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Top of Mind Thursday Memo Archive
Top of Mind Thursday – August 24, 2023: A Tale of Two Countries
This week, a plane believed to be carrying Yevgeny Prigozhin and nine others crashed outside Moscow.
Prigozhin is the Russian paramilitary leader who unsuccessfully challenged Vladimir Putin, yet was allowed to go free. It’s no surprise to any observers of Russian politics that Prigozhin didn’t die a natural death—people who cross Putin often fall out windows or ingest poison, but they don’t die of old age.
Today, in Atlanta GA, former president Donald Trump surrendered to authorities to face charges related to his efforts to overturn the 2020 US presidential election.
The juxtaposition between the two countries could not be more stark. In one case, those who cross the country’s leader (including his own generals who may have aided Prigozhin) are systematically eliminated. In the other, a man accused of trying to subvert the results of a national election is arrested, offered bail, and released on his own recognizance.
In the US, Trump is considered innocent till proven guilty—of these charges, and others in three separate indictments. In Russia, there is no second chance—regardless of the crime of which you’ve been accused.
American democracy is far from perfect. There are many things we don’t do well and some which we may do fairly poorly. But safeguarding our democracy is critical, when you consider how easy it is for a supposedly “elected” tyrant to stamp out opposition elsewhere.
Check out our marketing leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
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Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com
Top of Mind Thursday – August 17, 2023: Streaming Saturation
It seems like every streaming service is raising their prices and/or adding advertisements.
There was a time not that long ago when American viewers turned to cable TV for entertainment programming. There was basic cable, then bundles of premium services to choose from if you wanted even more movies or sports.
Then customers began “cutting the cord” to cable and moving instead to the streaming services: First Netflix, then Amazon, Apple+, Disney+, Hulu, Paramount+, Peacock, and others.
The problem is the market is limited. As of last year, 85% of American households subscribed to at least one streaming service, and the average person has subscriptions to three. Forbes estimates nearly half of subscribers pay for services they never use. And they’re not interested in continuing to add services or maintaining them at higher prices.
Netflix, whose initial value proposition was based on friends and family sharing accounts, has clamped down on that option. If those folks decide they want Netflix, they’ll have to pay more. . . which means they’ll likely decide to turn off another streaming service instead.
That’s a serious issue for providers, because streaming services aren’t profitable. The cost to buy, generate, and support this stream of content is substantial. Almost all the streaming services expected to subsidize their investments by revenue from cable customers. . . except customers are turning off their cable accounts, so that model no longer works. Whoops.
Where do we go from here? I expect in the not-too-distant future, we will see these separate services consolidate under big umbrellas with discounted pricing for bundles–sort of like the way things used to be with cable. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
This will probably make an interesting documentary some day on a streaming service or two. The question will there be any one left standing to tell the story?
Check out our marketing leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
.
Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com
Top of Mind Thursday – August 10, 2023: A Hole in Paradise
The first time we went to Hawaii, it was the mid-60s.
Jack Lord and James McArthur were shooting scenes for the original Hawaii 5-0 right outside our brand new hotel on Waikiki beach.
Waikiki was nice, but even then, a little too urban. Maui was gorgeous. The island was a series of dirt roads connecting a few small little enclaves. Kaanapali was just being built, and Wailea and Kapalua weren’t even on the drawing board yet.
The most intriguing part of the island was Lahaina Town–at that time about 6 blocks long, with the Baldwin House and the Pioneer Inn anchoring the town, and an incredible 100-year-old Banyan tree at the center.
We’ve visited almost all of the major Hawaiian islands, but it was Maui we kept coming back to, time and again—for the windsurfing, the food, the beaches, the culture, the upcountry arts areas, etc. We watched the island become built up and commercialized, and Lahaina Town expand into a full-fledged shopping and eating area.
This week, winds from Hurricane Dora caused intense firestorms that have devastated whole chunks of Maui, and devoured much of Lahaina. Both the Baldwin House and the Pioneer Inn burned to the ground. At least 50 people are dead, thousands are homeless, and the heart of this island is on life support.
Over the last half century, the Lahaina banyan tree grew and grew, to encompass an entire city block. Charred and battered, it’s unclear whether or not it will survive.
How can this happen in the tropics? Hawaii has suffered a drought over the last few years that turned Maui into a tinderbox. Dora brought hurricane winds, but no rain, and the result is an imaginable disaster. Yet another example of how climate change is wreaking damage to our planet.
Beyond the loss of life, it’s more than just homes and businesses that will need to be rebuilt. The Hawaiian people take their heritage and history very seriously. In 1802, Lahaina became the capital of the Hawaiian kingdom. Two hundred years later, much of that history has now burned.
Maui will rebuild, but it will take time, money, and support from those who feel the emptiness of a hole in our Hawaiian Paradise.
Maui Strong is collecting funds to aid those impacted by this week’s wildfires on Maui. Learn more here.
Check out our marketing leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
.
Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com
Top of Mind Thursday – August 3, 2023: Stranger than Fiction
The Hollywood writers’ and actors’ unions are on strike, so no new material for films or TV series is being written or produced for the foreseeable future.
If we didn’t know better, it might seem like an amateur writer jumped in to the void to create the most implausible plot ever:
- A former US president, impeached twice but not convicted, has now been indicted three times for various state and federal crimes, and a fourth indictment appears on the horizon.
- This man refuses to believe he lost the last election, and appears to have incited a revolt against the government.
- In spite of this, he is running for reelection and leading his party’s candidates by a huge margin.
- Both this candidate and the incumbent president running against him are senior citizens–between 76 and 80 years old.
- Congress is investigating the current president’s drug-addicted son, for a litany of offenses he may have committed while under the influence. The goal is to tie the father to the son’s crimes.
- The governor of Florida, also a presidential candidate, has started a crusade against anything “woke” (whatever that means) and chosen Mickey Mouse as his #1 target.
- New generative AI technology is being touted as both the best thing since sliced bread and the catalyst that may end the human race (Terminator, anyone?).
- An actor who once played a political leader is now actually leading his country in an effort to beat back one of the world’s largest nuclear powers that is trying—so far unsuccessfully—to annex his homeland.
- Climate change has caused the planet to be hotter than any time in recorded history–causing massive wildfires, coral reefs to be bleached, flooding, and other natural disasters still to unfold.
What kind of plot is this? Who wrote this craziness? Would any self-respecting studio buy this story? More importantly, how does it resolve?
We could wait for the movie, but we may not like the way it ends. Maybe it’s time to write a new script.
Check out our marketing leadership podcasts and the video trailer for my book, Marketing Above the Noise: Achieve Strategic Advantage with Marketing that Matters.
.
Let us help your business rise to the top.
linda@popky.com
(650) 281-4854
www.leverage2market.com