AYNtK ALSO RECOMMENDS...

This is the second installment of my recommendation feature, offering consumer experiences I recommend based on businesses and companies holding up their end of the bargain and giving me something I felt was worth the money.

Again, you may have a different point of view based on your experience, but based on MY personal experience with these products, services, and companies, I would like to publicly recommend them...and commend them for a job well done.


THE FRESCO MENU @ TACO BELL
Most fast food chains don’t even TRY offering healthier alternatives, so I give a big thumbs up to Taco Bell for making an effort. Their Fresco Menu gives border runners a collection of delicious dining options lower in fat and cholesterol than the standard fare we know and love long time - late night or date night! Or maybe both. Yeah, that's how I roll. My lucky wife.

Even though I usually break down and dial up the Meximelt for dessert, I do feel better about hammering a half-dozen tacos when they're not accompanied by the unappetizing aftertaste of a guilty conscience.

Something else I like about the Fresco menu is the taste. They have a great tomato-onion-cilantro pico they use instead of all that cheese and sour cream you’ll find on a standard deluxe – and I actually find myself preferring it to the fattier fare. Simply remarkable. Yo quiero Fresco!

One last request for the folks at Pepsico...CHORIZO, mi hermanos. Fresco chorizo with low-fat chihuahua. That's what I'm talking about, Willis Tower. I might just make you my regular Saturday night.

And bring back the little talking dog, too. I miss that perro pequeno.


COUPONS
Okay, so this isn't really a specific store or a product - but there are a lot of companies out there throwing money at us...and most consumers refuse to accept it. How INSANE is THAT?

Coupons add up, folks. My wife and I recently considered canceling our subscription to the weekly newspaper because, while we enjoy receiving it, saving money is the name of the game these days. Then I did a little math and realized that the paper pays for itself (and then some) in all of the Sunday circular coupons I clip and use. YES, I clip coupons. And I maximize my savings by using those coupons only when the items are on sale at the grocery store. Yeah...retail is for suckers.

I am a power shopper, which also means I can do difficult math like solving the per unit price of a "6 for $10!" sale. Don't you hate the way they price food these days? Everything is a complicated division problem - 4 for $11, 3 for $8, and 5 for $7. What the hell is THAT? Just tell me what ONE COSTS! But I digress...I've been trying to keep things positive by pointing out things I recommend...and I highly recommend clipping coupons.

Look - it takes about 5 minutes a week and I am able to reconcile it with my masculinity by doing it while watching football and drinking beer. The bottom line is this: Virtually everything at the store can be picked up for less if you just wait a week, shop around, do your homework, and/or clip coupons.

These days, I'll take the savings - and I'm not embarrassed at all to be toting around that old, crumpled envelope full of coupons. (Okay, maybe a little). Still, it's a huge thrill for me to get $1 OFF something that’s also buy-one-get-one-free. Score, baby! It’s like finding a washed-up Washington in my pocket. George, not Denzel. Denzel's not washed up. Yet.

And if I haven't got you yet, think about it this way. The less I spend on toothpaste, the more I have for beer. Hard to argue with coupons when they’re blanched in perspective like that. And when I add it all up at the end of the month, I’m saving about $20-$30 on the stuff our family was going to buy anyhow. Multiply that by 12 and you're looking at a lot of nice gifts under the tree come Christmas. Giddyup!


WORLD MARKET
This not-so-hidden gem wasn’t on my radar for the longest time, but ever since I discovered it I can’t get enough. They carry the most interesting shit (and I mean that it the nicest way), from food to furniture to jewelry. If you’re looking to find someone a gift that’s a little outside the norm, I recommend a stroll through World Market. Many of their wares are unexpected, which makes the shopping experience a novelty in itself. They also have an email list you can join that will keep you informed of special deals on things like wines from around the world and seasonal arrivals.

ROY'S HAWAIIAN
If you’ve never been to Roy’s Hawaiian, you are missing out. They're located all over - Chicago, Texas, California, Florida. The service and the food were exceptional – particularly the service. Their attention to detail was amazing as well. When we enjoyed our first anniversary dinner there, they personalized our menu prior to our arrival with a special greeting. They also created a complimentary dessert and surprised us with it after our main course. Staff was attentive, not overbearing, prices were reasonable, food was delicious, and the dining environment could not have been more comfortable. I'm not Phil Vettel here, but I have been to a lot of NICE (read: way overpriced) restaurants, and if you appreciate a 5-letter world called "value," I definitely felt I got my money's worth at Roy's.

Until next time...that's Aloha you need to know!

THE RECOMMENDATION DEPARTMENT IS NOW OPEN

When I started making a list of all of the companies and products I like and would recommend, I realized it was a lot longer than I thought. It turns out there are a LOT of businesses meeting and exceeding my expectations. We just don't notice them sometimes because we're too busy bitching about the ones that don't.

Here are a few that recently stood out:

FIELDS INFINITI OF GLENCOE
I recently had to take my car into the shop for a stuck dash light. It was a little thing, but when you’re trying to sell your car the little things tend to signal bigger things to prospective buyers. I’d taken it to a local shop first, but all they did was fix the seal on a suspect wheel and hit me up for $30 before sending me on my way. “That ought to do it!” they said.

It did not “do it.”

Against my wallet’s better judgment, I elected to take the vehicle to a certified Infiniti dealership where I figured it just might get a little more love and attention. First off, the customer service at Fields Infiniti in suburban Glencoe was top-notch. I made an appointment online and was promptly confirmed via email. When I showed up the next morning, I noticed their reception facility was unlike any I’d ever seen. They had a low-lit coffee bar serving specialty beverages and grilled panini sandwiches to waiting customers – all free of charge. There were executive workstations with telephones and Ethernet cables…and free wireless throughout. A grouping of leather couches and chairs surrounded a large flat-screen TV. And everything was complimentary. Drinks. Snacks. Car wash.

In the end, they fixed the gauge, updated an outstanding recall I wasn’t even aware of, provided a courtesy diagnostic report on the condition of the vehicle, and shined it up nicely inside and out. Everyone I dealt with was prompt and professional – and the entire visit cost about $25. When I factored in the free lunch and car wash, I left a very satisfied customer. Big thumbs up to these folks who did everything right.

NUTRO ULTRA DOG FOOD
Our puppy had diarrhea when we switched her food, and some guy wandering the aisles at PetCo recommended this brand. I was skeptical at first because I noticed it was a little more expensive, and because guys who hang out at PetCo are not widely recognized as credible, objective consumer advocates. The guy told me that dogs actually eat less holistic/organic food because it has more nutrients and less filler, so you’re actually buying LESS food and saving money in the end.

I was VERY skeptical of this claim, but considering the glut of equally obscure off-brand options to choose from and an embarrassing lack of knowledge about my dog's dietary needs, I elected to take a risk. At the time I just wanted our little bugger to quit squirting crap all over the place, so I was happy to try anything new. Sure as shit, if you'll pardon the expression, our little Lucy Pooper adjusted in about a day and started producing perfectly firm, compact turds the size of Lincoln logs. And, as advertised, she was eating less!

To this day there’s always food left in her dish because she fills up fast and always has a ton of energy. I didn’t believe the hype at first, but now I’m sold. Nutro Ultra delivered and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend.


SKYPE
When cutbacks at work meant I could no longer expense my wireless phone bill, I needed to make some cuts in my personal spending. I lowered my monthly minutes allotment and started shopping around for inexpensive landlines. That’s when I found Skype.

Skype is essentially an internet-based telephone connection (that also works with a webcam) that offers FREE calls to/from pretty much anyone in North America – whether they have Skype or not. So, unlike a fax machine, you don’t have to wait until everyone else gets Skype to use it. I couldn’t believe Skype was for real until I signed up for a free account and started using it. The sound quality has better than I thought it would be, and for a nominal fee of like $2.99 a month you can add voicemail and a host of additional services.

I like being able to dial in for conference calls through my laptop where I can quickly access my work files (and play games on Facebook when meetings run long). Skype also let me program my outgoing Skype line so that when I call people their caller ID recognizes my cell phone number.

And check this out – my uncle was recently traveling in Italy and was able to walk his laptop around outside to show off where he was standing and what he was seeing. Imagine getting a free video tour from friends and family from virtually anywhere you can get an internet connection. Sure beats a postcard!

Lots to love about Skype. They even have Skype handsets you can buy – cordless phones that function like landline phones, but are connected via your ISP. They ring and dial out just like an ordinary phone – but the calls are free. Yes – FREE. You may not use it right away, but I do recommend you check it out and sign up while they’re giving it away. www.skype.com

THE COMPLAINT DEPARTMENT IS NOW CLOSED

Most of us come equipped with a pretty active complaint system. If we see, hear, try or otherwise experience something we don’t like, we complain about it almost reflexively. It’s as if humans are hard-wired to bitch.

Why is that? Why are we compelled to share every little inconvenience, disappointment, and episode of misery and misfortune? What's the purpose of reliving these moments out loud, oftentimes over and over again?

One reason may be that complaining serves an emotional purpose. Complaining vindicates us in some small, yet meaningful way. Negative word of mouth is our way of exacting revenge on someone or something when we feel we’ve been wronged. It’s how we stick up for ourselves when we’ve been screwed by “the man.”

Even if we can’t get our money, our time, or our dignity back, we can always fight back with harsh words in the hope those words will one day come to haunt or harm the party responsible for our discontent - and that can be pretty much anything these days.

The weather. The waitress. Rising taxes. Traffic. Our shitty job. No shitty job. The religious right. The liberal left. The neighbors. Obama. Rush. The cops. The media. Lawyers. Long lines. High prices. The privileged. Panhandlers. Aggressive drivers. Sunday drivers. Communists. The post office. Smokers. Technology. This damn head cold. Guns. Oil barons. Rap music. The Illuminati.

No, you can't always get what you want – but you can always complain! Talk is cheap, as they say.

Today, more than ever before, people actually LISTEN to complaints. We actively SEEK out consumer reviews on websites like Yelp because they help us make informed decisions. Leveraging the experiences of others helps us make better decisions for ourselves. Thanks to technology, in an instant we can tap into an online database of collective experiences and download mob wisdom.

Go here. Do this. Avoid that. Try this. Do NOT go there!

People freely contribute to these sites because while companies can afford to ignore us as individuals, they have learned to respect the power of communities. One squeaky wheel gets a little grease. Thousands of squeaky wheels gets a whole new machine. Big changes require speaking with a single voice. Case in point: President Obama. (Oh, yes we did.)

All of this, believe it or not, is prelude to a point...which I will get to. Eventually.

We all know the feeling of getting taken, or getting a great deal. We can relate to both because we’ve experienced both. When we spend our valuable wages and precious time somewhere, we expect certain things in return.

I expect my order to be correct in the drive-thru. Most of the time it is.

I expect the doctor to keep his appointment time, or at the very least call me to let me know he is running an HOUR late so I can use that time to do other things. (This never happens, by the way - why is the doctor's time more valuable than mine?)

I expect the guy at Jiffy Lube to be honest with me when he says I need a new air filter. Really? You just charged me $40 to change my oil and you're going to upsell me an air filter?

I expect the waiter/waitress to tell me if gratuity has already been added to the check. Not a small detail, or an easy one to spot at the end of a long tab...especially if you've been drinking.

I expect the store to match the low price I just found if you have a price-match guarantee. How can you advertise a guarantee if you can't guarantee it?

I expect the company to take me off of their calling list if I ask them to take me off of their calling list. Seriously, I am going to find out who you are, drive to where you are sitting, and take my name off your list the old fashioned way.

There sure are a lot of opportunities to complain, aren’t there? But after a while, don’t you get kind of tired of complaining? I do. And I get tired of listening to them.

Complaints, by their very nature, are negative. They’re hostile in spirit. They come from a sad, hurt, and often angry place. They don’t promote the emotional states we think of as pleasurable or otherwise positive, even if they seem to satisfy us on another level.

Complaining, and listening to people complain, are two surefire ways to depress your mood. Think of the people we enjoy being around. Fun-loving, positive, optimistic people with a lot of enthusiasm. They take bad news in stride. When shit happens they step over it.

And then there are the people who can't seem to avoid shit no matter where they step. They're surrounded by it. Drowning in it. Choking on it. Their entire existence is a world of shit and all they can do to make themselves feel better is tell you how shitty things are. Don't you LOVE these people?

Me neither. I recently thought about how much more I prefer hearing recommendations from people than complaints. Positive stories. Good ideas. Things I should try some day. Great experiences. Encouraging news.

So I decided to think positive - for a little while, anyhow.

Instead of investing my time listing all the products and experiences and companies and services to AVOID, I'm going to promote a few that exceeded my expectations.

For some reason I think it’s just easier for people to complain than to give praise. It seems more satisfying, somehow. Or less of a risk. Don't you LOVE when you recommend something you like and the person next to you rips into your recommendation with a story about how awful their experience was? Yeah, thanks for that. Sorry it RAINED the whole time you were in Maui. God obviously hates you. I had the time of my life.

I will confess that I do take a lot of pleasure in crafting written complaints. It's an opportunity for me to be creative. I imagine Roger Ebert takes some pleasure in completely trashing a movie – his negative reviews are always loaded with quality one-liners and painfully riotous insults. Yes, complaining can be fun…

Still, what’s the GOOD word?

In the short term, I'm going to try something a little different and share some POSITIVE experiences here. Recommendations. Product alternatives. New things to try. Experiences that made me smile and think, "This is something other people would enjoy, too."

So stay tuned, because in my next few posts I will be describing a handful of personal recommendations. You may not agree with them all, but they are my recommendations based on my experiences with companies that lived up to their end of the bargain…again, in my humble opinion.

In the mean time, if there’s a company, service, or product you would like to recommend here, please share. I'd love to hear the good word!

The Complaint Department, for the mean (spirited) time, is now closed.

THERE'S NO FREE CABLE IN THE GAME OF OLIGOPOLY

It’s only a matter of time before people start asking the obvious question.

“Why in fuck’s garden am I paying $147 a MONTH to watch television?”

This is the question I asked myself a couple of weeks ago while adding up our household’s monthly expenses. Seems like just yesterday my cable bill was $35. How did we get here?

When did the cable bill feel more like a monthly shakedown? And why do we reflexively pay whatever they say it’s worth without questioning it? Because alternative would be anti-American!

Ours is a culture of connectedness. We love being in the know. Unplug that connection and we end up on the information fringe wondering what everyone else is talking about. The information fringe is not the most desirable place to be, unless you're moving to Idaho and swearing off human interaction altogether. In which case, your cable bill is likely the least of your problems.

The bottom line is, if you want to function socially in this society, you have to have access to some basic info-tainment. You have to have cable.

So we fork it over – month after coffer-draining month.

I don’t know about you, but my monthly cost mysteriously climbs a little higher with every statement. $114. $123. $142. $156. $177. Go back and look at yours over the past year. Upsy daisy!

When times are good and consumer confidence is soaring, we don’t really question highway robbery – we just stick our hands up in the air with a smile and say, “Take all you want, we’ll make more!”

But in tighter times, as our nation’s “hopeful” leader projects unemployment figures above 10% in the near term, more and more people are starting to think about what they’re getting for their money.

And for our cable money, I’d say we’re getting screwed.


CLUB CABLE IS ALL THE RAVE

It’s all there in black and white.

Your monthly statement outlines everything you “get” for price you are paying. But if you read between the line items you’ll see that the cable company is merely passing along someone else’s content…for a fee. And that fee – consistently my highest household bill – is established by two old, white businessmen making a $1 bet in the bathroom over how much they can charge us before we cancel. Thanks to our unhealthy obsession with information, Randolph and Mortimer Duke have us by the short and curlies.

CONSIDER THIS

Unlike every other utility bill you pay, cable costs are not based on how much TV you consume. You pay full price for it every month whether you use it or not. It doesn’t matter how many hours or channels you watch in a month, you will pay the same amount.

In essence, the cable fee is all about ACCESS. It’s the $20 cover charge you eagerly hand the doorman at the hot new nightclub. It’s a platter full of all-u-can-eat TV. It’s a front row seat on the couch.

And if you don’t like the price, don’t buy it. Right?

That’s certainly true in a competitive environment where other companies can step in and provide the same or similar service for less. Competition tends to be good for consumers because it forces companies to provide more for less.

But if you closely evaluate your options, you’ll see there’s very little competition in the cable market.

The cable industry is a classic example of an oligopoly, in which a few companies enjoy complete, unchecked control over an entire market.

If you want to stay connected via phone, television, or Internet, and depending on where you live, you have limited options.

Here I am in the nation’s third most populated metropolitan area and I have exactly TWO cable television options, and the most significant difference between them is the logo on their statement.

What about satellite?

The dish companies have taken considerable market share away from the cable companies in recent years, billing themselves as lower-cost alternatives to cable, but they live and die by the same, lucrative business model that charges a monthly access fee. You don’t buy the dish and call it a day…you have to SUBSCRIBE to a monthly SERVICE.

Make no mistake about it – satellite communications companies are part of the oligopoly.

But the news isn’t all bad. Here’s a look at the future:

http://bit.ly/xTygC

Companies like this one are probably why the cable companies are hell bent on raking it in hand over fist while they can. The captains of cable are no dummies. They see the writing on the wall, like oil barons panicking and price gouging before the green revolution takes hold.

MARKETING BRILLIANCE!

If you were in charge of marketing for one of these cable companies, you’d have a pretty big job. You’d have to convince people, somehow, that they’re getting a great value for all that money. And that’s not an easy task when folks like me are out here with a megaphone screaming, “Why in fuck’s garden are we paying all this money for cable??!?!?”

I mean, how would you talk otherwise rational people into making monthly payments of $150 for access to anything?

I’m in marketing, so I’ll tell you how.

BIG numbers in colorful fonts!

We’re trained to assume that prices MUST be good when they’re blown up huge on a postcard or in a newspaper ad. We’re bombarded by so many offers, we don’t have the time or attention span to focus on them all. We just trust that the offer MUST be good or why else would they be showing it off like it's the best deal since the Louisiana Purchase.

Out of curiosity, I recently went to Comcast.com and looked up their normal, non-promotional price for basic cable. BASIC cable. Not the expanded basic – just access to what they consider your “basic” channels. I found it in the small print.

$59.98 a month.

I was speechless. $60 a month for BASIC cable? How is that even remotely reasonable? Am I so out of touch with the cost of things that I don’t recognize real value anymore? This is their starting cost, remember – everything else is an add-on. The next tier. Premium channels. Converter box rental. DVR. HDTV. All extra.

Reality is obscured, of course, by the really big number in the colorful font:

$29.99/month!

Now THAT sounds reasonable. If only it were true.

CABLE IS NOT REALLY PRO-CHOICE

You do have choices when it comes to ordering cable service. You don’t have to order 450 channels, all the top tier pay channels, and the kitchen sink. You can scale it down to something a little more reasonable, like 250 channels and HBO.

What you CAN’T do is the one thing that you would like to do: pick your own line up. And it’s not because they can’t manage this from a technology standpoint – it’s because it would hammer their bottom line. This is how they make their money.

They disguise their packages as choices – but you really don’t have much of a choice.

We are forced to select an all-or-nothing “package” and pay a set cost, regardless of how much we watch. They call it a “service” fee. I don’t know what your experience has been with your cable company, but “service” is probably not the best word to describe that fee.

Even the most caffeinated and ADD-riddled among us have little use for the overwhelming number of channel options that come with these packages.

Sane people simply don’t have the need for 300 channels. Or 200. Or even 100 for that matter. In fact, if you took an audit of the programs you watch over the course of a week, you’d likely find that you watch around a dozen or so channels – give or take a few.

The Consumers Union recently reported, “The average household watches no more than a dozen to 17 channels.”

The rest of those channels are just noise, and nuisances you must flip past to get to the channels and programming you do want to watch.

If this is the case, why can’t we just pick the channels we actually watch and pay for those? How much are we paying for the OPTION to watch the other 288 channels?

BASIC CABLE MATH

Let’s say you get a promotional package that offers 300+ channels for $59.99. That comes to about .20 cents per channel per month. If you only watch 12 of them, that’s just $2.40 out of the $59.99 you’re paying. So you’re essentially paying $57.59 every month for the option to watch something else.

Deal or no deal? I don’t need to be a banker to know the answer to that one.

IN DEFENSE OF CABLE

To be fair, it’s important to acknowledge the relationship between cable channel producers (Disney, Fox, Viacomm, etc.) and the cable companies. The channel producers sell the rights to rebroadcast their content to the cable company, which then passes along that cost to us.

Guess what happens when a channel like, say, ESPN, starts enjoying a larger audience share? They assume their content is worth more and charge the cable company more money to offer it as part of their “basic” package.

And guess who ends up paying for that? YOU do. This is how basic cable gets jacked up to $60 month. I don’t know about you, but I think the cable channel producers are double-dipping. They take in ad revenue, airing commercials we are forced to endure…and then also charge cable companies for permission to carry their content. I declare shenanigans!

The cable companies contend bundling is the best way to provide maximum viewing options while keeping costs down. But as channels become more popular, the producers start bumping up their prices knowing the cable companies will pay because the demand is there. And the cable companies get blamed for the costs. They ought to use some of their oligopoly influence and stand up for consumers for a change. Tell those double-dipping producers to fly a kite.

WHY ARE THERE ADS ON CABLE TELEVISION?

Think about this for a second. Broadcast television has been free for decades.

FREE. No charge. Turn on your set and watch.

How is that possible?

Yes – ADVERTISING. Advertising dollars finance the development, production and broadcast of content, which is in turn leveraged to collect more advertising dollars, and so on and so forth. It’s a nice little system that makes complete sense because we can all see exactly how it works.

Content is free to us because advertisers pay for it. Maybe we watch their ads, maybe we don’t. But that’s the drawback to advertising: you can’t MAKE people watch or read your shit. You can only put it out there and hope.

As a creative advertising professional, it’s often been my challenge to develop compelling, relevant ads that resonate with people. This is how we support and sustain the cycle of free content.

Good ads work, and keep companies investing in the medium. But as ad dollars shift, the medium starts to fade. Look at what happened to the print news industry. Companies moved their marketing dollars online, primarily at the expense of newsprint. Without ad support, the medium stands on the verge of collapse, and desperately needs to change its communications ideology to reestablish consumer relevance if it is to remain a viable channel.

How does this relate to cable television? Well, there’s the free-content-supported by-advertising model…and then there’s another model.

HBO, believe it or not, surfaced in 1972. They had a different approach. Instead of offering free content supported by advertisers, they went straight to consumers and said: If you pay us directly, we’ll provide uninterrupted programming.

37 years later, they’re still alive and kicking – for two simple reasons:

1.) The content is good
2.) People are willing, when they’re able, to pay for it

And this just begs the question: Why should we pay to watch channels that are supported by advertising? Why aren’t advertising-supported cable channels free anymore, like they’ve always been?

TNT. Bravo. HGTV. VH1. The History Channel. They all sell commercial time to support the production and distribution of the content they broadcast. They’re on the “free” TV model, yet we pay for them like we do for channels that don’t have advertising. Why? Somewhere along the way the cable companies changed the rules on us and we didn’t notice.

STOCKPILE CABLE NOW!
Consider this. Cable is not a finite resource like the rest of the utilities you pay for. If you use more heat in the winter, you’re going to have a bigger bill because you’re consuming finite resources that someone else can’t use. Not so with cable.

The more television you watch does not leave less television for someone else.

If you use more gas, electricity, or water, you’re consuming resources that someone else can’t use – so individual usage is an important determining factor in establishing the cost.

With cable television, this is not the case. There’s a signal pumping 24/7 to your TV whether it’s on or not – and it’s not in danger of running out. There aren’t going to be rolling cable blackouts if too many people tune into American Idol at the same time. Your hometown isn’t going to announce “no cable” hours to conserve television. And you’re certainly not “wasting” cable if you let it run it overnight. Electricity, maybe...but not cable.

Cable isn’t a traditionally distributed commodity with a market value based on the amount we use versus the finite amount that is available. And that means the price of cable is almost completely arbitrary!


THE COST OF DELIVERING THE WORLD
We’re paying for unlimited access to a virtually unlimited resource – and that cost can be whatever the market will bear. Right now, the market is bearing a lot more than it needs to, in my humble opinion.

Why do we do it? Why do we let the cable companies fleece us repeatedly month after month? I understand there are hard costs associated with maintaining the infrastructure of the network. But what exactly are those costs?

Except in the case of a handful of local cable access channels, cable companies aren’t responsible for creating any of the programming content we watch on television. They just provide the connectivity – that magical switch they can flip without warning from a desk in Mumbai and shut you down instantly if you miss a payment. (Don’t ask me how I know that)

Many cable companies use independent contractors to fulfill their installation and service technician needs, while outsourcing their customer service and technical support needs to the Asian subcontinent because it’s marginally cheaper than employing your out-of-work cousin Glen. Maybe if Glen would quit smoking he wouldn’t be so damn expensive to insure. But now I digress…

The point is, what kind of operational and infrastructure maintenance costs are really required here?

It’s not hard to imagine a company like Comcast employing about 6 people here in the U.S. and running the entire operation out of the back of a pimped out van. What are they are physically providing in exchange for unlimited access to a virtually limitless resource? My home still has the same cables running to it we had last month. And the month before. And the month before that.

AN ALTERNATIVE THAT MAKES MORE SENSE
Why can’t cable companies bill us for what we use like the rest of the utility companies? Bill me per channel if you want. Or by the hour. At least then I can decide which channels, or which shows, to watch and pay for instead of paying for hundreds of channels that I never asked for, don’t want, and will never watch.

Then at least I would have some control over my monthly costs instead of the control I have now: $0 for no service, $60 for basic TV, $100 for expanded TV, $150 for God’s control room.

Let me build my own channel line-up. Or give me cable minutes like a cell phone plan. Give me some kind of a billing system that doesn’t make me feel like I’m getting mugged every month.

BUT WAIT – THERE’S MORE!
Reviewing my bill I also noticed that my cable company makes me pay to rent THEIR video converter boxes, which I need in order to receive their service. That’s like selling someone a car and making them pay extra for the keys...every time they drive it!

SO NOW WHAT?

Rest assured, the model will be changing again...thanks to the Internet, of course. There are already a handful of sites boasting free television through your computer – one of which I offered earlier.

In the same way that companies like Skype are offering FREE phone calls via the Internet (which really works, by the way), it’s only a matter of time before someone figures out a way to deliver the content we crave without the arbitrary and excessive costs meted out by the middle man and his double-dipping accomplices.

Until then, however, if we want inside Club Cable, we need to hand that cash to the man at the door...because the government is letting these clowns play unregulated in the oligopoly gardens.

CONFESSIONS OF A RETIRED SHITSLINGER

I’m a shitslinger. There’s no way around it. I like to sling shit.

Literally – not figuratively, metaphorically, or otherwise.

Every time I tie up that little blue shit bag, weighted with the warm compact butt nuggets from our well-fed terrier mix, I think about winding that shit up and letting it fly.

Is that wrong? Is it, though?

Is it really?

Let me back up for a moment.

When I was 15, growing up in Chicago, I had a very important job. It was my household chore to walk to our family dog – a shepherd collie mix – down three flights of stairs every night, rain or shine, up and down the alley behind our house, until she finally found an agreeable place to plant her signature dogpile.

Some nights it would take her two minutes to find that perfect patch of gravelly heaven. Sometimes she’d sniff every split in the pavement, taking 20 minutes or more to identify a shitworthy canvass for those repug-nificent works of arse.

Only one thing was certain those nights – when she was done doing her business, I was in the shitslinging business.

Back then, they didn’t really have all of these fancy pile-sized "hand" bags that they do these days, so I had to follow her around with a crumpled up plastic grocery bag. Sometimes the bags had holes in them that you couldn’t see in the dim alley light at night, but you were sure to FEEL them if you squeezed the assfruit a smidge too hard.

For some reason, when you’re 15, it doesn’t occur to you that slinging shit is a bad idea. You don’t think about where it goes, or who’s going to clean it up later. You just know that it liberates you in some mysterious way. Nope - when you're 15 - slinging shit is a perfectly sane, sensible thing to do because...well, why not?

So when my canine companion would finally rise from that signature shit stance, kicking up stones and dust with her hind feet, I’d swoop in with my plastic falcon to swiftly extract the crap from the concrete. In a single motion, I’d deftly pull the bag handles forward, trapping the crap inside the bag, and tie the top into an awkward bunny-eared bow.

Making sure the coast was clear, I’d spin a couple times imagining I was an Olympic shitslinger going for the gold. Like a shot putter, or a discus thrower, I’d leverage the momentum of my rotating torso and let that turdpedo soar into the night sky - target unknown.

Most of the time I would lose sight of it, a muffled rustle somewhere in the distance confirming that my payload had found purchase, and almost wetting my pants with glee in the process.

My parents had no idea I was out slinging shit all over the neighborhood at night, until that fateful Spring morning. My mother screamed my name in a way I knew I had been discovered. I ran to meet her out on our third floor porch. We looked down from our perch at the maze of telephone lines and garbage cans in the back alley.

The snow outside had melted overnight after a long, cold winter, revealing a gloriously macabre sight.

All up and down the alley, for blocks in both directions, the garage rooftops were dotted with plastic bags of shit. They had frozen in place where they landed, night after night, most standing upright, the handles all tied in tight bows. At a glance, someone might have thought an airplane full of skinny white Easter baskets had airdropped its cargo all over the north side neighborhood.

There had to have been a hundred bags of thawing dog shit on those rooftops, if not more.

Somehow, my mother had me pegged for a shitslinger, because she knew in an instant that this work had my signature all over it. I could not deny it. I was laughing too hard. I was also grounded for months. And worse – my shitslinging days were all but over.

Flash forward to today and I find myself struck by the same impish urge to do something I now recognize is – more than simply mischievous – just plain wrong. Only now my juvenile urges are laced with an unhealthy dose of creativity.

As I walk the dog back home, I envision all the “fun” I could have with that tiny blue bag of dog shit.

I see the open sunroof of an expensive luxury car and I think, “Time is winding down...he drives, spins, fakes, pivots, fakes again, shoots...it's up and...he SCORES!!”

I notice an open window walking past a neighbor’s house at night and wonder how fast I would have to run to escape visual ID after pitching a plastic-wrapped pile of poop onto their dining room table.

I look at the mailboxes on the street corner and wonder if the post office would ever be able to return that shit to sender.

I see cyclists as moving targets. I see condo balconies as a chance to elevate my game. I see busy intersections as a crap shoot.

And I see garbage cans as joining the ranks of adulthood.

I know my wife, for one, is thankful I have thus far managed to silence the menace within, surrendering to adulthood night after night, and depositing those little blue bags in the trash where they belong.

But that doesn’t stop the shitslinger in me from dreaming. Because every time I tie up that little plastic bag, weighted with those warm compact nuggets from our well-fed terrier mix, the 15 year-old in me remembers the liberation I felt years ago from setting that shit free.

Sometimes you just gotta let shit go. It is, after all, the best way to know if that shit's gonna fly.

IT'S THE LOGO, STUPID

My wife is getting a fleet car through work, so we've been looking to sell one of our other vehicles. The fleet car will be nice to have, even if it's not something we would have picked out ourselves.

Thinking it through, we understood that it's not mandatory we take the fleet car, but it just wouldn't make much sense to turn down a FREE car - free insurance, free gas, free tolls, free oil changes, free car washes...well, you get the point.

So, after about 14 seconds of deep consideration, I elected to say goodbye to my ivory pearl Infiniti G35 and hello to [crowd applauds excitedly] our brand new Ford Fusion!

[Crowd quickly quiets, soft whispers and groans continue]

Sexy, I know.

While I wasn't initially jazzed by the thought of parting with my sporty ride, I knew I would come to appreciate the financial benefit of freedom from car-related expenses. As you are likely aware, car costs can really add up - and getting rid of that steep monthly payment will be like finding cash in a paper bag on our doorstep every month (minus the sideways glances up and down the block as you spirit quickly back inside with the dough).

Still, there's been something about the Ford Fusion that hasn't exactly stirred up a whole lot of excitement in me. It's a brand new car, I keep telling myself. It's going to have a sunroof and play MP3 files and smell like heaven's foyer.

Why aren't I more excited about this?

I started noticing Ford Fusions on the road this week and thinking, "That's not so bad, is it?" And it really wasn't. In fact, sometimes I'd see a pretty sharp looking car and think, "I really like that car!" before realizing it was a Ford.

Funny how much something as small as a logo can influence our feeling about something.

And that's when it dawned on me. It's the brand, silly! The "Ford" name does not live in that part of my brain where I store all of the cool stuff, like "iPhone," "Banana Republic," and, "Infiniti."

Why is that? How did Ford end up in the anti-cool bin? Out of curiosity, and while I was waiting for the longest red light in the world to turn green, I began a thought exercise in which I mentally replaced the Ford logo - that hideous, outdated script font inside a blue oval - with an Infiniti logo.

BAM! Just like that, the "Infiniti" Fusion was one sweet-ass set of wheels.

I immediately wondered if the folks at Ford had figured this out yet - that they could probably increase sales among key American demographics (i.e. people who buy cars) simply by replacing their logo with a new symbol of some kind. Sure, there's brand equity in that logo...but with what demographic? And aren't those people too old to drive anyhow?

This is the power of branding, as they say. So much of the focus in marketing over the past 15 years has been on building strong brands so that people recognize you and know what you're all about. But what happens when people recognize you and associate you with "inferior, uncool product"?

I personally don't dislike the Ford brand - I just don't FEEL like driving any of their cars when I see that logo.

When I see a BMW, Audi, or Acura logo, on the other hand, my eyes turn green and I start salivating. Slap one of those logos on a rusty tractor and I'm sold...because the feeling I get when I see those brands makes me want to drive whatever it is they're putting on the road.

I recently read that one of the keys to companies turning around the American automaker market will be building better products that people want. But I'm in marketing, and the fact is there are a lot of people out there who don't know what they want until someone tells them. Product is only one of the 4 P's.

In my opinion, the recovery is going to require a major reprogramming of a few brand platforms until labels like Chevy and Ford no longer trigger a sensation of nausea. They need to become symbols of innovation, evolution, and rebirth.

From the ashes, a phoenix rises. A Phord Phoenix.

If I'm in charge of Ford, I start with the logo. Right now. That logo is toast. It's time for a 21st century look for a 21st century carmaker. I've been told that the 2010 Fusion is actually a decent machine, but too many people (like me) won't be able to see past that logo.

And come to think of it, the Ford name should probably go, too.

How about Fjord, instead? That has a nice European sound to it, no? The 2010 Fjord Fjusion is one sleek and sexy ride.

I'M SOLD!

I would like to close this post with a wee bit of Brady wisdom for the brand executives at Ford.

As Peter and the other Brady kids once belted out, "When it's time to change you've got to rearrange...move your heart to what you're gonna be."

So what are you gonna be?

THE TWITTER STAMPEDE

Interactive advertising "Admaven" Nicholas Kinports says "Everybody Hates Social Media." It's a good post that discusses some observations in the marketplace regarding trends in the promotion of social media marketing.

I replied to his post with my observations, and build upon them here for further discussion.

**********************
RE: Everybody Hates Social Media

I sense that a lot of companies and clients are just now becoming curious about social media marketing because the traditional media din has been deafening. CNN reports, newsprint articles, and online columns have been hammering the business community with forecasts for a “new age” in marketing where consumers are calling the shots – and social media is the best/only way to reach them.

This has a lot of marketing folks scrambling to take action fast, so as not to get left behind. But in the rush to Twitter and Facebook, I think they’re missing out on something fundamental to marketing of any kind: strategic planning. First, many are simply new to the idea and don’t yet fully understand the potential value in social media marketing. I would recommend these people become familiar with its nuances on a personal level so they can identify potential business applications for the medium. Having someone explain to you how it works can only produce a dim glimmer in the lightbulb above your head.

Second, once there is a better understanding of how people interact in these popular communities, I think there must be time set aside for the development of a coherent plan and strategy for integrating social media efforts with existing and planned initiatives across channels. In other words, you can't just start Twittering and expect a return on the investment. You have to strategically build it into the mix.

I don’t personally hate social media, but I do believe ubiquitous media coverage is inciting an online stampede of well-intended marketers destined to get it all wrong. Like anything, taking the time to get it right, which can also mean spending the money, can pay huge dividends down the road.