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A craft beer holiday gets skunked.
Over the weekend a drinking establishment in town held and incredible event for fans of craft beer, or at least it should have been. Unfortunately the tapping of Founders CBS, Goose Island's Bourbon County, and Lagunitas Lil' Sumpin Wild went about as wrong as an event could go without it actually being tragic.
Social media has taken up the pitchforks and fire to the doorstep of their facebook brand page even after they offered a $10 gift card to anyone who comes in and shows the post to their server, which is a brilliant start and a great apology.
That said, this brand has a CRM database, (read, email list) perhaps next time this is an offer that those members get access to on a ticketed basis (eventbrite, etc) so that the restaurant is full but comfortable and the narrative those customers tell is about how amazing the event was and that you do NOT want to miss out on it next time.
You see kegs have a very specific number of pints of beer in them so sheer numbers can tell you what is going to happen when you tap 2 of the most sought after beers in the midwest at one place, the day after Christmas. You will run out of beer, glasses, and patience from the customers and staff before the night even gets started, which is exactly what happened.
Have you heard of Rao's in New York? Opened in 1896, it has 10 tables and is at 100% of reservations, it has been for nearly three generations as families pass down the reservations to family making it the hardest restaurant to get into in America, maybe even the world according to Forbes. They recently opened a satellite restaurant in Vegas that has over 250 tables and the sauces line the shelves of grocery stores but all of that demand comes from a lack of supply at ground zero.
Back to Friday night, could this place become THE place that you want your name on their email list so that you get invited to these events? Absolutely. This is the same town that loves craft beer so much we will hang out in brutal conditions in February to try some of the best the nation has to offer at the Winter Beer Fest. We love it so much in fact they added a second day, which isn't sold out yet.
Craft beer fans as any customer look for surprise and delight from brands which is possible now more than ever, it isn't always easy and certainly isn't the quickest way to success. But it just might be the longest form of success which is the game at this point. Besides, easy is so damn boring - be delightful and save me a pint of CBS next time.
How long should you wait?
Right this very moment somewhere in the world there are millions of people playing Trivia Crack. In fact, there are 77 million active players putting the app in the #1 spot in the Google Play + Apple App stores, in fact, let's pause and ask a Trivia Crack-type question:
When was Trivia Crack released?
If you answered Nov 6, 2013, you earned a gold coin.
Isn't that amazing? It took OVER a year for Trivia Crack (a freemium game with in-app add ons) to catch on, Dec 2 it hit #1 in the Apple Store and Dec 13th for Google Play.
The game itself reached worldwide popularity before it was a hit in the United States. That said, once we discovered it Illinois, Minnesota, and Arizona rocketed to the top as the most addicted places on Earth for the game. But this is not a post about why trivia or even Trivia Crack is popular, it is a post about starting.
When Etermax, the company from Argentina responsible for this addiction, launched the app they felt they had something special - a new way to play and a new look to trivia. But it took 13 months for it to become a part of the zeitgeist and for some brands that might seem like a loooong time to wait. Put another way, would you wait 13 months to get 77 million customers? My guess is yes. But what if you weren't so sure? Do it anyway.
A new year starts in just over 4 days and that is your chance to start as well. I don't mean creating a list of resolutions you intend to break by January 12th, I mean that thing you have wanted to do for a day, a month, a year, or longer. Start that. Put pen to paper, fingers to keys, sticks to drums, and start creating - you will be astonished by what happens.
As people make their resolutions to lose weight in 2015 you will often hear, "even if you walk half a mile you are ahead of the person who didn't get off the couch" and that is true, but not just in fitness. This week play one less game of Trivia Crack, trust me they will be fine, and make your art. Get ahead of 2015 by doing that thing you are amazing at - RIGHT NOW. Make it a habit before the new year starts.
Moblie games have a shelf life, every single one fades out - Trivia Crack is no different. Etermax is working on its 8th game title right now which means more than likely there are 6 games they made you never heard of, but they kept creating, crafting, honing their art until they hit the tone of the day. You may not make games, but you have something that makes you special - the world is looking for that now.
Consume art or create it
- if those are the choices, I am sure you know which one to pick.
When price counts
As everyone kicks their holiday hangover (my daughter with her sugar crash) and launches into the post-Christmas sales it would make sense to think today is all about price.
For some that might be it, for others they have gift cards, for others they have returns, and for others they did not get what they wanted. The idea here is that customers move for different reasons, even on the same day.
I went to one of those $10 haircut places on Tuesday, when I walked in there was a 50 minute wait and the woman behind the counter kindly said "can I sign you in?" I replied that I had a lunch and that I would come back this afternoon. She replied "oh, we will be very busy then..." I told her I would take my chances because in Rockford there are 6 such places within 5 miles from my house and when you live at price, there is very little that makes you that special. That afternoon my wait was 60 seconds.
I came from an industry that switches between being a brand value and price and for some industries there is nothing wrong with a sale, you just have to be careful what you teach those customer who only buy when your product is on sale.
I often quote Seth Godin here when he says "the problem with the race to the bottom (price) is that you might win."
This holiday season will be the largest growth in three years when it is all said and done. The interesting statistic is that Black Friday sales were actually down 10% this year in part because of the web and in part because retailers have taught us the best sales are not the day after Thanksgiving but just might be today.
Think what would happen if gave people cards or gift idea vouchers for Christmas and bought the gifts the day after?
Crazy?
Remember that Black Friday is only 39 years old unless you are from Philadelphia where it started, then it is 55 years old.
The web is the great equalizer keeping information flat training customers who shop by price to do just that, only on their terms.
One last word for today if something is 70% off, the retailer doesn't really want it anymore than you actually need it.
-Merry Christmas
Everyone deserves to come home safe.
If you have been living in isolation you might not have read about the events of Ferguson, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Officer Charles Kondek, Officer Rafael Ramos, or Officer Wenjian Liu all of whom have been killed this year - and all of whom are connected by a conversation we are having in public spaces - albiet terribly.
Words contain a profound power that social media can tend to help us forget.
If you are like me, you have seen your share of the racist "friends" weighing-in their thoughts on Ferguson or over the weekend when the three police officers were shot and killed you might have those "friends" on facebook who celebrated that the "cops got what they deserved." Ignore for a second the heartless idiocy in both points of view and instead focus on the conversation.
I think that there is a healthy amount of conversing we should have about race and power in America. However, randomly shooting police officers is no different than randomly shooting, what I might call, suspects of race for this argument.
If you are the sort that thinks every police officer hates African Americans that is a nuanced level of racism (closer to classism) but walks hand in hand with people that think every African American is a thief, thug, or gang member. Neither of these do anything to help the situation.
In all four cases social media held a pivotal role in its view by the general public. In the case of Ferguson the decision was held in the court of hashtags once the Grand Jury made its opinion known and for the most part not one person that posted on social media read all the documents released that night. In Eric Garner's case the line of MMA experts brought into the conversation to debunk the takedown ignited a very different conversation. Over the weekend the two officers assassinated in Brooklyn, the suspect posted his thoughts on Instagram prior to the attack.
Social media increases the speed at which we can have these conversations or make decisions, but what it cannot do is improve the thought that goes into the arguments. What would happen if we were intentional about slowing it down? Maybe counting to ten before we post the first story we see on the web and ignite a firestorm of racist tirades or anti-police rants? Or maybe you keep these sort of posts off of social media and have them in person? There is power in social media, I am just not sure we are ready to use it.
Over the weekend Al Sharpton attempted to slow the violence down by echoing my thoughts " Any use of the names Eric Garner and Michael Brown, in connection with any violence or killing of police, is reprehensible and against the pursuit of justice." While I agree with the words, leaders on all sides need to be very careful in what they say, and more specifically, how they say it.
I long for a day where we could have a conversation, a civil, logical conversation about how to move the country forward because this violence is an unneeded distraction. Government needs some adjustments and holistically we could be more kind as a nation, but answering gunfire with gunfire, racism with classism, or barbs for insults tears the people apart.
If you think things should change, I agree.
I just think we can do it with the audacious weapon of kindness. Everyone deserves to come home safe at night, every one of us.
Be Intentional About It
I had lunch the other day with a friend who had been fired from his job of 35 years. This particular person was instrumental in getting me into radio in the first place, in fact, if it were not for him I would not be here, so I was excited to grab lunch. At the end of the lunch he said "we should do this more often," and that phrase stuck with me all day. Having been away from my old job for nearly three months you understand very quickly how you can take those lunches or coffees for granted as people you have seen for 20 years just..disappear.
Intention to me, is the thing you do for others when they don't expect it - surprise and delight. Grabbing a lunch with someone who is a cubicle over is simple. Grabbing lunch with a friend at another company, with a different lunchtime, across town when you have only an hour for lunch - takes intention.
Evelyn got a Christmas card this morning and I thought more about intention. Seeing her light up because someone took a couple steps to mail her one made me wonder why we don't send more artifacts year round. There is a magic this time of year that cannot be replicated and I understand that, but what if we could take a moment and think about how we feel RIGHT NOW. Then see if you could replicate that feeling just once or twice in 2015, three times if you are feeling frisky.
I find myself calling and texting my former co-workers more, doing coffee more, grabbing lunches when I can, and wish I had done more of it earlier. Excuses are easy, relationships are hard. So as you head into the holidays and into 2015, take a moment and call someone you have been meaning to, just to say "hi." You might find it becomes infectious.
I have watched this video from Gary Vaynerchuk a bunch this weekend, he calls it "hustle" but we are talking about the same thing. Doing things that matter to you, your family, or your friends with an intensity that others are unwilling to do because they want to spend their nights consuming media rather than creating it - because those are the options these days.
In 5 days Christmas will be over and we will move from the feelings of giving and expressions of intention to the seemingly useless list of resolutions you won't keep. Fight those urges to compartmentalize your goals and instead just do them. Make them a part of your every day world and they will become muscle memory. Be intentional. Don't wait to start and if you prefer to call it hustle, I am good with that - as long as you do it.