RIP Uncle Stan

Alas, my dedicated readers (after all, who else would note this post after all this time of inactivity?), I'm saddened to note a notable passing.

Many of you are no doubt aware (or perhaps not!) of my now-late uncle Stan Lee and his famous tag-line (or, if you prefer, catch-phrase): Excelsior!
In fact, I had adopted said expostulation as my own sign-off in my marketing and personal correspondence some time ago (and all that with my uncle's approval, mind you!).

I shall find it difficult to use that word for some time to come, no doubt, without its bringing a lump to my throat and a glistening of a tear to my eye. None the less, I shall persevere - extending the legacy of a great marketer, bon vivant, and creative gemius.

Stan Lee will be missed by all and sundry here ate Jay Standish, Inc.  LLC, not least of all by me,
Yours truly,
Jay Standish,
Jay Standish, Inc. LLC

Excelsior!

A Special Offer for Our Detroit Area Friends!

Friends, how many times have you realized - but too late! - that you had an early afternoon sales meeting (or "call" as they are often termed), just as you finished the last - tasty! - bite of one or another Italian delight?

After a moment of panic at the thought of "garlic breath" causing the loss of a sale, you probably grab a breath mint or other candy, hoping simply to cover the faux pas, not to rectify it. (Have you ever wondered why we always use a French term for these things? Are the French simply more likely to commit them, and so have the best name for them? I know I have wondered precisely that.)

If your experience is anything like mine has been - and I have a good deal of experience, as Pat can confirm - covering up garlic simply doesn't work. That's where the GOOD FITE® comes in - in a veritable syzygy of the gastronomic and oral health worlds, Andiamo's and Listerine have teamed up to give frequent diners access to the latest anti-garlic breath technology: Listerine with AGB!

We here at Jay Standish, Inc.  LLC are helping these two titans of industry to roll out their alliance by running a limited time test program at the Royal Oak location. Frequent diners will be approached as they depart - based upon the analysis of the level of garlic breath as measured by the table service professionals at Andiamo's - with the option of gargling with the new Listerine with AGB! Takers-up will have their sales successes tracked and analyzed by famed sales expert Bartholomew G. Edison, and the results will be included in an upcoming revision to his bestselling tome, Selling 402 - How to Zig Past Ziglar and Make the Big Bucks.



Watch for the Jay Standish, Inc.  LLC associate recruiting test subjects at the Royal Oak Andiamo's in the next few weeks!

Excelsior!
Jay Standish
Jay Standish, Inc.  LLC


Remember: GOOD FITE® is a registered trademark of Andiamo's and Listerine.

You Could Win with Listerine®

The top stories of business success with involve gargling will win!

As I mentioned in my last newsletter, the folks in China were generally less polite than I had expected. In addition (and much to my surprise I must admit!), the lack of oral care put me in mind of my travels in the back-country areas of Scotland and Northumberland.
In addition to the cosmetic aspects of this dentistry-averse culture, the sheer level of halitosis was something to behold - or to be-hold one's breath, as it were!

This experience put me in mind of the many ways in which our latest client's product has actually been put to use in our own firm's storied history. Many regular readers will remember the efforts of my erstwhile partner, Pat (I'm not bitter), to cover his liquid lunch habits with a quick (yet firm and bracing!) gargle of Listerine^®.

Most readers will be less familiar with other tales of marketing efforts and derring-do which have not been reported heretofore in these missives. One such example would be the time when one of our marketing paladins was able to fulfill a life-long dream by fronting the celtic-punk band, Left Sister Down at an actual "gig" as they call their jobs. Unsurprisingly, this marketer of Italian extraction sent forth such a wave of garlic that it nearly knocked the band members off their respective feet. It was only after some quick thinking by Morgan (one of the leaders of Left Sister Down), that "Joe" was able to stay on stage - Morgan provided a travel-sized bottle of Listerine^® and the "gig" was saved!

But enough of the history of Listerine^® with members of the Jay Standish, Inc. LLC "family" of marketing professionals and clients.
We here at Jay Standish, Inc. LLC would like to hear from you, our loyal readers, telling tales of other situations where the use of Listerine^® was able to "save the day" (as it were) for you, your associates, or your clients.
As noted in the subhead of our current newsletter, the top stories - seven of them, as selected by an impartial panel of judges selected at random in the lunchroom here at Jay Standish, Inc. LLC on September 16th at noon! - will receive a fabulous prize.
"What," I hear you ask, "will be said fabulous prize?"
"A full year's supply of the Listerine^® flavor of your choice," I reply with some measure of certitude and alacrity.

[Please note that for the purposes of this "contest" (or promotional event, should you prefer), a year's supply will be construed as one 1.5 liter bottle per week, to be delivered through our customized Amazon.com Prime Subscription system.]

So what are you waiting for? We must receive your entry - an original tale of a marketing fiasco averted by gargling Listerine^® by midnight (Eastern Time!) Wednesday September 14!


Last time, Jay wrote about returning home from China and granting a paladin's wish:
Holger Dansk responded:
"Allowing a commie un-civil servant to take your sword away makes me wonder how much you really know about paladins and such, Jay. I know I would never have suffered such indignity without at least threatening mayhem or worse..."


Ah, Holger, my friend, if only it were so simple. I fear that a rapier is no shield against the machine guns the airport guards began wielding for the Olympic period. Still, I admire your spirit, and match it fully with my own - Excelsior!

-- Jay

A Rare Moment, Indeed

It is with a fair amount of humility that I confess I was completely and abjectly wrong in my prognositication regarding the finalé of Dancing With The Stars. You likely caught my commentary and predictions in the comments to the previous post regarding the departure of our wooden cowboy friend from the competition.
A Mr. Bruce Campbell (surely not the Bruce Campbell?) asked for my thoughts, and I was more than happy to provide them. Sadly, I now must eat the proverbial crow.

My presumptive ordering was exactly the inverse of the final results. Thrilling though the dancing was, the "fans" who made the final determination seemed to enjoy the girlish antics of our erstwhile Olympic sweetheart far more than did I. (I would like to emphasize that in predicting the reverse order of finish, I did - in fact! - get the second-place finisher exactly right!)

My prediction had been that Melissa would win, followed by Gilles, with Shawn taking the bronze [as it were!]. My preference would have been to reverse those top two, placing Gilles in first place and Melissa second. But it was not to be.
Confounding my expectations, Melissa was the first one called out - as the third-place finisher. Next came the obligatory tension-building session of commentary from the delightful Tom Bergeron and the nearly-delicious Samantha Harris. And build tension it did.

Imagine my surprise (and no small measure of chagrin - no small measure at all!) when Shawn's name was called as the new champion. Another victory for the Olympians among us (as if they needed more), and a strong commentary that this nation no longer abhors short people [Randy Newman notwithstanding].

Ah well, on to the next season. Now let the speculation begin: will there be another computer industry "star" in the mix? How about a marketing professional? It's already got me tingling like Chris Matthews at an Obama speech!

Excelsior!

Well, so much for the wooden dancer ...

After surviving far longer than anyone thought was reasonable (especially Li'l Kim, one might think!), our rodeo friend has finally been bucked off the stage [as it were!] by dint of everyone else's being better dancers than he.

Still, as noted in a previous "post" on this "blog," Ty's performance simply exposes the feet of clay of a certain "monkey-dance" poseur at Micro-Soft. Had M. Ballmer had the cojones (as our erstwhile near-finalist might have put it) to hoof it over at ABC along with Woz, his software giant (read de facto monopoly) might be looking forward to years of growth.
As it is, few will care that Steve "Fester" Ballmer might have been a contender, but chose to hide in Redmond instead.

Sad, that - sad indeed!

At any rate, one can only hope that the finale this coming week will be as spectacular as in seasons past, and that the next season will bring yet new surprises to the small screen.
Who knows, might there be a place for a master marketer to "bust" a move on the federally chartered all-digital airwaves? One can but hope and dream.

Excelsior!

No "Adios" Yet

Well, shock was all around the audience this evening. Certainly I had no inkling that Lil Kim would be leaving Dancing With The Stars this early.
While the "junk in her trunk" as Len put it so Britishly did little for me, Ty's steady, yet mechanical dance style seemed over-ripe for plucking, as it were.

Perhaps the folks at home were mesmerized by his cowboy charms, perhaps the judges were tiring of Kim's gyrating glutei, perhaps we'll never know.

Still, it shows how important this program has become to America and Americans - if only Steve Ballmer had "sucked it up" [so to speak!] and entered the fray this season he wouldn't have had to lay off all those MicroSofties this week.

Ah, me, the vagaries and exigencies of marketing in the modern world.

So, five, six, seven, eight, Excelsior!

Marketing Ostriches

Wishing won't make it so, my friends;

no, I'm afraid that it simply won't.

Oh dear, they're at it again. Perhaps I'm getting an inkling of what our infamous, erstwhile Vice President experience when he felt compelled to upbraid those "nattering nabobs of negativism" in his famous address.

Would that it were as simple as combating a bevy of journalists on jeremiads – alas, it's far worse than that. Once again the “trades” are full of excoria, purporting to be expert advice regarding the practice of marketing and maintaining brands – and these by self-proclaimed practitioners of the craft.

And what [dare we wonder?] do these “experts” prescribe? Nothing less than the death of brands as we have come to know them. Yes, these experts resemble no one more than the fabled Dr. Kevorkian of suicide machine fame. As an aside, one wonders – where is the good doctor these days, in prison? Writing a book on marketing? The mind fairly boggles, no?

“Surely you exaggerate!” I hear you cry, and perhaps I do – but I very much doubt it; for once again the siren call of “Your Brands are what everyone else says they are” is heard throughout the land. Yes, and your résumé means precisely what I think it means, and not what you had intended, right?

And so it goes.

When will we get past this cult of the mediocritocracy? Perhaps this all goes back the Jean Paul Sartre and his French existentialist ilk. The whole idea that “you are who others think you are” seems to be the basis for today's rampant brand surrenders.

One must assume that they've missed the basic point of Sartre's play, Huis Clos (or No Exit, to you and me!), which was that Hell is Other People.

If we let our brands be defined by “other people,” we've consigned them [and ourselves!] to Marketing Hell. Hardly the stuff of which dreams are made, let alone profits.

All the while this drivel [yes, drivel!] is being promulgated, we also receive information that strong corporate brands continue to grow – despite the economic downturn. Clearly, a fickle, shifting public defining of these brands is no-where to be seen – growing brands are strong because they're nurtured by wise marketing professionals, not by being blown thither and yon by the vagaries of public opinion.

In a related blast of cognitive dissonance (if you'll pardon the “technical” term!), I read that there are now more Americans making their respective livings as professional bloggers (?!) than there are fire-fighters or even computer programmers [sadly, there are still more lawyers than bloggers].

“Where's the dissonance?” you ask. Well, just as my mind was being boggled by reading this statistic, I discovered that one of my three favorite bloggers is hanging up his keyboard, as it were.

Whenever I wanted to catch up on the goings on in the “Motor” City [that's Detroit to you and me!], I would steer my trusty browser straight to the Detroit Media Guy blog on the internet. Seldom [if ever!] would I be disappointed by the posts and the comments. Yes, it's quite a testament to the readership that DMG (as his cyber-friends seemed to call him quite regularly) was able to attract that the comments to his musings and postings were often as well-written (and as well read!) as those posts themselves.

Perhaps it's time for a mini-series of newsletters covering my favorite bloggers – before they're all victims of bit-rot or right-sizing – or perhaps not.

It might be instructive to gather a list of your favorites and mine, so that we all might share in the cyber-bounty of thoughts and counter-arguments that make up the blogosphere [and no, Jody, that as nothing to do with that rascally erstwhile Governor of Illinois!].

As a start, my top three, in no particular order (thank you, Tom Bergeron!) are:

Detroit Media Guy,
Random Rantings, and
The Lonely CEO

[feel free to follow the links cleverly embedded in the preceding text to sample these fabulous blogs!].

We here at Jay Standish, Inc. LLC look forward to compiling and disseminating a list of our joint favorites in the weeks to come.

Excelsior! and RIP DMG.

Last time, Jay wrote about the death of newspapers and paper routes:
R. Scott "Randy" Hearst responded:
"Jay, you've either got your tongue stuck in your cheek, or you're woefully ignorant of the real workings of the paper-delivery system in this great nation of ours.
I notice that you don't distribute a printed version of your newsletter, so you don't have to deal with finding a stable of stinky young brats with bicycles to pedal through urbia and suburbia delivering the sweat of your brow - now firmly printed on pulp. If you had ever had to substitute at 4AM in the cold for some rotten brat just because he had strep throat or pneumonia, you wouldn't ..."

I'm going to stop you right there, "Randy," before it gets too personal. Once you've calmed down a bit, I'd appreciate a less deprecating and more thoughtful commentary. Any chance of that?

-- Jay