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How to Boil a Frog. What Censorship Brings from Across the Pond.

In today’s world of paparazzi snapping embarrassing photos of the Royal Family and a controversial independent film on YouTube.com that is attributed for sparking uprisings in the Middle East, we need to understand the optics and tone of how these events can be used to advance an agenda for the reduction of our freedom of expression — and why we must stop it — cold.

 

There is a question we use to stimulate conversations about changing behaviors: How do you boil a frog, we ask? Answer: If you throw it into a pot of boiling water, then it hops out immediately, but if you slowly raise the temperate with the frog beginning in the pot of water at room temperature, then it will tire and eventually poach.  And so this is how we lose personal freedoms — one degree at a time and before we know it, we’re that frog. Croaked.

 

The tone is out there, just observe. The Today Show (9.18.2012) featured a former member of the paparazzi demonstrating how an innocent sunbather’s image can be captured from more than a mile away using a high-tech camera body and powerful lenses. Why? Is this a method to advance an agenda for reducing or eliminating individual rights (albeit abhorrent in the case of paparazzi) to take these photographs? Suppose we remove those freedoms of expression and then change the circumstances of how the camera is used to one where an image of a political figure is captured during an illegal or immoral act. Would that image disappear entirely or be prohibited from publication, even result in the punishment or imprisonment of its photographer? It happens in North Korea, China and countless other countries less imbued with freedoms we fortunate Americans enjoy.

 

When the eye behind the lens is a government employee, does that change your perception?  That’s a bit of a leading question, but we have to explore changes in the environment or circumstances to gauge the health of our freedoms. The optics get blurred through the lens one views life and how comfortable one is if greater restrictions are placed on personal expression through written words, photographs and video. Curbing or eliminating personal expression while removing restrictions on governmental intrusions is a dangerous concept. And in times of spy drones equipped with cameras flying high above us all, do we fully understand what their greater purpose serves?

 

A YouTube.com video trailer for The Innocence of Islam is attributed for the uprising s and attacks on U.S. Embassy locations that resulted in the deaths of American citizens and strategic personnel. The emerging narrative (via Media Matters and others) is that the video trailer should be removed in order to eliminate the offensive material from viewing. Censorship by the very same people in government who took an oath to defend and protect the Constitution? Yes, outright pressure from the U.S. government upon a private enterprise (YouTube.com and Google) to censor privately generated content — an oddly familiar tactic taken by countries in the Middle East that require governmental approval before publication. In those countries, simply knowing that censorship exists  at these levels retards the creative expressions of artists.  Fear of death, imprisonment or other gross penalty is the market gauge there, rather than free-market capitalism forces here. In America (right now) we are free to create content, view it, critique it and share it. Those are unreachable aspirations for less fortunate artists abroad.

 

And what happens if the narrative for restrictions and censorship, veiled as a tactic to protect the peace or prevent embarrassment, continue to advance? We know that freedoms, once given away, are regained only with sacrifice of blood and treasure.  And we know the only way to boil a frog is to do it slowly. Are we smarter or more aware of our situation than a frog? If so, then maybe these two most current events are where we realize that it’s hot here and we have to regain the collective resolve to leap back to freedom to preserve our way of life.

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Obama Campaign Is Running Out The Clock On Romney

It’s like John McCain is somehow influencing the Romney campaign strategy at this point…Romney looks and acts the presidential part; it’s the role of nominee in a bare-fisted winner-take-all election fight he’s not getting. And that’s why Darwin was right and we have Obama in office.


This was the substance of an email exchange this morning with my father. eMail is a great way to share a thought or two and get the fingers moving. And then it occurred to me, Obama’s running out the clock on Mitt Romney. I’ll explain below.

The knock on the Obama campaign has been a lack of attack and detail on matters of substance — calling into the local “morning zoo” radio program and talking about great bar-b-que doesn’t solve the national debt crisis or explain the lack of a Syrian policy to get Russia and China to tow the line and tamp-down that civil war. The lack of substance is like watching a college basketball team hold onto a small fourth quarter lead by dragging the ball over the half-court line and then passing from corner to corner, avoiding defenders but willing to take a foul. Classic 80’s round ball. If there is one thing we know for sure about this president, he’s a basketball fanatic and plays it religiously. His own brother-in-law is a basketball coach! Trust me, they get this concept and are executing it — flawlessly.

And then there is Mitt Romney and his team who are swatting at the ball, lunging at the Obama team trying to stop the clock with the game refereed by mainstream media. This presents a terrific challenge to the Romney campaign that desperately needs to get into a heated running game up and down the court to score points in order to overcome the gap. Ask any basketball coach and he’ll tell you that you have to press hard, take a charge and sacrifice — leave it all on the court to overcome an opponent’s lead in the fourth quarter.

Here’s a word of advice to the Romney camp: Even though winning at this point may be out of the question given time on the clock, at least give the core supporters a final push to win that offers them some hope and a glimpse into the character of a candidate that is willing to leave it all on the court.

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School Children Suffer Consequences of Teachers’ Strike

Our children practice lock-downs in school — an effort to teach children how to take cover and remain safe from threats outside of the classroom. But what happens when it’s a lock-out and the teachers are the ones threatening at the doors? What crisis of confidence does that create in the minds of a child from a broken home, or latch-keyed survivalists who every day must pass the grade of street lessons when school is out of session?

In today’s tumult, it would be a nice thing for children in Chicago to get up in the morning knowing their school is open, friends are gathering after a final summer weekend and their teachers are there to greet them — ready to deliver some knowledge (like it or not). Even better would be for struggling parents to count on a timeless tradition of sending children off to school as a convenience in order to earn an income without worry for the security and watchful presence of a safe school environment.

Is it right for an educator to take to the streets in order to teach a middle-schooler a lesson in shared sacrifice for some socialist agenda? Why are the teachers’ unions using children as the leverage point for negotiations? Is that moral? Imagine an entire school on lock-down; children huddled in a window-less room, clutching a lunch pale and bottle of water. Now imagine that same school and its hundreds of students in virtual lock-down with the very same teachers we entrust to keep our children safe now waiving signs and chanting slogans as participants in an angry mob. In the first example a teacher is protecting our children like a brave grizzly, while in the second example there is an imposing image of the bear on attack.

Look into the not too distant future and you may see a sign held by your emergency room physician who strikes for a larger slice of the shared-sacrifice pie that feeds less, yet promises more. We all love teachers for their standing in society and for their dedication — that cannot be denied. But they are leading by example in many ways and the lessons will only end in more pain, more sacrifices and perhaps, with a few more children left behind in a time when our nation can least afford it.

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Reflections on Steve Jobs’ Death Stirs Refelections on Early Forecasts for iPhone, Elegance of Jobs Design

It was only natural for anyone touched by Steve Jobs (just about all of us) to reflect on his accomplishments. I will most miss his genius as a marketer first, inventor second. From my perspective, Steve Jobs was able to create a need and fill it with outstanding products that fit a brand promise to not only be different, but better and more elegant. And in that elegance within each product produced under his direction, Apple transcended from electronics manufacturer to become a luxury brand market driver. PC’s and cell phones were just mainstream–something to use but nothing special–just a functional ho-hum experience. Jobs understood that to create sustainable value, a product and its producer must exceed expectations. That the face of an iPhone is glass meant Jobs cared about screen quality and the overall consumer experience that could replace ‘ol fido as man’s best friend. But it got even better with each turn of the design. The nuances were innumerable and the public placed premium value on the iPhone as a result.

So this is where the moment of truth or consequences came for Apple with the release of iPhone 4S. What is under the hood is substantially better, faster and will improve the user experience. So the superficial knock on the iPhone 4S is that it’s not 5. We all expected a 5, right? Now would be a good time to review the paragraph above as an illumination of Jobs, the brilliant marketer. The iPhone concept, design and its successful launch meant so much to him and Apple (one and the same) that, to get it right the first time, he delayed production–obsessing over the details. The iPhone 5 is tucked inside the iPhone 4S and my belief is that this model is a quick tip of the hat and wink to Jobs. This iPhone model didn’t need a 5 on it. That can happen Next. This turn on the phone was for Steve–4S. So, this one is 4 Steve. Thank you.

Here’s the full content from the 2007 interview that covers iPhone, luxury branding and how 2008 was going to be a big year for Apple as predicted to be one of the two most admired brands in 2008.

AN INTERVIEW WITH MARK CAIN
BRAND CORE INNOVATOR
April 2007

What trends have you seen within the luxury world?
Authenticity is key. The luxury demographic has an incredible appetite for authentic products and more notably, experiences that provide opportunities to connect with family or friends at a higher level. Over the last 5 years there has been a significant increase in the demand for exotic experiential travel to unique destinations, villa rentals in far-away places and personal services to streamline the process of planning and enjoying these journeys.

When did wanting to be rich and live a life of luxury become so popular?
It’s a basic part of the human condition to improve and raise the level of existence. Economic cycles encourage or curtail the pursuit to a degree, but the pursuit of wealth and the appetite for luxury grows the more it is fed.

Do you think that the middle class is dying?
The middle class is here to stay but to a greater extent there is a rising separation in the market between traditionally wealthy households and a rapidly emerging ultra-wealthy demographic with incredibly sophisticated lifestyles.

There seems to be an explosion of luxury goods. Which goods do you think are the most popular?
The offerings of exquisite, handcrafted timepieces have exploded to emerge as a barometer of wealth and sophistication, especially for men. This contradicts the trend of middle-market consumers that use an iPod or their cell phone for the functional need of keeping time. Wine collecting and the appreciation of artisan wines are rocketing in popularity. Today’s wine collector may have thousands of bottles stored in home cellars in addition to offsite temperature-controlled wine vaults. That’s hundreds of thousands of dollars in inventory that will be consumed over generations. A terrific example of filling a specific niche in this new luxury explosion is The Napa Valley Reserve, located in St. Helena, California. It’s clearly about the wine there since Harlan Estate and Screaming Eagle are the viticulturalists and winemakers, but it’s also about the entire experience, the culture of cult cabernet and connection their members enjoy.

What products/brands do you anticipate being popular for 2008?
Apple iPhone and Virgin Galactic

I’ve heard about luxury canned food companies. Do you see this market taking off?
The American household dry goods pantry is shrinking while the refrigerator is expanding. I’d bet on any service business that focuses on providing a great variety of fresh, fast and convenient meal solutions for all three day-parts. It can be gourmet grocery or meal assembly centers depending upon what consumer they intend to serve.

It also seems that sunglasses/handbags/shoes are always some of the most popular items. Why do you think these make for good luxury purchases?
It’s how they make you feel—plain and simple. A woman will wait 2 years for a Hermes Birkin Bag ($9,000-34,000) because she has to have it and she knows that not everyone else will. And when she does get it, it makes her feel like a million bucks. Owning and wearing these is a statement of sophistication and wealth as much or more than the element of fashion.

Do you think these items will still be popular in 2008? Would these markets be good for entrepreneurs to invest in?
Virtually every luxury category is highly competitive and anchored by established brands. If you have an edge or angle that makes you different then you can establish your own space. I think the Kate Spade brand is a terrific example of filling a niche and building a smart brand with a consumer who gets what her approach is all about.

What is new? Are there any markets within the luxury world that are untapped?
I remember watching Kirk Douglas in Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea as a kid and thinking about how amazing it would be to live under the ocean in a luxurious submarine that sports every amenity you would want to enjoy while taking in the mystery of the ocean. If space journeys are the next big thing, then who knows, maybe ultra-luxury submersible experiences are the next, next big thing.

Can you talk about Destination Clubs? Is this a market that you think will continue to thrive in 2008? How could an entrepreneur get involved in this market?
Destination Clubs are far and away a superior alternative to traditional second home ownership and they satisfy a growing demand for greater variety of destination experiences without the limitations of hotel rooms. A family can easily travel to a number of club homes in ski, beach and golf locations year round without the burden of housekeeping and maintenance. The home quality is also consistent in a club and members can rely on pre-arrival services such as pre-stocking of grocery items, children’s needs and holiday décor. The financial aspect for members is simple and mirrors most country club models where a one-time refundable deposit is made with the club and then annual dues recur every year of membership. Return of membership deposits range by club, but are generally in the range of 80-100 percent of the original deposit.

The idea of running a destination club seems easy at first; buy houses and find members. It’s a real estate portfolio exercise with an incredible amount of service requirements operating in the field to deliver the experience members expect from your brand. Starting a club today to get mass and scale to compete with established brands would be in the $50-100 million range. Other than capital requirements, there is a limited supply of executives with the experience it takes to build a club from the ground up. Having said all of that, I think opportunities exist to provide services to clubs and their members in specific resort markets. Clubs will always be searching for more ways to add value to services in more efficient ways and that could open the door to nimble personal service providers.

What markets do you think would be the best for entrepreneurs to invest in (butler services, upscale products, yacht services, massage services etc)?
An interesting model that really intrigues me is what I call the personal reward space. I see traditional men’s barbershops that make a haircut and shave as getting only a slice of the experience. Why not add a pool table, cold mugs of beer and dry-cleaning service? The same can be said for the personal massage business where both sexes are taking an hour out of their week to relax. Two years ago the notion of a “man cave” was unheard of. A smart remodeling contractor could market turning unused rooms into personal space to suit a man’s need to relax in his own environment. What about a hair and nail salon that’s also a martini bar?

What opportunities are there for entrepreneurs to add luxury to their existing business?
Scott Berger is an incredibly talented friend who designs the Addison Taylor jewelry line. Each piece is handmade and amazing, but the showroom environment is as unique as his designs. The location is on the 9th floor of a high rise in Scottsdale where he’s installed a pool table and a sleek lounge that transcend retail jewelry purchase experiences. He built his brand into something unique and appealing to his clientele who appreciate and prefer handmade authentic craftsmanship and the experience he delivers more than running into the mall to grab a Tiffany blue box.

What opportunities are there for entrepreneurs looking to upscale an already existing product?
Think beyond the functional elements of your product and innovate around creating and delivering an emotional reaction to it. That’s exactly what Steve Jobs did with the cell phone market. Instead of making a phone that was just better, he encouraged Apple to design their product around a different user experience. It’s not the fact that the iPhone sends and receives calls, manages data or plays music; it’s the experience and the emotion it delivers when you see the icons, hold it your hands and swipe your fingers over that smooth glass face. Apple leapfrogged a flat phone manufacturing industry and created the first luxury cell phone experience. Who thought that was possible?

What do you think is the best target market for selling luxury products?
I’ve identified a segment I call the Conscientious Elite. They’re incredibly wealthy and can afford to buy virtually anything. But at the same time, they realize that leading an extravagant lifestyle can send the wrong signal. They’re selling second and third homes and buying alternative luxury fractional ownerships or destination club memberships. They are squarely focused on quality over quantity and they care a great deal about the environment they will leave for future generations. The Conscientious Elite see their legacy less in financial terms because they have amassed a multi-generational fortune, which frees them to focus on sharing high-quality multi-generational retreats, and connected experiences.

What about the personal services industry?
Certainly one of the top opportunities but it comes with a few hurdles. Liability of course is one, but the logistics and economies of providing customized services, as a scale model is a gating factor. Wendy Lyn is a personal services provider who connects individuals who are interested in the wine, food and culture of Paris with authentic experiences and the artisans who have a passion for what they do. The only way to tap into that type of experience is through a personal services provider, and by the very nature of what they do at their extremely high level of expertise. It is not scalable—thankfully.

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Shared Ownership & Flexible Access Will Lead Vacation Rental Home Markets

We’ve spent some time over the years counseling to and conversing with real estate developers and hospitality operators about the concept of a “Portable Nest”.  So what really is a portable nest and how can developers and operators leverage this notion in the new Shared Use Economy?

 

A Portable Nest is really a metaphor for the ease in which a family (school-aged children) or empty-nester couple can experience a second home lifestyle in multiple destinations without the drag of ownership or sacrificing on the core conveniences they expect and enjoy at home.  Portability of experience emerged with the advent of the summer cottage or the Sunday houses in Texas. That demand for personal and family space, lifestyle conveniences and sense of easily repeatable experience fueled the early second home marketplace; the first use occasion for a vacation home emerged.

 

Before I proceed though, first, a quick linear evolution overview of shared-ownership/use for perspective will set the stage for Portable Nests.  Of course the vacation home ownership model has morphed over the years in the forms of timeshare, fractional and residence clubs, but the essence of  “ownership” of experience has not deviated from the notion of a deeded interest in the real estate. With the introduction of shared-ownership, the rising need for controlling use plans (how the varying owners would have equitable access to the real estate) became important as a way to ensure that the basic tenets of the second home experience were preserved.  And when destination clubs were introduced a little more than 10 years ago, they immediately satisfied a growing appetite for what could be said at the time was an American craving for excess: excessive and extravagant lifestyles on leverage. Gone was the need to own a traditional second home because it became clumsy and difficult to maintain (read “more expensive”).  Also gone with destination clubs is the deeded interest and underlying securitization of deposits as resort real estate values plummet.

 

So how does all of this history relate back to the Portable Nest?  If we fail to learn anything from history then we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes.  In fact, Einstein once said, “ We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” How this relates to the Portable Nest is that real estate developers and hospitality operators need to think creatively/differently to bridge the gap between portability of experience and access/ownership structures.  The same is true for the antiquated marketing programs and processes used to attract buyers.

 

Portable Nests are the future of vacation real estate, and the rise of a more flexible access plan combined with decreasing financial risk based upon a pay-as-you model will lead the way. Incentive to own the real estate will come later, but for now, smart consumers will realize that paying slightly more for flexible access without risk is the way to go.  Developers and operators that think through the concept of Portable Nests and re-envision their offerings to match this new model will be better positioned to survive the short-term pain and reap the rewards of long-term gain.

 

To learn more about migrating your development to the new model, give us call.  We’re portable too.

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Cognitive One Celebrates S4 Golf Tournament and Public Unveiling of Logo at Autism Awareness Event

 

Cognitive One was honored to be selected as the marketing team to create a new logo for the Swinging Fore The Spectrum charity golf tournament to benefit children and families affected by autism through the Arizona Autism Coalition.

 

Cognitive One created a logo that captured the energy of a sports brand that could be used in many additional venues and applied to golf and sports merchandise.

 

Reid Peterson, S4 tournament founder kindly stated,”We were blown away by Cognitive One and what they presented to us even in the first round of creative. They nailed it for us and the response has been very positive. We put it on the golf shirts and it was pretty impressive.”

 

About Cognitive One: Cognitive One is an interdisciplinary, innovative and uniquely skilled team that builds, hones and reinvents existing brands.  We develop and assist in financing emerging brands and management teams we believe in. We deliver tangible results that are measurable in each segment of our practice areas.

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Render-on-the-fly Personas and Branding

I was sharing great conversation in New York at the Russian Tea Room with Shane O’Neil who is the former president of RKO Group (yes, King Kong and more movies, TV stations and bottling conglomerate) and we happened to arrive at the topic of teen-aged children and their amazing ability to adapt. I thought it would form the basis of an interesting post.

 

For those of you how have tracked my spontaneous “coinage” of new phrases and concepts, I thought of a new one just then: render-on-the-fly personas.

 

GenX-ers and GenY-ers are an enigma, in that they adopt behaviors at lighting speed—they text, email and transfer social behaviors faster that ever imaginable for marketers. We all know that technology is the enabler of this bundle, but how does it occur and can you distill it and bottle it (that one’s for Shane) into a concept other than just an X or Y?

 

I think that video games and instant messaging/communication have facilitated a new psychographic, a deeper concept than just a demographic, that has given rise to the ability for individuals to literally render-on-the-fly their lifestyle and how they build their world of relevance.

 

Video games are now delivering render-on-the-fly graphics with amazing quality and at speeds that deliver results as close to reality as possible. Have you played a game on an iPhone? A dimensional experience in the palm of your hand is what you get. (See my interview on trends for 2008 for my predictions about the iPhone that have come true). The Wii, Sony and XBox platforms are all delivering immediate, interactive and community-based experiences.  More than 10 million people are registered users of www.worldofwarcraft.com and have created the largest render-on-the-fly user base in the world.

 

In political parallels, Barack Hussein Obama has, in many ways, become a master of forming a powerful and believable render-on-the-fly personality.  In fact, his meteoric rise to political power from Chicago to Washington D. C. has been at nothing less than at render-on-the-fly speed in comparison to traditional political evolution.  In many ways, Barack Hussein Obama was able to render-on-the-fly a persona that transcends modern political convention and matched a render-on-the-fly generation’s thirst for personification of a candidate more than substance of person of reality.  My opinion is that today’s media was an accelerant to his render-on-the-fly transformation.

 

Think about render-on-the-fly branding. Can we learn anything from the render-on-the-fly concepts I’ve posted today? What are your thoughts on a new render-on-the-fly persona and what does it mean to your business?

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Dr. Fran Pirozzolo’s Approach to Mental Toughness Featured in The Wall Street Journal

November 6, 2010 Scottsdale, AZ- Transformational leadership is an underpinning of the Cognitive One approach when it comes to engaging clients in a process that builds and strengthens their core. Dr. Fran Pirozzolo’s approach has always been to work quietly in the background while leading transformational changes during his three decades as a psychologist and trusted confidant that has shaped mental toughness in athletes, astronauts and politicians.


Fran was profiled today by John Paul Newport of The Wall Street Journal in an article entitled Getting Tough in Golf and Baseball: The World Series Over, Rangers Mental Skills Coach Fran Pirozzolo Turns to His Other Pupils.

Congratulations, Fran. You’re not one to enjoy the limelight, but sometimes it seems unavoidable.


Cognitive One Team

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National Coalition of African American Owned Media taps Cognitive One for Brand Strategy

November 1, 2010  Los Angeles, CA–Cognitive One has recently completed a corporate identity and brand development strategy for the National Coalition of African American Owned Media (NCAAOM) as the coalition emerges as a significant contributor to the dialog surrounding the NBC Universal and Comcast transaction that could limit access for African American content distribution.

 

“Cognitive One has taken the time to understand our immediate needs to communicate the platform of NCAAOM and developed a brand identity that is reflective of our multicultural content development, production and distribution advocacy.  The new logo has been overwhelmingly received by the coalition and we look forward to rolling it out shortly.” commented Stanley Washington, executive director of the NCAAOM.