After reading David Pogue's article in today's New York Times Microsoft challenges the IPOD again, you just have to scratch your head and say why.  The people at Microsoft just aren't getting it.

No don't get me wrong.  The new Zune is a well made, well designed device (the 3 song listen and destruct clause when you beam a song to another person that has a Zune has to go, but that aside).  It's priced to be at least equal to or competitive with the IPOD with a feature set that is equal to or just above the IPOD.

And that is the problem.  It isn't revolutionary in terms of reinventing the category.  It's another player, from a number 2 or 3 company in the segment, that promises a certain set of features from a company known more for software than hardware.   The iPhone reinvented what a next generation phone should look like.  In fact, it heavily borrowed on thinking that is brought to life in Microsoft's own Surface product where the first line of the promotional video says it all...."There is a new way to live in the digital world."  It's astounding that the Zune didn't go to school on this lesson. 

All I know is that for the holidays' my daughter wanted an IPOD.  Parody doesn't win.  Category Disruption does.

Maybe I've been too critical when it comes to the Wendy's advertising campaign where a man appears with a Wendy's wig in an attempt to challenge the burger status quo.  The latest commercial in the campaign features "Wendy" promoting some kind of cholesterol killer hamburger with bacon.  What struck me was that the commercial seemed right at home during today's Giants/Vikings football game.  Guys in wigs, burgers with fat, crushing tackles.  It all seems to go together.

Campaigns often need a chance to grow and develop.  I think the folks at Wendy's are starting to figure it out.

I used to travel on USAir shuttle from New York to Washington, DC all the time.  I'd pay something like $600 - $800 round trip for the privilege.  Even at those fares, when a flight was canceled due to mechanical problems they would hussle us off the plane without the obvious accommodation of automatically booking us on the next flight (the shuttle leaves every hour so rebooking is obvious).    After this incident I started to avoid US Airways at all cost, even changing planes on Southwest multiple times to avoid the disappointment of USAir.

In the midst of this disappointment I received this email from USAir.  It's smart and sounds like a real person wrote it.  It doesn't attempt to gloss over bad service records or experience.  The email tells it like it is.  This a great example of a customer email.  I appreciate the candor and may just even fly USAir again because of it.  H. Travis Christ is my kind of marketer.

I used to hate country music.  To someone that grew up on Long Island "country" was that music sung by people with funny hats, odd accents and instruments that aren't found in the school marching band.  Of all the radio stations in town the one with the country format was sure to be the one that would be announcing a format change in 6 months.

Recently something changed.  The songs that used to sound odd, now sound mainstream and the artists that dominate "pop" just appear odd.  With Britney Spears antics and the failure of rap to evolve, Top 20 Radio just doesn't seem to make sense.  As for country, it's not the country of 20 years ago.  It seems as if country music and my listening tastes met somewhere in the middle.   Somehow Kenny Chesney, Brad Paisley, Carrie Underwood and Taylor Swift are just more interesting than Courtney Love.  (you have to love Taylor Swift when she accepted her Country Music Association Award with the statement - "This is definitely the highlight of my Sr Year - she's in high school).  While pop looks like it is trying too hard to retain its appeal Country is just getting started.  Anyone watching the Country Music Awards couldn't help but feel the invitation to join the club.

Brands need to adapt to the changing environment.   Contexts continually shift as the customer looks for new best fit compromises to their complex set of needs.  It's what we are trying to do with Mimeo.com.  The co-creation of  a dynamic brand that reflects that values and needs of our customers.  Now excuse as I'm suddenly hungry for some grits.

Every brand, notion and idea has a surrounding subculture.  "Green" is a great example of a cultural movement of individuals that share a passion for the environment.  The sub culture within this culture is as passionate about the topic as are people that hang out in an Apple store.

Now impose your brand into that culture without making a meaningful contribution.  That's what happened to NBC.  They forced their way into the Green culture instead of being invited in.  Their intention might of been pure, but the execution was over the top.  I mean come on, a "Green" episode of the show Las Vegas with some preachy babble about using environmentally sound cleaning products in the hotel.  Not exactly what I come to Las Vegas for.  I wanted to beg them to stop interrupting the show.  What's next, an episode on literacy (it's what killed Knot's Landing for those old enough to remember or more correctly stated when it "jumped the shark").

Instead of invading someone Green culture, NBC should create a culture of its own.  They were off to a great start this year with the introduction of Hulu.

And yes I said I'd only blog weekly, but had to get this one off my mind.  The net effect of the NBC effort is going to be an inability for other advertisers to talk "Green" without the consumer having a negative reaction.  Consumers own green culture.  We as marketers should wait for the invitation.

I've been trying to fall into some type of routine for blogging.  Instead of creating individual entries, I thought for this week I'd provide some thoughts I've collected over the past week.

Google - A week doesn't go by without Google announcing new inroads into achieving their goal of creating access to information and seamless integration between consumer/advertiser.

OpenSocial: Social networks continue to be in the news with the battle between MySpace, Beebo, Facebook, People Aggregator and Ning.   The crux of the battle is between social networks that are closed....where all user information is contained within the network..and those that are open like People Aggregator where information is freely shared between platforms.  Google's strategy is to take share from the market leading Facebook by providing a common open platform where other social networks can exchange information.  Since information ultimately is in the hand of the consumer, the thought is that they will be attracted to platforms that allow for the greatest amount of flexibility.  In turn developers will seek those platforms that help enhance the capability of their offerings.

The Google OpenSocial network has unique appeal to business since it has as partners some of the leading business platforms including Linked In, Salesforce.com and Oracle.  The New York Times has a good summary written by Miguel Heft and Brad Stone on the announcement.  As a B to B marketing I'm particularly excited about seamless B to B and B to C integration.

Google Mobile: With the announcement of Google Android, the Googlites made a major move to dominate mobile devices in the same way they dominate the PC universe.  The goal of the wireless carriers is to gate their platforms.  If you have Verizon you are limited to what Verizon wants you to access on their phones.  The Google move promises to change this paradigm.   Google will seek to adapt their learning from desktops and PCs to mobile devices.  What's great about the Google approach is that like their desktop services, they are not forcing themselves on the consumer through monopolistic practices.  Since  the Mimeo.com online printing platform competes in part with local retailers, the Google platform will give us new opportunities to demonstrate why our centralized web centric model is superior to the distributed model of our competitors.

There is a world of marketing beyond Google.  I don't know about you, but I think good ole fashioned general advertising is on an upswing and is getting creatively better.  I particularly like new television work via Leo Burnett  from McDonald's featuring the young boy eating apple dippers to rap music.  Great spot that reinforces the McDonalds "I'm Lovin It" theme.  I also like new work from McCann Erickson for MasterCard.  "Favorite Things" is not only a great commercial, but beautiful craft. 

I'm trying to like the Wendy's campaign.  They have a great offer in the marketplace, but I can't eat at a place where a man badly dressed as Wendy, but I'll try real hard to get over it.