March 31, 2007
ffff…
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[Bonus Link:] My favorite band at the moment is Mice Parade.
Hugh MacLeod
I'm a cartoonist.
I sell limited-edition prints.
I wrote a book.
I'm CEO of Stormhoek USA, which markets South African wine in the States.
I also draw private commissions.
Prints |
Opening | Current |
|---|---|---|
NY NY |
$275 |
Archive for March, 2007
bob the cab driver [update]
One of my favorite gapingvoid posts, from September, 2004:
Bob The Cab Driver.
About once a week, I have to catch the late train home. Bob the cab driver always meets me the at station and drives me to my house.
Bob’s got what Seth Godin calls ‘The Free Prize’. He’s got what Tom Peters calls “The Wow! Factor”. He’s got something I like that no other cab driver has. It might be his jovial manner, it might be I like the fact his car is colored red. It might be the fact that he’s very reliable. The reason doesn’t matter so much. Regardless, Bob gets my business 100% of the time. When he can’t make it I let his brother pick me up instead, but that doesn’t happen too often. I call no other cab service but Bob’s. There are a lot of cab companies where I live. Cab driving is a pretty commodified business. But I call Bob. Every time. I like Bob.
And the minute he pisses me off for whatever reason I’ll find another cab driver I like just as much.
I suppose the point I was making here is, sometimes the issue isn’t about your product. The issue is about you.
[Afterthought:] Sometimes you’re sitting in a boring meeting, and a person utterly devoid of personality is blethering on about “Brand Personality”, and you just want to slap the guy…
exactly.
Salient point from Shotgun Marketing:
“When you list marketing as step #14 out of 16 steps, it’s no wonder so many startups fail”.
March 30, 2007
the week wine club
One of Stormhoek’s customers, Harper Wells, is now running The Week Wine Club, the wine club of the popular British news magazine, The Week. It launches today.
If you join you will automatically be entered into a competition to win a wine connoisseur package of fine wine, glassware, storage etc, worth £6000. Offer open to any UK resident aged 18 or over.
A lot of major “upscale” publications have wine clubs in this country, including the national daily papers. I believe The Sunday Times wine club has about 250,000 members alone.
Anyway, good luck to them. Hope they sell some Stormhoek.
March 29, 2007
buying space in someone else’s brain is far harder than buying space in someone else’s media
How Weiden & Kennedy lost some Nike business– From Brand Republic:
Some interesting speculation from AdAge on why Nike has decided to expand its creative agency roster and begin moving some pieces of business away from W+K:
A crucial factor is Nike’s intent to build on the stunning success of its interactive ventures…
…including the Nike ID website created by R/GA and the company’s partnership with Apple for the Nike+iPod, which has virtually transformed running and demonstrated how a brand can market itself by offering something useful to a community rather than just communicating its assets.
The italics are mine. I put them there for a good reason. Behold the future of advertising etc. Buying space in someone else’s brain is far harder than buying space in someone else’s media etc etc.
[Nice follow-up from Rik:]
And it shows once more that marketing should be built into your product from the start, rather than slapped on afterwards in the from of advertising. The same can be said for design. And branding. These things should not be an afterthought, but built into your product right from its birth.
March 28, 2007
blue monster bizcards
The Blue Monster is starting to make it onto Microosoft business cards. Jeff Henshaw explains:
Yesterday I met some new folks from Microsoft UK, and as we talked about one of the things I’m working on now, we got to talking about the potential for significant impact that new ideas can have. This led to her business card, which I loved so much that I wanted to share it…
The virus spreads etc.
just in case crack wasn’t addictive enough.…
You JUST KNOW the Twitter junkies are going to love this:
“Twittervision is a browser app using Google Maps to show Twitter comments as they happen in (more or less) real time.”
Thanks to Zardos over at Metafilter for the link.
March 27, 2007
the blog post I hoped I’d never have to write…
What happened to Kathy Sierra, an utterly glowing gem in the blogosphere, and a really good buddy to me over the years, utterly horrified me.
Rachel Clarke sums it up well:
What the fuck is going on? Why does this happen again and again. The only people I know (in real life or virtually) who have been threatened and stalked have been women. What insecure, small mindedness, misogynistic behaviour takes over people to do things like this. Over 50% of the blogosphere are women, yet we continually get the refrain that they are not A-list, that they are not speaking at conferences. This is why. Put yourself out there, show that there is no difference and you get the anger and vitriol poring out from people from people who think they are better just because they have a Y chromosome.
This is why I have no trouble whatsoever deleting anonymous comments, at least, the mean-spirited ones. Identity matters. If people don’t feel the need to be held personally accountable for their words, if people don’t feel that what they say or do should bear any real-world consequences, then I don’t want to talk to them.
Here’s hoping Dear Kath is back in the saddle again, sooner than later. Kathy, we love you. Rock on.
[Follow the story on Techmeme.]
[UPDATE:] Robert Scoble left the following comment below:
The problem, Hugh, is that some people involved in meankids.org DO have identities. Let’s start with Christopher Locke. He just wrote on his blog in defense of his part in Meankids.org.
But I just saw for the first time what they wrote about Maryam. Totally, totally, vile and hurtful things. We’re both quite hurt and pissed about it.
I demand a public apology from ALL involved.
They certainly are NOT my friends.
Apparently these MeanKids folk were taking the occasional pop at me as well. Mommy! Mommy! Come quick! A posse of middle aged, self-loathing underachievers is being mean to me Boo hoo hoo hoo…
[Afterthought:] Highschool Metaphor: “OK, so you weren’t the actual jock who raped the cheerleader. But it seems you were in the posse circling them, chanting ‘Go go go go go go go…’ “
Or am I missing something?
March 26, 2007
advertising 2.0 does not exist
I’ve been having a lot of advertising-related conversations recently. Here are some thoughts that keep popping up:
1. There will always be a market for somebody who can sell your stuff better than you can. Advertising 2.0 does not exist. Marketing 2.0 does not exist. Whatever new tech and media comes along, this simple truth remains.
2. It takes at least nine months to conceive and launch a full-on, mainstream Madison Avenue ad campaign. Nine months is a long time, if you ask me. The world changes faster than that. No wonder Madison Avenue is so damn unhappy all the time.
3. I find both Saatchi’s “Lovemarks” and its sequel, “The Lovemarks Effect” [links here] utterly unreadable. Together they form a shallow and vapid tragicomedy, of sorts. Which is a pity, because on another level I quite agree with Saatchi CEO, Kevin Roberts central Lovemarks thesis, i.e. that Love is what drives our new marketing realities. And he obviously an extremely smart and capable guy. But what started out as a great idea from a lone individual has been utterly butchered by the grim realities of his employer’s already-existing business model.
4. Have you also noticed how on the cover of “The Love Marks Effect”, there’s a picture of all these small metal cookie cutters, shaped like love hearts? What are you saying, Guys? “Cookie Cutter Love”? I know. Unfortunate. Sad. Comic. All that.
5. Saatchi & Saatchi: “We’re not an ad agency, we’re an ideas business.” Right. Oh well, I’m sure they’re trying to get there one day. Maybe they’ll succeed. Who knows.
6. So a lot of clients have been recently asking their ad agencies, “So what can you do for us in Web 2.0?” And the agencies have been replying, “Lots! Lots and lots and lots and lots!” Bullshit. Ad agencies have so far been hopeless in this space. I don’t know of ONE SINGLE piece of work coming out of a traditional ad agency in the last five years that has been even halfway original, thought provoking or effective. Captain Morgan’s? Beyond lame. Juicy Fruit? Beyond lame on steroids. Glenfiddich? A missed opportunity.
7. Bartle Bogle Hegarty, the very fine London ad agency, used to pitch their clients, “We makes brands famous”. Right. Like movie stars. Like celebs. Like the guys getting out of the limos and walking down the red carpet. Like the ones who get all the money and invites to the fancy parties. While the rest of us stand behind the velvet rope out in the cold, looking in with longing. Great. Super. Lucky us.
8. I am totally with Mark Earls, who in his seminal book, “Death of Marketing”, wrote, to paraphrase: The word “Brand” is a very silly one. It’s pretty meaningless. Instead, ask yourself what your enterprise is actually for. Define yourself in terms of an actual “Purpose-Idea” [I love that term, which he coined btw], instead of an abstract object. Think verb, instead of noun.
9. The good news for Google Adsense is, it seems to work. Or at least, it seems to do what it says it does. The bad news is, if it’s the only game in town, its monopoly on a certain type of advertising [the type that requires relatively little thought, basically] means with so many people joining the throng with nowhere else to go, Hello, obscene price rises etc.
10. Live by SEO, die by SEO.
11. I’ve never flown on Jet Blue, I’ve never seen a Jet Blue commercial, I’ve never been on their website. But I know all about Jet Blue, and think highly of it. Why? Because bloggers I know are always talking about it. This is exactly what Seth Godin means by “remarkable” i.e. People. Like. Talking. About. It. If you happen to have a unremarkable product, I suppose you have no choice but to do a remarkable ad campaign, like Crispin Porter’s “Burger King” campaign. That is, if your boss or client will let you. Which is unlikely.
12. If somebody looks like they’re trying to impress you with their “future of advertising” credentials, ask them if they they themselves have their own blog. If they don’t, they’re full of it. It’s a good acid test. Just my opinion.
March 25, 2007
thank god there’s a texan
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does everybody think you’re an idiot
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control the conversation
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March 23, 2007
thought for the day.…
When somebody asks, “How does this social media stuff scale”, they really mean, “How do I become a spammer?“
[Based on a conversation I had today with Euan Semple.]
“we are t.v.”
Great speech from Jeff Jarvis. Here’s the video. Here are the notes.
But we’ve just begun. In the evolution of the new TV, this is 1954: Arthur Godfrey and Friends, My Little Margie, the Adventures or RinTinTin. That was not the golden age of TV. TV then sucked. But it got better. So will ours.
And this means we have a great opportunity to reinvent TV from scratch in an entirely new medium with a new relationship with our public, new creative standards, new means of production and distribution, new economic models. We can nurture an explosion of creativity and commerce. But we have to do it right.
thresher update
The Thresher Virus 2.0 begins to kick into gear… [SFX: Evil Laugh.]
[DOWNLOAD THRESHER’S 40%-OFF COUPON HERE.]
“shouldn’t have kept you waiting…”
Loyal Kotakuite John just got home from the PS3 launch at Virgin in London. Seems there were around 50 or so people there for the bash, but in the midst of a cold, British night, conditions weren’t ideal. Luckily, some friendly chaps were on-hand giving out free camping chairs to the tired, would-be customers [with the words, “Shouldn’t have kept you waiting”, and a corresponding website address, shkyw.org printed on the back].
How thoughtful. Until you actually visit the URL.
Cheeky bastards.
[Disclosure: My friends at Edelman were behind this one. Yes, the chairs are colored green for a reason.]
March 22, 2007
cool brands…
I was looking through the Edelman site earlier today, and the whole time a line from a conversation I had with a friend the other day kept popping into my head:
If you want to have a cool brand, you have to do cool shit.
I don’t think I can put it any simpler than that.
P.S. It was also said in the conversation, “Oh yeah, and you’re not the one who gets to decide what’s cool or not…”
copyblogger
Copyblogger [Brian Clark] notes that I never link to him. Maybe this will shut him up 
March 21, 2007
thresher virus 2.0
[DOWNLOAD COUPON HERE.]
So here it is: The Stormhoek-Thresher Coupon 2.0.
40% Off any wine in any Thresher store for the next week [N.B. Thresher’s is the the largest specialist wine retailer in the UK].
We did Version 1.0 last Christmas, and generated £15 million of sales for Thresher, one of our big clients. Not to mention, it made the national news. So now that Easter has come along…
Unlike last time time, however we put a little Stormhoek branding on the top. That’s the shameless advertising hack in me etc.
Anyway, feel free to download coupon and blog it and/or e-mail it to as many people as you like. Thanks.
[UPDATE: The link was broken for about a half-hour. Fixed now. Thanks.]
edelman talk
Edelman have kindly asked me to come to their London office today and give a talk about blogs and post-Cluetrain reality for one of their clients. Here are my notes:
SETUP:
1. I’m not here to tell you about your business. You already know it’s a jungle out there. You already how hard it is to fight out there, just to earn a few pennies on the dollar. You don’t need me reminding you of that. What I would like to do, however, is pass along what I’ve learned from blogging, and explain where I think it can help your cause.
2. To me, The Cluetrain is the most important book about the internet ever written. Why? Because it was the first book that talked about the internet the way it REALLY is– i.e. people talking– as opposed to the way business and the media pretend it is– i.e. people buying.
A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter — and getting smarter faster than most companies.
I’ll be blunt: In marketing terms, I don’t think anyone can truly understand the internet until AFTER they’ve read The Cluetrain. Highly recommended.
3. Nobody cares about you. That last sentence terrifies a lot of corporate types. We grew up thinking corporations and the media was all-powerful. That all a guy in a suit needed to do was snap his fingers, buy some TV commercials, and suddenly the masses would line up in droves, begging to buy your product. Seth Godin calls this old world the “TV-Industrial Complex”. Those days are over. We’ve got too many choices. We are over-programmed and oversupplied with great choices already. In the future, the companies that will win are those that can rise above the clutter. To rise above the clutter you have to offer something remarkable; something worth talking about. A great, award-winning TV ad campaign for a lousy product won’t cut it any more. People have gotten too smart. And like The Cluetrain says, thanks to the internet, they’re talking to each other.
4. You’ve already done “efficient”. We’re living in a post-efficiency world now. We already know how to make things better, cheaper and faster than the previous generation. We already know how to squeeze our suppliers till the pips squeak. We already know how to build systems that maximize profits at every stage of the production and selling process. We’re already outsourcing our stuff to China, and so is everyone else. Been there. Done that. So where does the growth need to come from? What needs to happen, in order to save your job?
THESIS:
5. The growth will come, I believe, not by yet more increased efficiencies, but by humanification. For example, take two well-known airlines. They both perform a useful service. They both deliver value. They both cost about the same to fly to New York or Hong Kong. Both have nice Boeings and Airbuses. Both serve peanuts and drinks. Both serve “airline food”. Both use the same airports. But one airline has friendly people working for them, the other airline has surly people working for them. One airline has a sense of fun and adventure about it, one has a tired, jaded business-commuter vibe about it. Guess which one takes the human dimension of their business more seriously than the other? Guess which one still will be around in twenty years? Guess which one will lose billions of dollars worth of shareholder value over the next twenty years? What parallels do you see in your own industry? In your own company?
6. If corporate blogs work, it’s because they help humanify the company. I wrote about this earlier in an article I called “The Porous Membrane”. To paraphrase: Ideally, you want the conversation between customers [the external market] to be as identical as the conversation between yourselves [the internal market]. The things that your customer is passionate about, you should also be passionate about. This we call “alignment”. A good example would be Apple. The people at Apple think the iPod is cool, and so do their customers. They are aligned.
When you are no longer aligned with your customers is when the company starts getting into trouble. When you start saying your gizmo is great and your customers are telling everybody it sucks, then you have serious misalignment.
So how do you keep misalignment from happening?
The answer lies the cultural membrane that separates you from them. The more porous the membrane, the easier it is for conversations between you and them, the internal and external, to happen. The easier for the conversations on both sides to adjust to the other, to become like the other.
And nothing pokes holes in the membrane better than blogging.
7. Blogging is not about reaching a mass audience. Blogging is not about creating yet another sales channel. Blogging is about allowing “The Smarter Conversation” to happen.
Why do some companies lose, while other companies win? Because the latter has a smarter “conversation” with its customers. Pret-A-Manger has a smarter conversation about food than Burger King. Starbuck’s came along 20 years ago and began a smarter conversation about coffee with millions of people within a very short space of time. Wal-Mart’s massive growth started from a smarter conversation about prices. Savile Row tailor, Thomas Mahon came along and, with his blog, had a smarter conversation about $4000 English bespoke suits.
Blogs allow you to cheaply and quickly begin a smarter conversation. And once you get it going, that conversation starts bleeding out into all other areas of your business– including advertising, PR and corporate communications.
8. Having a “Smarter Conversation” is not an intellectual decision. It’s a moral decision.
9. Just because the conversation started out smart, doesn’t mean it stayed that way. You have to keep evolving your conversation to keep it interesting. I always tell people, “Blogs don’t write themselves.” This is hardest part of blogging: keeping the mojo going.
WRAP-UP:
10. A fairly comprehensive list of corporate blogs can be found here on Wikipedia. [UPDATE: The Wikipedia list seems to have been taken down; but thankfully there’s another list here.] For example: even though I know very little about Sun Microsystems, I read their CEO, Jonathan Schwartz’s blog pretty regularly. So now I have a pretty positive image of Sun. So the trick then becomes, how does one take this little piece of generated goodwill, and turn it into something bigger? That answer goes back to the “Smarter Conversation”. Blogs train you to speak to people the way they should be spoken to, simply because you won’t get a response otherwise. And once you learn that, you can start applying it to all aspects of your businesses.
11. Blogs are very culturally disruptive– more so than people realize. So the question you have to ask yourself is, what part of your business are you trying to disrupt? Because you have to be ready for it.
12. “Conversation” is just a metaphor. Then again, no it’s not.
13. Here are some links to give you some food for thought:
A. Robert Scoble’s Corporate Blog Manifesto. Required reading.
B. Jeff Jarvis made blogging history when he blogged negatively about Dell Computers. Once the dust settled Dell started a blog of their own. Smart move.
C. Mark Cuban’s Blog Maverick is a textbook case of how a CEO ought to blog.
D. Microsoft’s Steve Clayton is as good an example of a mid-level employee blogging on his company’s behalf as any I know. And to see a big list of Microsoft bloggers, go here.
E. Read everything Doc Searls writes. Shut up and just do it; the man’s a genius [Doc was one of the co-authors of The Cluetrain. I’m also a big fan of another Cluetrain co-author, David Weinberger, who also consults for Edelman].
14. Remember, our internal drives were hardwired into us long before money was invented. So we’re not doing it just for the money. We’re really doing it to find meaning. Just my opinion.
15. Thoughts from my day job: “What’s driving innovation and sales on our end is not a technological issue, it’s a cultural issue. Get the right culture going, and the tech looks after itself.“
16. I will leave you with the words of NYU Professor, Clay Shirky: “So forget about blogs and bloggers and blogging and focus on this– the cost and difficulty of publishing absolutely anything, by anyone, into a global medium, just got a whole lot lower. And the effects of that increased pool of potential producers is going to be vast.”
March 20, 2007
the soy luck club
When I was in New York recently I paid my first visit to the Soy Luck Club, which I was turned on to by my favorite passage in my favorite Seth Godin book, “All Marketers Are Liars”:
The Authenticity of the Soy Luck Club
My number one hangout in New York is a hard-to-find little coffee shop run by Vivian Cheng. The Soy Luck Club has fast, free internet access, organic oatmeal cookies, soy shakes and really good tea. They’ve got comfortable chairs, a great staff and just the right sort of atmosphere.
Most people on the street walk right on by and don’t even notice the Club. Others, though, pause, take a quick look at the menu and the layout and people inside and then walk in as though they own the place. They’ve figured out — almost instantly — that this is their sort of place. The frame of Vivian’s story matches their worldview and they’re sold before they even order anything.
How does she do it? I know Vivian well enough to tell you that it’s not an intentional gambit on her part. The luscious pressed whole wheat bagels with banana and soy butter aren’t on the menu because she’s trying to trick someone into thinking the place is healthy and funky. It’s there because Vivian likes it and is proud of it.
Fortunately for Vivian she doesn’t live in Indianapolis. In Indianapolis, she wouldn’t be able to run a thriving business that so beautifully matches her sensibilities. But in this neighborhood of New York, it’s perfect.
The Soy Luck Club is authentic in every way because it reflects who Vivian is and what sort of place she’d like to hang out in. So, how does she grow?
She could try to grow by persuading people who don’t care about ambience and healthy foods and fluffy couches that this place is better than Starbucks. She could grow by persuading people to eat more soy so they don’t have a heart attack. Neither approach stands a chance of working. People don’t want to change their minds.
Instead, Vivian is growing by reaching out to communities that will choose to pay attention, to individuals who have a worldview that will embrace the story she’s trying to tell. A block away, the Equinox health club gives out discount cards to the Soy Luck Club. The assumption (a correct one) is that people notice a discount card if it’s given to them by someone they trust. Even better, people who pay good money to work out in the middle of the winter are significantly more likely to want to believe in a story of healthy nutrition right around the corner. So it grows.
Of course, Vivian will really have a home run once her loyal customers start telling stories to their friends — friends who might not share the worldview but are eager to do something that others are doing, eager to hang out at a place beloved by their best friends. That’s how Starbucks succeeded and how the Soy Luck Club will as well.
As a marketer, I think there’s more useful stuff in that one passage than there is in most entire marketing books out there. So for the benefit of my readers, I’m re-publishing it. Thanks to Seth for kindly giving me permission.
P.S. Yes, the bagels do rock.
March 19, 2007
thesher 2.0
For those of you who may not remember, last December Stormhoek released an online voucher for 40% off any wine or champagne in any Thresher store. And it went viral. Besides making the national news, it generated £15million [Fifteen million pounds] of business for Thresher in only a few days. Besides that, it trebled Stormhoek sales for the time it was running [and not just in Thresher, but everywhere in the UK].
So yes, it was a good outcome. Which is why I want to do it again. Another good outcome is always welcome around here etc.
Sure, you could argue that Thresher virus was also a fluke. We had zero control over the outcome, all we did was post it online and see what would happen. But that’s why they’re called “viruses”: Because they’re unpredictable. If they were predictable, we’d call them something else.
Anyway, I pitched Jason on it already. He’s pretty skeptical that we can make it happen again– “Lightning never strikes twice” etc. But I’m thinking it might just work because:
1. There are a lot of people who already know about the last voucher. So there’s a level of baked-in “fame” already there.
2. There are already a lot of people out there who used the first voucher. They know what they got out of it, so they might be willing to use it again for similar reasons.
3. The people who missed it first time around might be willing to have a go this time.
In short, I think there are enough people out there wiling to have another go at redeeming the coupon one more time, even if this time the story isn’t as newsworthy to break into the mainstream media machine like it did last time.
Thoughts?
“how to be creative” animation
This is very cool. Some students made a 3-minute YouTube animation short, inspired by my “How To Be Creative” manifesto.
Blurb: “Motion design clip made by c-md students inspired by the “how to be creative” manifest by Hugh Macleod. (made by Toon Gorissen, Niek Kosten & Martijn Pillards).“
Thanks Toon, Niek and Martijn. It rocks!
back in london
My plane arrived in Heathrow about 2 hours ago.
Anyway, I uploaded a wee 10-minute YouTube video diary of my US travels– NY, Austin and Miami– for anyone who cares to see it. Enjoy.
[The YouTube permalink is here.]
March 18, 2007
tell me you love me
[This cartoon was drawn as a gift to Manola, at last Thursday’s Miami Geek dinner.]
goodbye, miami!
Off to the airport. In London tomorrow.
Anyone who wishes to reach me, I’ll be on my usual London number as of Monday morning:
+44 (0) 770 309 9462
I had a great trip, I have to say.
kathy sierra’s seven blogging virtues…
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I left the following comment over on this post:
“Gee, I work insane hours doing a job I hate, and yet am only just scraping by. How come nobody wants to read my blog?”
If what you want are lots of readers, I’d recommend instead making insane amount of money, working only two hours a day doing something you love, and shamelessly name-dropping your famous friends on a regular basis.
The fact that there are actual grownups blaming their lack of worldly success on other bloggers I find increasingly bizarre [Not with Tony’s post per se, just in general etc]. It’s like someone blaming their lack of success on other people’s ability to send and receive e-mails. It implies to me a fundamental lack of understanding how the medium ACTUALLY works.
Seriously, instead of wasting time participating in a non-event that’s going nowhere fast, maybe try this instead: The best advice for building a successful blog and/or global microbrand that I’ve heard recently was Kathy Sierra’s “Seven Blogging Virtues” that she gave at our panel last week at SXSW. You can check out the PDF here.
Hope it helps.
March 17, 2007
get the right culture going, and the tech looks after itself
So I’ve been working for the Stormhoek winery just shy of two years. Here are my tasting notes:
1. Two years ago I asked the rhetorical question, “Why shouldn’t a small wine company see people like Google, Microsoft or Apple as their competition? Why should the conversation be only limited to other small wineries? It makes no sense.” At the time, it seemed a really ‘out there’ thing to be asking. Not any more.
2. Stormhoek sold forty thousand cases in 2005.
3. This month we’ll ship forty thousand cases. At least.
4. Do the math.
5. It was the Stormhoek blog that put us on the map. But it took 2 years of hard graft for it to turn into sales on a massive scale.
6. Two years ago, I estimated that a well-executed Web 2.0 marketing plan would take about two years to execute. In retrospect, that was a pretty good call.
7. Yes, I understand that not everybody has two years to play with. Some people are only as good as their last financial quarter. But that is why I work for a small, private company. If Stormhoek was owned by Wall Street, I’d be dead meat.
8. Comparing a good 2003 Bordeaux with a good 2003 Burgundy is not much different than knowing who won the 1992 Superbowl, versus who won the 1985 Superbowl. The intellectual barriers to entry are actually quite low. The people who pretend otherwise are weak and pathetic.
9. My mother, in her day, was a very successful businesswoman in the IT sector. Her best line ever was “Have you hugged your customer today?” I wish there were hundreds of clones of me, all out there on the road, giving customers metaphorical daily hugs.
10. One thing that the Tesco road trip nailed for me: Most wine is bought by ordinary folk. Most of them are women. Most choose the wine because they like the label. Most couldn’t give a hoot about ‘terroir’ or country of origin. Most won’t spend more than $10. And that, my friends, is the market I am in. Sure, the male-dominated, over-fifty-dollar “snob” market might be a good wee business to be in for some folk, but be warned: it’s a surprisingly tiny niche.
11. One thing you learn fast in this business: Supply is not the issue. Whether you’re talking two dollars or two hundred dollars a bottle, the world is FLOODED with great choices, from every wine-producing country in the world. Unless you have an outstanding product at the price point you’re selling at, you’re in serious trouble.
12. Because the average customer has so many great choices [too many, some would argue] the trick to this game is to rise above the clutter. The way to do that is to build meaningful brands that connect to people in real-world ways. Anything else is business suicide. Sadly, too many winemakers only learn this the hard way, AFTER they’ve sunk $20 million and ten years of their lives into the enterprise.
13. Stormhoek has 15 people working for it in its global HQ in London. We’re tiny. A lot of the wine businesses doing the same number of cases as ours will have fifty to a hundred people on the payroll. So if I ever look a bit frazzled and burnt-out to you, now you know why.
14. We can make this as lucrative and as intellectually stimulating as we want to. The ball is in our court.
15. It took two years, but Stormhoek is finally starting to feel like working for a Silicon Valley startup. Everyone is really pumped up. Contrast this with the average staid, boring schtick of your average “gentlemanly” wine business.
16. What’s driving innovation and sales on our end is not a technological issue, it’s a cultural issue. Get the right culture going, and the tech looks after itself.
17. When I started working in the advertising business as a young buck in London, back in the late 1980s, Bartle Bogle Hegarty were considered the best game in town, even if they were not the biggest agency. Every young advertising student aspired to have a gig there one day, everyone daydreamed of one day having John Hegarty return their calls. The were considered the Praetorian Guard. Within two years from now, I want every smart, driven young person in the wine trade to be thinking the same way about us. That to me would be a far more worthy definition of “success”, than how many cases we sell.
love and goodwill
Thanks to Alex de Carvalho and all the Miami bloggers for the great geek dinner we had on Thursday night. I was touched to be so well looked after by so many smart, friendly people.
One thing that has been occurring to me over this entire US trip: To an outside observer, especially to a cynical outside observer, the whole Web 2.0/blogging thing may look a bit strange: a lot of pyjama-clad weirdos obsessing into the wee hours about A-Lister backscratching and Technorati rankings.
But on the front lines, it seems to me there’s something far more interesting going on. The vast, vast, vast majority of good bloggers I know are not doing it for links and cash, but for simple more primal reasons: the need to connect. The need to love.
Love and goodwill are driving this revolution. The selfish will be left behind.
March 15, 2007
back in miami…
[Miami Beach– the view from the condo.]
Arrived back in Miami last night after a very heady 3 days at SXSW in Austin, Texas. Here’s some thoughts on the event, in no particular order:
1. It’s the first time I’d been back in Austin since 1999. For those of you who don’t know, I attended Univeristy of Texas there in the 1980’s, so I know the town well. It was a lot nicer than I remember it… I think that has more to do with me changing, than it changing etc.
2. Back in college I used to draw cartoons for The Austin Chronicle. This cartoon here, which this website was named after, appeared there in 1987.
3. Two days ago I had a lovely lunch with Robert Scoble and a couple of other friends. Ariel Waldman, one of my favorite bloggers at the moment was also with us, and took some photos.
4. I have to say, the panel I was on went better than I expected. It was the first time I met the other people on it– Dave, Gabe and Kathy, in the flesh. Dave has already written a nice synopsis here.
5. Other synopsis’s of the panel here, here and here.
6. There were a lot of great things said by everybody on the panel, but the thing I took away the most was Kathy Sierra’s tip on the importance of “gratitude” towards one’s audience. It’s so easy to take one’s audience for granted etc. Never a good idea etc.
7. I was very touched that both Tara and Chris came along to the panel, and asked questions at the end. Thanks, Guys…
8. It was seriously cool to hang out and drink cocktails with John T. Unger and Tony Pierce, among two of my favorite bloggers.
9. Funny story, as told by NPR’s Andy Carvin:
So Chuck Olsen and I had just finished shooting our interview with Dan Rather and we were having a drink at the Omni Hotel in Austin, uploading the footage to his laptop. Then a scruffy guy with an odd American-Scottish accent came over to us and send he was a blogger attending the “S-X-S-W” conference. We weren’t sure what to make of him but he was nice enough. Then just as he was getting ready to leave, Chuck noticed he was wearing Stormhoek Winery shirt drawn by Hugh Macleod of Gaping Void fame.
“Are you a fan of Gaping Void?” Chuck asked.
“I am Gaping Void,” the scruffy Scotsman replied. “I’m Hugh Macleod.”
10. Andy Carvin’s video interview of me is here.
10. Tony Pierce interviewed me here for LAist.
11. The conference was HUGE. Apparently it’s the largest interactive conference of its kind anywhere. I can’t wait till next year.
March 13, 2007
austin update
[Texas rain, about an hour ago.]
In Austin Texas. Too busy to write anything. If you’re trying to reach me, again, my number is (646) 704 4509.
March 12, 2007
feldman-macleod
The Feldman-MacLeod Mutual Admiration Society continues unabated.
Actually, what Loren Feldman is doing I think is really important, even if he’s not quite on “The Sphere’s” radar quite yet.
Just give it time, Laddie, just give it time…
miami update…
[A 30th-floor condo view of downtown Miami, from South Beach.]
Had lunch in New York. Currently in Miami on business. Flying to Austin tomorrow morning. International man of mystery etc etc.
[Bonus Link:] It seems everyone at SXSW is going nuts over Twitter.
Fair enough. One thing you eventually learn about us Web 2.0 crowd, if you hang out with us for long enough: If we don’t have something to go nuts over every couple of weeks, we start getting antsy.
“The memory of a goldfish, with a bizmodel-on-steroids application” etc.
“All is vanity” etc.
“Plus ca change” etc.
“I have the need, the need to feed” etc.
You get the picture.
March 11, 2007
new u.s. phone number: (646) 704 4509
[Stormhoek Pinotage is now available in New York… at Best Cellars on Lexington Ave.]
I’ve finally gotten my new US cellphone. If you want to reach me while I’m on this side of the pond, my number now is (646) 704 4509.
Catching plane to Austin tomorrow. Arrive around lunchtime. If you’re in town feel free to give me a call.
P.S. Marshall’s got a good synopsis of last night’s New York geek dinner. Kudos to B.L. for organizing it.
March 10, 2007
new york update…
[This photo was taken yesterday.]
1. So I’ve been in my beloved New York for roughly 24 hours, after an absence of seven years [I lived in Manhattan between Christmas 1997 and September 1999]. Besides the late, lamented World Trade Center no longer being here, it is remarkable how little has changed. Most of my old hangouts are still live and kicking, with often the same people working there. Considering how much I’ve seen London change over the last decade, it seems rather odd at first. But on another level, I find it quite reassuring.
2. After being here for about an hour, I realized that the New York I spent seven years missing so terribly was all inside my own head.
3. Walking around Union Square yesterday, I realized how much my old job here sucked. Dreadful. Appalling. Lousy. I feel so lucky to be doing what I’m doing now.
4. The last time I was here I didn’t have a blog. Hell, I didn’t even have my own website. Somehow I find that idea utterly bizarre.
5. I didn’t look up any friends from the old days. I’m easy enough to find on Google. Hell, I’m easy enough to find on Google, even if you spell my name wrong. If they cared, if I cared, we would’ve hooked up again by now. And so much has changed since then. Whatever.
6. Thanks to Andrei for inviting me to his girlfriend’s birthday party last night. I had a lovely time. Lovely people. Thank you.
7. I lost my credit card. Don’t worry, I’ve taken care of the problem, but for a few minutes there, I had panic flashbacks of New York in 1997, when I had just arrived. When I was poor, lonely and desperate.
8. Walking around constantly reminds me of the secret reasons why I left New York back in 1999, and my veins pump venomous, silent rage towards certain people who are still not completely forgiven.
9. I’d forgotten how lousy the food is here. Living in Europe has spoiled me.
10. I’d forgotten how brutal and ugly and tatty this town is in places. But I guess all big cities are.
11. I fell in love with New York once. But one day I came home to find her in bed with someone else. Don’t even ask.
12. For all the personal baggage I have with the place, it’s great to be here again. I love this city. It’s one of the few towns one can never accuse of being overrated.
P.S. Looks like the geek dinner tonight is set for about 20 people. Should be fun!
March 9, 2007
new york update…
Just had lunch with Steve Rubel and his boss, Rick. Interesting stuff, most of which I’ll keep off the record.
But really frickin’ wonderful, I have to say… and so great to meet Steve in person, finally.
Tonight I’m just hanging out in the Village tonight, visiting my old haunts. I don’t have my new phone simcard yet, but if anyone wants to reach me, you can text me at +44 770 309 9462.
i’m in new york!
(Early laminated business card drawing. NYNY, 1998. Drawn sitting at the lunch counter here)
I arrived in New York safely. Staying the night in Long Island then heading into the city tomorrow morning.
Apparently we’ve been having technical troubles with the sign-up wiki for Saturday night’s geek dinner. If you’re planning on coming, please e-mail BL Ochman and let her know– so she can tell the restaurant how many to expect etc.
Tomorrow I’ll have a new US sim card so anyone wishing to phone me will be able to do so.
It’s great being back here… and also kinda weird. Just in case you don’t know, it’s been seven, yes, seven years since I last stepped foot in the United States. Which is quite a long time for someone holding an American passport…
March 8, 2007
welcome to the ‘sphere, mark
Hey, all you A-List marketing bloggers, you’d better watch out. You’ve now got some serious competition.
Mark Earls, the author of just about my all-time favorite marketing book, has started a blog:
“Herd — the hidden truth about who we are.”
Just added Mark to my blogroll. Rock on.
[Bonus Link:] Mark speaking on YouTube. Video shot by Lloyd Davis.
wine relief cartoon & wine auction
[This is the cartoon in question etc.]
For Wine Relief [a subset of Comic Relief] I’ve donated one of my cartoons for a charity auction. Details here.
Cartoonist and blogger Hugh MacLeod of gapingvoid.com and Stormhoek.com fame has drawn a special Wine Relief cartoon, and wine expert and journalist Tim Atkin has specially selected 12 bottles of wine from his cellar in aid of Wine Relief.
And we’re bringing them together in what may be a web first — a “Cross-Blog-Auction”, where the highest bidder will win the fantastic prize of Hugh’s cartoon (above) plus Tim’s wine (listed below)!
It’s all in aid of a good cause, so I hope you’ll check it out. Thanks.
[N.B. I shall also be cross-posting this on to Stormhoek.com]
March 7, 2007
“nyc geek dinner with hugh macleod this saturday night!”
B. L. Ochman has kindly organised a geek dinner in New York for me this Saturday night.
Where: Two Boots Pizza, in Grand Central Station.
When: 7.30pm.
If you fancy coming along, please sign up on the wiki. I look forward to seeing you there!
fast times at stormhoek high
Two days ago I started work at 8am. I finished work at 5.30am yesterday morning. That’s kind of how it’s been around here recently.
The combination of so many things going on [moving into a new flat, the film, the day job, me going to America tomorrow night etc] has made it impossible to write properly, let alone draw cartoons.
Sure, there’s a lot of good stuff going on, but I’m still hoping to get back to more cartooning by this time next week. For all the other things I get up to– marketing, blogging, etc– I’m a cartoonist first and foremost, and I would be loathe to do anything that would make me forget that.
I’m off to New York tomorrow. First time there in years. Having lunch with Steve Rubel on Friday.
Fast Times At Stormhoek High etc.
March 5, 2007
a quick question to jeff jarvis
Last night over dinner I asked Jeff Jarvis a quick question…
Also, thanks to David Brain at Edelman London for inviting me to their wee breakfast talk with Jeff Jarvis this morning. Great stuff [David has already gotten it up onto YouTube here].
[Bonus Link:] PC World publishes “The 50 Most Important People on the Web”. Congrats to Robert, Gabe, Mike and Nick for making the list.
[NEWSFLASH:] Robert and Maryam Scoble are expecting their first child! Congratulations!
cath and colin
Two of my favorite people, Catherine and Colin, in the Stormhoek London office today.
ingredientx.com
This is the funniest website ever. I especially recommend “Jealous”.
[Cough:] Not exactly safe for work, but not too extreme, either. Thanks to Colin for the link.
March 4, 2007
sunday lunchtime
Sunday lunchtime. Here’s a list of the usual detritus:
1. Both my writing and cartooning have been on a rather low ebb these last couple of weeks. I guess that’s normal, life’s been busy. Writing and cartooning both take a lot of solitude and quiet. I’ve not had much of either since early January.
2. I’ve just moved into my new flat in Holland Park [West London, very near Notting Hill] this weekend. Very exciting.
3. I’m going to America on Friday. New York, Miami, and speaking on a panel at SXSW in Austin [Tuesday 13th March at 5pm] with David Parmet, Kathy Sierra and Gabe Rivera.
4. Today I went and worked out with a personal trainer at the gym. It’s an expensive way to get exercise, but it’s worth it. My trainer, James thinks I can easily get back to my old form [Bench pressing 8 x 245 lbs was my record back then]. The weakest link in the chain is my wrists. They’re not up to the job of hefting the weights I hope to be mastering before too long.
5. Sleep, time and money have become much more important to me in the last 5 years.
6. I’m meeting Jeff Jarvis for dinner tonight. Though we’ve spoken extensively via phone and e-mail over the years, this will be the first time we’ve actually met in person. I met Mike Arrington under similar circumstances a few weeks ago, who comes to London a couple of times a year.
March 1, 2007
mr. hell on dvd
[UPDATE: “Mr Hell’s Science”. A six-minute cartoon sketch on YouTube.]
In the early ‘nineties, I created a cartoon character on the back of a napkin called “Mr Hell”.
Think “Evil Hugh MacLeod with all the nice bits removed” and, well, you get the idea.
By 2000, thanks mostly to the intrepid efforts of my TV director pal, David Freedman and his writing partner, Alan Gilbey, our little red friend ended up as an animated sketch series on the BBC. With Bob Monkhouse as the voice of my alter ego, imagine that!
The entire series of 13 half hour shows is now available on DVD. Very cool.
[Bonus Links:]
1. Shameless Mr Hell DVD plug/article on Fangoria:
The cult British animation AAAGH! IT’S THE MR. HELL SHOW! is finally being released on DVD in its home country next month, after seven years in legal limbo. Commissioned by the BBC as the world’s first primetime animated sketch show, the series was buried in the schedules when the executives saw how violent it was. With an average of 19 onscreen deaths in each of its half-hour episodes, MR. HELL is believed to be the most violent and bloodsoaked cartoon ever broadcast on mainstream television.”
