What do Rappers & Women Have in Common? Part 1

This topic was actually the subject of a conversation between myself and my significant other. We were chatting this morning about the Coach brand and how its image has been bifurcated. I'm going to attempt to address this tastefully and say, both the "haves" and "have nots" carry Coach bags and wallets as somewhat of a status symbol. This is not a unique instance. Being African-American, I can't help but notice the unusual correlation between Rappers (and hip-hop artists) and women--hence the interesting title. 

So what do Rappers and women have in common? They both invest in lifestyle brands and buy lifestyle products.

Lifestyle brands can be defined as any company that associates its tangible offerings with intangible benefits. For example, Jeep sells a freewheeling, rugged outdoors adventure that can only be obtained by purchasing one of their vehicles.

Lifestyle Products are the actual tangible item that makes the owner prettier, classier, stronger, or any other superlative you might think of. A good example is Costa Del Mar sunglasses, the sunglasses for real fishermen. I don't personally own a pair but it could be reasoned that if you're willing to spend so much on sunglasses for fishing, then you must take your fishing seriously. The casual fisherman would never spend $200 on glasses that annihilate glare, so one who would spend the money must think of it as either a status symbol, an investment or both.

So what do lifestyle brands and products have to do with women and rappers? Both women and rappers are more likely to buy products and be loyal to brands that offer added value by "meaning something"  either to themselves or in the eyes of others.
Some quick examples:

• Oil of Olay offers a chance at the fountain of youth, not just face cream
• Grey Goose is a premium Vodka from France but it is also a "guide to the extraordinary"
• Shoe designer Jimmy Choo doesn't sell women stilettos he's peddling the voracious confidence of a woman in charge of her sexuality
• An ultimate marriage of style and executive perks, the Maybach isn't just a car with a Trump-sized price tag
• With their tagline "Simply Perfect" Patron attempts to be more than tequila; it wants to be the halmark of impeccable taste.

Lets dwell on Patron for a moment and its competitor 1800 tequila. 1800 is currently running a series of ads that blatantly attack Patron for being all "lifestyle" and no substance. It the recent "kickback" commercial, the spokesman says that when he drinks 1800, he likes to "kick back and be himself"--meaning he wants to leave behind all the pretentious trappings of Patron's tequila and focus only on his personal preferences, rappers and popular culture be damned.

What should you take away from this? Positioning your product as a lifestyle can backfire. Your product could be labeled as a product socialite--fancy, attractive, well-known, expensive but hardly necessary.

While were on the case study bandwagon, lets look at lifestyle brand with an opposite connotation of Patron-- Budweiser.  As the Great American Lager, Budweiser sells a lifestyle too. One of good old American roots, mom, apple pie, and hard workin' salt of the earth people. Its uncomplicated. Its everywhere. Its America in a glass. What should you take away from this? Not to be afraid of going for the lifestyle sell. If you find your market and position your product correctly, you'll foster a real loyalty among customers that will lead to success. (it also shouldn't be over looked that price also plays into it. Bud is an inexpensive beer and there by a lifestyle brand people can afford to stick by)

I'm going to cut it short here and continue the rest of my notes in a subsequent post, aptly labeled "What do Rappers & Women Have in Common? Part 2." In that post I'll be detailing the intricacies of the types of people who buy lifestyle products and pointers on how to each them. Until then, Same Bat Time; Same Bat Channel!

A Day in the Life: Be Accessible

I had another post planned for today, but as I worked along bouncing back and forth between planning a birthday party and working on marketing materials for a client I came up with today's little tidbit.

Planning parties is really fun for me. I don't think I would ever want to do it professionally but if I was a wealthy socialite I would probably throw parties more often than I would shop. Since I'm not yet to the point of hyper-expendable income I try to organize gatherings in bars or restaurants, that way, all I have to do is send out an invite and maybe pay for a round of drinks and viola! instant party. One of my favorite places to throw a budget-soiree is a local lounge. Why? My friends are bartenders, the atmosphere is upscale but inviting and most importantly the space is accessible. By "accessible space" I mean the owners are approachable, friendly and hungry for business which makes the space feel open to guests, their needs and suggestions.

We've all been there. The bar you never quite feel like a regular at. The pub you take a couple friends to but never to celebrate anything. The restaurant you may eat at because its convenient but you think to yourself as you leave "why do they have a banquet room? I've never seen anyone in there." These are all examples of inaccessible space.

An inaccessible space can be defined as a place that makes customers feel like customers--not guests. Business owners miss out on a lot of potential revenue by creating environments that are not multipurpose [i.e. providing a service/product and building relationships]. Its easy to see how a bar or restaurant might make themselves multipurpose and accessible by renting party space, but what about the hardware store owner? Or the kitchen supply guy? They should take the initiative and build an accessible space by offering classes, hosting "members only" shopping or sales events, even allowing regulars an exclusive trial of new high priced items.

People like to feel welcome, like they matter and like business owners appreciate the money they get from their customers. Chains don't have that luxury but small business owners do and they should take 100% advantage of it to watch their business grow.

Location, Location, Location & Customer Service

Eating at a Chic Fil A last night gave me the idea for this post. I'm fortunate enough to live in Tallahassee where we have 5 Chic Fil A's and because I go to the one closest to my house I grew accustomed to a certain level of service. The person taking my order, though usually high school age, is always polite, management is always visible and even during the busiest times of day I'm always served promptly. Last night I went to a Chic Fil A on the other side of town, closer to where my mother works and received vastly different service. Let me qualify this by saying, that "vastly different" within the context of Chic Fil A's corporate culture is bad, but within the grand scheme of fast food service, its still way better than average.
That started me thinking:

• How much does corporate culture affect customer service practices? 
• How much does location affect customer service practices?
• Can corporate culture & hiring practices supersede customer service issues that arise based on location?

Great Corporate Culture = Great Customer Service
I remember taking an HR class when I went through college for my first degree. We did a little case study on Starbucks and how their hiring practices and corporate culture are connected to ensure better customer service. I wasn't a Starbucks customer at the time so I thought it was complete hog wash. I mean how can you make sure all employees are the positive "sun-shiny" people you want them to be? Time for investigation! So I started going into Starbucks off and on, and not just in Tallahassee, but any port of call I may have found myself in. They totally proved me wrong. I had consistently "perky" service that really truly seemed genuine, not from a saccharine plastic script. That was my first brush with the concept of a strong corporate culture leading to a strong workforce identity.

Location  &  Customer Service
Let's be honest, every city has this invisible line that certain people and certain brands don't cross. That has to have an effect on customer service. Hypothetically, if a Chic Fil A or Starbucks opened in a maximum security prison and was employed by prisoners to serve other prisoners, regardless of their corporate culture, the level of customer service would be abysmal. Granted, that's a seriously unlikely situation and an extreme example of location but 2 things are clear: 1) in a location where ideal employees are unavailable service will suffer 2) customers and their attitudes have an affect on employees and their attitudes. What this means is: 1) stores concerned with service will also be concerned with location. 2) employees that work in a nicer environment and with nicer patrons respond in kind by being nice.

Corporate Culture > Location?
Well yes and no, in my opinion. Let's go back to the Chic Fil A I had last night. Yes the service wasn't what I was used to but because it was Chic Fil A it was still great. However, because location dictates attitudes of employees and patrons no amount of "service first" mantra can truly over come the challenges presented by location.

American Splendor: Departure from "Core Values" in the Car Industry

I like to follow other designers on Twitter to get lots of inspiration, insight and well, just plain old information. A few weeks ago there was a post on the Brochures Printing Online Blog about old car brochure designs. I'm not old enough to have any sense of real history when it comes to "retro" styling before the 1970's so looking at all these old magazine ads--some of them possibly for newspapers or billboards--was a real treat. The warmth of color and the hand-painted styling gives the possible customer a feeling of the care that went into creating the ad, and maybe leads to the line of thinking "if they put so much work into this simple one pager, how much more care will they put into the automobile they are trying to sell me"

In looking at the ads a lot of things sort of passed through my mind. Some of them would look great as framed art work--like the piece for the Rover 3-liter. A few of them reminded me of the "...of tomorrow" cartoons that were popular for a while, you know "the house of tomorrow" the "farm of tomorrow"; they would be "cars of tomorrow" with their mega streamline styling and unusual features. However, none of those things have anything to do with this particular blog post. What I really want to talk about are the values expressed in the ads.

The ad for the Chevrolet "Coach" originally appeared in the Saturday Evening Post, I'm guessing sometime in the early 1900's based on the styling, with the tagline "Maintaining Economical Transportation Everywhere...Quality at Low Cost." Between 1900 and 1915 the average cost of a car was just over $600. The coach isn't too far off from that price point but that doesn't seem to be the point of the message. Selling the car, the maintainability and the image all at an affordable price is the key. These days car commercials focus on MPG economy (and rightly so) but people are looking to save money in more ways than just in their gas tank. Showing that a company understands the pocketbook of its customer is what can, and will, drive home a sale. Kia is headed in that direction full force. I like Kias, I don't drive one, but I do understand their push to equate their product with a positive, affordable and yes down right sensible image. I'm happy for the little Korean Car Company That Could, but it makes me wonder how Chevrolet forgot an important part of its history? Maybe "Maintaining Economical Transportation Everywhere...Quality at Low Cost" was not the founding principle of the company but it is an ideal that the American public still holds dear and if anyone should capitalize off of it, it should be other Americans.

Pontiac is just as guilty of getting caught up in trends and not sticking to its guns. The ad campaign for the Big Six responded to the needs of a changing America and filled in the price gap between Chevrolet and Oldsmobile. Americans needed more car for the same amount of money, or less, and Pontiac filled that need. Admittedly the company has had a turbulent past, and was recently dissolved as a GM holding, but there remains the lingering question of Pontiac's commitment to "more for less" and whether adhering to what initially helped make the little company great would have helped pull it out of trouble this time around.

Looking at all these wonderful examples of early 20th century ad art was thought provoking--the quality of work, the thought, the time, the care that went into creating the image for a company around the ideals of Americans--where did it all go?

Education of a Girl: What Weird Al & MJ Have Taught Me

I'd never really thought about it until [adult swim] bought it to my attention-- Weird Al Yankovich was still making songs a good 10 years after his hay day in the 90's and the great MJ (the now late Michael Jackson) had apparently run his course and was absent from the public eye as far as music was concerned--keep in mind this was before his "This is It" tour was announced. The implications of such a simple observation didn't register at first but now that I think about it, it makes perfect material for a blog post.

What I learned from Weird Al: All you need is a niche. Weird Al's music, for those of you who may not know, was based on parody--he would take popular songs and remix them with funny lyrics. Naturally this kind of music doesn't have the same built in audience that a boy band or blond pop idol enjoys, but that didn't matter. It still doesn't. He didn't need everyone to like his music and he understood that not everyone would. But, and this is a big but, he believed that at least someone, at the very least one person besides himself, would like it and would "invest"--spending money, becoming a fan, promoting his craft by word of mouth, ect. Its important to find people who "are buying what you're selling" and sell to them. Additionally, I learned if you're going to be "different" you should be prepared to be treated as such :)

What I learned from MJ: Staying power takes Hallmarks--plural. Most famous entities have a single thing they happen to be known for. Watching the Simpsons the other night I was reminded of this when Lisa traded away her pearls, I know its silly but she looked so naked without them that it was weird. The list extends further than that, Huckleberry Hound and that song, Donald Trump's hair, Jay Leno's chin--you're starting to see it now right? Well by now I'm sure you're saying "MJ had his glove" and you'd be right but he also had the Moon Walk, and how you could always see his socks for some reason, the Thriller music video and that huge repertoire of songs that became iconic in themselves. If you want to be known for something make it plural. The more good things people can associate your name with the longer they will remember you.