Secondly, as Mara Liasson pointed out yesterday on NPR, the individual mandate was originally a Heritage Foundation (conservative) idea. Why, she asked pointedly, couldn’t the administration have consistently positioned it that way, and even branded it understandably as the “Individual responsibility mandate” or, even the “No free-rider mandate”? We remember a similar discussion earlier about how Obama failed to position the mysterious “Public option” as “Medicare for everyone,” which is not only more understandable but a lot more emotionally resonant.

Obama is a smart guy, and he doubtless has a lot of very smart people around him – so these communication snafus baffle us.

Read more about the creator here.

I haven’t tried the food; the only thing I’ve sampled is owner Amanda Cohen’s marketing but that’s tasty enough (even when it isn’t always sweet)—for a couple of reasons.

First, it reminded me quickly again how the rules of marketing communication have changed since the advent of the Internet, and specifically, the blog. In this connection it’s hard not to talk about the name “Dirt Candy” first. It’s a glaring post-modern, or post-something contradiction of any rational approach to naming. “Dirt” in the name of a place that serves food? It’s just not done. Even when you have to get attention. “I’m firmly convinced,” she writes, “that if I’d taken a hint from most restaurants and named my place Fork, or Green Table, or E9 it wouldn’t be getting nearly as much press as naming it Dirt Candy.” Hard to argue with. And as we all know, a vegetable is just a colorful, jewel-like creation born from the mixture of dirt, water, and sunshine. Obviously dirt candy.
But did she think about the visceral dimension of branding? I’m sure she did, and went full speed ahead anyway. It’s the same sensibility that produces kimchi doughnuts.

Muse as you will on this oddest of odd names. What I really like about Cohen and Dirt Candy is the keen sense of positioning. Positioning that is expressed in the characteristic matter-of-fact, sometimes acerbic, sometimes in-your-face, and at its best no-BS mode of the day—but still positioning, the classic art form that will always be necessary.
Here’s Cohen’s message: “I don’t care about your health. And I don’t care about your politics either. But I do care about cooking vegetables.”

Her challenge was to carve a distinctive niche in the no meat/vegetables-only universe; the underlying inspiration, she tells us, was that the best vegetable dishes she ever had were in traditional restaurants. She decided to take that slice from the meat-eating world and expand it into a full-blown vegetable-only venture. On the flip side, she seems to hate what vegetarians have done with their raw material, not to mention the holier-than-thou attitude with which they’ve ruined the flavor.

Bon appétit.

Twitt
Twittering
Tweet
TweetDeck
Tweet2Tweet
Tweetie
Twitt(url)y
TwitterBerry
Twitt’m
Twitterati
TwitPic
Twitter Bites
Twitter Bug (and other stuff from Urban Dictionary, including Twitterverse)
- and countless others

I think my favorite so far is

…which has something to do with tracking opinions on Twitter. Just looking at it with all those t’s and r’s stacked together sets up a tuning-fork kind of hum in my brain. I gaze at it for a few seconds, doing stuff like trying to say it backwards. And we worried about all those years about making names simple, and unmistakable in terms of pronunciation. Goes to show what you can get away with when you’re slipstreaming behind a massive buzz machine. (Sorry, you cannot get away with Twitxr.)

There’s something else in here about the intersection of technology and language, especially at this moment, but I’m not feeling philosophical enough today to digg into it.

Here’s what Radio Shack CMO Lee Applbaum said about the launch of The Shack campaign:

“Trust is a critical attribute of any successful retailer, and the reality is that most people trust friends, not corporations. When a brand becomes a friend, it often gets a nickname – take FedEx or Coke, for example. Our customers, associates and even the investor community have long referred to RadioShack as ‘THE SHACK,’ so we decided to embrace that fact and share it with the world.”

“Trust is a critical attribute…” fine. How can Applbaum then claim with a straight face that “our customers, associates and even the investor community have long referred to RadioShack as ‘THE SHACK’”?

Sorry, the Radio Shack brand has been a part of my life since I was a kid. I’ve been there many times, heard it talked about many times, and have never once heard anyone refer to it as “The Shack.” No one. Never.

I guess I’m left wondering why you would spin the story in such an implausible direction, unless you were just desperate. Worse, my entire feeling about the brand—which wasn’t negative to begin with—just went into the toilet. Actually, I must have had more of an emotional investment than I thought because I find the deception really depressing.

Out.

There are some good lessons on messaging in this debacle.

A couple of Liberal commentators are put out with their leader for not being able to frame the proposal in simple, clear terms. In a rhetorical letter to the President, Thom Hartman wrote, “‘Medicare for anybody who wants it. Private health insurance for those who don’t. Easy message…”

Next, you might watch a video clip of Ariana Huffington on Countdown, in which she makes the following points (with suitable exasperation):

• Obama probably had a grassroots army ready to spread the word, but they didn’t know what to say
• Communication vacuums leave the door open for your competitors to position you, maybe decisively
• The official spokespeople for your company need to be singing off the same page; the alternative is confusion and potential catastrophe

Finally, you might take a look at a Roger Ebert post on the power of memes, which clearly can work for ill as well as good.

Let us know what you think.

Mine was: “23 mpg, plug it in.”

Sure, creating a little mystery as a way to get buzz can be effective. United Airlines did a good job of that with their launch of TED. But here’s a case where the mystery–or miscommunication–is embedded in the design itself.

Does an electrical outlet really “read” as a zero? And now that the design is out there without the clarifying “What is 230?” words, will more people read it the way I did?

230 mpg is an impressive statistic. (Even if it is misleading.)
23 mpg isn’t.

In isolation, this design just short circuits itself.

This time I said in my most pleasant and civil voice: “I’m surprised. The payment terminal asked me that question just a moment ago, and I answered ‘No.’ Now you’re asking me again. Wouldn’t you find that annoying if you were a customer?’

The cashier apologized and explained that she understood, but it was the policy of management (of course) to require checkers to ask the question again. “They even send mystery shoppers through to make sure we’re asking you if you want to donate.”

I wasn’t surprised the checker was working off a script; that’s a no brainer. My immediate impression however was “Safeway management is pursuing a policy that is going to offend some customers. And they may know they’re doing this.”

Gaynelle said, “Yes, they probably do want to shame you. Maybe they know that’s the only way you’ll give.”

Meanwhile at the store, the woman in line behind me wearily fetched a “Your Feedback Is IMPORTANT” form and thrust it at me. “Here, take this. It’s much more effective. The cashier is powerless.” Then I thought, “You’re right, the poor cashier is caught in the middle, just following the rules, occasionally taking abuse from prickly people like me.” I looked at the cashier; she just shrugged tiredly and nodded.

“Dear Safeway. Maybe you’re way smarter and more far-seeing than me. But you’re really bumming me out.”

It’s not like Lucky or Nob Hill are so far away.

Take Safeway’s checkout process. I like Safeway; I go there a lot. Works perfectly well for me from the standpoint of convenience, quality, price, selection, service. And as far as I can see they’re good citizens too. For quite a while they’ve been raising money to help fight breast cancer, MS, and other diseases. But how you do that in the store environment where people are typically busy, and just eager to get finished and get on their way, can be tricky.

I think the last thing you’d want to do is change a customer’s willingness to donate into resentment. So here’s what’s happened to me several times, and to at least one other customer a few days ago who ended up snarling angrily at the cashier during checkout. As you swipe your payment card through the Safeway payment terminal, a message appears onscreen asking, “Do you want to donate to help fight Muscular Dystrophy?” Tap here for yes, tap here for no. It’s relatively seamless and unobtrusive, and as a way to handle the request it has the advantage of being discreet. Which means if I tap the “No” button on the interface, no one knows but me, and maybe the cashier. Problem is that after my bill has been sub-totaled, the cashier asks me again, very audibly, “Would you like to donate to Muscular Dystrophy today?”

OK, it’s redundant and clumsy, but from an experience standpoint it goes deeper than that.

First, the customer has been unexpectedly forced to deal with an issue that has the potential to evoke guilt, and she has to do it at a point in the process where she just wants to pay the grocery bill and get home. Secondly, the cashier has just made a private choice into something public. If I have to answer audibly “No”, it may leave an impression with others in line that I’m selfish or heartless. Which probably overstates it, but you get the point. Thirdly, and simplistically, any customer is going to wonder why the hell Safeway bothers to ask the question electronically if it is just going to turn around and ask it “manually” a few minutes later. And on that point, why can’t the cashier tell as he’s looking at his own screen that I’ve already answered the question? Was that so hard to design into the software? Or is the cashier just not paying attention? As I mentioned, I recently watched another customer ahead of me simply yell at the cashier, “No! I don’t want to donate! You asked me onscreen, now you’re asking me again! It’s unbelievably rude. Stop. I’ve already said No!” The cashier rolled with the punch, but I couldn’t help wonder whether the irate customer would ever be returning to shop there.

There are other aspects of this seemingly mundane moment that are interesting in the day and age of smart, hyper-targeted marketing. For instance, if you live close enough to Safeway to use it as a virtual convenience store (like moi), you could be asked several times a week to donate money. Even if you just do your regular weekly shopping at Safeway, you’re continually being hit for spare change—and that’s inside the store. Doesn’t this have to start aggravating regular customers after awhile?

Of course all this isn’t going to prevent me from returning to Safeway, but it is annoying, and clearly it pushes some people over the edge. And at least the redundant question isn’t a detail that anyone would find devilishly hard to fix.

Footnote: the other day I had to pick up some meds from CVS Pharmacy, which used to be Long’s. Practically right next door to the Safeway. I walked up to the counter, paid, the assistant handed me my pill containers, and then said, “Would you like to talk to the pharmacist about this medication?” Trivial, right? Here’s the context: the old Long’s assistant would ritually say, “The pharmacist would like to talk to you about this medication. Please wait at the next window, she’ll be right there.” Simply no awareness that I’d been taking this prescription for nearly 20 years, or that I’d been getting it from this same Long’s for several years. I had no need to talk to the pharmacist, and I had no need to tell the pharmacist for the nth time that I didn’t need to talk to her, much less wait for her.

Thoughtfulness vs. autopilot. I can’t imagine a tinier, more ephemeral moment during a day—but simply by asking me, CVS had made me very happy.