Welcome to the KPC blog! Here you’ll find fresh commentary on all things marketing and research, from historical anecdotes on marketing and research to the latest in advertising today. If it strikes our fancy, we’ll be blogging.

Disappointment

The GAP won't be running any TV ads this holiday season, and definitely not any TV ads prominently featuring celebrities. Sales are slumpy, and experts are calling into question the celebrity-focused strategy they've relied on, quite memorably, for the better part of two decades.

This makes me sad. I love those ads - always. I am consistently impressed by the talent of the GAP creative team to humanize celebrities, engage me, and make me remember ads.

Then again, I am rarely amazed by the talent of the GAP creative team to make me buy clothes from The GAP. And that is, after all, the point of an ad when a brand is that ubiquitous and well-known. The company doesn't need straight-up awareness efforts anymore.

Experts don't cite the ads alone as the reason behind the company's struggles. They also point to the product, and to the stores themselves. And they're right. I wear clothes from The Gap - but they're my filler pieces and they are nearly always on sale when I buy them (right now I am wearing a $4 GAP t-shirt). There are too many more interesting, cheaper options out available - no need to spend very much on the shoddily constructed basics GAP offers.

What the article doesn't mention, but I am curious about, is how the organization's higher and lower end brands are faring. Seems to me that Old Navy and Banana Republic are both probably doing something right. At least with respect to me they are...I am much more likely to buy from either of those stores than I am from The GAP.

And, of course, neither of those stores was villified in Reality Bites. I truly, truly believe that matters. Or mattered enough at some point to make a difference.

Foodies Are Businesspeople, Too

I love it when all of my interests come together in one, succinct article. Food and marketing together. Truly, like chocolate and peanut butter. Ad Age Online reports, today, on a growing trend: "classes" in which busy women prepare meals for their families. A little learning, a little gabbing, a lot of freezer-safe tupperware, I suppose. All for a low, low cost of...well, it varies.

I, for one, think this is a great idea. I'd never participate, but then, I work flexible hours that allow me to not only cook dinner every night, but go to the grocery store every day. And I don't have kids.

I know a ton of people who would love a program like this, though. Some of the most interesting research I've done has been about the role food plays in people's lives. Without giving away any state secrets, I can assure you, there are large groups of people out there who would be both physically and emotionally fulfilled by participating in a plan like this.

And it's not just the busy working mothers. As soon as I read this article, I forwarded it on to a friend who works for an Asheville, NC non-profit that tries to improve nutrition among lower-income kids. Surely moms of those kids could use a program like this - something that helps them cook healthy, inexpensive meals for their kids, easily and quickly, with a little fun thrown in.

But back in the for-profit world, I'm so glad to see that there are marketers out there thinking beyond just how to make dinner planning/cooking easier for moms. One of the nice side-effects of these groups is that the participants get to hang out and enjoy their time with friends...and also get to walk out the door having done something nice for their families.

However, at the end of the article, marketing professor Barton Weitz does a little eye-roll and suggests that the activities in the classes aren't enough to really satisfy the participants' emotional needs to be there for their families. Pardon me, Prof. Weitz, while I reply with a big, "WHATEVER." Sure, some women won't be satisfied unless they spend 12 hours slaving over a hot stove. But many women will feel good about even a small effort. Don't knock it so quickly, Barton.

Lessons Learned

Steve Portigal is well-respected in the world of small qualitative research companies (the world of Context...my former world). I read his blog whenever I remember to - his observations are always interesting to me in that everybody-likes-to-read-about-people-just-like-themselves sort of way.

This post is certainly no exception to that rule. Portigal links to a goodbye post from Simon Roberts at Ideas Bazaar - the company is closing and Roberts is moving on to an in-house post at Intel. In his post, he lists a bunch of lessons he's learned in the three and a half years he's been out on his own. Portigal excerpts this list, and echoes it. Were I still at Context, I could do the same. It's all so true.

The most interesting point to me was the one about it no longer being necessary to have an anthro degree to be an ethnographer...or an anthropologist. I got the sense that this was said with a bit of bitterness...which is quite interesting for me. I spend my three and a half years with Context introducing myself as "Kit, the non-anthropologist". Early on, I believed that to represent myself as an anthro would be the height of dishonesty, akin to saying I was a medical doctor without the credentials. Or a priest.

But after three and a half years, I decided I was wrong to feel a sort of inadequacy because I happen to have a different type of liberal arts degree. I know a LOT of anthropologists - some with BAs, some with Masters, and a bunch with Ph.D.s. And I feel perfectly comfortable saying that an anthro degree does not a good researcher make.

Yes, anthropology classes teach some skills that are key to good interviewing techniques. Unfortunately, some of those skills - such as complete objectivity - are sometimes wiped out by the growth of ego that often accompanies earning a doctorate. And many other people can pick up those skills along the way, as well.

In my view, an open mind, great intuition, and an ability to see connections across different types of information are what make a great ethnographer or ethno analyst. You can't teach those skills in a classroom...and whether or not they come attached to an anthro degree is not that important.