What’s going on at Lululemon?

Sign in the window at Lululemon Athletica

When yoga wear phenom Lululemon Athletica first invaded my fair city, it made me proud of my Canadian roots.

How young and fresh the clothes!

How earnest the Lululemon staff as they took down every customer’s every word of feedback and folded it into a pouch bound for Vancouver. Every time I pointed out that the company designs for only one body type, the pear-shaped pretzel, they solemnly agreed, and underlined the word “pear”.

And how effortlessly did Lululemon master word-of-mouth-marketing. The company went viral in the yoga community without any technology even. They did it with the iconic reusable shopping bag cum manifesto.

Lululemon Athletica's life manifesto on its iconic reusable shopping bag

That was then.

In December 2010, Lululemon Athletica said it would voluntarily withdraw some its iconic reusable shopping bags due to lead content and resulting questions over the environmental disposal of the bags. Not so cool.

Lululemon store at the crest of the company's wave circa MLK Day 2009

This is now.

I recently heard from my dear friend DK that Lululemon Atheletica yoga trousers have been selected as one of Oprah’s Favorite Things.

At first blush, this seemed incredible. Lululemon garments aren’t cut large enough to fit most gals the size of Oprah, DK and I. I was astounded. At Lululemon, fat is defined as larger than size 12. If one is size 14, a size 16 or, heaven forbid, larger, it’s impossible to shop at Lululemon and not feel fat.

Was the firm ready to listen to reason? Had they finally twigged onto the fact that the ability to afford $98 yoga trousers rises with age, as does the waistline. Was this a long-overdue attack of common sense? I simply had to investigate.

I hot-footed it immediately to my local Lululemon store. I expected a giant display trumpeting “Favorite Things.” But no. No display of Oprah Pants. This was odd, from a firm that was so keen to merchandise OMbamaPants back in 2009.

When I got to the Lululemon store in Boston, the store seemed deserted, except for the customers. Nobody was working the sales floor. All the gals were chatting in the back folding clothes. But I’m not shy. I broke up their party.

Eventually, we determined that the Oprah pants are “the fat pants, the ones that fit realllllly big.”

As I eyeballed it by comparing styles side by side, a size 12 in Oprah pants looks has about 4 inches more fabric in the seat and 6 inches more in the leg than a size 12 in a similar style. Yes, it’s true. Stylish Canadian Yoga brand Lululemon’s best seller is fat pants!

When you’re selling fat pants, you apparently don’t need the earnestly folksy marketing come-on. I experienced a descent-to-reality sensation akin to that of a young journalist discovering peering behind the curtain of cloud computing and discovering, egad, a mainframe!

But I was not too shocked to buy the trousers. As DK had pointed out, Oprah had been quoted to have said about this favorite gear, “anything that cuts your butt in half should be your favorite thing too! ” The sales gal assured me, “the larger ladies like them.” When DK tried them on, she had to agree. I’m heading back for a second pair.

Moral of the story: a stylish seat style sells, and a seat that’s big enough sells absolutely.

What cloud-computing marketers can learn from black cats?

The Economist recently portrayed the Clash of the Clouds as as a three-way battle for supremacy in cloud computing between Microsoft, Google and Apple. Huh! Come again!?!

Though the author mentions in passing that cloud computing is kinda-sorta like mainframe timesharing, the back-end vendors in this space got no mindspace as players in the cloud computing market.

The Economist is no slouch as a publication. So what’s wrong here? Are IBM, HP and other vendors behind or inside the cloud unlucky, invisible, or simply under-sold?

Their situation is a little bit like the plight of the black cats in the animal shelter.

Black cats are considerably less lucky than other felines. Even wearing a large red tag in the shape of a heart, a black cat in a shelter has only half the chance of being adopted as a cat of any other color.

Black cats, you see, are a victim of outdated stereotyping.

What do mainframes have in common with black cats? Both are subject to old-fashioned stereotypes!

The “Witch’s Familiar” image of the black cat is not dead. It lives on courtesy of publications like Martha Stewart Living.

Marketers at animal shelters struggle with black cats as a product category. Black cats are right up there with proven enterprise computer systems (“legacy systems” by another name) in the ick factor. Black cats, like mainframes, are perceived to be difficult and scary.

What do data centers have in common with black cats? (A) Most people have never actually touched one. (B) they DO look a bit scary.

Nope, black cats are not the cats in the shop windows. And mainframes, even the low-cost, modern ones that run Unix and Linux, are not the computers the news. Both have an uncanny ability to fade right into the background.

What does the "plumbing" of cloud computing have in common with black cats? Both tend to fade into the background.

In fact, if cats shelters with black cats were enterprise systems vendors trying to sell cloud computing, they wouldn’t be in the picture at all.

You think I am kidding? Think again!

Here is an illustration from the Clash of the Clouds article in the October 17th issue of The Economist:

The new cats on the block are those who sell something touchable, something consumers can click on directly or hold in their hands.

The cool cats portrayed in this picture are Microsoft, Google and Apple. The not-so-cool cats of cloud computing, such as IBM and HP, are missing from the picture. (Kinda makes you feel old, doesn’t it, to see Microsoft satirized as a wind-up toy dinosaur.)

Seriously, this article is a good illustration of the black cat problem with marketing cloud computing. One computing stalwart behind the cloud is barely mentioned and others are left out entirely.

I was surprised to see this kind of reporting from The Economist. Their stuff is always well researched and thought out. Whoever wrote this understands the three companies profiled from a hands-on perspective. For example, the author has skewered Microsoft for knocking off Obama’s House Parties in an attempt to turn a difficult installation of Windows 7 into an occasion to celebrate with friends.

But it’s equally clear that The Economist doesn’t get IBM.

The author starts off strong, with the statement, “The cloud’s data centres are, in effect, outsize public mainframes.” True enough. But somehow he or she doesn’t twig to the fact that the company who invented mainframes and time-sharing might have a few clues about the cloud.

No, IBM is rolled into the story on the strength of its balance sheet.

If balance sheets are all that matter to cloud computing, would be worth noting that, as the largest technology vendor on the planet, Hewlett-Packard has a big balance sheet, too.  But apparently HP has zero awareness as a cloud computing vendor. At least in The Economist’s eyes.

IBM rates a second mention in The Economist’s Clash of the Clouds article, this time in reference to the PC battle:

“How will this three-way contest play out? The last similar war was in the 1980s and early 1990s, when Apple, IBM and Microsoft fought for mastery of the PC.

Yikes. Triple yikes!

1. Cloud computing is a battle on multiple fronts, not a three-way contest for consumers’ attention.
2. The war relevant to cloud computing was not the desktop battle in the 1980s.
3. IBM ‘s role in cloud computing is not as a PC has-been.
   (I never thought I’d live to see the day when I’d be defending IBM, but apparently it has arrived.)

A rich online conversation included a lot of educational back-filling, such as this comment from Vzach, who brings out the role of the development community it the battle for supremacy in cloud computing:

“It’s kind of surprising that The Economist sees the battle of the clouds only in directly customer facing applications (such as Google Mail, MobileMe or the Facebook website) and as a three-way battle between Google, Microsoft and Apple (no Amazon or Salesforce).

This is really a very restricted way to look at cloud computing; it misses the use of the cloud as a platform that is leveraged by other parties to create customer facing applications. The Economist then also fails to understand the breath of Microsoft’s vision: Azure is the next operating systems and Microsoft imagines third party software vendors (that used to create Windows applications) to create Azure applications that are then executed in the Azure cloud. Microsoft will then directly profit from the sale and use of these third party applications (much more directly than they used to in the days of Windows).

Because of this restricted view on cloud computing The Economist then also misses the real battlefield in the battle of the clouds – i.e. the question which cloud will be the platform that third party developers will use to create their applications. Its telling that they fail to mention either Salesforce or Google’s AppEngine, core contenders in this battle of the clouds.

Look through all the comments, and I think you will agree that none of the cloud computing vendors reading The Economist get the power of social media marketing. There are no well-written comments that make interesting, on-point links to helpful information from any vendor’s thought leadership campaign.

Why wouldn’t technology vendors do what pet shelters around the country are doing and join their customers’ conversations?

Cat shelters take every opportunity to educate their customers through conversation. If you’re standing in a shelter looking at cats, a shelter volunteer will turn up to answer your questions. In the course of that conversation, volunteer will plant a seed in your mind to make sure that the black ones aren’t overlooked just because they’re less visible.

Technology vendors don’t have to wait till a customer turns up at a particular place to begin the dialogue. When a prospective buyer, recommender or user of cloud computing is reading and learning online, his or her mind is open and in the exploratory mode. This is an ideal opportunity for vendors providing information to be perceived as helpful, not intrusive. Online forums, especially around business publications, are ideal venues to reach approvers and users who are difficult or impossible to reach through classic technology marketing methods aimed at IT people.

In today’s world of information search and online forums, there’s no need to restrict marketing to the old-fashioned methods of interrupting prospects while they are trying to do something else.

The cutest fluff-cloud may not be the right one for you. Shelter volunteer will make sure you take a look backstage at the black cats. Cloud computing vendors should do the same.

Barak Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize: What can we learn from awards marketing?

Barak Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize has met with cheers and jeers around the world.  Personally, I believe Peace One Day’s Jeremy Gilley would have been a more deserving recipient.

I’m not alone Monday-Morning-Quarterbacking the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.

According to a Gallup Poll released on October 23, only 1/3 of Americans believe Obama deserves the award.  Nearly half the public, and a majority of independents, are “not glad” he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Cartoonist Marshall Ramsay's take on Obama's Nobel Peace Prize

Newsweek published a particularly scorching piece, Underqualified for the Overrated. According to author Christopher Hitchens, the annual awards for peace bestowed by right thinking Scandinavians have been of five distinct types:

1. For service to diplomacy and Real-Politik
2. For service to cynicism, opportunism and hypocrisy
3. For service to human rights
4. For service to random but vague feelings of good will.
5. For fealty to supranational institutions and to the United Nations and its cadet or satellite outfits.

Youch!

In his acceptance speech, the President said,

“I am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel Committee. Let me be clear: I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations. “

Even with an understanding of the aspriational nature of the award, people have asked, “Should Obama have accepted the Nobel Peace Prize?”

Many voices said no way.

Minette Marrin, colunmist for The Sunday Times, blogged:

The Nobel committee betrays an astonishing political naivety in endorsing Obama as a man of peace when the world is so unstable, the choices before him so imponderable, the power of the American establishment so unavoidable and when we still know so little of his real calibre

In his blog, The Guardian’s Michael Tomasky wonders:

(W)ill being a Nobel peace prize winner limit his range of options as America’s commander-in-chief in any way? Can a peace prize winner really then go forward and put 20,000 more US soldiers in Afghanistan? Did those sneaky Scandinavian pacifists have this thought up their Scandinavian sleeves?

Marketing professionals would disagree. An accolade, even if awarded prematurely, can affect the future.

Being positioned as a leader isn’t exactly priceless, but the benefits are enormous. For example, a study of over 600 corporate award recipients revealed that winners had 37% more sales growth than non-winners.

Why shouldn’t what works for private enterprise also be good for public office?

Top Five Madcap Marketing Moments

Do you remember the first time you ever noticed questionable judgment in marketing?

For me, it was Flamingo Brand frozen turkeys — the Quebec version of Butterball. As a kid, I could not get past the fact that the body of the realistic-looking flamingo in the logo was exactly the same shape of as a frozen turkey. How did my mom know that there was really a turkey in the package and not a flamingo?

As an adult, I have softened on this issue. I now realize: (a) seven-year-old children are not the target audience for frozen turkeys; (b) the logo looks about as much like a real flamingo as Barney looks like a real Tyrannosaurus Rex; and (c) no company would risk the damage to its reputation of passing off a flamingo as a turkey.

But I still can’t forgive Star-Kist Foods for that misguided creature, Charlie the Tuna.

People are still talking about this on. A user named hebneh posted this comment about five months ago on YouTube: “It never made sense that Charlie WANTED to be caught by Star-Kist so that he could be murdered and chopped into small pieces and put in a can. Instead of being grateful that he hadn’t been hooked, he was disappointed.”

I wish that misguided marketing folks had not felt it necessary to foist a New England Patriots baseball cap onto the head of the Dalai Lama. I believe the context is sufficient to get the point across that he is speaking at Gillette Stadium, home of the New England Patriots. Don’t you?

Gilding the lily?

And why does the online advertising giant feel it is necessary to kill trees to reach small businesses? Maybe it is taking a page out of Narisco Rodriguez’s plan-book, switching up marketing channels to gain attention. The designer, who doesn’t have stores of his own, has also signed a deal with eBay Inc. to create a line that will be sold exclusively through the online marketplace. Of course I’m sure. I read it in the Wall Street Journal.

I would have felt better about receiving direct mail from Google if there had not been errors in my address. If Google is such a crack search company, why couldn’t it have known that Nina Lytton of lytton.com might be the same person as their customer NinaLytton @ gmail? I thought this kind of database marketing dopiness was limited to the likes of Verizon.

Snail mail from Google? Will wonders never cease!

And speaking of database-driven dopiness, did you appreciate the muffed marketing moment that has become known as the Snorkle announcement?

In a world moving to IT in the cloud, Sun and Oracle have made a hot box announcement. A better, cheaper, faster box, to be sure. But a box nonetheless.

A box!

Sun — pursuing the “network is the computer” vision for more than 20 years now — should have known better.

Hardware prices have been falling since computer dinosaurs roamed the earth. A faster, cheaper box is not news.

Where’s the story on headcount? Costs for development and management continue to rise. The energy and facilities savings are probably enormous. Yet a machine like this is a single point of failure big enough to take down the entire company. Where’s the story on how this box fits into a continuously operating cloud?

Think about it, Oracle! If you believe Sun’s shiny new box is powerful enough to house a whole data center or private cloud inside, you know customers aren’t going to buy one on speeds and feeds alone. So why promote it as though it were a just another workstation?  Sun tried to stop thinking like this 20 years ago.