How do you thaw a turkey?  According to Butterball’s Turkey Talk-Line, the answer to this, the most common of all questions is “in the fridge, a day for every four pounds.”  Butterball’s Turkey Talk-Line has existed for over 25 years, and throughout this time, nearly 3 million people have phoned in for free turkey-cooking advice.  Throughout the years the talk line has evolved from a team of six people to a staff of 50 and now accommodates nearly 100,000 consumer calls each season.

.

Plain and simple, the talk line makes butterball look good.  And that makes Butterball sell turkeys.  In fact in 2004, Butterball comprised 23% of all whole turkey sales, while the industry’s whole turkey sales fell 4%.  The hotline is more than a helpful service.  It’s an ingenious marketing tool.   It has gained such notoriety, that it was even featured on the highly acclaimed TV series, The West Wing, when the President of the United States needed Turkey-roasting advice. 

But Butterball realizes that times - they are a-changing.   So this year, Butterball has gone the way of Web 2.0 by making Turkey Talk interactive in order to cater to the next generation of cooks. 

Consumers can now receive turkey texts on mobile phones providing reminders and temperature guidelines.  Now, they can log on to turkey blogs, check out Butterball’s new mobile website, participate in turkey web chats, and watch how-to videos at Butterball.com. 

Butterball clearly realizes that if they want to engage today’s audience, and the next generation of cooks, then they need to utilize the online and mobile technology and conveniences of 2009.   

Butterball isn’t the only company to jump on the viral bandwagon.  After becoming the first national pizza chain to offer online and text message ordering, Papa John’s has teamed up with Facebook, in order to enter the next phase of online marketing.   Beginning Monday, November 17, any Facebook user who becomes a fan of the official Papa John’s Facebook page will receive an online redemption code for a free medium pizza with any online pizza order.

Realizing that Thanksgiving Eve is consistently one of the three busiest nights in the pizza industry, this promotion is a smart way to touch the pizza eaters of today’s generation who use facebook for all important means of communication.  Pizza Hut and Dominos have also joined the facebook act, offering their thousands of fans special online offers.

So this holiday season it seems that preparing and ordering food is just a text or click away.  And there’s no doubt that as companies try to reach the next generation of consumers, traditional marketing tactics will be refined with the new technologies and social networking tools that make it so easy for us all to connect.  Now that’s what I call turkeyrific. 

Let’s face it, Great Depression’s have the habit of taking all the fun out of innovation.  It’s really just human nature.  It’s hard to come up with exciting creative ideas (and sell them) when the world is falling all around us.  The fact is, great ideas are more important in a recession than any other time. Some of our greatest market innovations (including brainstorming itself) were conceived or launched in America’s darkest times.

Take my kid’s iPod. Please!  People don’t realize that this iconic product was launched  six weeks after one of America’s darkest hours – 9/11.  October 23, 2001 – markets tanking, bubbles bursting – arguably a terrible time for a launch.  What Jobs knew, and still knows, is that market needs are more discernable, not less in dark times.  

Go back to another October – 1929: The big crash.  With unemployment at 25%, corporate profits less than zero, and more than 15,000 failed banks, Henry R. Luce launched a cockamamie idea for a business magazine called “Fortune”.  I can easily hear the arguments of the detractors of his day. “The last thing we need right now,” they’d say, “is a new periodical of business!  Henry, aren’t you reading the papers?”  He was.  But, what Luce saw, others could not.  The business press of that era was black and white (literally) with tables upon facts of life-less business data.  To be different, Luce didn’t hire MBAs or experienced economists to write his copy; he recruited young literary talent. Archibald MacLeish, John Kenneth Galbraith, and Alfred Kazin filled the pages of Fortune with flowing human interest articles that were brash, irreverent, and critical. 

Innovation is not simply a luxury of good times.  It is a business fundamental that becomes more essential, and quite frankly, easier and more efficient when times are tough.  In fact brainstorming itself was invented in the shadow the Great Depression.  In the early 1930’s a young ad exec, Alex Osborn , who would go on to be the “O” in BBDO, invented the technique for what he called a team creative process.  It was designed to encourage original and spontaneous thinking among his employees and to produce the maximum number of new ideas.

Osborn’s original rules provide the basic foundation for brainstorming such as holding all criticism, encouraging wild ideas, and combining and improving concepts of others. 

But experience shows that while being completely accurate, Osborn’s rules are hard to remember.  Think of the last “brainstorm” you were involved in.  Let me guess how it went.  Manager A decides the company needs some new ideas.  About nine people are invited to brainstorm.  It is scheduled to follow the ops meeting that leaves everyone tired and cranky.  The word INNOVATION is written in all caps on the white board next to a drawing of a light bulb.  After some niceties, the group starts complaining about service gaps, revenue projections and information hurdles.  One or two people suggest some new ways of doing things.  The manager placates them urging them to explore those ideas further, but not to take their eyes of the ball.  The meeting ends 35 minutes later in a discussion about holiday time off.  Sound familiar?

It doesn’t need to be so hard.  As a public service in these dark-ish times, we have recast Osborn’s ideas into an easy-to-remember acronym – I.D.E.A.S. 

I – Invent out loud

D – Defer all judgment

E – Expand others’ concepts

A – Accept no boundaries

S – Show every idea.

Innovation does not always require a hefty R&D budget.  It does require a budget of time.  When business is off, time becomes cheaper and more plentiful.  Why not use unused business time as an asset rather than a write-off?  Consider all the ways you can put creative time to work for you – improving your service experience, gaining more competitive insights, connecting with more of your customers, or exploring new offerings in new markets.  Most of these require minimal capital costs, but maxim creative costs. 

It also requires a heft dose of optimism.  But that’s also cheap.  Consider the positive energy of Adolph Ochs , publisher of the New York Times in 1929.  With ad revenues in the toilet and readership falling, Ochs decided to push on, without any cuts in staff or editorial quality.  He issued a memo to staff:  “We must set an example of optimism.   Please urge every department to go ahead as if we thought the best year in the world was ahead of us.”

The paper retained its physical and symbolic weight and muscled its way through one of the toughest years on record.  In December, when the time to select the most important story of the year, Ochs chose Admiral Byrd’s discovery of the Antarctic ()over the stock market crash – an optimistic choice.  The picture of the adventurer in his snowy parka and determined grimace stood in stark contrast to the photos of men hunched in overcoats standing in breadlines. 

So in these dark times, you have to ask yourself:  Are you waiting in the breadline for things to get better, or setting off on an adventure of new ideas?  

As you’ve probably heard by now, the city of Philadelphia is strapped for cash. As a result of the cash crisis for the city, Mayor Michael Nutter has proposed closing dozens of libraries and pools, reducing salaries and laying off roughly 3,000 city employees. Nutter has even given himself an $18,500 pay cut.

Drastic times call for drastic measures, indeed. So drastic in fact, that Nutter went to D.C. today with his hand out. It was an “Oliver Twist” meets “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington” moment as Nutter and mayors of Atlanta and Phoenix petitioned Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson for funding.

So, what other big move has the city made? Cue the music. Dim the lights. Take your seats. The city is now posting the names of every business that owes more than $50,000 in taxes. The taxes total $27 million that should be in the city’s bank account. If you’re on the list, this is what we call bad public relations.

If ever there was a time and a place for some Crisis Communications 101, it is now. So, follow these three easy steps:

·         Validate Concern

·         Show Action

·         Show Them You Care

These basic principles apply to everyone. They work for Nutter and the city. They work for the businesses that owe the city taxes (for this latter group, we add a fourth – pay your taxes).

So far, Nutter is doing the right things. We won’t know for a while if it works. But, if all other strategies fail, Nutter could start renting himself out as entertainment. Again, cue the music, dim the … well, you get the point. Check out Michael Nutter perform “Rapper’s Delight”.

.  

There are many reasons to love the F-word. Most of all, it’s because whenever the F-word shows up, you know people will get interested.

George Carlin said it best when he described it in his classic monologue “Filthy Words”  — “Cute word, kind of … One syllable, short. You know, it’s easy. Starts with a nice soft sound fuh ends with a kuh. Right? A little something for everyone.”

Lately, the F-word’s been pretty busy. Thanks to the F-word, Chase Utley’s role in Philadelphia’s first World Championship in 28 years will not only be characterized by his clutch defensive play during Game 5, but also for his spontaneous use of the offensive during a live broadcast of the Phillies World Series Celebration parade last month.

Perhaps the busiest place the F-word’s been lately is in court. Last week, the Federal Communications Commission kicked off its Supreme Court battle with Fox for U2 lead singer Bono’s adjectival use of the word during an acceptance speech at the 2003 Golden Globes.  Fox had initially gone unpunished by FCC commissioners for Bono’s f*ck-up because – according to policy - it was a “fleeting expletive” used in a non-sexual context. However, the matter was resuscitated when newly appointed commissioners overturned its predecessors’ policy and fined Fox. A fight between the Commission and Fox would ensue, leading the matter to the highest court in the United States.

But this isn’t the first time the F-word’s shown up in court. Lenny Bruce, widely credited for bringing the F-word mainstream through his act’s prolific use of the word, was arrested eight times and went through six obscenity cases against him in four different cities. Mr. Filthy Words himself George Carlin was also at the center of a 1978 Supreme Court case against Pacifica Foundation  because a radio station owned by the company played his infamous monologue in total. The ruling, in favor of the FCC, would go on to define its power over “indecent” material in broadcasting.

With this most recent Supreme Court appearance, the use of the F-word is again calling the FCC’s power into question. A ruling against the FCC would overrule the current policy of “indecent” and exclude the occasional unexpected F-bomb outburst from punishment. On the other hand, upholding the policy would punish users of the word regardless of context or intent.

Many against the current policy argue that simply creating stricter rules and levying stiffer fines won’t do anything to avoid spontaneous gaffes like those in question. Others, like the Bush administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, Solicitor General Gregory Garre, insist that lax regulation will result in more frequent “accidents,” even suggesting the extreme example of “Big Bird dropping the F-bomb on ‘Sesame Street.

While the F-word’s not exactly ready for prime time TV, over-regulation could call other FCC policies into question, squeezing our First Amendment rights and changing the traditions of live broadcast as we know it. What could this mean for Saturday Night Live? The Academy Awards? Even network news?

Proper interpretation of the law might be necessary, but let’s not get crazy here. Besides, don’t we really only run the risk of a fowl-mouthed outburst when Sesame Street’s letter of the day is “F?”

Election season – especially when you have a high profile, contentious election – is always a golden time for TV stations; they get rich off all the ads candidates buy. Over the last month I’ve spoken to several TV folk who were petrified over what was going to happen to their business when the election was over and all of the political ads stopped running. Well, here we are, and the dicey economy is forcing advertisers to hold on to their marketing budgets. Consider that media holding giant Viacom was down 37% for Q3, at least partially because of a soft advertising market… and that was WITH heavy political ads.

Locally, CBS-3 is minding its pennies… insiders say the station pulled the plug on its text message plan - folks in the field used texting to relay information back to the newsroom - without telling anyone. People in the field at the World Series discovered this when their text messages never went through. Also, there’s been a salary freeze for all management at the station. At another station in town, one prominent female anchor has been told she’ll lose her job when her contract ends this winter - she just makes too much money.

Shaky times… and not just for the media, but for the agencies creating those ads.

By the way, some media comings and goings… long time Inquirer columnist/reporter Larry Eichel is taking what sounds like a cool job at The Pew Charitable Trusts… one of my faves, ESPN’s Sports Guy, might be looking for work… and we already know that my favorite penguin Opus has left the building.

So while traditional media might be headed in the wrong direction, others are innovating. Check out Timberland’s product placement on the MySpace video blog of sports rapper Paul Brogan.

Lastly, marketers often argue (and we’re including ourselves) that tough economic times are precisely when you should increase your marketing commitment. Well, Sprint has heard us.

Don’t ya think this is a smart approach? Doncha?