Sales Promotions and Top Down Management

Did you hear about the Baltimore furniture store that gave away $600,000 in merchandise as part of a Super Bowl promotion that promised free goods if a Baltimore Raven returned a kickoff for a touchdown during the penultimate game? 

Anyone who bought furniture between January 31 and 3 pm game day last Sunday from any Gardiners Furniture store would have their money refunded. Gardiners had been running a Super Bowl kick return promotion for three years before Jacoby Jones ran 108 yards to pay dirt at the start of the second half of the game the Ravens won. Co-owner Gary Mullaney sponsored the promotion as part of a traffic-building scheme. Fortunately, for Gardiners, he also opted to insure his idea, just in case. The insurance policy cost $12,000 (http://www.baltimoresun.com/features/bs-ae-gardiners-follow-20130204,0,6257047.story). 

As I write this, it’s snowing outside, the early stage of a blizzard that will blanket the New York metro area as it makes its way up into New England. I’m reminded of a sales promotion tied to snowfall run by Potamkin Auto Centers Limited of Manhattan back in January 1996. Potamkin promised free leases to anyone who signed for a car between December 22 and January 2 if it snowed more than four inches in Central Park on January 8 between 10 am and 10 pm.

Sunday, January 7, it started snowing, and snowing and snowing. The biggest snowfall in 48 years. All told, 20.6 inches fell from Sunday through Monday. But Potamkin escaped unscathed, except for its insurance policy of $32,000, because the devil was in the details. During the 12 promotion hours, only 3.3 inches of snow fell (http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/19960114/ISSUE01/100011057). 

I was reminded of this brush with snow history because I recall being told the idea for the car lease promotion might have come from an ex-publisher colleague who was working for Potamkin at the time. I can’t verify if Arthur was indeed the originator of the plan, but it worked. Potamkin leased 104 cars during the contest period, worth nearly $1 million in rental fees.

Arthur died recently. I think he’d appreciate being remembered for his salesmanship, even if he wasn’t directly involved.

Top Down Management: With much fanfare one year ago J.C. Penney announced a new policy of everyday low prices. No more sales every week. Just everyday low prices. With little more than a whimper two weeks ago the company reversed course and conceded customers couldn't be enticed to shop its stores without the attraction of sales. So they're back.

This reversal of fortune is a slap in the face of CEO Ron Johnson, who came to Penney from a successful stint as head of Apple’s stores. Decisions by CEOs often run counter to expectations, but are made for personal as well as business reasons.

Sticking with Penney, some 25 years ago the company abandoned its New York headquarters in favor of Texas, because, it was rumored in the trade, its then chairman William R. Howell was interested in running for the U.S. Senate from his native state, Oklahoma. Never happened, to my knowledge, but he did commute by helicopter to the new corporate headquarters in Plano, outside Dallas. 

Target changed its check acceptance policy when its leader couldn’t pay for purchases to furnish a condominium he and his wife bought as a warm weather vacation retreat from Minneapolis’ brutal winters. When Bruce Allbright rolled his shopping cart full of household goods up to the checkout counter, the cashier told him corporate policy stated the maximum personal check she could accept was for $100. Though he complained it was an unrealistically low amount, she responded that even if he were the chairman of Target she could not violate company rules. She stood her ground even when he revealed himself as chairman of the chain. The next day Allbright amended company policy to accept checks up to $1,000. 

Most supermarket chains have one store that stands out from all others, in appearance and in the diversity and quality of its offerings. It usually is known as the chairman’s store, the one where he or his wife shops. So it was with the now defunct Colonial Stores of Atlanta.  

It happened some 30-plus years ago that in its effort to cut labor expenses Colonial’s management team decided meat no longer would be processed in-store. Whatever was shipped to the stores and arranged in the refrigerated bins was the only meat available. And so, the story goes, when the chairman’s wife went to her store to pick up some chop meat, and couldn’t find any, she was stymied in her efforts to get the staff in the meat department to grind up some chuck. Against new corporate rules. 

She bought some prime beef, brought it home and cranked it through her hand grinder for a meat loaf. Her husband praised her cooking that evening, but swallowed harder when she explained what she had gone through and what she paid for the prime meat instead of the chuck she originally sought. Recognizing the inconvenience and the extra expense his customer would face, the chairman rescinded the meat department rules.

Bookending New Orleans

Pigskin Bookends: The National Football League season started off its first weekend last summer with a controversial non-call of offensive pass interference in the end zone and ended Sunday night with a controversial non-call of defensive pass interference in the end zone. The first non-call cost the Green Bay Packers a win against the Seattle Seahawks. Replacement refs failed to make the call. The season-ending non-call came in the Super Bowl by the regular refs and cost the San Francisco 49ers a chance to cap an extraordinary comeback effort to go ahead of the Baltimore Ravens. 

How fitting that the start and end of the professional football season should be bracketed by similar controversy. In the opening week game a Green Bay defender was clearly pushed out of the way by a Seahawk who caught a Hail Mary last play pass into the end zone. No foul was called. In the Super Bowl, 49er end Michael Crabtree was clearly held by a Raven defender by his jersey in the end zone, yards beyond the five yards from scrimmage where contact is permitted. Crabtree was impeded. He couldn't catch the pass. No foul was called. Instead of getting four more tries from the one yard line to score the go-ahead touchdown, after trailing at one point during the third quarter by 22 points, San Francisco turned the ball over to Baltimore to run out the clock and secure the championship.

I have no allegiance to either team, and there are those who believe there was no foul in the end zone. I’m not one of them. San Francisco should have had more chances to score. If the 49ers had scored, they would have fulfilled my prognostication about a late touchdown to take the lead and we’d have seen if I was further correct in predicting a Hail Mary pass by Joe Flacco. Well, we’ll never know, thanks to the refs. But I did get right Baltimore’s early domination, San Francisco’s comeback, a fumble by Baltimore and the point total, 31, achieved by San Francisco. 

A Taste of New Orleans: I’ve been to New Orleans about eight to 10 times, always as part of a convention either sponsored by the publication I worked for or the retail industry. Gilda joined me during my first trip there, in the fall of 1977, when I was a field editor for Nation’s Restaurant News. While I worked the conference we produced, MUFSO (Multi-Unit Food Service Operators), Gilda partook of the spouse’s program, visiting a plantation outside the city, riding on a streetcar, viewing Mardi Gras floats in their garage, and eating in some fine restaurants. In Commander’s Palace, a  distinguished establishment, the spouses were served turbot, at the time the “in” fish, much like Chilean Bass has become in recent years. Gilda still recalls how one woman, married to a McDonald’s franchisee, disdained the turbot, saying she never eats any fish except the fish filet sandwich at her husband’s fast food units. It was that type of crowd.

Anyway, about a week before our trip to New Orleans, the restaurant critic of The NY Times, Mimi Sheraton, wrote a review of the food scene in the Crescent City. She found it wanting, except, she noted, for an out-of-town humble shack called Mosca’s where she had the most divine fried oysters, garlic chicken and barbecue shrimp, all cooked Creole Italian style.

Naturally, we decided to go there, cautioned by Mimi’s article that no reservations were taken and that the last guests must arrive by 9 pm. Along with a fellow editor, Connie, and her husband, Bill, we left plenty of time to taxi from the Fairmont Hotel in downtown New Orleans down Highway 90 to Avondale, almost 20 miles away. Though the cabbie claimed to know how to get there, it quickly became evident he did not. We kept double-backing and crisscrossing roadways, looking for Mosca’s. This was way before cell phones; there weren’t any public pay phones along the dark roads we rambled on. We were four hungry and squished adults sitting in the back of a Mercury Marquis (the unofficial New Orleans taxi model). Since I had recommended Mosca’s, my seatmates were getting quite upset with me. 

Finally, at 9:05, we came upon two whitewashed buildings supporting a backlit Budweiser sign. Lots of cars out front, on the grass. We begged entry, explaining the taxi driver couldn’t find Mosca’s. They took pity on us, but advised it would be an hour and a half before we’d be seated. We could stand at the bar. Gilda, Connie and Bill were not happy, even with $1 drinks, 25 cents for sodas (remember, this was Louisiana, 1977). We waited just 45 minutes to be seated, a few tables away from where Momma Mosca sat watching over her customers. We ordered the recommended dishes. They were more than divine. They melted away Gilda, Connie and Bill’s collective anger. It was, we all agreed, one of the best meals we ever ate. 

The power of a good meal to smooth over differences was not lost on me. Several years later, as editor of Chain Store Age, we ran a long article about problems at Sears, Roebuck & Co. Upset, the CEO of Sears dispatched the head of the public relations department from Chicago to express corporate displeasure. I took him and his assistant to Shun Lee Palace on East 55th Street, down the block from our office. Considered by some to proffer the best Chinese food in the city, Shun Lee melted away any semblance of protest from my Windy City visitors. They so thoroughly enjoyed the meal that we ordered a second round of each dish. For such an honor, the chef emerged from the kitchen to personally bow his respect. 

Super Bowl Forecast, Shopping with Kids, Container Ships, Gerrymander Blues

Want to know how the Super Bowl will turn out so you can spend your time concentrating on the commercials? Read on ...

The Baltimore Ravens will get off to a fast start. At the end of the first quarter they will be leading the San Francisco 49ers 13-3. San Francisco will score a touchdown midway through the second quarter, but the Ravens will counter with a TD in the closing seconds of the quarter to take a 20-10 halftime lead.

The 49ers will score at the start of the second half, but Baltimore again will show its resiliency by scoring a touchdown. It will be 28-17 at the start of the fourth quarter. San Francisco will close the gap to 28-24 with slightly under 10 minutes to play. Neither team will be productive for the next five minutes, then San Francisco will recover a Baltimore fumble, leading to a go-ahead touchdown with just under two minutes to play. The Ravens' next drive will stall on their own 35 yard line, forcing quarterback Joe Flacco to show his arm strength by heaving the ball more than 70 yards to the goal line as time expires. In a jump ball for either the winning touchdown reception or a successful pass defense, San Francisco will intercept, Flacco’s first interception of the post-season. Final score, San Francisco 31, Baltimore 28.

Knowing my devotion to Costco, Allison sent me several cute pictures of our grandchildren seated in a shopping cart at their local Costco (if you want to see for yourself, here’s a link: http://www.findingfinley.blogspot.com/). 

The picture of the kids in the shopping cart reminded me of a play group friend's mother when Dan was very young. She brought her two kids to the supermarket. Her baby was about three months old, so she put her in her car seat inside the shopping cart and sat her three-year-old boy up front. 

As they went through the store she would hand stuff to the toddler to put into the cart. All went well till they visited the canned goods aisle. It was like incoming missiles on the baby as the boy kept chucking cans over his shoulder onto his young sibling. When the mother finally realized why her baby was screaming, she freaked out and started running away from the cart. She eventually regained her composure, never again to make the mistake of putting the baby in the shopping cart basket area. 

News came Saturday that a potentially crippling strike in ports along the Eastern Seaboard had been averted. Container ships would continue to be loaded and unloaded. 

Not earth-shattering news to most, if not all, of you, but of interest to me because of a tour of a cargo ship I had arranged for a conference on supply chain logistics back in 2007. The Port of Oakland is not the most active on the West Coast, but it did provide a working backdrop for those on the tour. 

Forget your memories of cargo ships and longshoremen’s activities from the Marlon Brando movie, On the Waterfront. Loading and unloading ships is a highly mechanized activity today. Cargo is shipped in containers, stacked high on deck and deep below deck. 

We toured the APL (American President Lines) Thailand, built in 1995. The ship traversed the ocean between Asia and North America on a 35-day sequence that included a nine-and-a-half day voyage to Asia and a 10-day return trip. Ports of call included stops in Japan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Usually, each stop was less than 24 hours. The 276 meter x 40 meter APL Thailand, with gross tonnage of 64,502, had a 23-person crew which at the time included three women and two cadets from the Merchant Marine Academy. 

As we watched from the bridge, containers would be hoisted and moved into place. It looked like a giant Jenga game was being played as containers were stacked tightly together, with everyone hoping nothing would be done to make the pile tilt over and crumble. The efficiency was mesmerizing. As captivating as any example of human and robotic efforts to maximize the use of every square inch possible while knowing that on the open ocean an incorrect consolidation of containers could impact the seaworthiness of the vessel.

Sunday’s NY Times carried a submission from Sam Wang, an associate professor of molecular biology and neuroscience at Princeton and the founder of the Princeton Election Consortium. It’s another warning about the evils of gerrymandering and how Republicans, for the most part, are trying to steal elections by altering the significance of the popular vote (Democrats, so far, have not been as open in their pursuit of hegemony). 

I bring Wang’s opinion to your attention (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/03/opinion/sunday/the-great-gerrymander-of-2012.html?ref=opinion&_r=0) chiefly to get you to look back at the last map among the ones I posted last week that displayed the sliver of Democratic congressional districts, even in states where President Obama garnered enough votes to color them blue (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/24/republican-vote-rigging-electoral-college_n_2546010.html?utm_source=DailyBrief&utm_campaign=012513&utm_medium=email&utm_content=FeatureTitle&utm_term=Daily%20Brief). 

For sure there are progressives living in the rest of the country. But when you see the stark reality of the  Democratic districts versus the enormous land mass of the Republican districts, as currently drawn up, one cannot fail to understand how divided our country truly is. 

Super Bowl Crystal Ball

It was media day of Super Bowl week in Indianapolis today. I am not an accredited journalist for the ultimate football game of the year, nor did I go out of my way to listen to the drivel emanating from the heartland about the Super Bowl. But I will give you my prognostications about the contest between the New York Giants and the New England Patriots.

Tom Brady and the Patriots will employ a no-huddle offense from the beginning of the game in an effort to tire the most dominant part of the Giants defense, its pass rush. Only if the Pats take a lead will Brady revert to a traditional huddle offense.

As this year New England has mostly thrown short passes, early on the Pats will attempt some deep pass patterns in an effort to loosen up the planned tight Giants pass coverage. The Giants have been victimized by the long ball all year, including the NFC championship game against the San Francisco 49ers, so Brady will try to land some bombs.

Also look for the Patriots to throw more than a usual amount of passes to running backs as top tight end Rob Gronkowski will play at less than optimum level because he will not have sufficiently recovered from a high left ankle sprain sustained during the AFC championship game against the Baltimore Ravens.

Half-time score: Giants 10, Patriots 7.

Contrary to popular thinking that the Giants will be pass-happy against a less than highly regarded Patriot pass defense, the Giants will work early to establish a bruising running game. Ahmad Bradshaw and Brandon Jacobs will anchor a running attack that will rack up at least 130 yards.

Tight ends will play a big part in the New York offense, at least 6 catches. Eli Manning will throw one touchdown pass to Hakeem Nicks; Bradshaw will score on a six-yard run.

The Giants will have to settle for three field goals from inside the red zone as the much-maligned Patriot defense stiffens inside the 20 yard line.

Brady will be sacked in the end zone for a safety. He’ll also be stuffed on a fourth down quarterback sneak late in the first half or the game.

Final score: Giants 25, Patriots 17.

MVP: Ahmad Bradshaw.

Now that you know the outcome of the game, you can relax and concentrate on the commercials.