The Tin Lizard

Superbowl Moves The Ho-Hum

We watched the Superbowl.  That in itself is worth mentioning, since my wife and I otherwise have little interest in watching sports on TV.  But a few years ago we decided to get in synch with the quintessentially American phenomenon by watching one; we decided on champagne and popcorn as the "fare," and actually found it was kind of fun to watch one game - supposedly the best one - a year.  Years have gone by (that first one was so long ago it was in January, not February; and also was before people started to watch the 'bowl "for the commercials"); and we've changed the menu a little (now it's champagne, chips and guacamole) but we have kept that tradition ever since, gradually falling into the rut of a usually-boring game, a mediocre half-time show, and some occasionally humorous ads. 

What struck me about the 46th iteration this year was that, in contrast to most recent years, the game itself was the attention-getter, with a close match between the Boston and New York that went right down to the wire.  Those famous expensive commercials this year became the bore, demonstrating far less originality than in the past, as many of them stuck to the same old shticks - polar bears, bimbos, talking babies, and the like.  The half-time show looked to be one of those things for which you "had to be there" - if you saw it in person you might get caught up in the moment, but watching at home, it's just a lot of noise and flashing lights; you can kind of watch the money being burned. 

The other point I found interesting was the tendency for politics to creep in.  Some saw politics in Clint Eastwood's message.  I watched his soliloquy, and thought it might be political, probably because it was just a talking head; yet listening to it, I didn't detect anything overtly political.  I've heard some reports that it was actually a commercial for Chrysler (?) but I never heard Chrysler mentioned, so I assume not.  If Eastwood meant it to be political, he cleverly made it fuzzy enough that it might be taken as positive by either major party. 

On the other hand, the mayors of New York and Boston did a joint appearance to brief their take on the second Amendment to the Constitution and its public-safety ramifications.  That shouldn't be political, either, but it is these days, and I thought they made the most of the exposure.  Will this camel's nose of liberal consciousness edge farther into the tent of NASCAR America, or will there be a move next year to ban overtly political messages?  Curiously, I haven't seen anyone comment publicly on this spot.  It's very possible it didn't even register with a lot of people. 

Does Penney's Have It Right?

The venerable J.C. Penney department store chain, according to its new CEO and its advertisements in my morning paper, is going to try a new tack with regard to "sales."  The idea isn't too well explained in print, but a television version makes it a little clearer.  Rather than having constant daily, weekly, and seasonal sales as certain other stores tend to do, Penney's is, they say, going to just put everything at its lowest price (40% off) all the time.

It sounds as if it could make sense, but even leaving aside the question I'm always suspicious of (40% off of what, exactly?), the new scheme already seems to offer some confusing variations.  They've said, for example, that there will be three different types of tags - the regular tag shows that 40%-off "rock bottom" price, but a second color of tag would indicate even lower prices on certain clearance items, while yet a third color tag would show prices on items that are offered on "seasonal" sales.  The seasonal part, in particular, would appear to put us right back in the frequent-sales game.

Time will tell.  One place where Penney's may make inroads is if all merchandise really is discounted.  One of the enervating experiences of shopping in some other department stores (competitor Macy's comes to mind) is that the discount coupon you got in the mail or online has such a long list of fine-print exceptions on brands and types of merchandise that it's really difficult to figure out what's truly on sale.  (Usually, not much!)    If Penney's can rid us of this practice, they will have done consumers a favor.

Expanding Website Naming Suffixes

In business and in politics, it seems the obvious explanations are often overlooked by journalists, either from naivete or - more likely I think - from a deliberate effort to keep the story going.

Such is the case, I think, with the plans announced by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN - that's mumbo-jumbo for the outfit that controls the naming of internet domains, websites, and such) to greatly expand the number and type of available "top-level domains".  More explanation: TLDs are the three letters after the dot, as in ".com" or ".edu", sometimes also referred to as "suffixes" (but not simply as "domains" as the writer mistakenly claims). 

Our intrepid reporter here duly quotes ICANN to the effect that the expansion will "promote innovation," as well as critics of the move who claim that it will more likely promote confusion.   So, like big oil companies which publicly scoff at profit and promote themselves as creators of jobs and friends of the environment, ICANN is just looking to serve the public interest.   I think critics have the better argument.

It's true that ICANN is nominally a non-profit organization.  But its livelihood clearly depends upon the companies that sell and register website names, and increasingly offer hosting and site-creation services as well.   There used to be only a couple of such authorized registrars; now there are dozens.  And now that every company and entity in the world already has a website, demand for names is probably down. 

How could business be pumped up?   Well, it's been pointed out that many existing companies may very well want to buy up alternate versions of their name (for example, WidgetCo might have Widgetco.com, but might want to block others from creating similar-sounding websites like Widgetco.usa or Widgetco.edu).  That's particularly true for the planned ".xxx" suffix, which would denote pornography and the like.  There's already evidence that these .xxx suffixes are being preemptively snapped up.  That's lots of dollars headed into the coffers for website names that will forever remain blank.

Following the money gives a strong hint that the main effort is to create an artificial demand.   Why expand the available suffixes so dramatically when there is no visible surge of interest in them?  Apparently,"because ICANN."  It's business as usual.     

 

Old King Coal For Pres

Busy with other projects this week, I've scarcely had time to glance at a newspaper or even online reports.  The news is really the fodder (and come to think of it the mudder too) for most blogs, so I haven't written much.

Still, I usually catch at least a few minutes of television news with my morning coffee, so I found out that the Coalition for Clean Coal is the latest economic sector to spin off a new business endeavor, that of opposing those nasty ol' "job-killing" regulations.  This time, Old King Coal is telling you in no uncertain terms that you should make your voice heard with the EPA, which is rushing (Coal's term, not mine) costly regulations that are intended to reduce noxious emissions but that will (you guessed it) cost jobs!

Actually I doubt that some of these regulations can possibly be rushed too much.  Climate change is a fact; so is the increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; likewise ozone emissions... the list goes on.   And all of these are matters that have the potential to seriously vitiate modern civilization as we know it, or even to make life on this planet unsustainable.   Undue haste to set limits?  I think not.

Even if time were not of the essence, however, I'm struck by this prime example of an industry unable to see its future clearly.  The U.S. automobile industry was in this mode and it could be argued that, absent government intervention, they still would be, with the buggies they make on the verge of following buggy-whips down the road to industrial oblivion.  Now, American carmakers seem to have found new purpose and energy, though they're not out of the woods yet.

The coal mining sector is a similar such case:  Rooted in past perceptions, failing to adapt, unwilling to change, certain they know what's "good for the USA," ignoring basic issues of worker safety, unable to think of doing business any other way than just the way they've been doing it for 100 years.  Or so it seems.  Possibilities exist for positive change, and other basic energy/utilities have begun to adopt them in varying degrees, but coal so far doesn't seem open to adaptation. 

The trouble (for the coal companies) is that an industry that can't see profound exogenous changes looming ahead, and devise a strategy to deal with them, is likely to be a dying industry.  Failure to adapt is a form of corporate suicide.  Coal is not yet completely unthinkable as a fuel; it remains plentiful and relatively cheap in the U.S.; but if the industry continues to drag its feet, coal could indeed fall so far behind other energy sources that it just wouldn't catch up.  In what insane world does an outfit calling itself the "American Coalition for Clean Coal" seek to delay the adoption of clean coal technology?   

Retailers See The Light

There was a brief glimmer of euphoria among retailers when "Black Friday" produced unexpectedly robust sales.  Now, however, just a few days later, rosy predictions about the coming Christmas season are giving way to doubts. 

In part, this is the usual retailer handwringing.  In January, when it comes time to assess the results of the holiday shopping season, they are never satisfied:  If sales were lower than expected, they groan about that; but if sales set records, they still complain that the growth wasn't as much as they had hoped, or that it should have been more.

This year, the plaintive assessments seem to be starting earlier, but there is also something new.  From the article linked above: "several industry experts said Black Friday is turning into a black hole, sucking up sales from the weeks surrounding the big day."  Some chains are suggesting that people are just waiting for the big bargains and aren't shopping at other times.  Not only were stores empty in the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving, but they now fear they'll remain empty in December, as people maxed out last weekend.

Gee, do you think?  To me it just stands to reason that as consumers come to expect the constant and predictable pattern of gigantic discounts, free shipping, and other deals, they aren't going to shop when no such deals are on offer.  They'll just wait until the next sale.  How astute of the retail giants to have figured that out!  Perhaps before too long they'll get around to the realization that a business model in which you never turn a profit until the 12th month of the year is somehow flawed.  

CTIA To Reduce Deficit

Were you disappointed that the "supercommittee" didn't come up with a plan to cut spending before Thanksgiving?  Well, you shouldn't have been!  It was pretty much a foregone conclusion.  Even in the heydey of bipartisan cooperation (whenever that may have been), it would have been an extremely difficult task.  In today's divisive political climate, it was downright impossible.

But all is not lost!  It turns out that our friends in commerce and industry are ready to ride to the rescue.  This self-sacrificing spirit in the for-profit sector is not new.  The oil and gas industry (and their "people" have been telling us for months they will create millions of jobs if we just don't tax them, and open still more areas for their drilling.  Then came AT&T, which was going to create 96,000 (!) jobs if only they were allowed to merge with T-Mobile.

That was then, when jobs were on everybody's mind.  With the failure of the supercommittee, however, the problem of the hour is the deficit, so the CTIA (i.e. the wireless communications industry), which already gave us "freedom," is prepared to throw itself into the breach and help reduce the deficit.  How?  Well, if only we will devote more broadband spectrum to them, they'll sell more phones and thus pay more taxes, contributing to bringing down the deficit.

Sure they will.  

Brookstone Against DST? I Wish!

One of the few ads that escaped my spam filter lately was from Brookstone.  The subject line said "Forget Daylight Savings Time" [sic].  I opened it, realizing that despite appearances, it probably was not meant to discourage people from seeking bargains during daylight hours, and hoping against hope it might be devoted to the many reasoned arguments against the idiocy of Daylight Saving Time [no "s"].

No such luck, of course.  They're selling a tabletop clock that automatically adjusts itself to the semiannual shifts, so you don't have to.   You the customer will have to decide whether this convenience is worth seventy bucks plus shipping.  You may also be tempted to wonder about the item's quality, considering they're also offering an extended one-year warranty on it for a mere $10 more.

Well, I must credit Brookstone - life hands us the DST lemon, and they are making lemonade and selling it dear.  Meanwhile, for the past several weeks (and for two more until November 6, when we finally get relief from the yoke of Congressional time) I've had to postpone my morning exercise for an hour or more until it's light enough for me to see I'm not putting my foot into a pothole that will break my ankle.  I hope Brookstone will get in touch again when they've got a device that will recapturer that lost time.

Desperation in Cheezit Land

Once upon a time, there was a pair of Cheez-Its.  There was Big Cheez-It, a little older, and Little Cheez-It.   They got married and started a family.  They had a son, Hot-and-Spicy Cheez-It.   For a long time, that was the Cheez-It family story.  But they wanted more.   Big took viagra; Little took fertility drugs; and before long, the family started growing -- FAST!   There was Swiss Cheez-It, Pepper Jack Cheez-It, Colby Cheez-It, and even White Cheddar Cheez-It.  

Makers of industrial foods seem to believe that if a brand is successful, you can make more money by producing more and more versions of it in different colors, flavors, or other attributes.  Sometimes it works.  Sometimes it doesn't.  

Lately the Cheez-It brand of snack crackers has gone that route.  It smacks of desperation to me.  The original product is an OK snack with a very mild cheese taste, and I enjoy the "hot and spicy" ones.  But really, how distinguishable can all these new versions really be?  A taste-test between white cheddar and orange cheddar?  The mind boggles.  I tried pepper jack and confirmed to my satisfaction that a Cheez-It is still a Cheez-It.  There's not "a dime's worth of difference" between them, as one politician used to say about the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates years ago.  (I think it was George Wallace?)

Underlying the flood-the-market strategy is the fight for supermarket shelf space.  If you have 12 "different" products, rather than just one, you have more eyeball exposure.  But it helps if they really are different.  The downside can be consumer confusion, or drawoff of customers from the original product to a host of others, without much increase in the overall customer base.

I speculate that these new versions aren't selling too well and most, if not all of them, are about to be axed.   Or maybe that's just wishful thinking - after all, I've noticed that the three most common adjectives in manufactured food ads are "mild," "creamy," and "sweet."   These Cheez-Its are category leaders in "mild."  The only one that stands out as different is the "hot and spicy," but - as if to prove my point - that one is hard to find on supermarket shelves.

    

Normal Bleeding

A recent commercial message for a pharmaceutical potion warns that if you experience "abnormal bleeding," you should consult a doctor.  This begs the question:  What would "normal bleeding" be?   Wouldn't you interpret most bleeding as "abnormal"?  Does this mean there are people who bleed all the time and might have to be on the lookout for an unexpected uptick in their bleeding?    

How Many Nuggets Does A Chicken Have?

If you doubt that advertisers of mass market products think we're all idiots, read this:

Overheard recently in an ad for one of the many chicken fast-food joints (can't recall which one):

"What part of the chicken is 'nuggets'?  We don't make nuggets."

Nope, no nuggets.  It turns out they make ... POPCORNS!  This clarifies everything.  Everybody knows a chicken has four popcorns... there is one behind each ear, and one at each elbow.  And they're way better than nuggets.