What's with the constant over-bundling of goods and services to artificially inflate the price?  Do they think we're all THAT stupid?

Satellite and cable television are a good example of why this bugs me.

See, I'm a simple guy.  I want a few news and sports channels, some neat HD adventure and travel channels, local affiliates, and not a lot more.  Instead, to get what I want, providers force a lot of what I DON'T want in the “package” and try to represent it as a good deal.

It's not.  Not for me.  Not for them.  I don't need feeds across 4 HBO time zones.

And I'll walk away first.

Yet it seems more and more that such “deals” are multiplying in the marketplace.  Retailers, restaurants, cellphone providers, car dealers, media reps...it's ubiquitous!

What if Agencies did this?  Need a logo?  Okay, I've got a logo/brochure/website package right here!  No?  How 'bout this logo/billboard/radio/texting package?  You get the point.

And it's silly, right?

So here's a solution:  next time a salesperson or a company starts to bundle what you want with what you don't, just wait patiently until they finish their pitch.

Smile.

Then offer them 'half'.

It may not work but it will certainly change the conversation.  And it's a lot more fun than just standing there fuming over the situation.

I have developed a standard position about adopting and applying emerging developments in the marketing arena.  It’s a position borne through observation of incredibly smart “failures” and illogically lucky “successes” and it’s rooted in the maxim that “Timing is Everything.” 

I want to be third.

I could cite example after example of how my “Rule of the Third” has proven itself historically, from wars to commercial real estate development to technology to product introduction.

Here’s why it works: 

The Starter, an eager innovator, has no road map to follow.  The poor soul, with the great or not-so-great idea, is by definition ahead of demand...so unless he or she can sustain the thrust of the enterprise--independent of profit or gain--for a rather long period of time, it withers, dies and appears to fail.

Meanwhile, Second Sting, a keen observer, has recognized the potential of the innovative enterprise and rightly recognizes that its ultimate success hinges on drumming up sufficient demand and acceptance.  So, while slightly smoothing the rough edges from the initial efforts, Second String usually exhausts itself in the heavy lifting of “preparing the market.”

That’s when everything is ripe for Rule of the Third.  The innovation is refined.  Mistakes are recognized.  A little tweak here and there to make it better than ever.  And the market has just begun to clamor.  And you’re rested, ready and waiting. 

How sweet is that?

Maybe that’s why your Grandma always said...“third time’s charmed!”

Okay, I'm writing this blog from within a new program called Buzz Word, part of an online word processing suite in Beta test from Adobe. It allows me to write, similar to a conventional software-based program ... except the fonts are limited.

And that's where the similarity stops.

The documents are stored on Adobe's servers, and I can access them from anywhere. What's more, I can email them to a Co-Author or a Reviewer or a Reader at my discretion. That affords them differing permission levels of modification. The dictionary/spell check is teachable for either Within this document or Always. Colors. Bolds. Variable font sizes. Paragraph formatting. Charts. Lists. Cut. Paste. And yes I can embed and save images (4 megs or less) within the document with more freedom of placement & movement than Word ever allowed.

Then I can export it to my desktop as a Word document, PDF, Rich Text file or pure HTML.

It's damned sweet, that's what it is.

I'm not sure about the whole "do I have a connection" question as it relates to online enterprise activities such as this. My hunch is in the next few years, online connectivity will be ubiquitous, so that question/hesitancy is probably moot.

Confession time: I've been using Apple's Pages program for a month or so and prefer it to Word for all the elegant Apple features you'd expect. Buzz Word won't replace that immediately, though I expect to use it for longer documents which require ongoing revisions.

There truly has never been a better time to be in this business.

After what seems like years of anxious waiting, our Agency is in the midst of a remarkable transformation in what will soon seem to have occurred “in the blink of an eye.” At last, the components of change--so long on the distant horizon--are within the grasp of day-to-day marketers.

You know all the buzz words: Web 2.0, Social Networks, Blogs, Podcasts, Mobile Advertising, RSS. Funny, “interactive,” “digital,” and “internet” are becoming “old school” terms in the same manner as “electronic,” “transistor,” and “solid-state” did a couple of decades ago.

The casual observer could be excused for wondering what this means for the continued viability of this business of advertising and marketing. “Surely ‘the ad biz’ will shortly fade into the sunset, as with blacksmiths and buggy-whip manufacturers of the 1900’s.”

I remember being amused by a “brand consultant” who said to me with feigned sincerity, “You must be really scared about the future for your business.” It was the early ’90’s and desktop publishing (remember THAT term?) was coming into its own and, “why, with all the fonts and clip art and stuff,” surely we’d be on the ash-heap in no time.

“Now anyone can do it,” she said.

I was wittier in those days, and without a pause I reminded her that “The pencil has existed for thousands of years, right.” She agreed. I grinned.

“Has that made everyone an artist? Or a writer?”

Of course it didn’t. Likewise, new and exciting communication channels will never lessen the need for ideas regarding effective consumer contact and persuasion.

In fact, my bet is the opportunities will be multiplied. Because “when the stone is carved, the ink is dry, the transmission is complete, or the file is downloaded”--in short no matter the delivery method--the IDEA is what will matter most.

Two great descriptions of this business will endure all methods of content delivery. The first, from Fairfax Cone (look him up on Wiki, for goodness sakes!): “Advertising is what you do when you can’t go see somebody. It’s as simple as that.”

The second is from John E. Kennedy (not a typo) and adopted by Albert Lasker: “Advertising is Salemanship in Print.”

Okay, the “print” part IS a bit dated...but you get the point.