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Making Waste In Our Haste: You Don’t Need to Break the Sound Barrier to Get Retailers to Notice Your Product

bcarmen | 16 February, 2006 15:00

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Confident manufacturers sometimes foolishly rush to market with products that could sell much better if they were launched a little slower.

We’ve all been there. You have a great idea that you’ve turned into a product that’s blistering to be sold. You’ve rushed the manufacturer, air freighted cargo across great distances, spun out miles of marketing and sales materials, and alerted everyone that the derrick is about to burst. You can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel and it’s shining a golden path to your retirement.

Yes… “We’ve” all been there. “We,” the ones that now know better, that is!

I suppose it is only human nature to want to get everything done as soon as possible so that we can find time to do more. We sometimes thrive on productivity. As members of today’s fast-paced society, we strive to do things quickly. I sometimes wonder why, and then I see a Fed Ex truck go by and it all begins to make sense. We have an innate propensity towards positioning ourselves to be successful so that we can demonstrate to others that we’ve accomplished more than they have. However, more often than not, we are simply making waste in our haste.

Ironically, we can actually be more successful by doing less and doing it slower. Certainly there are fewer mistakes and less waste if things are done at a more measured pace, or at least with better planning. Unfortunately, it is very hard to demonstrate this reasoning to someone with a new product.

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The Invention Revolution and the Battle for Fame and Fortune Through Reality TV

bcarmen | 16 February, 2006 14:49

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American Inventor is an exciting new ABC primetime reality TV show from Simon Cowell and the producers of American Idol.

Set to premiere in early 2006, American Inventor will undertake the biggest search ever for the nation’s best new invention. An embodiment of the ultimate American dream, the show will uncover the hottest new product and make a struggling inventor's dream come true. It will celebrate the best in homespun American ingenuity, and turn one person's idea into the next big thing. Or so the ABC.com web site says

Despite the network’s boasts, will American Inventor be “primetime reality” or just another Hollywood scripted show fabricated by marketing hype and wannabe actors, like its American Idol predecessor? Hopefully, ABC will attempt to keep it real and not engineer it in such a way that it is out of touch with true inventors.

Cowell’s claims to the creative conceptualizing of the program are suspicious. The original idea for the show was, in fact, registered with the Writers Guild of America and pitched to an NBC producer by the parent company of this magazine. Cowell maintains that he had a vision for the show while driving in his car. But hey… You can’t fight players as successful as ABC or Simon Cowell so we won’t go there. Since it is a show that promotes inventions and gives recognition to them we must bite our tongues and happily play along. Perhaps Cowell will appreciate our vigor and toss us a bone someday!

But will the show, as they have claimed, make an inventor’s dream come true? Or will it simply make an actor’s dream come true? We hope for the first scenario of course and we’re pretty sure the show’s consumer audience will agree. The last thing we need is for the glory of inventing to be made a mockery of in the name of profits for ABC and Simon Cowell. And that’s not because we dislike Cowell. We actually like him a lot. After all, he is an accomplished and deserving inventor in his own right.

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Future Trends in Advertising

pkoeppel | 16 February, 2006 11:32

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The current advertising model is not going to hold up forever based on declining ad viewership trends. The future of advertisng seems to be heading towards: 1) A convergence of TV watching and the web, where conumers will be able to order directly off their TV by clicking icons. 2) A blurring of the lines between advertising and TV programming.3)Consumers having geater control over access to programming and commericals through the use of PVR's (personal video recorders like TiVo).

Peter Koeppel is Founder and President of Koeppel Direct


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