Michael Shipe Blog

The other day, this toy section caught my eye while walking through Target. “Certified Non-Toxic”, the ludic toy brags. It is clear Target is experimenting here, but I wonder if this toy’s primary selling point speaks to the struggle fair trade products have in getting on shelves.

Granted, most parents want their children’s toys to be non-toxic, but is “Certified Non-Toxic” that big of a selling point? Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. There are more toxic toys in the US than I know of, but that really isn’t saying much. I grew up playing with steel Tonka Trucks that could give you tetanus with one malicious twinge of the hinge.

Here is my point, let’s contrast the “Certified Non-Toxic” with “Certified Fair Trade”. Some parent sees this non-toxic toy and thinks, “That’s nice, but I’ll just get a cheaper stuffed animal. It isn’t certified non-toxic, but I don’t see a scull and crossbones either, so…it’s probably ok.”

Switch the non-toxic to fair trade. The same parent goes to buy the fair trade stuffed animal and thinks, “The bear is certified fair trade, what about all the other toys? Are they made for children by children? Does Target trade fair for this bear, but unfair for the other 99% of the store?”

I suggest, that the mere existence of a fair trade product calls into question all the other products. That’s why Macy’s fair trade experiments (Shop for a Better World) does not emphasizes that it is a fair trade project. They link it to a specific project and highlight how it helps a specific community overcome a specific problem. Because it is an especially project, it does not cast doubt on the fairness of Macy’s other products.

It makes me wonder if highly charged terms like “fair trade” could survive in big box retailers simply because the brain too easily goes from “fair” to “unfair”. As technology makes the world smaller, consumers will want more evidence that their money is bettering the world hence the rise in corporate social responsibility(CSR). More and more retailers will be experimenting with green-fair-organic-non-toxic products trying to find exactly what consumers are concerned about.

The title reminded me of chatter when e-commerce was ramping up. However, there is a growing tide, a silent tsunami that will be a greater game changer than online retail. The greatest opportunity for differentiation has been price, it has been quality, it has been convenience but it will soon be responsibility.

The responsibility requirement is not coming because consumers are starting to care. It is coming because consumers will soon be able to easily find out which companies are showing leadership in responsibility and which ones are profiteering. The phenomenal growth to 75 million fair trade shoppers shows that the caring consumer will soon be the primary consumer.

I am excited for the day when retail clerks will need preparation to answer questions like,

• “Were the people who made these shoes paid a living wage?”
• “Does the factory where this was made meet international standards?”
• “What has your company done to improve the world?”

My guess is that within 3-5 years, genuinely responsible companies will start taking market share from companies content with status quo. If responsibility is little more than a polite velleity, your company will miss the responsibility boat – a sizably larger boat than e-commerce.

Milk’s Favorite Cookie wins gets A+ for their new packaging. Though it really isn’t that new any more. However, it is an excellent example of doing things right. I always thought it was ridiculous to have to throw an Oreo bag into a zip lock bag. With the plastic tray, you couldn’t even seal it off with a clip.

Now however, they are easier to open, easier to seal bag and thus easier to consume. The easier to consume part is the key point for Nabisco. Way to go Nabisco.

One of the things I enjoy most about marketing is how pervasive it is. Marketing gives input at all stages – product creation, packaging, pricing, distribution, promotion, sales. Marketing also contributes at the strategic level with research, targeting, and product offering. All aspects are crucial.

Here is a personal example of when Crest Mouthwash completely lost any hope of ever winning my business again because of failing at the packaging design stage.

I have no idea how Crest Mouthwash compares with other mouthwashes when it comes to effectiveness in mouthwashy things. I will not buy Crest’s Mouthwash any more and I have instructed my wife not to buy it because it is impossible to use without dripping blue mouthwash all over your bathroom space. This transcript of a typical rant after using Crest’s Mouthwash has been expurgated for all audiences (expurgations):

“What the heck! Son of a gun. Who was the dumb dumb that designed this inadequate lid to drip this blue stuff all over my sink? This junk is all over the place. It looks like a trucking smurf couldn’t hold it and went all over the dirty place.”

Crest, please let me fix this for you. And please help the guy in charge of packaging for the mouthwash find a position that better fits his skills.

I was flying home from Minnesota and wanted a Dairy Queen Blizzard for breakfast before the flight. I thought long and hard about the purchase because it was dollars and calories. I knew they didn’t mix the goodies all the way through, but for some reason it was particularly insulting running out of goodies half way through the Blizzard with everyone on the plane drooling over my shoulder.

I’m happy to say Dairy Queen was very responsive to my note of displeasure and they sent me 10 DQ Dollars. Very good resolution Dairy Queen. Unfortunately, my fiancée at the time yanked up the DQ we bought with the DQ Dollars. Though, I didn’t write them again.

This is not quite a spoonerism, but after Millie yanked up the DQ, we started calling Dairy Queen the Queen of the Cows.

An organization I really love is the BBB. They are like a stick of dynamite with a short fuse. Or at least that is how most companies treat them. Being a normal, healthy American I like to protect my money and there have been several times when various companies have opposed me in this pursuit. Most companies trade you some service or product for your money; however, some are not so upright.

That is where the BBB comes in. When some junk yard didn’t want to return my money for the products I returned, I called the BBB. On my own, the mephitic junk yard strung me along for over 6 months. After I submitted to the BBB, I got a call the next day from the junk yard and the problem was fixed. Just like that, no 4-6 weeks for the credit to be posted, nothing.

Second story, was when my xBox needed to be repaired. Microsoft wanted to charge me $160 bucks to fix it because it was “out of warranty”. The thing was I had had it less than a year, the contest I won it from (Bioware’s yay our online community reached 2 million give-a-way) had it for a few months before they sent it to me. So the guy said he’d lower the price to $80, but since I didn’t put any money into it, I wasn’t going to pay for its repair.

I asked the nice man to forward me to their legal department. I explained the situation, and that I was going to file a complaint through the BBB. They politely took note and that was that. The next day, I get a call from Microsoft apologizing for the mix up and assuring me that I was still covered under warranty and that they would be fixing the problem free of charge.

The other day, some friends of mine were researching the rumor that someone had found a cure for HIV/AIDS. After reading the Wikipedia entry on it, he went on to some news site that had written a story about it.

They are not marketing nerds, so I was a little disappointed when my exclamation and finger pointing at the advertisement fell on deaf ears.

Someone was not doing their job and let the advertising they spent good money on denigrate Johnson & Johnson’s K-Y Jelly. Who thought K-Y would be good to associate with HIV/AIDS?

This just goes to show how thorough you have to be in building your brand. Marketers who think they can just throw money out will find themselves hurting themselves unexpectedly. Maybe they thought, “Since some prince in Africa has cured AIDS, people will be buying more K-Y!”

Last year I used TurboTax to file my taxes, however, this year, TurboTax was a tetchy $50 bucks! TaxCut was only $30 and I was persuaded.

Round one is off to a great start. I have found TaxCut to be just as good so far. The biggest thing I’ve noticed is how poorly the spoken voice is performed. Millie Could do a lot better. Anyway, I just need a few more forms to be delivered and I should be finished.

Interesting fact about Florida that I did not know before moving here, is that we do not have a state tax. SWEET!

I feel like I am becoming an expert in SEM. I have learned that the average person with 12 months of website analytics gets over $78,000. Wowza! Internet marketing is still growing because you can get the ROI on your marketing efforts – ROMI if you will.

Why do I feel like an expert? Reading blogs. Adage, Search Engine Watch, Web Analytics Association, etc. I also came across http://www.semmys.org/ which I need to check out further.

I have also started offering some advice to some small web projects on how to improve their web presents. It is largess I know, but how else was I going to get a Dictionary.com word of the day into this blog?