Desperation marketing
By Nancy Macdonald - Friday, February 20, 2009 - 4 Comments
In tough times, every brand wants to be a bargain brand
Buy one, get one free: it’s an offer generally confined to the grocery store. Some Dodge dealers in Canada, the U.S. and Britain, however, are offering two Chargers, Rams and Avengers for the price of one. Restaurants, meanwhile, are advertising “sit-down food at take-out prices,” and fast-food chains like Wendy’s and Dunkin’ Donuts are offering 99-cent sandwiches and lattes. Even luxury brand, Starbucks is in on the marketing game, trying to shed its highbrow image by offering instant coffee at a buck a cup, and $3.95 “value meals.” In today’s economic climate—where everyone wants to be seen as cheap and affordable—retailers are trying “whatever they can,” to catch the attention of consumers, says Britt Beemer, chairman of America’s Research Group, a consumer research firm.
“It’s Advertising 101, adds Jay Waters, chief strategy officer for Luckie & Co., a U.S. advertising and marketing agency. “Consumers have a problem, and a brand offers a solution: In this economic environment, the consumer’s number one problem is how to stretch their dollars, and they are looking for brands that can provide a solution.” For retailers, that means positioning their brand image as a “bargain,” and offering deep discounts (read: 99-cent options).
The marketing trend is perhaps best illustrated by the increasing use of black-on-yellow advertising—“a colour combination that screams: this is as good as it’s going to get,” says Beemer. Recently, high-end Vancouver condo retailer, the Onni Group, ran full-page, black-on-yellow ads in local newspapers advertising, “VANCOUVER’S LARGEST REAL ESTATE LIQUIDATION EVENT.” Fido has also adopted the colour scheme; black-and-yellow “CLEARANCE” signs, meanwhile, hang from street-front windows at both Sears and the Bay. Last month, Loblaw’s shifted the focus to its No Name products—recently re-cast in black and yellow—by featuring them more prominently on store shelves, as well as in flyers and a new TV ad campaign. “The old tricks aren’t working,” says Beemer, noting that 38 per cent of Americans now fear they may lose their jobs. “Consumers just aren’t paying attention.”
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Baby's first smartphone
By Susan Mohammad - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 2:12 PM - 2 Comments
Now preschoolers can send text messages too
If the LeapFrog toy company has its way, texting will soon join reading, writing and arithmetic as a staple of early childhood eduction. Starting in June, the company will begin selling a BlackBerry-like toy called the Text & Learn. The device is aimed at tots and features a full keyboard, calendar, LCD screen, and texting capacity. The big difference between the $25 Text & Learn and the several-hundred-dollar gadgets for grown-ups that inspired it is that it connects to a fake internet browser where preschoolers can exchange texts with a digital puppy named Scout whose five preprogrammed text messages include “Hi! We’re out of puppy biscuits. Thanks!” and “Let’s meet up later to play some fetch!”
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Now back to the serious business of Canada
By Aaron Wherry - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 2:04 PM - 8 Comments
Roy MacGregor in today’s Globe.
Linda Duncan has already produced one political miracle — winning the riding of Edmonton-Strathcona for the NDP in the federal election last October — and now she’s taking aim at another one. On Monday, Duncan will table a private member’s bill in the House of Commons to have the third Friday officially declared National Hockey Day. She plans to announce her intentions today at Vimy Ridge Academy, an Edmonton school with a hockey team that has both boy and girl players.
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One problem with the Obama visit: not enough Saskatchewan
By macleans.ca - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 1:57 PM - 2 Comments
Why the prairie province should have received more attention yesterday
Tucked into Stephen Harper and Barack Obama’s joint communique yesterday was a small mention of Weyburn, Saskatchewan’s carbon capture and storage facility, the world’s largest, and a project well in keeping with the spirit of the Obama-Harper chitchat. Weyburn is where Calgary-based EnCana buries the CO2 that it buys from a North Dakota coal gasification plant. Bigwigs in Saskatchewan were delighted to get the kudos. But, writes the Regina Leader-Post’s Murray Mandryk: “Wouldn’t this have been a wonderful opportunity to hear much, much more?” What Mandryk and others were looking for in yesterday’s announcements was a more concrete announcement regarding further cooperation on environmental technologies in Saskatchewan–exactly what Mandryk suggests Premier Brad Wall had been lobbying Ottawa for. Why didn’t it happen? Mandryk wonders if it wasn’t because Wall, who is said to be close with the PM, gave Harper’s budget a grade of “D” last month.
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Who gets credit for The Wave?
By Aaron Wherry - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 1:50 PM - 12 Comments
Ottawa Citizen. After a brief conversation, the two men turned around and went outside — apparently at Mr. Obama’s suggestion — where they waved to the crowd for a few seconds from behind a plexiglass barrier.
Globe and Mail. The 44th U.S. President arrived on snowy Parliament Hill to give a sunny wave to the thrilled crowd – urging Mr. Harper to join in – and stopped downtown to buy a BeaverTail treat six hours later on his way back to Air Force One.
Toronto Star. The much-anticipated photo-op with the two leaders almost never happened. For a few seconds, Harper seemed satisfied to shake hands with the president and pull him inside Parliament. Only when Obama insisted on extending a wave to the waiting crowd did the pair step back into the cold for their historic photos. A radio sound bite later confirmed the sequence, with Obama saying to Harper, “Do you mind if we go out there and take a quick wave at some of the people there?”
Barbara Yaffe. It was Obama, rather than the PM, who after an initial handshake in the Centre Block lobby initiated a brief stroll to the building’s entrance for an impromptu wave to an enthusiastic crowd of about 3,500 onlookers. Again, it was a broadly smiling Obama who put a hand on Harper’s shoulder, directing him back inside.
L. Ian MacDonald. Greeting Obama at the Peace Tower entrance, Stephen Harper pointed to the friendly crowd gathered on the snowy lawn below. “Why don’t we go out and take a quick look,” suggested Obama as he and the Prime Minister stepped outside for a brief wave from behind a sheet of bulletproof glass spanning a portal of the Peace Tower.
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Obama nation hits Ottawa
By Mitchel Raphael - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 1:13 PM - 0 Comments
Barack Obama books greeted you at the Ottawa airport.
The red carpet and red duct tape was rolled out.
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Underwear
By Aaron Wherry - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 11:37 AM - 4 Comments
L. Ian MacDonald passes judgment on the President and Prime Minister.
“In between, both Obama and Harper gave outstanding performances as leaders in command of their briefs…”
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Alberta poised for long hard tumble
By macleans.ca - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 11:20 AM - 12 Comments
The province’s first deficit in 15 years is “merely a prelude”
Alberta is in recession after an eight-year up cycle and will likely lose 15,000 jobs this year, Finance Minister Iris Evans announced this week. What’s more troubling, writes Calgary Herald columnist Don Braid, is that the government’s financial straits stem most immediately from the $2.5 billion in market losses suffered by the Heritage Fund, a savings plan designed for when Alberta’s oil and gas revenues dry up. “This first deficit is merely a prelude,” Braid writes. “The looming deficit for 2009-10, whatever the total, will result from the far more serious problem of low oil prices and royalty revenues.” Braid says the best plan of action now is for Albertans to pray en masse for higher commodity prices.
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What happened yesterday?
By Paul Wells - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 11:13 AM - 54 Comments
Courtesy of Our Luiza, who’s on all the right email lists, here’s a transcript of the 29-minute briefing the White House press corps received yesterday aboard Air Force One, even as it hurtled through the skies between Ottawa and Washington. I’m struck by the bits about Canada and the 2011 Afghanistan deadline. But I’ll leave it all to you to parse and ponder.
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
_________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release February 19, 2009
PRESS GAGGLE
BY PRESS SECRETARY ROBERT GIBBS
AND DEPUTY SECRETARY OF STATE JIM STEINBERG
Aboard Air Force One
En Route Andrews Air Force Base
5:50 P.M. EST
DEPUTY SECRETARY STEINBERG: How you guys doing? Everybody good? Okay, great. Well, let me just give you a brief readout. There were, obviously, a very good series of meetings. It was excellent. I think people, you know, deeply appreciated the fact that the President had chosen Canada to be his first stop. He made a point out of saying, as he said in the press conference, that some — because we are so close that people sometimes take it for granted, and he really wanted to use the trip as a way to really reenforce the fact that he didn’t take the relationship for granted, that he really valued the partnership. And clearly, in all the meetings that he had, that was reciprocated by the people he talked to.
There were basically three sets of meetings, although with the government people it was in different parts, and I’ll go into that. As you know, he started off with a meeting with the Governor General, and as you also know, she’s Haitian by origin, so they started off talking about Haiti and the situation there, and exchanging views about how we could be helpful to the government there in dealing with economic and social issues. And the President made clear that this is something that he did care about and wanted to confer and get the views of others about how we could do a better job in supporting economic and social development in Haiti.
They then turned to discuss the Summit of the Americas that’s coming up in April, and, again, because of her background in the region, talking about the importance of paying attention to the hemisphere. The President stressed the fact that he felt that we hadn’t in recent years paid enough problems [sic] to the region and we really needed to show that this was something that we cared a lot about and had a real connection with the people there, and he saw his decision to go to the Summit of the Americas as an early indication of the focus that he wanted to bring to those issues. Continue…
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Week in Pictures: Feb. 11th – Feb. 18th, 2009
By macleans.ca - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 10:39 AM - 0 Comments
The best pics of the last seven days
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Barack Obama: Democrat, President… Reality Show Contestant?
By Scott Feschuk - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 10:27 AM - 13 Comments
Alright America, it’s time you picked one of us to be your BFF
“I love this country and think that we could not have a better friend and ally,” Barack Obama, referring to Canada, Feb. 19, 2009
“The United States has no greater ally in NATO than Italy,” Nancy Pelosi, Feb. 16, 2009
“The Indian people… should know that they have no better friend and partner than the people of the United States.” – Obama, January, 2009
“Israel has no greater friend and no stronger supporter than the United States of America…” – Condoleezza Rice, 2005
“America is fortunate to call this country our closest friend in the world,” George W. Bush, referring to Great Britain, 2003
“We have got no better friends than Canada” – Bush, 2002
“We have no greater friend than Mexico” – Bush, 2001
Dear America,
You promiscuous bastard. You’re more than 230 years old – it’s time to settle down already. It’s time you picked Continue…
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It's an ITQ Sn(O)w Day!
By kadyomalley - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 10:02 AM - 6 Comments
What? Snow could, in theory, start falling at any moment. Anyway, blogging may be a little more than typically-break-week-Friday light today as ITQ rests up from yesterday’s adventures and for the next week’s return to parliamentary business. That is, unless any actual news should have the chutzpah to break out. (Which it won’t, if it knows what’s good for it.)
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The death of snooty service
By macleans.ca - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 9:49 AM - 0 Comments
Luxury stores sucking up to customers
The haughty, often dismissive service associated with high-end retail has become yet another recession casualty reports the Wall Street Journal. Sales associates at Neiman Marcus, for instance, are being encouraged to be “more patient” with customers, says a company spokeswoman. Those who still darken the doors of Chanel, Bergdorf Goodman and the like report salespeople are solicitous and, more shockingly, sometimes even smile. One man says that his choice of a pair of brown loafers at Fendi discounted to US$430 from about US$720 elicited “effusive praise” from three employees and a handwritten thank-you note from his salesperson. Both salespeople and customers report that this seismic shift in the shopping dynamic has proven alienating. Salespeople have quit over directives that they send a minimum number of thank-you notes a week. And one customer was so rattled by the overweening helpfulness of a saleswoman at an Anne Fontaine boutique in New York that she began to view her as pathetic and “only bought what she originally intended to buy in the first place.”
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France refuses to toast new government brochure linking wine with cancer
By macleans.ca - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 9:48 AM - 0 Comments
Research indicates that a glass of wine a day raises the chance of contracting cancer by up to 168 per cent
French patriots, French wine drinkers and French wine producers‹in other words, all of France‹have responded angrily to a new Ministry of Health brochure that discourages drinking alcohol, especially wine, for health reasons. The brochure, which is based on findings of the National Cancer Institute, makes for “grim reading” , the paper reports. Among its claims: a single glass of wine per day raises the chance of contracting cancer by up to 168 per cent and drinking alcohol facilitates cancers of the mouth, larynx, esophagus, colon-rectum and breast. Furious wine producers blame France’s tee-totaling president Sarkozy for this new “persecution of wine.” Xavier de Volontat, president of the wine producers’ association in the southwestern Languedoc region refer to it as a new French paradox: “The extremists must not be allowed to take consumers hostage . . . Wine consumption has dropped by 50 per cent over the last 20 years in France but cancer has increased. You have to admit, that’s a paradox.”
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Can smartphones make students smarter?
By macleans.ca - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 9:47 AM - 2 Comments
Study finds that students with phones outperform counterparts in algebra
A wireless industry trade group in the U.S. is pushing for smartphones to be used as an education tool in classrooms. According to CTIA, research conducted in four high schools in low-income North Carolina neighbourhoods shows that the performance on algebra finals of students who were given phones trumped that of their phoneless counterparts by 25 per cent. Though critics are sounding the alarm bells about what they say is a blatant marketing ploy, the company argues that its pitch is no different from the one computer industry have been making to educators for decades.
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Peanut allergy cure on horizon?
By macleans.ca - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 9:44 AM - 0 Comments
Exposing allergic children to peanuts may desensitize them: study
By exposing children with peanut allergies to the nut over a six-month period, UK researchers claim to have effectively cured them of the allergy. This marks the first time a food allergy has been desensitized this way, although the procedure has been successful with wasp and bee stings, and pollen allergies. A team from Cambridge University exposed four children to peanuts, starting with 5 mg of peanut flour each day and eventually upping the dose to 800 mg, the equivalent of five peanuts. A long-term follow-up is needed to confirm the results. “It’s not a permanent cure, but as long as they go on taking a daily dose they should maintain their tolerance,” Dr Andy Clark, who led the research.
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Sorry, Bono
By macleans.ca - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 9:40 AM - 1 Comment
Universal Music mistakenly posted new album on Australian website a week early
Imagine you’re in a world famous rock band and your much anticipated, brand new album leaks onto the Internet a week before its launch. Who are you going to blame? Pirates? Internet companies? Nope. Try, your own record label. That’s what’s happening to U2 with its new album “No Line on the Horizon.” It seems that Universal Music mistakenly put it up for sale on an Australian website. It was only up for a brief time, but one copy is all it took. The album is everywhere. Sorry U2.
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Secret talks
By macleans.ca - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 9:30 AM - 0 Comments
Iran offered to stop killing British troops in Iraq if Britain dropped objections to its nuclear program
A BBC documentary, to be broadcast tomorrow, reveals that Iranian agents met with British diplomats in London, Berlin, and Paris in 2005 and offered to stop attacks against British soldiers by Iraqi militias it controlled, if the West would stop attempting to block Iran’s nuclear program. London rejected the offer, made when roadside bomb attacks against British and American troops were at their height, and Iran resumed its nuclear program. Iran has always denied arming and training insurgent militias in Iraq.
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The NY Post is sorry—sort of
By macleans.ca - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 8:43 AM - 6 Comments
Post backtracks after taking heat over cartoon featuring a couple of police officers shooting a chimpanzee
Two days ago, the New York Post ran an ill-considered cartoon featuring a couple of police officers shooting a chimpanzee. “They’ll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill,” says one cop to the other. The idea, says the Post, was to mock the fiscal package currently before Congress as ineptly written (a thousand monkeys, a thousand typewriters etc, etc.). The cartoon also vaguely referenced the police shooting of a chimp that had attacked a woman in Connecticut. Alas, it quickly incurred the wrath of African Americans who thought the chimp was a thinly veiled and racist reference to President Barack Obama. Today, the Post apologizes to those who were truly offended, but goes on to blame the controversy on “opportunists” who had axes to grind with the paper. “Sometimes a cartoon is just a cartoon,” it says. True enough. Then again, sometimes an apology is not really an apology.
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Did John McCain have an affair? No one cares anymore…
By macleans.ca - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 8:20 AM - 0 Comments
NY Times settles libel suit with lobbyist
One year ago, the New York Times published a front-page story suggesting that Sen. John McCain had had an affair with a Washington lobbyist, Vicki Iseman. It was the type of bombshell revelation that has derailed many a US presidential campaign, or political career in recent years. But in McCain¹s case it failed to detonate: he denied that the relationship was improper, and the rest of the media declined to press the issue. Today, the Times announced that the libel suit brought against the paper by Iseman has been settled, but with some very unusual terms. The lobbyist and her lawyers have been given space on the website to publish a statement, which the paper has rebutted. There¹s also a joint statement, and not one, but two notes to readers, in which the Times refuses to back away from the piece. The moral? John McCain lost, and nobody cares anymore.
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Conan O'Brien, Fish Out of Water
By macleans.ca - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 7:50 AM - 0 Comments
The Masturbating Bear is forced into retirement tonight
Tonight is the last episode of “Late Night With Conan O’Brien,” before he moves to Los Angeles to take over as the host of “The Tonight Show” (while Jay Leno moves to 10 o’clock). He says that even though the earlier time slot will require him to retire some of his late-night characters like the Masturbating Bear, he’ll be able to get some fun out of being a “fish out of water” in California. Though for some reason, he’s not proud that he’ll be taping the show in a studio that once housed the original “Knight Rider.”
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Second-place finisher in Israel’s election set to form government
By macleans.ca - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 7:00 AM - 4 Comments
Livni will oppose Netanyahu’s coalition
Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, has formally asked Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing Likud party, to form Israel’s next government. Likud won 28 seats in recent elections, one fewer than its centrist rival Kadima. But he has the support of other right-of-centre parties, notably ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu. Netanyahu says he wants to form a broad coalition that will include his main rivals in Kadima. But Kadima’s leader, Tzipi Livni, says her party will oppose Netanyahu’s coalition.
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Meanwhile, in the Situation Room
By Aaron Wherry - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 12:13 AM - 5 Comments
While everyone here was otherwise occupied, Wolf Blitzer aired another clip of his interview with the Prime Minister.
The question in this case: What would constitute victory in Afghanistan?
The transcript of the Prime Minister’s possibly noteworthy response after the jump. Continue…
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Stephen on Barack
By Aaron Wherry - Friday, February 20, 2009 at 12:03 AM - 10 Comments
From the CBC’s interview with the Prime Minister.
“The thing that struck me the most about him was how genuinely relaxed he is.”
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Non-rhetorical questions
By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, February 19, 2009 at 10:26 PM - 35 Comments
Acknowledging all of the other obvious reasons, is the public’s seemingly genuine affection for Barack Obama at least somewhat attributable to Barack’s Obama seemingly genuine affection for the public?
What percentage of Canadians will be more impressed with the President’s visit to the market than anything he said at this afternoon’s press conference?
How many times in, say, the last year has the Prime Minister allowed us to see him in a similarly uncontrolled environment?
Did it happen even once during the last campaign?
Were Paul Martin or Jean Chretien or Brian Mulroney any different?
Consider, for that matter, the following clip of the President in Elkhart, Indiana last week. When was the last time any Prime Minister participated in such a forum and left open the possibility of such a situation? Continue…
