New Survey Says: Third of Young Netflix Users Cut Cable

Anyone who’s conducting their own personal Millennials ethnography study like I am — aka helping a college kidlet move back into campus — won’t be shocked by the results of this new survey. Landlines, cable, even an actual TV, are low to non-existent on the list of must-haves for this age group. Big media — are you listening?

Pay TV providers got a nasty wake-up call this week from a new survey: More than one third of Netflix subscribers aged 25 to 34 substitute the streaming/DVD rental service for a cable or satellite package and nearly 30% of 18-24 year olds use Netflix’s Watch Instantly service instead of subscribing to Pay TV.

According to a new Credit Suisse survey cited on CNBC’s Fast Money, overall, some 17% of Netflix’s customers say they’re substituting it for cable.

Currently, the major U.S. entertainment giants control approximately 70 percent of all TV viewing through its various broadcast, basic cable and premium TV networks and channels.

Netflix, X-Box and Hulu are already here, but all eyes are on Apple’s revamped TV service and the upcoming Google TV. Amazon is rumored to be working on a subscription service as well.

Shares of Netflix are up more than 150 percent this year while Disney, News Corp, CBS, Comcast and Cablevision are all up less than six percent this year or in the red.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Poll on Brett’s Possible Return

The latest jsonline.com poll:

If Brett Favre is indeed interested in playing again for the Packers, should the team welcome him back?

Yes (62.5%)

No (37.5%)

Total votes: 18,935 + 1 (mine!)

Apparently the only response from the legend himself is: “It’s all rumor.”

And yes, I realize the intended mission of this blog is supposed to be new products, especially marketing, branding, strategy, blah-blah. But it seems to me the ‘Brett Favre’ brand has plenty of existing equity and if Schlitz Classic can be a comeback success after 30 years, shouldn’t the Brett brand have a chance after less than 6 six months?

Source: Favre Has “An Itch To Play Again”

ESPN is reporting that Brett Favre may want to come out of retirement and report to training camp. The legendary quarterback hinted at this possibility while on Letterman last spring. While this Cheesehead is also a Golden Bear, which means Aaron Rogers is okay by me… there’s no one like #4.

 

Say Goodbye to Bill Gates — and Windows XP.

Bill Gates has left the building.

And soon, Windows XP, the last operating system anybody (sorta) liked and actually wanted to use, will go poof as well. As of today, Microsoft is scheduled to stop selling XP to retailers and major computer makers, despite fervent protests from frustrated users who want nothing to do with XP’s successor, Vista. While there are still a few ways to get an XP loaded machine — including limited sales via smaller shops till January 2009 –all but the most resourceful will be forced to switch to the once heavily-hawked Vista.

This is why a group of PC users created a “Save XP” petition which is posted on InfoWorld, now reportedly with more than 210, 563 signatures–including mine. Signers want Microsoft to keep selling XP until the next operating system, Windows 7, is available.

Eric Knorr of InfoWorld pens an impassioned plea: We began this campaign because our readers compelled us to do so. Those of us who have been in the industry for a long time have never seen anything like the negative reaction to Windows Vista. Our readers have frequently voiced their frustrations about software incompatibilities, arbitrary UI changes, expanded hardware requirements, and altered security business rules. On the other hand, we’ve also heard from many users who are clearly satisfied with Vista.

Our point from the beginning has been that Microsoft customers should have a choice: For a reasonable period, those who want to license Windows XP should be able to continue to do so just as easily as they can license Windows Vista.

I will add my impassioned plea to Eric’s. As a Microsoft market research vendor, Customer Experience pro and frequent tech focus group moderator for the company and others in the industry, I have over the past ten years listened to hundreds of opinions, stories, criticisms and raves on the subject of Microsoft. I’ve worked with developers, consumers, enterprise, small business, IT, evangelists, you-name-it. My training is all about sifting through reams of feedback, crystallizing what has been expressed and spinning it into actionable form. In this case, seldom has there been such consensus: Vista sucks.

The lone (sorta) good news coming from Redmond? At least they will be providing technical support for XP through 2009.

It’s July 1st. Hang Up and Drive. (On Over To Buy That Bluetooth.)

Tomorrow is going to be a great day.

Not just for those of us who prefer public safety over the current cell phone insanity but for our gasping economy as well. Now gadget-lovers (like me) don’t need to justify our electronic obsessions — as of July 1, we have an urgent reason for rushing on over to the big sales at Best Buy, Radio Shack and Circuit City or logging on to sites like headsets.com or Parrot, where you can sign a petition to make the Parrot California’s official state bird, in recognition of its handsfree heroism.

California’s new law, taking effect tomorrow, July 1st, will require drivers to use hands-free devices when dialing and driving and bans anyone under 18 from using a cellphone or other mobile device behind the wheel. An officer can pull over and issue a citation to a driver of any age if, in the officer’s opinion, the driver was distracted and not operating the vehicle safely. A similar law goes into effect in Washington state, also tomorrow.

Drivers under the age of 18 may not use a wireless telephone, pager, laptop or any other electronic communication to speak or text while driving in any manner, including the use of hands-free devices.

The new law will reportedly save almost one life per day when it takes effect, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

A couple of handsfree devices getting the highest marks from the gadgets pros at CNET:

• The Aliph Jawbone 2 wins a CNET Editor’s Choice in May 2008  
  The good: The Aliph Jawbone 2 is a fashionable Bluetooth headset with a comfortable fit and an array of noise-canceling and voice-enhancement technologies that result in amazing sound quality.
  The bad: The Aliph Jawbone 2 doesn’t have a volume rocker, and the LED light is located directly on top of the Talk button.
  The bottom line: Despite its quirks, the Aliph Jawbone 2 is quite possibly the ultimate Bluetooth headset in terms of design and sound quality.

  Price range: $129.99 – $154.86

• Jabra

  The good: The Jabra BT8040 is a small Bluetooth headset that is packed with features such as MultiPoint technology (the ability to connect to two different devices simultaneously), A2DP for streaming music wirelessly, plus an intelligent noise reduction and volume equalization technology that offers great sound quality.

  The bad: The Jabra BT8040 may take awhile to fit properly in the ear.

  The bottom line: The Jabra BT8040 is a compact yet powerful Bluetooth headset that offers more than enough features for the mobile professional at an affordable price.

  Specs: Type: Microphone Built-in; Product type: Headset; Design: Over-the-ear  

• Price range: $54.99 – $79.99

And should you be in the market for a new car, check out SYNC, the built-in voice-activated system created by Ford Motor Co. and Microsoft Corp., which lets users do both things hands-free: play music or make phone calls using voice commands.

The 38th Annual Pride Parade: Here Come The Brides –And Grooms.

 
They were everywhere. On giant wedding cake floats. Handing out ‘just married’ Hershey’s kisses. Waving signs and banners. Passing out stickers. San Francisco’s 38th Annual Gay Pride Festival and Parade was one ginormous wedding party — one that (thankfully) also happens to be big business for the city that deserves a boost after all its done to make these marriages a reality.

Tourism officials predicted huge crowds for the weekend — and they got them. Many hotels were sold out, including the Hyatt Regency Embarcadero where we stayed. My daughter and I came to march with my dear childhood friend — the soon-to-be California State Senator, Mark Leno, who is the author of the marriage equality bills approved by the Assembly and Senate in 2005 and 2007. Mark is one of those guys you just know is going to grow up and do something amazingly important– and he has.

SFGate reports that “with 259 marriage license appointments and 284 reservations for wedding ceremonies scheduled at the San Francisco county clerk’s office, Friday was on pace to be the city’s busiest day for weddings since gay marriage became legal earlier this month. There were 202 license appointments and 115 weddings performed on June 17, the first full day that gay and lesbian couples could get married in California.”

The wedding pavilion across from City Hall was swarming with brides, grooms and revelers when we were there. Nearby booths for hotels and resorts were handing out brochures and hawking special honeymoon deals for the newly married.

A recent UCLA study reinforces the good news, projecting the possible economic impact over the next three years :

• Total outlay for same-sex weddings by California residents and nonresidents:    $692 million
• Spending by California couples on their weddings. Assumes 51,319 couples (half of existing committed same-sex couples) will choose to marry, and estimates they will spend $7,645 per wedding:  $392 million
• Spending on weddings and tourism by 67,513 out-of-state couples. Assumes each couple spends an average of $2,962 on the wedding and $1,351 on hotel and food: $291 million
• License fees for 118,832 couples, assuming an average of $73.50 for fees: $9 million.

Beyond warming San Francisco’s coffers, today’s joyful parade warmed half a million hearts. The pictures below say it all.
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Pictures courtesy of Katie Carroll.

The New York City Waterfalls Public Art Spectacular Opens With A Splash.

Chicago has its cows. San Francisco has its cable cars. Las Vegas has its . . . well, you know.

As of yesterday, New York has its waterfalls.

New York City Waterfalls, the ambitious new $15.5 million project presented by The Public Art Fund and Danish artist Olafur Eliasson, is splashing its way across all five boroughs, bringing new energy and (hopefully) lots of cash into the city. The man-made falls tower 90 to 120 feet high in four sites across the East River’s shores:

Beneath the Brooklyn Bridge,
Manhattan’s Pier 35
Between Brooklyn’s Piers 4 and 5
On the northern end of Governor’s Island.

The Waterfalls, which draw water from the river at 35,000 gallons per minute, run from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. every other day through Oct. 13. They will all be visible from South Street Seaport and the Staten Island ferry. Maps, podcasts and more information on viewing these new ‘natural’ wonders are available at NYCWaterfalls.org.

And never fear, Carbon Cops. They will operate on electricity run by renewable resources.

New Site “Living Room Candidate” Presents 12 Classic Fear-Based Campaign Commercials.

Just as the 2008 Presidential Campaign kicks into full manipulative mode, New York’s Museum of the Moving Image launches a powerful new video-rich website featuring TV commercials dating back to the first campaign television spot.  Called Living Room Candidate, the site is packed with fascinating political factoids from 1952-2004 and is a powerful history lesson for any voter.

But what struck me to the core were the twelve commercials whose unmistakable mission was, quite simply, to scare the hell out of us.  Anyone who took issue with Hillary Clinton’s “3 a.m.” spot should take a look at a few of these classic chillers to experience real fear.  Click down the list starting with ‘Daisy’ (nuclear war) to ‘Bomb’ (more nuclear war, this time with vivid mushroom clouds) to ‘Bear’ (Soviets lurking in the woods) to ‘Revolving Door’ (Dukakis frees murdering rapists) to 2004′s Osama & Friends (“These people want to kill you”) and more.

The ‘Mad Man’ behind ‘Daisy’, Tony Schwartz, died last week.  Produced in collaboration with advertising agency Doyle Dane Bernbach, Schwartz’s minutelong spot was broadcast only once – on Sept. 7, 1964, during NBC’s “Monday Night at the Movies.” It showed a little girl in a meadow (actually a Manhattan park), innocently counting aloud as she plucks the petals from a daisy. Her voice dissolves into a man’s voice counting downward, followed by the image of an atomic blast. President Johnson: “These are the stakes. To make a world in which all of God’s children can live, or to go into the dark. We must either love each other, or we must die.”

(W. H. Auden.)

It’s a long way to November.  Prepare to have your pants scared off.

Are The Carbon Cops coming? Will We Be Dragged Off to Carbon Rehab?

41% of Britons think the Carbon Cops are coming.

25% think ‘repeat offenders’ will be shipped off to Carbon Rehab and forced to take Carbon Addiction classes.

So reports Reuters in an article about a recent survey conducted by the Energy Saving Trust, an organization set up to help people kick the carbon habit.

“The UK’s perception is that by 2050 we could have the sort of draconian infringements on our civil liberties that have been highlighted in our research. This need not be the case,” said EST chief Philip Sellwood said in the Reuters article.

Note: I’ve been waving this green flag for a while now.  Do you want your product to be the plastic bag of the future?  It’s either abide by our new millennium’s mantra — Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. Or expect a visit from the Carbon Offset Police enforcing that fourth R: Regulate.

I will undoubtedly be the first to be taken away in (hemp) chains.  Convicted of cheeseburger, paper towel and Crystal Geyser addiction.

 

Inside IKEA’s Marketing.

If you want to test out that hot new relationship of yours, taking him or her home to meet Mom may not be the answer. Instead, the true test of compatibility is buying something at IKEA, taking it home and (maybe) assembling it. Later, you can see how well you two do at Anger Management classes, the ER or while sharing a handful of Xanax.

This is why IKEA’s Flash masterpiece ‘Come Into The Closet’ makes me so crazy. The 5 minute spot brilliantly lures you into five different closets, from Pax Stordal’s 5th floor cool glass look to an urban party room with shimmering disco ball to a craft room so pretty-in-pink that it made me want to buy a glue gun. Almost immediately you begin to believe that all this detail and design is possible to achieve in your own home. You believe that you can twist and wind and pound those shelves into submission. You believe that because ‘prices are dropping’ you’re saving some money, too.

This then is the marketing genius of IKEA. They make you believe. They tease and tempt and convince you to give it one more try. You forget that the cost of the handyman you call for rescue plus the price of your stitches will pretty much wipe out the savings from IKEA’s sale prices.

But call me old-fashioned. Marketing has always been about dreams, possibility and what could be if only you use my product.

Do You Speak IKEA?

From a great site named Pigtown Design comes this additional peep inside IKEA marketing and naming:

• Sofas, coffee tables, bookshelves, media storage and doorknobs are named after places in Sweden (Klippan, Malmö)
• Beds, wardrobes and hall furniture after places in Norway; carpets after places in Denmark and dining tables and chairs after places in Finland.
• Bookcases are mainly occupations (Bonde, peasant farmer; Styrman, helmsman).
• Bathroom stuff is named after lakes and rivers.
• Kitchens are generally grammatical terms
• Kitchen utensils are spices, herbs, fish, fruits, berries, or functional words such as Skarpt (it means sharp, and it’s a knife).
• Chairs and desks are Swedish men’s names (Roger, Joel)
• Materials and curtains are women’s names.
• Children’s items are mammals, birds and adjectives (Ekorre is a set of children’s toy balls; it means squirrel)

Who wants to find out where Fartful and Jerker come from?

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