By now, you've seen the genius Old Spice commercial featuring "The Man Your Man Could Smell Like". If not, it's time to catch up with the state of the art in popular culture:

Men, you may not yet smell like that man, but before you rush out to the store to stock up on Old Spice products, we think you should at least work out how much you might need.

Obviously, this goes well beyond potential issues related to your personal grooming. Instead, you need to determine how your raw sex appeal compares to that of the man you could smell like.

We can help. In his latest book, Brain Candy (highly recommended), Garth Sundem created a mathematical formula that forms the basis of our newest tool, which you can use to determine where you rank in terms of sex appeal:

We've automated the math so all you have to worry about, other than the outcome of the math, is the data you need to enter to determine how you rank as a man among men when it comes to sex appeal:

Garth offers the following scale by which you can see how your sex appeal might be expressed in terms of beef products, from high (think slightly below the rank of the man you could smell like) to low (sadly, the man you do smell like....):

Armed with that information, you may now proceed to the store. Or, if your score indicates that you'll be making a large purchase today, you might consider buying your Old Spice products direct from Amazon and having your products shipped to your home. If that's you, consider taking a spin on the carousel below for a selection of popular products....

Elsewhere On the Web

Labels: brain candy, geek logik, marketing

- posted by Ironman at 1:29 PM | Permalink | Home |

Now that the major league baseball season is finally underway, we were wondering which franchises in either the National or American leagues are the most valuable out of all of Major League Baseball (MLB). Has the Red Sox Nation really overwhelmed those damned New York Yankees? How badly has Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos damaged the value of that team?

Sure, we could look at the payrolls of each team, take their minor league farm systems into account, or go by the value of their broadcasting rights, but those measures wouldn't necessarily reflect the value of each brand in baseball. Television and radio broadcast income is shared between teams according to a formula set by MLB. An older major league franchise is much more likely to have an extensive farm system compared to a much newer one, which would skew the data in favor of older teams. Relative payrolls between teams are affected by salary cap and luxury tax considerations. So, how could we find the relative value of each team?

We finally hit on the idea of using the ultimate expression of fan loyalty: the authentic home jersey. Here, if we consider those jerseys that have not been customized in any way, to remove vanity and star player effects upon their value, we might reasonably get a measure of each team's value with respect to one another, simply by comparing the price of each. The cool part of this approach is that the price of a non-customized authentic home jersey would provide a fairly solid representation of the value of a team's brand - their value would purely be determined by the value that those teams biggest fans place upon their teams!

From here, all it took was a shopping trip to MLB.com to find the prices of each MLB team's authentic home jersey. Our results are tabulated in the dynamic table below - you can sort the data in the table by clicking the various column headings. We've also included each team's 2007 winning percentage to see to what extent how well they performed last season might affect their relative values.

Major League Baseball Authentic Home Jersey Prices

City or State	Team	League	2007 Winning Percentage	Authentic Home Jersey Price	Comment
Arizona	Diamondbacks	National	0.556	189.99	2007 NL West Division Champion
Atlanta	Braves	National	0.519	169.99	None
Baltimore	Orioles	American	0.426	129.99	None
Boston	Red Sox	American	0.593	174.99	2007 World Series Patch, World Series Champions
Chicago	White Sox	American	0.444	129.99	None
Chicago	Cubs	National	0.525	139.99	2007 NL Central Division Champion
Cincinnati	Reds	National	0.444	149.99	None
Cleveland	Indians	American	0.593	189.99	2007 AL Central Division Champion
Colorado	Rockies	National	0.552	189.99	2007 World Series Patch, 2007 NL Wild Card
Detroit	Tigers	American	0.543	139.99	None
Florida	Marlins	National	0.438	199.99	World Series 10th Anniversary Patch
Houston	Astros	National	0.451	189.99	None
Kansas City	Royals	American	0.426	159.99	None
Los Angeles	Dodgers	National	0.506	149.99	None
Los Angeles	Angels	American	0.58	189.99	2007 AL West Champion
Milwaukee	Brewers	National	0.512	189.99	None
Minnesota	Twins	American	0.488	159.99	None
New York	Yankees	American	0.58	149.99	2008 All Star and Yankee Stadium Commemorative Patches, 2007 AL Wild Card
New York	Mets	National	0.543	169.99	2008 Shea Stadium Commemorative Patch
Oakland	Athletics	American	0.469	139.99	None
Philadelphia	Phillies	National	0.549	149.99	2007 NL East Division Champion
Pittsburgh	Pirates	National	0.42	159.99	None
San Diego	Padres	National	0.546	159.99	None
San Francisco	Giants	National	0.438	174.99	2007 All-Star Patch
Seattle	Mariners	American	0.543	179.99	30th Anniversary Patch
St. Louis	Cardinals	National	0.481	199.99	2006 World Series Champions Patch
Tampa Bay	Rays	American	0.407	219.99	New Jersey for 2008
Texas	Rangers	American	0.463	179.99	None
Toronto	Blue Jays	American	0.512	139.99	None
Washington (DC)	Nationals	National	0.451	189.99	None

There are a lot of surprises in this data! And, as it turns out, some problems as well. Let's discuss the surprises first, and get our first reactions to the data recorded for posterity.

The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are the most valuable team in baseball?!!!! That's can't be right! How come the damned Yankees are in the middle of the pack? And the Boston Red Sox, too!? But then the Chicago White Sox and the Baltimore Orioles are in the basement. Where they belong. So how far off can we be?

Pretty far off as it turns out. Just looking at authentic home jersey prices is like looking only at the price of a stock. To get a much better sense of a value of a brand, we need to find out what each team's effective market capitalization value might be, just like we would in considering the relative values of companies. A company's market cap is determined by multiplying its price per share of stock by the number of shares in the market. Likewise, for our approach to really work, we would need to find out how many of each kind of MLB authentic home jersey has been produced.

And that's where we hit a dead end with this particular project. MLB's exclusive producer of authentic home jerseys, Majestic, declined our request for the data, so we're investigating other means of obtaining it for a future post.

Meanwhile, we do have some anecdotal evidence that supports our idea of using team jersey market cap values as an effective measure of each team's brand. Visiting a local major big box sports apparel retailer revealed that a higher volume of Yankee jerseys must be being produced (as we're far away from the home New York market), as are Boston Red Sox jerseys. The most common jersey in evidence however was the one for our local major league franchise, which is what we would expect.

And we also discovered that Tampa Bay recently redesigned their uniforms for 2008, which suggests that the price may be deceptively high as a measure of team value, as it may be more reflective of the new jersey being in comparatively short supply. We'll give Tampa Bay some credit - it's a really nice looking jersey. Now all they need is a good team to wear them!...

Speaking of which, winning percentage doesn't seem to have much correlation with home jersey prices - maybe that will change if we can ever get the quantity data we're now seeking, but it might explain why Baltimore Orioles owner Peter Angelos' consistently underinvests in his team. He could very well be the Bill Bidwell of baseball!

Labels: business, marketing, sports

- posted by Ironman at 10:11 AM | Permalink | Home |

One of the ways in which a real estate agent can separate themselves from the pack is to develop and promote a hyper-local market focus. By zeroing in on a particular market niche or geographic area, an agent with strong marketing savvy can really set themselves apart from other agents in the area and become a leading choice to become the listing agent for homesellers within that market.

We've previously remarked on how one agent has gone about establishing both transparency and building goodwill with prospective future clients in our own community. Way back in the stone age for Political Calculations, in fact, we cited one of the things that set them apart: a regular newsletter that provides information about the current state of the real estate market for the realtor's target region, in which the Realtor:

Lists all recent sale prices of homes sold for the Realtor's targeted market neighborhoods. The information is organized by neighborhood, address, house features (number of bedrooms, bathrooms, garages, square footage) and is listed by price from highest to lowest.

That was back in July 2005, in the early days of the building of the housing bubble. We recently received the Realtor's latest newsletter, and were surprised to see how they've modified the information they provide about recent home sales to adjust to the post-bubble market. The Realtor still organizes the data related to recent sales much the same way, but has dropped the garage data in favor of a much more useful metric: the number of days the homes that have recently sold were listed on the market!

This is extremely useful information - in fact, so useful that we've created the following chart showing the recent successful sales in our area, which reveals where the latest level of equilibrium has been established for the housing prices in our area:

Now back to the chart. What we find is that the Realtor is rather subtly communicating where potential homesellers should be setting their asking prices. By including the days on market data, in which the lowest number of days listed until sold is 7 and the highest is 626 for the period covered by these recent home sales, we can have some pretty good confidence that the mean selling price per square foot of $144.37 is very close to the true equilibrium for housing prices today, as the number of days on market would seem to be largely independent of the price at which the home finally sold.

From this basic figure, the only other adjustment that a homeseller might need to be make is to adjust the asking price to take the home's neighborhood into account.

Armed with this data, the prospective homeseller can now have a reasonable expectation that their home will sell within a desirable period of time. We'd have to go through the entire MLS history for the homes that were on the markets the longest, but we strongly suspect that each of these homes started out being listed at much higher prices - only selling when they reached the relative level of equilibrium prices with homes listed for much shorter periods of time.

The chart also suggests that there is some stability entering into this particular housing market. To be sure, we'd have to go searching through the Realtor's back newsletters and preferably, MLS data, but as we don't have access to the MLS, we'll leave that exercise to either an enterprising Realtor or perhaps an economics student looking for a good thesis project.

Labels: marketing

- posted by Ironman at 2:45 PM | Permalink | Home |

The best advertising in the world is dedicated to convincing potential consumers that they should consume a particular kind of beer.

Don't believe us? Try Dos Equis' new Most Interesting Man in the World marketing campaign, which "establishes a distinctive personality in the Most Interesting Man to help premium beer and spirits drinkers in their quest to live more interesting lives, reinforced by his catchphrase: 'Stay thirsty my friends.'"

The agency behind the ads, EURO RSCG, has deliberately aimed at the upscale beer consumer:

For Euro RSCG, the spot is a conscious attempt to elevate the often-lowbrow imagery associated with beer ads. "The stain of the Swedish bikini teams still lingers. Those kinds of ads are targeted at beer-drinking morons," said Jeff Kling, ecd at Euro RSCG in New York. "We saw this as an opportunity to talk to people a little differently. It portrays a different kind of drinker."

Not everyone thinks the ads will succeed in establishing Dos Equis' desired brand identity. In our view, the pacing of the ads themselves stand out among other beer commercials and the content offers insights into the Hemingwayesque character of the Most Interesting Man in the World and his views, which we believe is right in line with Dos Equis' targeted market. Here's a sampling of those insights and views:

On careers: "Find out what it is that you don't do well, and then don't do that thing."

About him: "He's a lover, not a fighter. But he's also a fighter, so don't get any ideas."

"His beard alone has experienced more than a lesser man's entire body."

"And when he orders a salad, he doesn't get the dressing on the side, he gets it right on top of the salad. Where it belongs. Where there's no turning back."

And, here's one of the television commercials:

What else can we say? Stay thirsty, my friends!

Labels: business, food, marketing

- posted by Ironman at 12:35 PM | Permalink | Home |

Going through my mail the other day, I came across a newsletter-style advertisement from a Realtor who prospects my neighborhood for potential clients. I have to admit that I'm impressed by the display of marketing savvy - the Realtor in question is truly doing some very effective marketing for his business. The newsletter is designed to grab the attention and good will of its recipients, and does it well. Here's a short list of what the Realtor is doing right:

• Uses humorous anecdotes from his own experiences to build a favorable impression in the cover letter.
• Lists all recent sale prices of homes sold for the Realtor's targeted market neighborhoods. The information is organized by neighborhood, address, house features (number of bedrooms, bathrooms, garages, square footage) and is listed by price from highest to lowest.
• Provides photos and information for all houses currently listed by the Realtor.
• Emphasizes the values that define the relationship the Realtor seeks to achieve with clients. For example, "Our clients always come first," "Our integrity is our trademark," "We take the time to educate our clients and make sure all their questions are answered," et cetera.
• Features a contest where the winner who's house is featured in a photo inset wins a gift certificate to a restaurant when they contact the Realtor.
• Provides contact numbers, web site addresses and mini-ads outlining the services available through the Realtor on each page.
• Notes the upcoming birthdays and anniversaries of current and former clients.
• Provides classified ad space for local home improvement, decorating, and maintenance (cleaning, repair, etc.) businesses.

Basically, everything about the Realtor's brochure is designed to build a positive connection with potential clients before even meeting them. While I don't know if he's the top selling agent for my neck of the woods, it wouldn't surpise me if he's near the top. If he isn't there, I believe he soon will be - anybody good enough at putting an effective marketing package together for themselves can certainly do so for selling a house, and will sell a lot of them.

Labels: marketing

- posted by Ironman at 10:30 PM | Permalink | Home |