Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz recently sent an email to CEO Jim Donald, which outlined what he felt was the commoditization of Starbucks. Passion for a brand is driven by small details. Efficiency has a tendency to erase these details. Here are some specific examples given by Schultz:
Automatic espresso machines “removed much of the romance” of the espresso brewing experience - and, more practically, their height made it nearly impossible for the customer to see what was going on anyway.
Vacuum-sealed “flavor lock” bags made it efficient to ship fresh coffee beans to all 13,000 stores, but eliminated a lot of the pervasive aroma in stores. Of course, scent is the sense most susceptible to persuasion, though it’s difficult to brand - unless you’re selling, say, coffee.
Removing coffee presses and similar merchandise from the shop streamlined the process of buying their core product (coffee) but made the store feel boring and sterile.
The lesson? Think hard about what is genuinely a flaw, and what makes your business an authentic experience. Victoria’s Secret models are commodities, Audrey Hepburn was an authentic experience.
What you’re now seeing is not the final new design for the site, but it is a powered by a whole new framework. Called K2, and created by the designer of the original Kubrick theme (the default theme for Wordpress blogs), it represents a whole new type of Wordpress theme, one powered by lots of Ajax-y goodness. Do check it out if you’re a Wordpress user. Anyway, the design and functionality here will continue to evolve over time, but the content will largely remain the same - for better or worse. Stay tuned…
Yes, you are seeing Chausse.org in the default Wordpress theme. I’ve upgraded to the latest version of WordPress and the way I initially implemented the site was in a rather non-Wordpress-upgrade-friendly manner. Part of the reason I upgraded was to start fully embracing Wordpress as a platform, partially so as to avoid what just happened here. A new theme should be arriving shortly. Please be patient.
Trying to get Wordpress up and running on OS X Tiger and getting the dreaded “Database Connection Error” no matter how many times you double-check your wp-config.php settings?
Well, after hours of pulling my hair out trying to get Wordpress up and running on my iMac, I found this post which finally fixed things… Look for the comment from from “johnsel”. It turns out MySQL and PHP on Tiger don’t play well together by default - Wordpress is an innocent victim in the matter…
Now, back in the day, Wendy’s had some of the best ads, even if you exclude the “Where’s the Beef” mega-meme.
Of course, poorly chosen music in fast food ads in nothing new. A few years back, McDonald’s ran an ad plugging their french fries, using The Shins’ “New Slang” for background music. A brief excerpt from the lyrics - “New slang when you notice the stripes, the dirt in your fries. Hope it’s right when you die, old and bony.”
Steve Jobs’ much-publicized rant against DRM is certainly bold and newsworthy, but is it sincere? I doubt it. Here’s why. If Steve is being honest about wishing he could sell DRM-free music, there’s a very simple way to prove it:
Actually sell DRM-free music.
Of course, Apple can’t just start selling everything DRM-free, but there are some big name artists who are open it, like The White Stripes, Willie Nelson, Moby, The Pixies. How do I know this? Because they’re already doing it, on eMusic. The albums they’re selling on eMusic are also in the iTunes Store right now. If Apple’s so certain people want to buy DRM-free music (and I’m certainly not questioning that they are), why don’t they open a special section of the iTunes store to sell a selection of DRM-free albums, and prove that point to the big labels?
Until they do that, I’m with the popular consensus that Jobs is just trying to use his Reality Distortion Field to redirect the conversation away from forcing Apple to license their FairPlay DRM system to other online music vendors.
It’s good to see dadaism is alive and well in America. These guys have responded to utter absurdity in the most rational way possible - with more absurdity.
And for those who still think that misinterpreting the ads as bombs makes any sense whatsoever, check out this video and tell me that again in a straight face. Vandalism? Maybe. Bomb hoax? Not remotely.
Well, it was a long time coming, but you can now buy Groove, in an actual box, on Amazon.com. That’s cool. The price, not so cool. It’s a great piece of software, but without mass adoption, it’s potential is quite limited, and the $200+ price doesn’t help.
Wow, what a weird, weird day in Boston. My coworker John got in two hours late due to one of those… things. And we all had a great view of the insanity from our Hancock Tower office. It’s very strange looking straight out your window at news helicopters.
Anyway, what’s pissing me off about this whole situation is that the media keeps refering to the light up viral advertisements as “hoaxes”. Hoaxes of what? Bombs? They contain batteries, as might a bomb. They contain a light-up cartoon character, as might a… oh, wait. Bombs don’t usually consist primarily of a light up cartoon character.
These guerilla ads are not hoaxes. Perhaps they are graffiti. Perhaps they were poorly planned and executed, but there is absolutely nothing “hoax” about them. A hoax is something designed to look like something else. These were battery powered illuminated signs designed to look like battery powered illuminated signs.
On the local news, they showed a local art student, who placed some of the signs, doing a “perp walk” into a police car. Mayor Menino threatened perpetrators with 2-5 years prison time for each device placed. I wonder how much time someone would get for scattering throwies.
Sure, it’s natural to be suspicious of unusual devices located around a city, but are you telling me that not one bomb squad member at any of the 28 locations was capable of realizing that the device (again, consisting primarily of an illuminated cartoon character) was not a bomb? Apparently, 9 other cities had no problem doing this.
Gee, could all the indignation of the local authorities just possibly be redirected anger at their own foolishness?
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Starbucks chairman Howard Schultz recently sent an email to CEO Jim Donald, which outlined what he felt was the commoditization of Starbucks. Passion for a brand is driven by small details. Efficiency has a tendency to erase these details. Here are some specific examples given by Schultz:
Why yes, that is a song about masturbation being played 
Anyway, what’s pissing me off about this whole situation is that the media keeps refering to the light up viral advertisements as “hoaxes”. Hoaxes of what? Bombs? They contain batteries, as might a bomb. They contain a light-up cartoon character, as might a… oh, wait. Bombs don’t usually consist primarily of a light up cartoon character.
On the local news, they showed a local art student, who placed some of the signs, doing a “perp walk” into a police car. Mayor Menino threatened perpetrators with 2-5 years prison time for each device placed. I wonder how much time someone would get for scattering