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Top of Mind Thursday Memo Archive
Top of Mind Thursday – April 3, 2025: Liberation
President Donald Trump has told us numerous times that “tariff” is one of his favorite words. This week he showed us in spades exactly what he meant.
As of yesterday, “Liberation Day,” Trump imposed significant tariffs on just about all of the US’s trading partners. The list includes 65 countries, with rates as high as 50% on some. The move is estimated to erase 125 years of global trade, immediately raise prices by the equivalent of a year’s worth of inflation, and cut economic growth this year by half.
It will also impact auto manufacturing—despite the decades-old North America Free Trade Agreement, which created manufacturing alliances among Canada, the US, and Mexico, and resulted in cars being built across all three countries.
The formula appears to be based on a bizarre formula: the ratio of the US trade deficit with each country targeted, divided by the total US imports from that same country. And it considers goods only, not services (the US runs a trade SURPLUS on services with many countries).
The stock market reacted with the worst drop since the pandemic. World markets are in an uproar. Consumers and manufacturers alike are upset. It’s not clear at all who benefits from this. Or what exactly is being liberated from whom (unless it’s our money being liberated from our banking and investment accounts!).
The problem is this is not our great-grandparents’ economy. What worked in an isolationist regime at the turn of the 20th century in the early days of the industrial revolution, is unlikely to be successful in today’s global, integrated, digital economy.
For better or worse, the products we buy come from global partners. The chances of this stunt resulting in large swaths of manufacturing relocating back to the US are slim to none. In fact, other countries are already trying to source products from non-US suppliers.
It’s possible some of these measures will be rolled back in short order, once the consequences of the impact becomes clear. The problem is that doesn’t mean we can easily go back to a global economic environment that works effectively.
Consider a driver who is upset at someone else taking up “his” space on the freeway, so he purposely plows into him. The other vehicle may be irreversibly damaged, and perhaps will be unlikely to show up in the “wrong” lane again any time soon.
But to do this, the antagonist will significantly damage not just the other vehicle, but his car as well. Furthermore, the shock of the collision is likely to cause severe whiplash at a minimum and perhaps more significant permanent injuries to the first driver as well.
Unfortunately, because of the severe tariffs that have recently “liberated” his country, the antagonist who caused the accident may find it both difficult and expensive to repair his vehicle (or buy a new one, if the damage is significant).
As Janis Joplin sang in “Me and Bobby McGee,” Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose.
Such is the price of tariff “liberation.”
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 – March 27, 2025: A Harmless Little Chat
This week, we learned that details of a pending US military operation were shared by senior US officials over Signal, an insecure messaging app—among a long list of people that included a journalist.
The full story is still unfolding on this incident, but it appears at this point to have been a major faux pas.
Not only could this have compromised an in-progress military op, but one of the people included on the message trail was following the conversation while in Russia (where eavesdropping and spying on foreign dignitaries are to be expected). US partners are upset, because their intelligence input may have been compromised. And inadvertently adding a journalist to this type of conversation is a major no-no.
Mistakes happen, and this could have all blown over quickly had the administration admitted they made a mistake and it would take steps to ensure it didn’t happen again.
But that’s not what happened. Instead, the key players involved (including the Secretary of Defense) tried to deflect blame:
No classified information was disclosed (texts show that was not the case).
The journalist must have added himself to the group (not possible), or he made this up (not the case, based on what was disclosed).
And even, from Donald Trump: The app itself must be defective (Nope, the app worked exactly as it was supposed to).
This administration is turning the US government upside down and inside out in an attempt to root out fraud and eliminate wasteful spending. They’ve purposely brought in people with little to no government experience to change things up.
That’s fine and good, but there are processes and procedures in place for a reason. Just like you don’t fire the people who guard the nuclear stockpile or manage air traffic control, you don’t ignore national security protocols put in place for all of our safety.
Perhaps it’s time for the president to call his team in for a chat about how to manage critical information in the future. But this time, don’t have that discussion over an insecure messaging platform.
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 – March 20, 2025: Interesting Times
Perhaps you’ve heard of the Chinese curse may you live in interesting times. Well, things look pretty darn interesting right now.
Both domestic and international policy and processes in the United States have been turned upside down by the current administration. Countries we have considered allies for centuries are now suspect. Partnerships that have been sacrosanct since the end of WWII are now being revisited. New relationships with other political entities are being built in their place.
US governmental programs and agencies that have been functioning as expected are being dismantled and downsized. Law abiding individuals are afraid of being targeted because of their ethnicity or sexual preference. Protections we took for granted are now being questioned or eliminated. Prices of everyday items continue to rise.
Maya Angelou wisely said, “When someone tells you who they are, believe them.” We should therefore not be surprised to see these types of changes being implemented—we were warned they would be coming.
The question is how does one act in such times? There are protests and boycotts planned, but it’s unlikely these will have much of an impact on the current situation or the future. Neither will whining or crying about what’s going on.
Half the country voted for this course of action. If you don’t like what’s happening, instead of thrashing around complaining how this isn’t right, perhaps it’s time to create the narrative for an alternative future—one that a majority of voters can get behind.
What we need is a future that is an awful lot less interesting—one that appeals to Americans across the political spectrum. Let’s hope the right parties can be interested to start working towards that better future. We can’t take anything much more interesting than where we are now.
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 – March 13, 2025: End of an Era
For as long as I can remember, there were two things you could count on at Southwest Airlines: no assigned seating, and bags flew free.
Several months ago, the airline announced it would be moving to assigned seating. This week, it announced the era of free checked bags is over as of May.
In the short term, I’m sure the fees they expect to collect for checked bags will add to the airline’s bottom line. However, we have to ask if that’s worth destroying what’s left of the airline’s long standing positioning.
Southwest was always the airline that was a little less mainstream, a little off-the beaten-track (remember when they flew mainly into airports like Midway in Chicago and Hobby in Houston?), and a little more fun. The flight attendants were known to spice up preflight safety instructions and to be just a little more casual and upbeat than most of their competitors.
And Southwest had a reputation for being the low-cost alternative—you could put up with the need to check in exactly on time and queue up in numerical order because it was a safe but less-expensive way to fly. Because bags were checked at no cost, fewer people were trying to stuff oversized luggage into overhead bins.
Now, Southwest’s prices match most of their competitors—and that’s before accounting for checked baggage fees. More people will be likely to carryon baggage, which will slow down boarding. All this makes it appear that management is trying its best to mold SWA into just another nondescript American airline. What’s next? Reading the safety announcements word-for-word from a canned presentation?
Too often, companies with unique brand differentiators shoot themselves in the foot by stripping out what makes them so unique. Changing what customers have come to expect from Southwest may increase revenue for awhile, but long term, if fewer people choose them, the airline may find the extra baggage around marketing and positioning wasn’t worth the fee.
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