Downton in D.C.

The "Today Show" reported that a congressman decorated his D.C. office "in the style of Downton Abbey" replete with red flocked wallpaper and late Victorian furnishings. The question is did he go whole hog? Did he replace that modern electric lighting with Downton-era gas? Does he summon his staff with a funky bell and cable system like we see at the beginning of the telecast? Do his butlers, valets, and footmen sport white-tie formal wear? Is his staff relegated to a subterranean room for meals? Do the plot lines of his Congressional life develop at a glacial pace perked up only by the acerbic comments of his mother who bears a striking resemblance to Maggie Smith? Actually, the controversy is not related to "Downton" (Who would dare criticize the favorite fantasy show of middle-aged women everywhere?) but where the Congressman obtained the funds for the lavish office decor. And perhaps a bit of jealousy from his Congressional peers with their sterile 21st century Steelcraft office furnishings. I was project manager for the new Boston District Facility back in the 80s. It included Sales Offices. We got a heck of a deal from our contractor and actually had money left over when the project was complete. I always left the choice of furnishings to the people who would actually work there (within budget). The District Manager decided to spend some of the largesse on expanding his corner office and installing a "chandelier" there. When the Regional Manager visited Boston for the Grand Opening, he was taken aback. "Dufton, this guy's office is bigger than mine. His desk is bigger than mine, and i don't have a chandelier. You will change this!" The Boston District Manger didn't last long, by the way. Will the same fate befall the "Downton"-loving Congressman? Is his office better-furnished than John Boehner's? Will there be consequences? The proverb states, "The blade of grass that sticks up is the one that will be cut." On the other hand, that bit of "Downton" in D.C. could be quite the tourist attraction. "I know he is not our Congressman, but after we tour the Smithsonian and the White House, could we visit his offices? I've always wanted to ring a bell and have a butler appear."

Product Differentiation

Product differentiation is the key to a successful marketing strategy. Customers willingly pay $300 more for an Apple computer because "everyone knows" that macs don't crash as often as Dells and they look cooler anyway. Label your perfume "White Diamonds" and sell it for $20 per bottle. Label it "White Diamonds by Elizabeth Taylor" and you can sell it for $80 and Liz has been dead for years. Another way to achieve high profits through product differentiation is by having a unique feature. Pez is lousy candy, but put that lousy candy in a dispenser shaped like Bugs Bunny and you can name your price. You can also foment a Pez Dispenser Museum in downtown Easton (Our Fair City), PA. Toilet paper would appear to be The Great White Whale of Product Differentiation. How can we get people to pay more for our t.p.? Toilet paper has been colored and scented for years. No one gets excited about that. Then there was the weird Mr Whipple "squeezably soft" Charmin campaign from 25 years ago. It worked for a while but then people just "put it behind them" (a little t.p. humor there). Cottonelle may have slain The Great White Whale of Product Differentiation or at least put a harpoon in it. Their TV commercial shows a woman with a microphone and a clipboard (so she must be official) outside a row of Porta-Potties at what appears to be a sporting event of some kind. She stops a chubby, balding, middle-aged guy and asks, "Would ridges on your toilet paper make you cleaner and fresher?" "Sure would," he replies. At this point in the commercial, I had an unfortunate flashback to my Army days. Included with one's C Rations were three cigarettes and a small wad of toilet paper. Now, the C Rations available to us in Korea in 1970 were labeled with their packing date and that date was 1943. You have to be really desperate to smoke a ciggie that is older than you are. More to the point, there wasn't a whole lot of quality control on toilet paper manufacture during WW II. The t.p. with our C Rations had embedded wood chips. The "ridges" from those wood chips certainly added to the cleanliness of the operation but the aftereffects stunk. Back to the Cottonelle commercial, the woman then asks, "If you were cleaner and fresher, would you consider going commando?" As all the cool kids know, "going commando" means eschewing underwear. I had another unfortunate flashback - this time to Junior High Gym class. Everyone had to shower after Gym in those days. For 12 year old boys that meant a whole lot of water sprayed about the locker room. The bell was about to ring and I still wasn't dressed. In haste, I dropped my trusty boxers on the wet floor and they were soaked. Clearly, that would lead to a difficult-to-explain wet spot on my pants. By necessity, I had to "go commando". Don't try this at home, kids. Rushing to get dressed, I neglected to check certain dangling body parts before zipping up and experienced the most excruciating pain imaginable to a pubescent boy. It was a tough decision between just leaving myself zipped in for the rest of my life and doubling the agony by unzipping. I chose the latter which was probably wise since those 26" waist pants weren't going to fit me forever. I have not "gone commando" since. Back to the conclusion of the Cottonelle commercial, The man emerges from a Porta-Pottie all smiles carrying a small bag. He announces, "I feel cleaner and fresher" and proceeds to drop his pants a tantalizing inch or so exposing a goodly portion of bare buttock. Choirs of angels then sing and lettering appears, "Go Cottonelle. Go commando." Take this advice from one who is still scarred from a "commando" disaster in 1960. "Go Cottonelle if you must. But keep the boxers." The "commando" idea certainly is a great product differentiation ploy though.

The Effect of the Tide

Ron Paul's campaign could use a boost. All it takes to rise to prominence in the Republican primaries is a concept that those evangelical voters can sink their teeth into. Rick Santorum was wallowing in the depths of the polls until he came up with "Maybe JFK (and the Constitution) were wrong. We need more, not less, church influence in matters of state." Look where he is today. He can now afford a suit and tie as opposed to that sweater vest he sported in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Ron Paul supports, among other things, a return to the gold standard. The dollar will remain strong and the economy will prosper as long as each and every greenback is backed with a little piece of Fort Knox. This concept is too esoteric for the common voter.

Ron should alter his economic policy to appeal to the masses. A news item in yesterday's paper has a great idea - Back the dollar with detergent.

When police raided a suspected drug den in Washington, they found cocaine as usual and something unusual - shelves filled with large jugs of laundry detergent. Druggies were paying for their fix not with cash but with Tide Extra Brightening Formula. Police explained, "Everyone needs detergent. It's easy to re-sell, and it doesn't spoil."

Why not back the dollar with Tide? Unlike gold or oil, we make plenty of it right here in America. Those Saudis will certainly send us all the oil we want if instead of dollars whose value fluctuates, we paid them in detergent. Burkhas get plenty dirty with all that Arabian sand in the air over there. If we slip a few jugs of Tide to Mrs Taliban to ease her laundry day burden, she may convince Mr Taliban not to plant those roadside IEDs. Why should drug kingpins be the only ones with "springtime fresh" and clean clothes?

Ron Paul, the nomination is there for the taking. Think a little further outside the box.

Muppets on Wall Street

"Too big to fail" financial giant Goldman Sachs recovering from the 2008 Meltdown but still doling out average $400 K annual paydays to its principal employees got a bit of a public relations black eye yesterday. Greg Smith, an executive director of the firm, published his resignation letter in the NY Times. Greg accused Goldman of losing its moral fiber, putting profits ahead of customer interest, and dismissing customers as "muppets".


That is an insult to Kermit, Miss Piggy, and Fozzie Bear, sir! Actual Muppets would not be so stupid as to purchase sub-prime mortgages from Goldman when Goldman covered itself by buying derivatives that profit when the mortgage packages inevitably fail. Actual Muppets would not accept government bail-out money to recover from a financial crisis that they caused. Living up to "The Rainbow Connection" requires a higher morality than complying with 2008 SEC Rules.


Greg Smith is in his early thirties. Take some advice from a 30 year veteran of the Corporate Wars, Greg. There is not now, nor has there ever been, morality in the Boardroom. Andrew Carnegie built all those libraries "to educate the common American" while he called in the National Guard to slaughter innocent strikers in the Homestead Massacre. Leland Stanford founded a wonderful university while building the transcontinental railroad on the backs of imported Chinese labor. As soon as the railroad was complete, he made sure that immigration laws forbade their families to join them here. Nowadays, corporations "declare bankruptcy" to get out from under employee pension and health care costs. Look up American Airlines this year and Bethlehem Steel twenty years ago.


If you seek morality in your workplace, Greg, Sesame Street is the place for you. Wall Street is not.

Subtle Revenge

The new season of "Mad Men" begins this month. A big part of the show's charm is that it accurately reflects corporate life when I began my time in Cubicle Land in 1972. The guys got to smoke wherever and whenever. Many had a bottle of booze in their desk drawer. Long, liquid lunches were the norm for some.


Meanwhile, the "girls" were subject to sexual harrassment and had no chance of advancing beyond Executive Secretary. But they did extract a subtle revenge on "The Man". Even a 110 pound stenographer could exert unbelievable pressure on a very small floor area with her stilleto heels. Tile floors were the norm in the Steno Pool room. It didn't take long for its surface to resemble the pockmarked moon. As a Facilities Engineer, I was replacing floor tile on an annual basis. The carpeted Executive Offices and Conference Rooms fared little better. Drink spills could be cleaned. Cigarette burns could be covered over. Pathways subject to stilleto heel traffic eroded faster than a snowbank in Florida. Again, I had to replace office carpeting regularly.


Is it coincidence that when corporations banned sexual harrassment, established Equal Opportunity based on gender, and curbed some of the "good old boy" excesses in the late 70s that women began sporting large clunky (and weight-distributing) heels? Floor covering life expanded proportionately with opportunities for women in the work place.


"Mad Men" plans to bring Don Draper and his firm through the 70s. I wonder if the show will pick up on this subtle change in teh workplace.

Spanglish

VThe best thing on TV last night was the NBA game between the Chicago Bulls and the N.Y. Knicks. Actually, according to the jersey logos worn by the teams it was between "Nueva York" and "Los Bulls". In an effort to expand their fan base to the Hispanic population (and to sell more jerseys), the marketing geniuses at NBA headquarters dictated that all teams have "Latin Night" games with the special uniforms.


This is about as insulting to Hispanics as those ubiquitous bumper stickers that read "If you want to stay in my country, speak English". Using Spanish adjectives and articles with English proper nouns implies that either Spanish speakers can't figure out where "New York" is or that English speakers don't know that "Toro" means "Bull" not to be confused with "expensive lawn mower". Give us sports fans credit for some intelligence, NBA.


Is the next step to expand the Spanish modifiers on English nouns to play-by-ply broadcasts? "There's a salto (jump) shot by Kobe and los Lakers take a grande siete (big seven) point lead." "Garnett drives to el basket for a corriendo (running) uno (one) hander and it's bueno (good)." Will Spanglish become the lingua franca for sports broadcasts?


If nothing else, it will help struggling high school Spanish students have a painless (sin dolor) immersion into the language. And they say that sports aren't educational.

A Sign of Home

The Lehigh Valley has many distinctive landmarks. There are the Civil War monuments at the very center of Easton and Allentown not to mention Bethlehem Steel's blast furnaces. For long-time Valley residents, though, the giant heads of Manny, Moe, and Jack - the Pep Boys on MacArthur Road are a welcome sign of home.


Alas, the Pep Boys have suffered the ravages of time. Wind and weather have eroded their visages. Last week, repairs were made, and Manny, Moe, and Jack once more smile down on the Lehigh Valley's main shopping drag in their full glory. I've not seen the 2012 version of MM&J. The originals sported 1940s hair styles and glasses which is appropriate since Pep Boys began just after WW II. Was this Pep Boys chance to update their corporate image to the new millennium? Do the new Manny and Jack sport Justin Bieber sweeping hairstyles? Does Moe now peer down through designer rimless eyeglasses? Moe's original perfectly round glasses are sort of hipster cool, but today's hipsters are probably not Pep Boys' target clientele for discount tires.


Resist the temptation to update Manny, Moe, and Jack's look, I say. George, Tom, Teddy, and Abe up there on Mount Rushmore do not get a makeover every fifty years or so to fit in with current stylistic trends. Those outdated haircuts and glasses on MM&J scream tradition and home.