The theory was that if you were able to grow market share by selling merchandise at a dramatic discount, you'd acquire enough customers to drive out the competition. Without competitors, you'd be able to harvest downstream profit. Lose money now, gain market share, make money later. Of course, if everybody does something stupid, then it accelerates the downfall for all. We all know what happened, don't we?
Lois Gladstone: Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes died in a car crash, ending what could have been a hall-of-fame career for the band?
Dr. Gene Feldman: She'll never be forgotten. But that's not my point. Those who built a solid business model generated enough profit to outlast those who recklessly discounted their brands, thereby winning in the long term. The winning strategy was nearly opposite of the best practice of the time.
Lois Gladstone: Exactly.
Roger Morgan: Clearly, there's no right or wrong answer here.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Nobody wants to discount except for you, Roger.
Glenn Glieber: Well, wait a minute, folks. Last year, we offered 25% off plus free shipping. We heard that our competitors are offering 25% off plus free shipping. I say we maintain the status quo, folks. I don't want to discount too much, and I don't want us to not be able to compete. Can't we thread the needle here and do something that appeases everybody? Let's go with 25% off plus free shipping. That's a reasonable compromise.
Lois Gladstone: Didn't TLC have a number one song called "Unpretty" in 1999?
Dr. Gene Feldman: Yes.
Lois Gladstone: That's what this meeting was, unpretty.
Glenn Glieber (CEO, Owner): Welcome everybody! Wow, that was quite an election last week, don't you think?
Roger Morgan (Chief Operating Officer): You know, I just read a Woodside Research report that says that Nate Silver was the real winner of the election.
Glenn Glieber: Who?
Pepper Morgan Pressley (Chief Marketing Officer): Ignore him, Glenn. That's what the rest of us do.
Meredith Thompson (Chief Merchandising Officer): Sales are up fifteen percent since the election ended. It's fun to come to work these days!
Lois Gladstone (Chief Financial Officer): Yes, we're on our way to the best month against plan we've had since early 2007.
Roger Morgan: I guess my omni-channel strategies are finally paying off.
Meredith Thompson: Since business is good, we don't have to discount during Christmas. The last time we didn't have to discount during Christmas was 2005, right?
Roger Morgan: You mean the Holiday season?
Meredith Thompson: Christmas.
Roger Morgan: Holiday.
Meredith Thompson: Christmas.
Roger Morgan: Woodside Research tells us that we have to call it "Holiday". They say, and I quote, (thumbing through a series of documents) "... in these volatile times, why provoke time-pressed consumers who can easily amplify anger via the social graph, potentially destroying a brand in a heartbeat over something as meaningless as the naming convention of a holiday?"
Meredith Thompson: I don't want to offend God.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Shouldn't somebody from HR be here to tell us what we can and cannot talk about?
Roger Morgan: Woodside Research has a report on HR excellence, too.
Lois Gladstone: Can we talk about the next holiday on the calendar?
Meredith Thompson: Thanksgiving?
Lois Gladstone: No, Cyber Monday.
Roger Morgan: I've got this one. I heard that most of our competitors will offer at least 25% off plus free shipping on Cyber Monday. I think we need to make a splash. Why don't we offer 35% off plus free shipping?
Meredith Thompson: We can't do that. Lois just said we're having the most profitable month in years.
Roger Morgan: Of course we can do it, everybody else is doing it.
Meredith Thompson: My bonus depends on gross margin dollars. Discounts, like 25% off, count against gross margin. By running 25% off on Cyber Monday, I cost myself bonus dollars. I won't be able to buy myself a new Lexus in January.
Roger Morgan: I said 35% off. We need to make a statement.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Maybe we should offer 100% off. That would make a statement.
Roger Morgan: Look, Woodside Research recently issued a statement. They said, ... wait ... I'll find it (thumbing through a pile of documents) ... here it is, they said that "... brands must remain competitive on Cyber Monday, if they want to pursue relevance and increase engagement in today's highly volatile marketplace".
Meredith Thompson: What does your report say about brands that want to remain profitable?
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Roger, does Woodside Research ever offer you research reports at 35% off?
Roger Morgan: Oh, heavens no. They don't want to cheapen their brand.
Meredith Thompson: Pepper, what percentage of annual sales happen on Cyber Monday?
Pepper Morgan Pressley: 1.6%.
Meredith Thompson: That's what we are arguing about?
Roger Morgan: Think what we could do at 35% off, or even 40% off?
Meredith Thompson: Let me get this straight. Say that we don't discount, and our sales are cut in half because we aren't competing on Cyber Monday. We'd lose 0.8% of annual sales, is that right? I'd lose out on a new Lexus over 0.8% of annual net sales?
Roger Morgan: I don't care about a new Lexus, I only care about Gliebers Dresses.
Pepper Morgan: Meredith wants to do the right thing to get a new car, Roger wants to do the wrong thing for the right reasons.
Roger Morgan: I'm thinking that we offer graduated discounts, based on customer loyalty. We'll put 30% off plus free shipping on the website, then we'll offer 35% off plus free shipping to all prior customers, and 40% off plus free shipping to best customers. Then we'll make this go viral via Twitter and Facebook. Maybe we'll give an extra 5% if you pin a dress on Pinterest. Yes!. This is going to be HUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE. This is where Cyber Monday meets Social CRM! I'll talk to your team, Pepper, and get this started. I'll reserve the CYBER30, CYBER35, and CYBER40 discount codes.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: I'm in charge of marketing, Roger.
Roger Morgan: That's what every person who ever held your job told me, Pepper.
Lois Gladstone: I don't see any reason to participate in this nonsense, Glenn.
Roger Morgan: Word of these discounts will spread like wildfire. We'd be known as the place to go to celebrate Cyber Monday. It would be a lot like free marketing.
Glenn Glieber: I love free marketing!
Lois Gladstone: Pepper, what is the cafeteria making for our big Cyber Monday meal? I mean, turkey is popular on Thanksgiving, ham is popular on Easter. What are we going to eat on Cyber Monday? Cyber Chicken?
Roger Morgan: Leading brands are in the game, folks, they aren't sitting on the sidelines.
Lois Gladstone: We shouldn't openly talk about the Cyber Monday holiday. It's offensive to people who don't believe in it.
Meredith Thompson: Gene, help us out.
Dr. Gene Feldman (Vice President of Global Brand Direction): The year was 1999. Bill Clinton was President, hobbled by impeachment. TLC topped the charts with their smash hit "No Scrubs". And Pets.com pursued a strategy called "monetized eyeballs". The theory, as you all remember, was to rapidly gain market share. In fact, it was considered a best practice to lose money on every single e-commerce transaction. The theory was that if you were able to grow market share by selling merchandise at a dramatic discount, you'd acquire enough customers to drive out the competition. Without competitors, you'd be able to harvest downstream profit. Lose money now, gain market share, make money later. Of course, if everybody does something stupid, then it accelerates the downfall for all. We all know what happened, don't we?
Lois Gladstone: Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes died in a car crash, ending what could have been a hall-of-fame career for the band?
Dr. Gene Feldman: She'll never be forgotten. But that's not my point. Those who built a solid business model generated enough profit to outlast those who recklessly discounted their brands, thereby winning in the long term. The winning strategy was nearly opposite of the best practice of the time.
Lois Gladstone: Exactly.
Roger Morgan: Clearly, there's no right or wrong answer here.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Nobody wants to discount except for you, Roger.
Glenn Glieber: Well, wait a minute, folks. Last year, we offered 25% off plus free shipping. We heard that our competitors are offering 25% off plus free shipping. I say we maintain the status quo, folks. I don't want to discount too much, and I don't want us to not be able to compete. Can't we thread the needle here and do something that appeases everybody? Let's go with 25% off plus free shipping. That's a reasonable compromise.
Lois Gladstone: Didn't TLC have a number one song called "Unpretty" in 1999?
Dr. Gene Feldman: Yes.
Lois Gladstone: That's what this meeting was, unpretty.
October 11, 2012
Gliebers Dresses: The App Economy
Gliebers Dresses is a fictional story about a catalog company struggling to keep up with changes in the marketplace. If business fiction is not your thing, then please move along, there's nothing to see here. If you need a diversion on a nondescript Friday, enjoy!
Glenn Glieber (President, CEO): Good morning everybody. I'm certain all of you have many interesting topics to bring up today, so let's just get started. Roger, you wanted to go first.
Roger Morgan (Chief Operating Officer): In my left hand, I am holding a $495 report from Woodside Research, titled "The App Economy". I don't think I have to tell you, folks, that this report represents our future.
Pepper Morgan Pressley (Chief Marketing Officer): Here we go again.
Roger Morgan: You see, in the future, everybody is going to be doing everything via apps. Want a taxi cab? You'll contact @uber via an app. Want to listen to music? You'll fire up Pandora on your Nexus 7, or on your internet enabled car stereo. And if you want to buy a dress?
Meredith Thompson (Chief Merchandising Officer): You'll flip through our catalog?
Roger Morgan: No. Wait. What? No! You'll access the Gliebers Dresses app.
Meredith Thompson: That's what I will do? A woman past sixty years old? I'll just fire up the Gliebers Dresses app?
Roger Morgan: I paid Woodside Research $495, why would they mislead us? Yes, you will fire up the Gliebers Dresses app.
Lois Gladstone (Chief Fiancial Officer): I don't want to listen to Pandora. I like listening to WFNQ. Sure, the signal is a little fuzzy when we drive through the rolling hills of New Hampshire, but that's the station I have listened to for years. They play the greatest hits of the 80s, 90s, and today.
Roger Morgan: I think you should create custom playlists on Pandora. It's better than the 80s, 90s, and today. It's a app that tailors music to your individual tastes.
Lois Gladstone: Can I listen to Gomer and Gabby on Pandora? They do the morning show on WFNQ. They're funny. Gabby really zings Gomer.
Roger Morgan: You'll probably listen to their podcast on another app. You'll time shift, you'll listen to their show when it is convenient to you.
Lois Gladstone: Why would I do that when I can just listen to Gomer and Gabby live on WFNQ?
Roger Morgan: We're getting off-topic a bit. Woodside Research says that we need an app. Oh, and they are suggesting that our existing business model is dead.
Meredith Thompson: Our business model of selling dresses to women is dead?
Roger Morgan: No, our business model of selling via e-commerce is dead.
Meredith Thompson: We are a cataloger, Roger.
Roger Morgan: Catalogs have been dead for a decade. Woodside Research is now saying that e-commerce is also dead.
Pepper Morgan: Tell that to Amazon.
Meredith Thompson: But according to our matchback reporting, 70% of our sales are caused by catalogs. How can it be that our business model is dead?
Roger Morgan: Look, we can quibble over percentages for hours, or we can listen to the advice of experts. The point is, we need an app, now, or we're in big trouble.
Meredith Thompson: What is a Nexus 7?
Roger Morgan: It's a tablet, running Android 4.1. You download apps from Google Play. Games. Music. There's even a Kindle app. All in the palm of your hand.
Lois Gladstone: Why do I need Nexus 7 with a Kindle app when I can just buy a Kindle?
Meredith Thompson: Why do I need a tablet when I have internet access on my desktop computer at home?
Lois Gladstone: Or why even buy a Kindle when you can just purchase a book?
Roger Morgan: You're all missing the point. The kids are using mobile devices everywhere, and we need an app to connect with the kids.
Meredith Thompson: My customer is sixty years old, Roger.
Roger Morgan: Why are all of you fighting me on this?
Pepper Morgan Pressley: We're not fighting you, Roger, though nearly everybody in here wants to unleash an open hand across your partially shaven face from time to time. We're just sick and tired of the pundits at Woodside Research telling everybody what to do.
Roger Morgan: No!
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Yes. They told us that podcasts were the future. Remember that nonsense? Brands lacking the ability to produce authentic podcasts were destined for the scrapheap? Remember when they told us that CEOs would be blogging every day, and customers would be so enthralled with this level of authenticity that they would open their wallets in approval? What about widgets? We had to have a widget, or we were behind the curve. Or F-commerce? We were told that our e-commerce site wouldn't have any traffic by 2011 because Facebook commerce would thoroughly consume e-commerce. Then it was mobile, remember that one? We had to have a mobile website by Holiday 2010 or we'd be out of business by the start of 2011. Now a mobile website is useless unless we have apps built on top of the mobile experience. Where does it end, Roger?
Roger Morgan: It doesn't end. This is part of our omnichannel future. These things all work together. The sum is greater than the individual parts. When they all work together, it's a lot like free marketing.
Glenn Glieber: I love free marketing!
Meredith Thompson: They don't work together. This is a myth. My customer is not listening to podcasts. She doesn't use widgets. She doesn't care if Glenn Glieber writes a blog. She's on Facebook to see pictures of her grandchildren. She doesn't understand why anybody would communicate using only 140 characters on Twitter when they can use email. She barely uses more than eleven text messages a month. She'd rather have in-person relationships than digital relationships.
Roger Morgan: Is anybody listening to me?
Lois Gladstone: Yes, you're telling me that I can't listen to Gomer and Gabby in the morning the way I want to. You're telling me that I have to do everything your way in the future. I just want to push preset number three in my car. It's easy. I don't want to give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on every song on Pandora, trying to teach a computer to learn how to like me. Enough is enough.
Roger Morgan: Feldman, help me out.
Dr. Gene Feldman (Vice President of Global Brand Direction): In Back to the Future, Part II, we're presented with a world where cars travel in the sky. Hoverboards replaced skateboards, though as we learned, you can't take a hoverboard over water, because you have no power! Some things remained the same. Greed, money, and power were as common in the eighties as they were in the future. But some things never came to fruition. We don't convert garbage to gasoline do we? Amazingly, a third of the world is starving, but we choose not to feed people. Instead, we chose to convert corn into gasoline. You couldn't possibly have seen that one coming. And while we're at it, the movie promised us clothes that auto-fit the dimensions of the person wearing merchandise. Why can't we do that? Why can't we create a dress that is flattering no matter the body shape of the person wearing it?
Glenn Glieber: Feldman, what the heck are you talking about?
Dr. Gene Feldman: I'm talking about the future. Nobody knows what the heck is going to happen in the future. We only know that things won't be like they are today.
Roger Morgan: Woodside Research knows what is going to happen in the future.
Dr. Gene Feldman: We predict what we think we might like, then we extrapolate, and soon enough, we're operating in a world of science fiction. Watch Back to the Future, Part II today, and you'll laugh at how wrong they were. But when they made the move in the late 1980s, their assumptions were highly plausible. Same thing with Roger. He's extrapolating. To him, the assumptions are highly plausible. But in a few years, what he is saying today will be ridiculous.
Roger Morgan: I thought you were on my side, Feldman?
Dr. Gene Feldman: I am on your side. We absolutely create our own version of the future. I wanted Colbie Calliat to perform in a television commercial. Chicos heard about it, and created something almost identical to my original concept. Would they have done that if I hadn't said it first? Unlikely. Every person makes an assumption about the future, then takes a baby step. And when billions of people all make different baby steps, it impacts the next baby step we take. Eight baby steps later, we're going down a different path than the one we imagined when we took the first baby step. We were influenced by all of the other baby steps! We can imagine the future. But each of us imagines a different future, and our imaginations cause each different version of the future to change, unpredictably.
Roger Morgan: Who are you, Oprah? Is this Super Soul Sunday?
Dr. Gene Feldman: You can do a lot worse than Oprah.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: We just spent an hour to prove, once again, that Roger will always be wrong.
Roger Morgan: Look, you lemonheads can keep creating catalog spreads that speak to a sixty year old shopper that, soon enough, will care more about Social Security than online security. Or you can start taking the baby steps that Feldman talked about. Now who's with me?
Meredith Thompson: That reminds me, I need to leave. I have a meeting where we'll talk about whether the May catalog will have 64 or 68 pages. This is an important meeting. Our inventory folks are really concerned about forecasting demand in a 68 page catalog. But I think the additional four pages will really make a splash in the mailbox.
Lois Gladstone: We should talk about the circulation depth, then. If we're adding four pages, we'll need to trim circulation to stay within budget.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: I don't think we want to cut new customer acquisition circ. I'll talk to the co-ops about the new models they are proposing, we'll see if they can squeeze out the same number of new customers on a circ reduction.
Roger Morgan: Apps, folks. We were talking about the App Economy.
Glenn Glieber: Well, it's been an inspiring hour, hasn't it? By the way, does anybody have a VHS tape of Back to the Future, Part II? I'd like to pop that thing into my VCR tonight.
Glenn Glieber (President, CEO): Good morning everybody. I'm certain all of you have many interesting topics to bring up today, so let's just get started. Roger, you wanted to go first.
Roger Morgan (Chief Operating Officer): In my left hand, I am holding a $495 report from Woodside Research, titled "The App Economy". I don't think I have to tell you, folks, that this report represents our future.
Pepper Morgan Pressley (Chief Marketing Officer): Here we go again.
Roger Morgan: You see, in the future, everybody is going to be doing everything via apps. Want a taxi cab? You'll contact @uber via an app. Want to listen to music? You'll fire up Pandora on your Nexus 7, or on your internet enabled car stereo. And if you want to buy a dress?
Meredith Thompson (Chief Merchandising Officer): You'll flip through our catalog?
Roger Morgan: No. Wait. What? No! You'll access the Gliebers Dresses app.
Meredith Thompson: That's what I will do? A woman past sixty years old? I'll just fire up the Gliebers Dresses app?
Roger Morgan: I paid Woodside Research $495, why would they mislead us? Yes, you will fire up the Gliebers Dresses app.
Lois Gladstone (Chief Fiancial Officer): I don't want to listen to Pandora. I like listening to WFNQ. Sure, the signal is a little fuzzy when we drive through the rolling hills of New Hampshire, but that's the station I have listened to for years. They play the greatest hits of the 80s, 90s, and today.
Roger Morgan: I think you should create custom playlists on Pandora. It's better than the 80s, 90s, and today. It's a app that tailors music to your individual tastes.
Lois Gladstone: Can I listen to Gomer and Gabby on Pandora? They do the morning show on WFNQ. They're funny. Gabby really zings Gomer.
Roger Morgan: You'll probably listen to their podcast on another app. You'll time shift, you'll listen to their show when it is convenient to you.
Lois Gladstone: Why would I do that when I can just listen to Gomer and Gabby live on WFNQ?
Roger Morgan: We're getting off-topic a bit. Woodside Research says that we need an app. Oh, and they are suggesting that our existing business model is dead.
Meredith Thompson: Our business model of selling dresses to women is dead?
Roger Morgan: No, our business model of selling via e-commerce is dead.
Meredith Thompson: We are a cataloger, Roger.
Roger Morgan: Catalogs have been dead for a decade. Woodside Research is now saying that e-commerce is also dead.
Pepper Morgan: Tell that to Amazon.
Meredith Thompson: But according to our matchback reporting, 70% of our sales are caused by catalogs. How can it be that our business model is dead?
Roger Morgan: Look, we can quibble over percentages for hours, or we can listen to the advice of experts. The point is, we need an app, now, or we're in big trouble.
Meredith Thompson: What is a Nexus 7?
Roger Morgan: It's a tablet, running Android 4.1. You download apps from Google Play. Games. Music. There's even a Kindle app. All in the palm of your hand.
Lois Gladstone: Why do I need Nexus 7 with a Kindle app when I can just buy a Kindle?
Meredith Thompson: Why do I need a tablet when I have internet access on my desktop computer at home?
Lois Gladstone: Or why even buy a Kindle when you can just purchase a book?
Roger Morgan: You're all missing the point. The kids are using mobile devices everywhere, and we need an app to connect with the kids.
Meredith Thompson: My customer is sixty years old, Roger.
Roger Morgan: Why are all of you fighting me on this?
Pepper Morgan Pressley: We're not fighting you, Roger, though nearly everybody in here wants to unleash an open hand across your partially shaven face from time to time. We're just sick and tired of the pundits at Woodside Research telling everybody what to do.
Roger Morgan: No!
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Yes. They told us that podcasts were the future. Remember that nonsense? Brands lacking the ability to produce authentic podcasts were destined for the scrapheap? Remember when they told us that CEOs would be blogging every day, and customers would be so enthralled with this level of authenticity that they would open their wallets in approval? What about widgets? We had to have a widget, or we were behind the curve. Or F-commerce? We were told that our e-commerce site wouldn't have any traffic by 2011 because Facebook commerce would thoroughly consume e-commerce. Then it was mobile, remember that one? We had to have a mobile website by Holiday 2010 or we'd be out of business by the start of 2011. Now a mobile website is useless unless we have apps built on top of the mobile experience. Where does it end, Roger?
Roger Morgan: It doesn't end. This is part of our omnichannel future. These things all work together. The sum is greater than the individual parts. When they all work together, it's a lot like free marketing.
Glenn Glieber: I love free marketing!
Meredith Thompson: They don't work together. This is a myth. My customer is not listening to podcasts. She doesn't use widgets. She doesn't care if Glenn Glieber writes a blog. She's on Facebook to see pictures of her grandchildren. She doesn't understand why anybody would communicate using only 140 characters on Twitter when they can use email. She barely uses more than eleven text messages a month. She'd rather have in-person relationships than digital relationships.
Roger Morgan: Is anybody listening to me?
Lois Gladstone: Yes, you're telling me that I can't listen to Gomer and Gabby in the morning the way I want to. You're telling me that I have to do everything your way in the future. I just want to push preset number three in my car. It's easy. I don't want to give a thumbs-up or thumbs-down on every song on Pandora, trying to teach a computer to learn how to like me. Enough is enough.
Roger Morgan: Feldman, help me out.
Dr. Gene Feldman (Vice President of Global Brand Direction): In Back to the Future, Part II, we're presented with a world where cars travel in the sky. Hoverboards replaced skateboards, though as we learned, you can't take a hoverboard over water, because you have no power! Some things remained the same. Greed, money, and power were as common in the eighties as they were in the future. But some things never came to fruition. We don't convert garbage to gasoline do we? Amazingly, a third of the world is starving, but we choose not to feed people. Instead, we chose to convert corn into gasoline. You couldn't possibly have seen that one coming. And while we're at it, the movie promised us clothes that auto-fit the dimensions of the person wearing merchandise. Why can't we do that? Why can't we create a dress that is flattering no matter the body shape of the person wearing it?
Glenn Glieber: Feldman, what the heck are you talking about?
Dr. Gene Feldman: I'm talking about the future. Nobody knows what the heck is going to happen in the future. We only know that things won't be like they are today.
Roger Morgan: Woodside Research knows what is going to happen in the future.
Dr. Gene Feldman: We predict what we think we might like, then we extrapolate, and soon enough, we're operating in a world of science fiction. Watch Back to the Future, Part II today, and you'll laugh at how wrong they were. But when they made the move in the late 1980s, their assumptions were highly plausible. Same thing with Roger. He's extrapolating. To him, the assumptions are highly plausible. But in a few years, what he is saying today will be ridiculous.
Roger Morgan: I thought you were on my side, Feldman?
Dr. Gene Feldman: I am on your side. We absolutely create our own version of the future. I wanted Colbie Calliat to perform in a television commercial. Chicos heard about it, and created something almost identical to my original concept. Would they have done that if I hadn't said it first? Unlikely. Every person makes an assumption about the future, then takes a baby step. And when billions of people all make different baby steps, it impacts the next baby step we take. Eight baby steps later, we're going down a different path than the one we imagined when we took the first baby step. We were influenced by all of the other baby steps! We can imagine the future. But each of us imagines a different future, and our imaginations cause each different version of the future to change, unpredictably.
Roger Morgan: Who are you, Oprah? Is this Super Soul Sunday?
Dr. Gene Feldman: You can do a lot worse than Oprah.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: We just spent an hour to prove, once again, that Roger will always be wrong.
Roger Morgan: Look, you lemonheads can keep creating catalog spreads that speak to a sixty year old shopper that, soon enough, will care more about Social Security than online security. Or you can start taking the baby steps that Feldman talked about. Now who's with me?
Meredith Thompson: That reminds me, I need to leave. I have a meeting where we'll talk about whether the May catalog will have 64 or 68 pages. This is an important meeting. Our inventory folks are really concerned about forecasting demand in a 68 page catalog. But I think the additional four pages will really make a splash in the mailbox.
Lois Gladstone: We should talk about the circulation depth, then. If we're adding four pages, we'll need to trim circulation to stay within budget.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: I don't think we want to cut new customer acquisition circ. I'll talk to the co-ops about the new models they are proposing, we'll see if they can squeeze out the same number of new customers on a circ reduction.
Roger Morgan: Apps, folks. We were talking about the App Economy.
Glenn Glieber: Well, it's been an inspiring hour, hasn't it? By the way, does anybody have a VHS tape of Back to the Future, Part II? I'd like to pop that thing into my VCR tonight.
September 09, 2012
Chicos and Gliebers Dresses
Ok, here's the direct quote from a Gliebers Dresses article on July 4:
I know, it takes some planning to pull things off quickly in the real world, but it is fun to dream about the connection, isn't it?
- Dr. Gene Feldman: On our YouTube channel, I envision Colbie Caillat singing an acoustic version of "Brighter Than The Sun". Except, everybody in this video is wearing Gliebers Dresses. Think of all of the new customers we'd acquire, the brand exposure?
Now, watch the TV commercial (also available on YouTube) from Chicos, published on YouTube on August 13. See if you recognize the song (hint, it's 'Brighter Than The Sun' by Colbie Calliat).
I know, it takes some planning to pull things off quickly in the real world, but it is fun to dream about the connection, isn't it?
August 28, 2012
Gliebers Dresses: Setting The Budget
As you already know, Gliebers Dresses is a fictional story about a catalog brand, and the executives tasked with pushing the cataloger into the 21st century. If business fiction is not your thing, then move along, there's nothing to see here.
Glenn Glieber (President and CEO): Welcome to our weekly meeting, folks! Let's get started, I'm sure we have a meaty agenda to dig our teeth in to.
Lois Gladstone (Chief Financial Officer): Yes, let's get started with a brief discussion of the Spring 2013 marketing plan. As you already know, I am proposing a catalog marketing budget of $4,000,000 for Spring 2013. Now, if you ...
Roger Morgan (Chief Operating Officer): Whoa, Lois, hold on for a minute. Our budget in Spring 2012 was $5,000,000, so you are proposing a 20% decrease. Let's hope you are going to reinvest that money somewhere. We can't have a sales decrease. I'd like to see us reinvest the money in social media, mobile, and local, or as Woodside Research calls it, "SoLoMo".
Meredith Thompson (Chief Merchandising Officer): Lois, we can't decrease the budget. If we stop mailing catalogs, customers stop buying from us. Then I end up in an overstocked situation, we have to liquidate my merchandise, and that damages the profit and loss statement. Let's boost the catalog marketing budget up to, oh, I don't know, say $6,000,000. That will grow the brand.
Pepper Morgan Pressley (Chief Marketing Officer): Hi everybody, I'd like to take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Pepper Morgan Pressley. I am the Chief Marketing Officer at Gliebers Dresses. It is my job to set the marketing budget, that is what I am accountable for. We mail housefile customers down to break-even, this allows us ...
Roger Morgan: It allows us to continue to operate as if time froze in 1994. Now let's get back to talking about reinvesting money in our future. As we all know, we're headed toward an omnichannel world, and that means that we need to ...
Meredith Thompson: My customer isn't omnichannel. She wants to watch one channel on television, and that channel is CBS.
Lois Gladstone: Our expenses are out of alignment with net sales. Best practices dictate that we trim expenses, so that we can better manage the profit and loss statement.
Meredith Thompson: And if we trim expenses, we cut back on sales. That means that next year, we'll have to trim expenses, and after we trim expenses, we will cut back on sales. Eventually we'll have nothing left.
Lois Gladstone: We'll still have Roger here, talking omnichannel.
Roger Morgan: This whole local initiative is so exciting. Woodside Research says that by 2017, local marketing will account for a significant fraction of the marketing mindset.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: I'd like to take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Pepper Morgan Pressley. I am the Chief Marketing Officer at Gliebers Dresses. It is my job to set the marketing budget.
Dr. Gene Feldman (Vice President of Global Brand Direction): I had a dream last night. I was in a boat with five other people. It was my job to use the oars to row us across a choppy lake. But every time I tried to row the boat, somebody else grabbed the oars from me. This was so frustrating, because other people kept interrupting my area of accountability. Eventually, I had to make a decision. I had to take command of the situation. I threw all five people overboard, and I started paddling myself. Oh, I was so happy! I paddled away to freedom, while everybody else kept dunking each other in an effort to see who could be first to get back to the boat.
Glenn Glieber: Feldman, what the heck are you talking about?
Meredith Thompson: We're talking about understanding our customer, my customer. My customer isn't scanning QR codes with her Android device, she's thumbing through a thoughtfully constructed catalog while resting in bed, watching quality, family-oriented programming on CBS. My customers love Tom Selleck.
Roger Morgan: And our future customer is forging a whole new shopping experience that we don't understand. Well, at least I understand it. Or at least I understand what Woodside Research theorizes about the new shopping experience.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Roger, you are obsessive, neurotic, and obtuse.
Roger Morgan: I am not obsessive!
Lois Gladstone: I'm going to hold firm here, folks. We're spending $4,000,000 next spring.
Meredith Thompson: I think the number should be $6,000,000. Let's make a statement.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: I'd like to take a moment to make a statement. My name is Pepper Morgan Pressley. I am the Chief Marketing Officer at Gliebers Dresses. It is my job to set the marketing budget.
Meredith Thompson: This is too important for just your input, Pepper.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: And you think merchandise isn't too important for input? I think we should all talk about the failed vintage polka dot jersey dress line. How could we do better? How did we miss the trend? Maybe we could all chime in on what the strategy should be for next year. How 'bout it, folks? Roger, why don't you go first?
Roger Morgan: You know, it's interesting, Pepper. Woodside Research says that ...
Meredith Thompson: Wait a minute, wait just one darn minute, Pepper. How dare you tell me how to do my job? I'm the Chief Merchandising Officer. I decide what the merchandise is.
Lois Gladstone: That's so true. Everybody hast to be accountable for their area of expertise. Everybody should be responsible for their own swim lane.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: You want to talk swimlanes, Lois? Roger, you know how to pick, pack, and ship merchandise. Spending $10,000 on Woodside Research reports and following a few people on Twitter doesn't make you an omnichannel marketing expert. And Meredith, if we follow your prescription for success, we'll be out of business in nine months, because we'll spend too much money mailing catalogs. Lois, if we cut back as much as you want to ...
Lois Gladstone: Pepper, why are you taking potshots at all of us?
Pepper Morgan Pressley: I am accountable for setting the budget. Roger is accountable for robots in the warehouse, robots that have about as much personality as he has. Meredith is accountable for fashion. And Lois, come on, your accounts payable team cannot even pay bills on time, but you want to tell me how to do my job? Spend some time educating them that when a vendor demands payment within thirty days, you pay them within thirty days.
Lois Gladstone: We don't pay bills on time so that we can hold on to cash longer and earn interest, that's a strategic decision on my end. Maybe it's time you become more strategic, Pepper.
Roger Morgan: Strategy. It's important, no doubt. But is is also important for modern marketers to amplify the viral coefficient. If you amplify the viral coefficient, you essentially generate a whole bunch of free marketing, and that makes everybody happy.
Glenn Glieber: I love free marketing!
Pepper Morgan Pressley: What the heck is going on, here? Viral coefficient? Amplification? What does any of that have to do with setting the budget for Spring 2013? We need to let our metrics decide how much we spend. If a customer is forecast to generate profit below break-even, we don't mail the customer. If a prospect pays us back in twelve months, we take a risk and we mail the prospect. We need to let this whole process be data-driven, folks. The customer decides what our budget will be, and the customer ultimately decides based on her love of our merchandise.
Lois Gladstone: Data-driven strategies are boring strategies.
Meredith Thompson: You don't manage fashion in a spreadsheet, folks.
Roger Morgan: So boring! We're not obtuse robots letting spreadsheets tell us how to manage a business, we're Executives at a major company. Let's be strategic.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Let's be realistic! If we come at this from a data-driven approach, we should be spending $5,325,000 next spring. That's what happens when you let the customer decide, based on customer productivity.
Roger Morgan: Boring.
Glenn Glieber: I just did a back-of-the-envelope calculation. If we average Lois and her $4,000,000 number with Meredith's $6,000,000 figure, we come up with $5,000,000 for the budget. That was our budget last year. Let's go with that for Spring 2013. How's that for a compromise?
Roger Morgan: The wisdom of the crowds!
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Oh boy.
Glenn Glieber (President and CEO): Welcome to our weekly meeting, folks! Let's get started, I'm sure we have a meaty agenda to dig our teeth in to.
Lois Gladstone (Chief Financial Officer): Yes, let's get started with a brief discussion of the Spring 2013 marketing plan. As you already know, I am proposing a catalog marketing budget of $4,000,000 for Spring 2013. Now, if you ...
Roger Morgan (Chief Operating Officer): Whoa, Lois, hold on for a minute. Our budget in Spring 2012 was $5,000,000, so you are proposing a 20% decrease. Let's hope you are going to reinvest that money somewhere. We can't have a sales decrease. I'd like to see us reinvest the money in social media, mobile, and local, or as Woodside Research calls it, "SoLoMo".
Meredith Thompson (Chief Merchandising Officer): Lois, we can't decrease the budget. If we stop mailing catalogs, customers stop buying from us. Then I end up in an overstocked situation, we have to liquidate my merchandise, and that damages the profit and loss statement. Let's boost the catalog marketing budget up to, oh, I don't know, say $6,000,000. That will grow the brand.
Pepper Morgan Pressley (Chief Marketing Officer): Hi everybody, I'd like to take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Pepper Morgan Pressley. I am the Chief Marketing Officer at Gliebers Dresses. It is my job to set the marketing budget, that is what I am accountable for. We mail housefile customers down to break-even, this allows us ...
Roger Morgan: It allows us to continue to operate as if time froze in 1994. Now let's get back to talking about reinvesting money in our future. As we all know, we're headed toward an omnichannel world, and that means that we need to ...
Meredith Thompson: My customer isn't omnichannel. She wants to watch one channel on television, and that channel is CBS.
Lois Gladstone: Our expenses are out of alignment with net sales. Best practices dictate that we trim expenses, so that we can better manage the profit and loss statement.
Meredith Thompson: And if we trim expenses, we cut back on sales. That means that next year, we'll have to trim expenses, and after we trim expenses, we will cut back on sales. Eventually we'll have nothing left.
Lois Gladstone: We'll still have Roger here, talking omnichannel.
Roger Morgan: This whole local initiative is so exciting. Woodside Research says that by 2017, local marketing will account for a significant fraction of the marketing mindset.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: I'd like to take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Pepper Morgan Pressley. I am the Chief Marketing Officer at Gliebers Dresses. It is my job to set the marketing budget.
Dr. Gene Feldman (Vice President of Global Brand Direction): I had a dream last night. I was in a boat with five other people. It was my job to use the oars to row us across a choppy lake. But every time I tried to row the boat, somebody else grabbed the oars from me. This was so frustrating, because other people kept interrupting my area of accountability. Eventually, I had to make a decision. I had to take command of the situation. I threw all five people overboard, and I started paddling myself. Oh, I was so happy! I paddled away to freedom, while everybody else kept dunking each other in an effort to see who could be first to get back to the boat.
Glenn Glieber: Feldman, what the heck are you talking about?
Meredith Thompson: We're talking about understanding our customer, my customer. My customer isn't scanning QR codes with her Android device, she's thumbing through a thoughtfully constructed catalog while resting in bed, watching quality, family-oriented programming on CBS. My customers love Tom Selleck.
Roger Morgan: And our future customer is forging a whole new shopping experience that we don't understand. Well, at least I understand it. Or at least I understand what Woodside Research theorizes about the new shopping experience.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Roger, you are obsessive, neurotic, and obtuse.
Roger Morgan: I am not obsessive!
Lois Gladstone: I'm going to hold firm here, folks. We're spending $4,000,000 next spring.
Meredith Thompson: I think the number should be $6,000,000. Let's make a statement.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: I'd like to take a moment to make a statement. My name is Pepper Morgan Pressley. I am the Chief Marketing Officer at Gliebers Dresses. It is my job to set the marketing budget.
Meredith Thompson: This is too important for just your input, Pepper.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: And you think merchandise isn't too important for input? I think we should all talk about the failed vintage polka dot jersey dress line. How could we do better? How did we miss the trend? Maybe we could all chime in on what the strategy should be for next year. How 'bout it, folks? Roger, why don't you go first?
Roger Morgan: You know, it's interesting, Pepper. Woodside Research says that ...
Meredith Thompson: Wait a minute, wait just one darn minute, Pepper. How dare you tell me how to do my job? I'm the Chief Merchandising Officer. I decide what the merchandise is.
Lois Gladstone: That's so true. Everybody hast to be accountable for their area of expertise. Everybody should be responsible for their own swim lane.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: You want to talk swimlanes, Lois? Roger, you know how to pick, pack, and ship merchandise. Spending $10,000 on Woodside Research reports and following a few people on Twitter doesn't make you an omnichannel marketing expert. And Meredith, if we follow your prescription for success, we'll be out of business in nine months, because we'll spend too much money mailing catalogs. Lois, if we cut back as much as you want to ...
Lois Gladstone: Pepper, why are you taking potshots at all of us?
Pepper Morgan Pressley: I am accountable for setting the budget. Roger is accountable for robots in the warehouse, robots that have about as much personality as he has. Meredith is accountable for fashion. And Lois, come on, your accounts payable team cannot even pay bills on time, but you want to tell me how to do my job? Spend some time educating them that when a vendor demands payment within thirty days, you pay them within thirty days.
Lois Gladstone: We don't pay bills on time so that we can hold on to cash longer and earn interest, that's a strategic decision on my end. Maybe it's time you become more strategic, Pepper.
Roger Morgan: Strategy. It's important, no doubt. But is is also important for modern marketers to amplify the viral coefficient. If you amplify the viral coefficient, you essentially generate a whole bunch of free marketing, and that makes everybody happy.
Glenn Glieber: I love free marketing!
Pepper Morgan Pressley: What the heck is going on, here? Viral coefficient? Amplification? What does any of that have to do with setting the budget for Spring 2013? We need to let our metrics decide how much we spend. If a customer is forecast to generate profit below break-even, we don't mail the customer. If a prospect pays us back in twelve months, we take a risk and we mail the prospect. We need to let this whole process be data-driven, folks. The customer decides what our budget will be, and the customer ultimately decides based on her love of our merchandise.
Lois Gladstone: Data-driven strategies are boring strategies.
Meredith Thompson: You don't manage fashion in a spreadsheet, folks.
Roger Morgan: So boring! We're not obtuse robots letting spreadsheets tell us how to manage a business, we're Executives at a major company. Let's be strategic.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Let's be realistic! If we come at this from a data-driven approach, we should be spending $5,325,000 next spring. That's what happens when you let the customer decide, based on customer productivity.
Roger Morgan: Boring.
Glenn Glieber: I just did a back-of-the-envelope calculation. If we average Lois and her $4,000,000 number with Meredith's $6,000,000 figure, we come up with $5,000,000 for the budget. That was our budget last year. Let's go with that for Spring 2013. How's that for a compromise?
Roger Morgan: The wisdom of the crowds!
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Oh boy.
August 01, 2012
Gliebers Dresses: LinkedIn
As you know, Gliebers Dresses is a fictional business story about a catalog company balancing profit from old-school business models with the need to move into the future. If business fiction is not your thing, then move along, there's nothing to see here. Otherwise, please enjoy the latest installment.
Glenn Glieber (CEO): Ok, folks, it's time to get started ... Roger, what are you doing?
Roger Morgan (Chief Operating Officer --- he's busy scrolling through a message on his smart phone ... Roger puts his right index finger straight up in the air ...): Shhhhhhhh, one minute.
Glenn Glieber: Did I just get shushed?
Meredith Thompson (Chief Merchandising Officer): Our Sleeveless Suiting Sheath is really moving this week, and it's at a wonderful price point, just $64.99.
Roger Morgan: Can you believe this? Chip Cayman just added "Omnichannel" to his skills. The guy is a genius, always one step ahead of everybody else.
Lois Gladstone (Chief Financial Officer): Did he just send you an email, Roger?
Roger Morgan: No, I'm busy reading my LinkedIn updates. They are filled with a veritable bounty of actionable information, curated specifically for the active business executive, like me!
Lois Gladstone: How do we know that Chip Cayman has Omnichannel skills? Did he get a certificate after attending a conference?
Roger Morgan: I'm sure he has ample Omnichannel skills. Why would anybody overstate their skills on LinkedIn?
Meredith Thompson: You can say whatever you want to say on these social networking sites. I've looked at Roger's profile on LinkedIn. It says he is a marketing expert.
Roger Morgan: Look at this. Beth Whidbey just uploaded a new profile photo. She colored her hair. She's really attractive! Maybe I'll ask her out.
Pepper Morgan Pressley (Chief Marketing Officer): Hey Potsie, see if she wants to share milkshake with you at Arnold's?
Meredith Thompson: Didn't we block LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter from employee computers? And Roger, aren't you the one who runs IT? Didn't you demand that we block social media applications so that employees wouldn't waste precious company resources?
Roger Morgan: I'm using my personal phone. I can do whatever I want.
Lois Gladstone: Nobody at Gliebers Dresses gets to do whatever they want.
Glenn Glieber: What?
Roger Morgan: It isn't 1995, folks. It's 2012. I have to keep up with the times ... Oh oh, look at this, Chip Cayman is now connected to Beth Whidbey. I hope they're not dating.
Pepper Morgan: There's nothing more romantic than exchanging Omnichannel skills over a glass of Mogen David Concord Grape wine at a Best Western hotel bar.
Roger Morgan: Look at this factoid ... 24% of my network switched jobs last year. Holy cow! You can even click on the image of a person who changed jobs, and see what they are now up to. Let's drill down on what LinkedIn has to say about Beth Whidbey.
Glenn Glieber: Roger, how are LinkedIn updates going to help me sell more dresses?
Roger Morgan: As the folks at LinkedIn like to say, my network may provide me with connections that further my professional growth.
Meredith Thompson: The only time people want to connect with me on LinkedIn is when they are looking for a new job. There's like a 1 in 2 chance that the person connecting with me will be in a new job in sixty days, and won't speak to me again until looking for another new job in 2015.
Roger Morgan: Oh oh, look at this. Chip Cayman just asked "the community" a question ... listen to this one ... he asks "will brands who fail to achieve a strategic Omnichannel framework even be relevant in 2014?" That's a great question! What do all of you think? I vote "no".
Pepper Morgan Pressley: I know what I'd like to vote on.
Roger Morgan: Here's another update from Chip Cayman. He's prolific. He says that, according to Woodside Research, mobile is poised to capture up to 77% of customer mindshare by the year 2015.
Lois Gladstone: It's captured 77% of our mindshare in this meeting.
Glenn Glieber: How are LinkedIn updates going to help me sell more dresses?
Meredith Thompson: As best I can tell, LinkedIn helped us realize that Beth Whidbey dyed her hair, Chip Cayman doesn't have an active consulting project, and Roger circumnavigated his own IP address block of social networking sites by bringing a cell phone into this meeting so that he could dazzle us with the man crush he has on Chip Cayman.
Roger Morgan: You folks don't get it, do you? Wait, here's another update. It's from Dr. Gene Feldman. It says "I'm sitting in a meeting right now while everybody debates the relevancy of LinkedIn. We should be discussing how we can sell dresses. Nobody wants to address the elephant in the room."
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Roger is the elephant in the room, right Doc?
Dr. Gene Feldman (Vice President of Global Brand Direction): As fall turns to winter, the sparrow prepares by building a sturdy nest. But each time the sparrow flies by a maple tree, the sparrow admires the beauty of the fall leaves. Red. Orange. Yellow. The sparrow pauses. Although the beauty is mesmerizing, it is fleeting. The sparrow loses precious time needed to build the nest. Winter closes in on the sparrow.
Glenn Glieber: What the heck are you talking about, Feldman?
Roger Morgan: Look at this one. Bill Swanson posts "The 5 Slam-Dunk Fail-Safe Ways To Leverage Facebook For E-Commerce Riches". Are you telling me that an article with a well-written subject line won't help us turn this business around?
Lois Gladstone: How many connections do you have on LinkedIn, Roger?
Roger Morgan: 17,493. But I'm still waiting for Obama and Mitt Romney to accept my invitation to connect.
Meredith Thompson: You spent time at work trying to connect with politicians?
Roger Morgan: According to LinkedIn, if you factor in connections three degrees from me, I'm potentially connected to 1.6 billion people, so Mitt Romney and I are virtually connected anyway.
Meredith Thompson: You're virtually besties.
Roger Morgan: You think that somebody in a potential network of 1.6 billion people couldn't help us turn this business around? I mean, when it comes right down to it, if I do my job well, then we have 1.6 billion people potentially generating free marketing for us.
Glenn Glieber: I love free marketing!
Pepper Morgan Pressley: This is crazy. What are we doing here? We've spent the past several weeks talking about being Omnichannel, about the third-degree connective value of LinkedIn, and about Engagement. We talk and we talk and we talk. We don't actually do anything. We sound strategic. Oh, if we could just engage the customer, everything will be fine. Or, if we could only harness the magic of an Omnichannel world, we'd be rolling in profit. Enough, already! Roger, do something, don't become absent in yet another aspect of your life.
Roger Morgan: Go mail more catalogs and pretend it is 1993, Pepper. The operations guy shouldn't have to come up with all of the innovative ideas. I'm just trying to help.
Pepper Morgan Pressely: You had a year as CEO. You needed all of the help you could get.
Roger Morgan: Look at this. Larry Miner just posted an update. He says Apple missed their earnings estimate. First time in nine years. He thinks that they're headed straight into the garbage dumpster. I think I need to join the conversation!
Pepper Morgan Pressley: I met this dude at a conference. He spent a half-hour talking about how Amazon was achieving "scale", how they were going to dominate commerce. But when I asked him how Amazon would impact his business, he had no idea. In fact, he couldn't tell you anything about his business. He knew everything about the rest of the marketing world, but he couldn't tell you anything about the marketing he was accountable for. It was like he was plugged into The Matrix, not knowing his own body was being harvested for electricity.
Roger Morgan: Evie Chancellor wants to know if anybody uses the LinkedIn InMaps professional networking feature? Oh, that's some sweet action! You get to see your whole network in one big infographic. It's like a big spider web. And isn't that the moral of the story? We're all connected.
Meredith Thompson: You're right, we are all stuck in your spider web of Omnichannel connectedness.
Glenn Glieber: Well, we need to honor our meeting guidelines. The guidelines state that we have to end all meetings at least five minutes before the top of the hour, so that everybody can get to their next meeting on time. It's been a stimulating hour, folks. Think about what we learned today?
Meredith Thompson: We learned that Beth Whidbey colored her hair. Maybe she needs a new dress to match the color of her hair.
Lois Gladstone: See, LinkedIn can generate sales!
Glenn Glieber (CEO): Ok, folks, it's time to get started ... Roger, what are you doing?
Roger Morgan (Chief Operating Officer --- he's busy scrolling through a message on his smart phone ... Roger puts his right index finger straight up in the air ...): Shhhhhhhh, one minute.
Glenn Glieber: Did I just get shushed?
Meredith Thompson (Chief Merchandising Officer): Our Sleeveless Suiting Sheath is really moving this week, and it's at a wonderful price point, just $64.99.
Roger Morgan: Can you believe this? Chip Cayman just added "Omnichannel" to his skills. The guy is a genius, always one step ahead of everybody else.
Lois Gladstone (Chief Financial Officer): Did he just send you an email, Roger?
Roger Morgan: No, I'm busy reading my LinkedIn updates. They are filled with a veritable bounty of actionable information, curated specifically for the active business executive, like me!
Lois Gladstone: How do we know that Chip Cayman has Omnichannel skills? Did he get a certificate after attending a conference?
Roger Morgan: I'm sure he has ample Omnichannel skills. Why would anybody overstate their skills on LinkedIn?
Meredith Thompson: You can say whatever you want to say on these social networking sites. I've looked at Roger's profile on LinkedIn. It says he is a marketing expert.
Roger Morgan: Look at this. Beth Whidbey just uploaded a new profile photo. She colored her hair. She's really attractive! Maybe I'll ask her out.
Pepper Morgan Pressley (Chief Marketing Officer): Hey Potsie, see if she wants to share milkshake with you at Arnold's?
Meredith Thompson: Didn't we block LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter from employee computers? And Roger, aren't you the one who runs IT? Didn't you demand that we block social media applications so that employees wouldn't waste precious company resources?
Roger Morgan: I'm using my personal phone. I can do whatever I want.
Lois Gladstone: Nobody at Gliebers Dresses gets to do whatever they want.
Glenn Glieber: What?
Roger Morgan: It isn't 1995, folks. It's 2012. I have to keep up with the times ... Oh oh, look at this, Chip Cayman is now connected to Beth Whidbey. I hope they're not dating.
Pepper Morgan: There's nothing more romantic than exchanging Omnichannel skills over a glass of Mogen David Concord Grape wine at a Best Western hotel bar.
Roger Morgan: Look at this factoid ... 24% of my network switched jobs last year. Holy cow! You can even click on the image of a person who changed jobs, and see what they are now up to. Let's drill down on what LinkedIn has to say about Beth Whidbey.
Glenn Glieber: Roger, how are LinkedIn updates going to help me sell more dresses?
Roger Morgan: As the folks at LinkedIn like to say, my network may provide me with connections that further my professional growth.
Meredith Thompson: The only time people want to connect with me on LinkedIn is when they are looking for a new job. There's like a 1 in 2 chance that the person connecting with me will be in a new job in sixty days, and won't speak to me again until looking for another new job in 2015.
Roger Morgan: Oh oh, look at this. Chip Cayman just asked "the community" a question ... listen to this one ... he asks "will brands who fail to achieve a strategic Omnichannel framework even be relevant in 2014?" That's a great question! What do all of you think? I vote "no".
Pepper Morgan Pressley: I know what I'd like to vote on.
Roger Morgan: Here's another update from Chip Cayman. He's prolific. He says that, according to Woodside Research, mobile is poised to capture up to 77% of customer mindshare by the year 2015.
Lois Gladstone: It's captured 77% of our mindshare in this meeting.
Glenn Glieber: How are LinkedIn updates going to help me sell more dresses?
Meredith Thompson: As best I can tell, LinkedIn helped us realize that Beth Whidbey dyed her hair, Chip Cayman doesn't have an active consulting project, and Roger circumnavigated his own IP address block of social networking sites by bringing a cell phone into this meeting so that he could dazzle us with the man crush he has on Chip Cayman.
Roger Morgan: You folks don't get it, do you? Wait, here's another update. It's from Dr. Gene Feldman. It says "I'm sitting in a meeting right now while everybody debates the relevancy of LinkedIn. We should be discussing how we can sell dresses. Nobody wants to address the elephant in the room."
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Roger is the elephant in the room, right Doc?
Dr. Gene Feldman (Vice President of Global Brand Direction): As fall turns to winter, the sparrow prepares by building a sturdy nest. But each time the sparrow flies by a maple tree, the sparrow admires the beauty of the fall leaves. Red. Orange. Yellow. The sparrow pauses. Although the beauty is mesmerizing, it is fleeting. The sparrow loses precious time needed to build the nest. Winter closes in on the sparrow.
Glenn Glieber: What the heck are you talking about, Feldman?
Roger Morgan: Look at this one. Bill Swanson posts "The 5 Slam-Dunk Fail-Safe Ways To Leverage Facebook For E-Commerce Riches". Are you telling me that an article with a well-written subject line won't help us turn this business around?
Lois Gladstone: How many connections do you have on LinkedIn, Roger?
Roger Morgan: 17,493. But I'm still waiting for Obama and Mitt Romney to accept my invitation to connect.
Meredith Thompson: You spent time at work trying to connect with politicians?
Roger Morgan: According to LinkedIn, if you factor in connections three degrees from me, I'm potentially connected to 1.6 billion people, so Mitt Romney and I are virtually connected anyway.
Meredith Thompson: You're virtually besties.
Roger Morgan: You think that somebody in a potential network of 1.6 billion people couldn't help us turn this business around? I mean, when it comes right down to it, if I do my job well, then we have 1.6 billion people potentially generating free marketing for us.
Glenn Glieber: I love free marketing!
Pepper Morgan Pressley: This is crazy. What are we doing here? We've spent the past several weeks talking about being Omnichannel, about the third-degree connective value of LinkedIn, and about Engagement. We talk and we talk and we talk. We don't actually do anything. We sound strategic. Oh, if we could just engage the customer, everything will be fine. Or, if we could only harness the magic of an Omnichannel world, we'd be rolling in profit. Enough, already! Roger, do something, don't become absent in yet another aspect of your life.
Roger Morgan: Go mail more catalogs and pretend it is 1993, Pepper. The operations guy shouldn't have to come up with all of the innovative ideas. I'm just trying to help.
Pepper Morgan Pressely: You had a year as CEO. You needed all of the help you could get.
Roger Morgan: Look at this. Larry Miner just posted an update. He says Apple missed their earnings estimate. First time in nine years. He thinks that they're headed straight into the garbage dumpster. I think I need to join the conversation!
Pepper Morgan Pressley: I met this dude at a conference. He spent a half-hour talking about how Amazon was achieving "scale", how they were going to dominate commerce. But when I asked him how Amazon would impact his business, he had no idea. In fact, he couldn't tell you anything about his business. He knew everything about the rest of the marketing world, but he couldn't tell you anything about the marketing he was accountable for. It was like he was plugged into The Matrix, not knowing his own body was being harvested for electricity.
Roger Morgan: Evie Chancellor wants to know if anybody uses the LinkedIn InMaps professional networking feature? Oh, that's some sweet action! You get to see your whole network in one big infographic. It's like a big spider web. And isn't that the moral of the story? We're all connected.
Meredith Thompson: You're right, we are all stuck in your spider web of Omnichannel connectedness.
Glenn Glieber: Well, we need to honor our meeting guidelines. The guidelines state that we have to end all meetings at least five minutes before the top of the hour, so that everybody can get to their next meeting on time. It's been a stimulating hour, folks. Think about what we learned today?
Meredith Thompson: We learned that Beth Whidbey colored her hair. Maybe she needs a new dress to match the color of her hair.
Lois Gladstone: See, LinkedIn can generate sales!
July 25, 2012
Gliebers Dresses: Engagement
If you don't like business fiction about a catalog brand trying to negotiate a path to the future, move along, there's nothing for you to see here. If you need a diversion from your dreary job, or a diversion from 100 degree heat, give this a read.
Let's sit in and listen to this week's Executive Meeting at Gliebers Dresses:
Glenn Glieber (CEO): Ok folks, let's take our seats. Pepper, why don't we start with a sales update.
Pepper Morgan Pressley (Chief Marketing Officer): Sales are down, again.
Roger Morgan (Chief Operating Officer): Insightful.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: How many ways can I say that sales are down? Sales are down eleven percent. We're eleven percent behind last year! I'd hate to have been the CEO who presided over a business plan that yielded an eleven percent decrease?
Glenn Glieber: Well, we have to do something about it. I've been away for a couple of years, so what are the big ideas out there?
Roger Morgan: You know, Woodside Research focuses on a three legged milk stool ... Omnichannel, Engagement, and Big Data.
Meredith Thompson (Chief Merchandising Officer): Does Woodside Research have anything to say about catalogs?
Roger Morgan: Please.
Lois Gladstone (Chief Financial Officer): What is engagement?
Meredith Thompson: Is engagement like when you told us that every member of the Executive team had to host a blog, telling stories that would cause customers to embrace us so much that they would spend an extra $100 a year?
Roger Morgan: No, that's so 2006.
Lois Gladstone: Is this like when you told us that every member of the Executive team had to have a Twitter account, because Dell was selling a bunch of clearance computers on Twitter? And then you told me that it would be a good idea for me to tweet about circular references in spreadsheets?
Roger Morgan: No, that's so 2009.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Is this like when you told us that every member of the Executive team had to post pictures of meetings on Instagram, so that we could provide our customers with an insiders perspective of Gliebers Dresses, and then our customers lambasted us, suggesting that all we did was waste time snapping photos?
Roger Morgan: No, that's so 2011. Engagement is so much more important than all of those tactics. Engagement and Omnichannel are like peanut butter and jelly. For example, I was watching The Matrix last night. AMC put an ad on the bottom of the screen, asking viewers to participate in an interactive online game about The Matrix. That's engagement. You fold the user into a deep, immersive digital experience that enriches the brand.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: I was watching the kids last night.
Lois Gladstone: Does engagement enrich the profit and loss statement?
Roger Morgan: Woodside Research surveyed 339 Marketing Executives. A statistically significant 182 Executives perceived engagement to be a credible digital strategy that enriches the brand.
Glenn Glieber: That's powerful!
Pepper Morgan Pressley: What did AMC do with the people who played the digitally immersive game? Did those viewers buy anything?
Roger Morgan: Woodside Research says it isn't about sales, it's about creating a deep, immersive experience that enriches the brand.
Meredith Thompson: My customer is 59 years old. She doesn't want a deeper, immersive digital experience that enriches the brand. She wants a free canvas bag to carry zucchini in.
Dr. Gene Feldman: It was 1974. I met Heather at the local phosphates shop. She was beautiful. She wore a sweater dress, remember those? I know, I know, denim was all the rage in 1974, but there was something about the way Heather looked in a sweater dress. We shared a malted milkshake, and listened to America sing "Lonely People" on my 8-track player. Her boyfriend had just died in Vietnam. I guess it was my duty to comfort her. I drove her to the roller rink in my Plymouth Duster. We sat in the car in the parking lot. Her hand touched mine, and ...
Glenn Glieber: What the heck are you talking about, Feldman?
Meredith Thompson: Roger, does Woodside Research honestly believe that my 59 year old customer wants a deep, immersive, branded digital experience?
Roger Morgan: It doesn't matter. Woodside Research says that is where the world is headed. They surveyed 339 Marketing Executives. Marketing EXECUTIVES! These leaders, our peers, say that the best customers are engaged customers, and engaged customers prefer a deep, immersive, digitally branded experience. Then customers head out to social media and share their experiences with online influencers, and these influencers increase the viral coefficient. At that point, you're looking at an awful lot of free marketing.
Glenn Glieber: I love free marekting!
Pepper Morgan Pressley: But like usual, Roger, you're reciting vague theoretical concepts that are virtually irrelevant to a 59 year old female dress buyer.
Roger Morgan: Look, I'm not the Marketing Executive, you are. It's your job to provide solutions. It's my job to advise.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: It's your job to run a distribution center. How is that robotics initiative working out for you? Humans used to pick, pack, and ship merchandise. Now you've essentially removed humans from the distribution center. Remember when we included handwritten notes in outgoing packages? Last week, I think I got a branded, digital thank you note from C-3PO.
Roger Morgan: Here's the theory. You create content. Customers crave content, you know. I mean, how many times have you just lost yourself for three or four hours reading scintillating content created by your favorite brands?
Dr. Gene Feldman: By 1976, I didn't see much of Heather anymore. She went to work for Jimmy Carter, and got engaged to the guy who ran field operations for Carter's campaign in the State of Kentucky. It's my understanding that she is very happy, and was an early investor in Zynga, the folks who created Farmville.
Lois Gladstone: So engagement can lead to riches!
Roger Morgan: The content causes the customer to visit, over and over and over again. And then, after being fully immersed in a branded digital experience, the customer buys a dress. Get it? It's called engagement!
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Has anybody been able to prove the link between reading content and buying dresses?
Meredith Thompson: We're all dancing around the issue, folks. What does engagement look like for a 59 year old woman? Is it a canvas bag? Nutritional supplements? A matching 401k contribution?
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Doc seems to be suggesting that, for a 59 year old, it's all about memories. You engage her by selling memories. Let's be honest, 59 year old women are not playing digital contests on an iPad while watching The Matrix, and if they are, then that type of experience won't cause a 59 year old women to spend more money at Gliebers Dresses.
Roger Morgan: Woodside Research would disagree. They'd tell us we have to find younger customers, or we'll be out of business. And we won't find younger customers by selling memories, memories that mean nothing to a customer who idolizes Colbie Caillat.
Glenn Glieber: Well, I've learned a lot today. This milk stool approach that Roger talks about is interesting. I really look forward to the Big Data discussion, that should be stimulating. What confuses me, however, is that if we do anything that Roger is talking about, we disenfranchise our 59 year old customer. And the harder we work at satisfying our 59 year old customer, the more we disenfranchise the customer who adores Brittney Spears.
Dr. Gene Feldman: Colbie Caillat.
Glenn Glieber: The more I listen, the more I realize that nobody has a solution, me included. How do we protect the past and still move into the future, without alienating our core customer audience? I guess we can just keep hoping for the economy to turn around. I mean, this is an election year, so we're sunk this fall, aren't we?
Lois Gladstone: But our discussion was really engaging, wasn't it?
Let's sit in and listen to this week's Executive Meeting at Gliebers Dresses:
Glenn Glieber (CEO): Ok folks, let's take our seats. Pepper, why don't we start with a sales update.
Pepper Morgan Pressley (Chief Marketing Officer): Sales are down, again.
Roger Morgan (Chief Operating Officer): Insightful.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: How many ways can I say that sales are down? Sales are down eleven percent. We're eleven percent behind last year! I'd hate to have been the CEO who presided over a business plan that yielded an eleven percent decrease?
Glenn Glieber: Well, we have to do something about it. I've been away for a couple of years, so what are the big ideas out there?
Roger Morgan: You know, Woodside Research focuses on a three legged milk stool ... Omnichannel, Engagement, and Big Data.
Meredith Thompson (Chief Merchandising Officer): Does Woodside Research have anything to say about catalogs?
Roger Morgan: Please.
Lois Gladstone (Chief Financial Officer): What is engagement?
Meredith Thompson: Is engagement like when you told us that every member of the Executive team had to host a blog, telling stories that would cause customers to embrace us so much that they would spend an extra $100 a year?
Roger Morgan: No, that's so 2006.
Lois Gladstone: Is this like when you told us that every member of the Executive team had to have a Twitter account, because Dell was selling a bunch of clearance computers on Twitter? And then you told me that it would be a good idea for me to tweet about circular references in spreadsheets?
Roger Morgan: No, that's so 2009.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Is this like when you told us that every member of the Executive team had to post pictures of meetings on Instagram, so that we could provide our customers with an insiders perspective of Gliebers Dresses, and then our customers lambasted us, suggesting that all we did was waste time snapping photos?
Roger Morgan: No, that's so 2011. Engagement is so much more important than all of those tactics. Engagement and Omnichannel are like peanut butter and jelly. For example, I was watching The Matrix last night. AMC put an ad on the bottom of the screen, asking viewers to participate in an interactive online game about The Matrix. That's engagement. You fold the user into a deep, immersive digital experience that enriches the brand.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: I was watching the kids last night.
Lois Gladstone: Does engagement enrich the profit and loss statement?
Roger Morgan: Woodside Research surveyed 339 Marketing Executives. A statistically significant 182 Executives perceived engagement to be a credible digital strategy that enriches the brand.
Glenn Glieber: That's powerful!
Pepper Morgan Pressley: What did AMC do with the people who played the digitally immersive game? Did those viewers buy anything?
Roger Morgan: Woodside Research says it isn't about sales, it's about creating a deep, immersive experience that enriches the brand.
Meredith Thompson: My customer is 59 years old. She doesn't want a deeper, immersive digital experience that enriches the brand. She wants a free canvas bag to carry zucchini in.
Dr. Gene Feldman: It was 1974. I met Heather at the local phosphates shop. She was beautiful. She wore a sweater dress, remember those? I know, I know, denim was all the rage in 1974, but there was something about the way Heather looked in a sweater dress. We shared a malted milkshake, and listened to America sing "Lonely People" on my 8-track player. Her boyfriend had just died in Vietnam. I guess it was my duty to comfort her. I drove her to the roller rink in my Plymouth Duster. We sat in the car in the parking lot. Her hand touched mine, and ...
Glenn Glieber: What the heck are you talking about, Feldman?
Meredith Thompson: Roger, does Woodside Research honestly believe that my 59 year old customer wants a deep, immersive, branded digital experience?
Roger Morgan: It doesn't matter. Woodside Research says that is where the world is headed. They surveyed 339 Marketing Executives. Marketing EXECUTIVES! These leaders, our peers, say that the best customers are engaged customers, and engaged customers prefer a deep, immersive, digitally branded experience. Then customers head out to social media and share their experiences with online influencers, and these influencers increase the viral coefficient. At that point, you're looking at an awful lot of free marketing.
Glenn Glieber: I love free marekting!
Pepper Morgan Pressley: But like usual, Roger, you're reciting vague theoretical concepts that are virtually irrelevant to a 59 year old female dress buyer.
Roger Morgan: Look, I'm not the Marketing Executive, you are. It's your job to provide solutions. It's my job to advise.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: It's your job to run a distribution center. How is that robotics initiative working out for you? Humans used to pick, pack, and ship merchandise. Now you've essentially removed humans from the distribution center. Remember when we included handwritten notes in outgoing packages? Last week, I think I got a branded, digital thank you note from C-3PO.
Roger Morgan: Here's the theory. You create content. Customers crave content, you know. I mean, how many times have you just lost yourself for three or four hours reading scintillating content created by your favorite brands?
Dr. Gene Feldman: By 1976, I didn't see much of Heather anymore. She went to work for Jimmy Carter, and got engaged to the guy who ran field operations for Carter's campaign in the State of Kentucky. It's my understanding that she is very happy, and was an early investor in Zynga, the folks who created Farmville.
Lois Gladstone: So engagement can lead to riches!
Roger Morgan: The content causes the customer to visit, over and over and over again. And then, after being fully immersed in a branded digital experience, the customer buys a dress. Get it? It's called engagement!
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Has anybody been able to prove the link between reading content and buying dresses?
Meredith Thompson: We're all dancing around the issue, folks. What does engagement look like for a 59 year old woman? Is it a canvas bag? Nutritional supplements? A matching 401k contribution?
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Doc seems to be suggesting that, for a 59 year old, it's all about memories. You engage her by selling memories. Let's be honest, 59 year old women are not playing digital contests on an iPad while watching The Matrix, and if they are, then that type of experience won't cause a 59 year old women to spend more money at Gliebers Dresses.
Roger Morgan: Woodside Research would disagree. They'd tell us we have to find younger customers, or we'll be out of business. And we won't find younger customers by selling memories, memories that mean nothing to a customer who idolizes Colbie Caillat.
Glenn Glieber: Well, I've learned a lot today. This milk stool approach that Roger talks about is interesting. I really look forward to the Big Data discussion, that should be stimulating. What confuses me, however, is that if we do anything that Roger is talking about, we disenfranchise our 59 year old customer. And the harder we work at satisfying our 59 year old customer, the more we disenfranchise the customer who adores Brittney Spears.
Dr. Gene Feldman: Colbie Caillat.
Glenn Glieber: The more I listen, the more I realize that nobody has a solution, me included. How do we protect the past and still move into the future, without alienating our core customer audience? I guess we can just keep hoping for the economy to turn around. I mean, this is an election year, so we're sunk this fall, aren't we?
Lois Gladstone: But our discussion was really engaging, wasn't it?
July 04, 2012
Gliebers Dresses: Omnichannel
Many of you are new subscribers, so a little background: Gliebers Dresses was a fictional story of an Executive Team at a traditional catalog brand dealing with changing times. At first, the story served as a Multichannel Forensics case study. The audience, however, enjoyed the quips and commentary between Executive Team members. The story evolved to facilitate a discussion about the state of modern marketing. For a period of time in 2009-2010, Gliebers Dresses was the most popular series of blog posts I wrote.
If a fictional story about the intersection of modern marketing and traditional catalog marketing is not your cup of tea, then move along, there's nothing to see here. If you're looking for a brief mid-July diversion from the tedium of day-to-day job responsibilities, give this a read.
Setting: The Gliebers Dresses board room. Glenn Glieber, the founder and long-time President of Gliebers Dresses, purchased the business from his son, an individual who did not have a passion for catalog marketing, to say the least. Mr. Glieber is setting two years of retirement aside, focusing instead on restoring the brand to former glory. Mr. Glieber is being re-introduced to the business in this Executive Team meeting.
Glenn Glieber (President and CEO, Gliebers Dresses): Alright everybody, please, take your seats. Let's begin the meeting. As you now know, I have purchased the assets of Gliebers Dresses. I am re-assuming the role of President and Chief Executive Officer, effective immediately. Roger Morgan, who acted as President and CEO for the past year-plus, will return to his former position as Chief Operating Officer. I would like to thank Roger for his service during the past year. Meredith Thompson will re-assume her role as Chief Merchandising Officer. Lauren Fetzer purchased the assets of our "Charisma" brand, and will manage that business as a standalone unit, with no association to Gliebers Dresses. Libby Benson, the Director of Social Media for Charisma, will join Lauren and is no longer on the Gliebers Dresses payroll. We are back to being a pure catalog brand. Let's not look back at what happened in the past year, let's move forward.
Pepper Morgan Pressley (Chief Marketing Officer): It is so good, SO GOOD, to have you back Mr. Glieber! I cannot tell you how good it is to bask in true leadership once again.
Glenn Glieber: Thanks Pepper, I appreciate your feedback. Would you be willing to give us a sales update?
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Sales in June were down six percent to last year, and 2011 June sales were down five percent to 2010 June sales. Overall, we're down about 10% to where we were two years ago.
Roger Morgan (Chief Operating Officer, Former CEO): But we have a plan to combat this trend, Mr. Glieber. We were just about to roll out our Omnichannel Initiative.
Glenn Glieber: Omnichannel? What does Omnichannel mean?
Dr. Gene Feldman (Vice President of Global Brand Direction): If I may, I think it is important to point out that our Colbie Caillat sundress initiative is going to launch sales into the stratosphere. We're currently negotiating with her marketing team, as we speak. I don't think you can underestimate the brand power a major recording artist brings to the table.
Glenn Glieber: Who, are you?
Lois Gladstone (Chief Financial Officer): That's Gene, Roger hired him to be the Vice President of Global Brand Direction.
Dr. Gene Feldman: Please call me Dr. Gene.
Glenn Glieber: Thanks, Doc. What's you background? What are your catalog-specific qualifications?
Meredith Thompson (Chief Merchandising Officer): Mr. Feldman was the brains behind the proposed "Fifth Meal" initiative at Taco Bell.
Glenn Glieber: Fifth meal?
Pepper Morgan Pressley: We've all seen the commercials. The wedding party riding in a limo, enjoying tacos at eleven at night, that's fourth meal. Doc was instrumental in creating the global brand framework necessary to launch a fifth meal initiative at Taco Bell.
Glenn Glieber: You invented fifth meal, Gene? What does that have to do with cataloging?
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Roger hired him, Glenn.
Dr. Gene Feldman: It's harder to fit a fifth meal into the daily grind than you think. Starbucks owns the post-breakfast period. Then folks co-opted breakfast and lunch, calling it brunch. That eliminates a meal. That's not what I was looking to accomplish. Lunch seems permanently entrenched in the consumer mindset, and was responsible for 35% of our sales at Taco Bell, so no messing with lunch, ok? The mid-afternoon period, now that's a tough one, because ...
Glenn Glieber: Lois, why are you on crutches?
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Oh, poor Lois. Roger took us to California for two full days of team building with Tony Robbins. Some team building exercise that was. Lois was terrified by the thought of walking across hot coals, stopped half-way across them, freaked out, and burned her feet.
Roger Morgan: Lois was afraid of walking into the future, Glenn.
Lois Gladstone: I was terrified by the cost of seventeen employees spending two full days with Tony Robbins.
Roger Morgan: Oprah made it across the coals.
Dr. Gene Feldman: ... after dinner, things get interesting. Obviously, you have fourth meal, that's well documented. The challenge, then, is to keep consumers awake. Think Mountain Dew, which we served in generously sized portions at Taco Bell, that does the trick. Now if you can keep a consumer awake longer, you increase the chance of the consumer wanting to eat something. That's where fifth meal comes in.
Roger Morgan: Tony told us that for changes to be of any true value, they've got to be lasting and consistent.
Lois Gladstone: Second degree burns leave scars that will be lasting and consistent.
Lois Gladstone: Second degree burns leave scars that will be lasting and consistent.
Dr. Gene Feldman: So, in many ways, this whole Colbie Caillat negotiation is a lot like fifth meal. We're trying to find additional ways to engage today's time-strapped consumer. It's an exciting time to be at Gliebers Dresses.
Glenn Glieber: Can somebody explain what this whole Omnichannel Initiative is?
Meredith Thompson: Roger believes that Omnichannel is the linchpin to future success.
Roger Morgan: Meredith, I don't believe in anything. In my hand, I hold a report from Woodside Research. In this $495 beauty, Woodside Research clearly articulates that the future will be owned by nimble brands that are able to engage cost-conscious and time-strapped customers across channels. Brands that are not omnichannel tempt obsolescence at their own risk. We have to greatly expand into all available channels, now.
Lois Gladstone: We spent a lot of money on research reports and Tony Robbins seminars in the past two years, Mr. Glieber.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Roger, haven't you always been an advocate of multichannel strategies? How is omnichannel different than multichannel? And how did the whole multichannel think work out for us?
Dr. Gene Feldman: On our YouTube channel, I envision Colbie Caillat singing an acoustic version of "Brighter Than The Sun". Except, everybody in this video is wearing Gliebers Dresses. Think of all of the new customers we'd acquire, the brand exposure? We're basically making a play on what Dre did with Beats. They own 53% of the headphone market, and they didn't exist six years ago. Think about that for a moment. You plant your product on famous people, and the hoi polloi follow. You can literally create a market.
MeredithThompson: Or you rent 3.2 million names from a co-op and call it a day.
Roger Morgan: The concept is called Omnichannel because you have to do everything, and you have to integrate everything together. You think about the young shopper, checking into Forever 21 via Foresquare, then looking at her favorite merchandise. She showrooms, if you will ... she uses search on her iPhone to compare prices, and there she finds Gliebers Dresses, who is willing to send her a comparable dress next-day-air with free shipping and twenty percent off.
Lois Gladstone: The profit and loss statement is burning hotter than my feet.
Roger Morgan: But this is the key to the whole thing, folks. We have to do everything. Free shipping. Expedited shipping. Twenty percent off. Search marketing. Email marketing. Catalog marketing. Mobile marketing. Local marketing. Telemarketing. Loyalty Marketing. iPad marketing. Field marketing. And if we do all of this, we create buzz, and all that buzz yields a glow. Ultimately, it's like free marketing.
Glenn Glieber: I love free marketing!
Lois Gladstone: So we have to spend a lot of money on multichannel marketing so that we fuel free marketing? The fusion of multichannel marketing and free marketing yields omnichannel marketing?
Roger Morgan: Woodside Research says that if you do all of this, you end up fueling word of mouth marketing, and that's where this whole thing is headed.
Dr. Gene Feldman: This is how it starts. Lightning strikes the heart. It goes off like a gun. Brighter than the sun.
Glenn Glieber: What the heck are you talking about Feldman?
Dr. Gene Feldman: The Colbie Caillat video. Her and her posse, wearing Gliebers Dresses. Kids want to be like Colbie Caillat. She's breezy. She's everything the Gliebers Dresses brand stands for. She's a less edgy Taylor Swift. This is how it starts. And the kids, they know YouTube. They're not watching Blue Bloods there, either. Create a new reason for the young ladies to buy something. Tell them what to do. Curate for them. It's a lot like creating a reason for fifth meal.
Lois Gladstone: I like Tom Selleck on Blue Bloods. He's not breezy, he's rugged.
Meredith Thompson: We do that in the catalog, you know. Just last month, we had a spread that featured the ladies of the Amherst Farmers Market. The phone was ringing off the hook.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: Roger, when is the last time you entered a mall and showroomed a dress? Are you buying dresses now, too?
Roger Morgan: I was in the mall last week with Sonora ... that's my daughter, Doc. You watch how a teenager shops and you learn a lot.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: I guess you can learn a lot by watching a teenage girl eight days a month.
Dr. Gene Feldman: 8.6 million people have watched "Brighter Than The Sun" on YouTube. That's how you reach an audience at low cost.
Meredith Thompson: How do I forecast unit sales for a video that will be watched somewhere between 3 times and 8.6 million times? I know what happens when I rent 3.2 million names from the co-ops.
Lois Gladstone: Yup, $4 million in sales and $35,000 in profit. Every time.
Pepper Morgan Pressley: And if we keep doing that, our customer will be Bea Arthur in Golden Girls.
Roger Morgan: Do you all remember what Tony Robbins told us? He said "If you want to be successful, find someone who has achieved the results you want and copy what they do and you'll achieve the same results."
Pepper Morgan Pressley: So we should copy what Woodside Research does, because they've achieved a resounding success with an omnichannel platform? When is the last time you purchased a report from Woodside Research via their Twitter feed? When is the last time Woodside Research sent you a personalized and highly relevant email campaign that was actually customized to your own interests? When is the last time you looked at a Woodside Research report on your iPhone? When is the last time you checked in at Woodside Research office headquarters via Foresquare? When is the last time Woodside Research invited you to a big research event for free because you were a devoted member of their loyalty program?
Roger Morgan: Pepper, why don't you craft a strategy, you're the Chief Marketing Officer, right? Act like one. Nobody in this room is outlining a path to the future except me. And Woodside Research.
Meredith Thompson: And Doc and his music video.
Meredith Thompson: And Doc and his music video.
Dr. Gene Feldman: Has anybody watched that new Dallas show on TNT? Somehow they are able to seamlessly integrate old and new ... in one platform. One brand.
Lois Gladstone: This is a catalog, Gene!
Dr. Gene Feldman (leaning over to Glenn Glieber): If you can't win the hearts and minds of your employees, how can you win the hearts and minds of your customers?
Glenn Glieber: It's been a spirited discussion, folks. I see that nothing has changed in a couple of years. It's great that the heritage of the corporate brand still exists. Based on what I've heard, we either have to do everything, or we have to double-down on what we've always done so we can forecast the business more accurately, or we have to move into music videos. At least we have choices. Let's meet tomorrow for breakfast and dig in!
Meredith Thompson: If we stay up all night, can we come in to work and call breakfast fifth meal?
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