Box Office Blues

The Box Office is now in a "slump." Here's my recipe for fixing it.

1) All Hollywood executives should have to go to one movie where they pay the same percentage of their income for a ticket as the average movie goer does. The popcorn, candy, and everything else should be priced the same way. For fun, have 100 different cell phones ring during the showing, show 20 ads, and have a crying baby or two.

2) Let exhibitors see a higher percentage of ticket sales in exchange for lowering their prices.

3) WAIT for the DVD. At the very least, don't announce the date it will ship while the movie is still in a few thousand theatres. If I know that I can buy the movie for the same or LESS than two tickets (and rent it for far less than that) in only a few weeks, then why would I go to the theater?

4) Make good movies. Very few movies I see trailers for these days say "you must see this", at least not enough to make me WANT to see them in the theater.

5) Make movies for adults. Not 2 hour snoozefests, but good thrillers and/or action movies that work better on the big screen than at home.

Denny's Grand Slam PR Mess

Personally, I think that Denny's has never discriminated. They offer bad service slowly to people of all races, colors, and creeds.

In this day and age, I can't believe the following:

1) There are business managers who would still openly discriminate (assuming this is true)
2) People still go to Denny's expecting decent service.

Seriously, I didn't even realize they were still in business. But I guess you have to have somewhere to go at 4 AM when you're drunk and hungry.

Of course, who knows, maybe Osama has a hankerin' for a Grand Slam or Moons Over My Hammy from time to time. I've seen more unsavory looking characters than him sipping coffee there in the middle of the night.




Florida Denny's Sued After Bin Laden Remark By Jane Sutton
Thu Apr 28, 4:14 PM ET



Seven Arab American men filed a $28 million lawsuit against a Denny's restaurant in Florida, saying the manager kicked them out and told them, "We don't serve bin Ladens here," their lawyer said on Thursday.

They sued the restaurant owner, Restaurant Collection Inc., and former manager, Eduardo Ascano, saying they were harassed, humiliated and refused service at the Denny's in Florida City, southwest of Miami, in January 2004.

Lawyer Rod Hannah said the men had not ruled out an additional lawsuit against the Denny's chain, which paid about $54 million in 1994 to settle a discrimination suit filed by black customers.

Denny's said the allegations were without merit. Restaurant Collection could not be reached for comment.

The Florida lawsuit said the men visited the restaurant early in the morning of Jan. 11, 2004, and after long delays, were seated, given menus and served drinks.

After waiting more than an hour for their food while later customers were served, they asked twice about their order. The lawsuit said Ascano told them "Bin Laden is in charge of the kitchen." Asked about the reference to the al Qaeda leader, he swore and told them, "We don't serve bin Ladens here" and ordered them to leave, the lawsuit said.

The lawsuit said that violated Florida's Civil Rights Act by discriminating in public accommodations and that the owner was negligent in retaining a manager with a record of treating customers rudely and in a discriminatory manner.

The lawsuit was filed in Miami-Dade County Circuit Court on April 22 and asks for $4 million for each of the seven men, who live in the Boca Raton area. They are of Egyptian, Lebanese and Syrian descent and all but one are U.S. citizens, Hannah said. One owns a restaurant.

"They are all earning a living and are respectable and respectful citizens," Hannah said.

CONFLICTING ACCOUNTS

The two sides gave conflicting accounts of police involvement in the incident.

The lawsuit said a police officer who was a patron in the restaurant shouted at the plaintiffs to "Get out! Get out" and threatened to arrest them when they asked her to make out a police report about the restaurant manager's behavior.

Denny's Corp. said "the guests became so enraged with the franchise manager trying to address an unfortunate delay in service that a police officer who happened to be dining in the restaurant during the late-night incident found it necessary to eject the party for their extreme behavior."

No arrests were made and the plaintiffs' left after paying for their drinks, their attorney said.

Restaurant Collection is a Florida company that owns the Denny's franchise where the incident took place. Denny's Corp is a chain based in Spartanburg, South Carolina, and has 549 company-owned and 1,036 franchised restaurants in the United States.

Denny's Corp. said in a statement that the discrimination allegations were without merit and that it was confident the company would be vindicated.

After the 1994 settlement with black patrons who said they were denied service or made to pay in advance, Denny's apologized and has greatly increased minority ownership of its franchises and minority hiring at restaurants and suppliers.

The men first filed a complaint with Florida's Commission on Human Relations, which said in January there was reasonable cause to believe they had been discriminated against.

A real article about the movie industry....

The article mentioned below was an April Fools joke. But, maybe it won't be soon. It seems that the movie industry is up in arms over bad box office the past few weeks.

While I doubt this trend will continue (There's a little sequel to Star Wars just days away from the theaters), perhaps the industry has itself to blame.

Has anyone in Hollywood actually priced out a trip to the movies these days? Unless you eat before hand, smuggle in your own food, or have the will power to abstain, the price of the ticket is the least of your worries (although $11 for two people at a matinee is still steep). When a popcorn in a small lunch bag costs a little less than $4, a soda is in the $3 range, and a bottle of Aquafina (tap water, for crying out loud) is the same, you're lucky to get out of the theater for less than $25 bucks for two people, probably closer to $40 if you have a family. Then you have the ultimate humiliation of paying that much money to sit through 10 minutes of commercials (not trailers, commercials), including one for that $3 bottle of purified tap water they'll sell you in the lobby.

For the same price you can buy a box of microwave popcorn, buy a new release on DVD, buy a few 2 liters of soda, and half a dozen assorted movie boxes of candy, and have enough money left over to rent a second movie for a double feature. Plus, you can skip the commercials, pause the movie, and see the film with the proper color and aspect ratio that your local theater never seems to be able to reproduce. And if you don't want to keep the movie, put it on Ebay and make some of that money back.

Hey, the picture's lousy, adjust the tracking!

According to my favorite DVD review site, DVDFILE, the movie industry is worried that they may fall victim to the piracy that has allegedly reduced music sales, is going to extreme measures to protect High Definition DVDs against piracy. The plan, detailed here indicates that the discs will be encoded with serial numbers that will be tracked at the point of purchase.

I'm not sure I believe this is actually true, but if it is, I don't imagine that the plan will go far. Copy protection is one thing, but having a serial number follow you wherever you use the disc won't fly with your average consumer. Besides, how would this work in the rental business, where the same copy would be used by tons of different people.

The movie industry has done a smart thing with their sell-through prices, so much so that I doubt your average movie viewer is going to be making copies of every disc that comes down the pike. If the HD discs match the DVDs currently in use, it will be some time before a HD DVD burner is affordable and useful to the public. And since you can buy a DVD for cheaper than two tickets to the movies, I don't think people who didn't pirate before are suddenly going to now.

Would you like to supersize your bypass?

Never let it be said that Burger King is not shrewd. The fast food restaurant, which has been lost in the wilderness recently has been generating some publicity. First, for its new Tendercrisp Bacon Chedder Ranch Chocolate Creme Brule (or whatever the hell it is) commercials, which feature Hootie, Hooters, and a guy in a creepy king costume. And most recently, for its Enormous Omelet Sandwich, a cardiologist's nightmare at 730 calories, 47 grams fat, and 415 milligrams cholesterol. Yeah, everyone and their brother has been criticizing BK for unleashing such an irresponsible dietary choice on the public. But what a PR windfall, hours of airtime devoted to a new sandwich, much of which is certainly heard by people who now are rushing there to try it. With people on the downward side of the latest diet cycle (let's face it, low carb is on its way out), people are eating again, and what better way to thumb your nose at society than by eating enough fat to keep Crisco in business for a year.

Jaguar to Discontinue Cheaper Line of Jags....

Jaguar is discontinuing its cheaper X line of cars, according to the USA Today to "regain an image of exclusivity and the profit it hopes that brings".

I'd like to make a suggestion to Jaguar and its parent company, Ford. Perhaps the key to reviving Jaguar is to make a car that doesn't look like a rebadged Taurus with lots of chrome. I realized they'd lost their distinctive look when I saw a nice looking new Jag from a distance and pulled up to realize that I was admiring a new Hyundai Sonata.

Identity Theft -- Time for the industry to act

In the past few months, data has been compromised at numerous companies and universities, causing potential identity theft for thousands and possibly millions of individuals.

Unfortunately, these companies and organizations, as well as our Government seem not to really care about protecting this data or doing much about those who steal it. It's estimated that individuals who have their identity stolen face hundreds of hours trying to put things in order, including a back and forth game with law enforcement, credit card companies, and credit bureaus.

Here's what I think could be done to stem this tide.

1) Impose heavy penalties on identity theft. Prison time plus manditory restitution and penalties equal to or greater than the restitution.

2) Place restrictions on how companies can collect and share personal data. If they can do this for pharmacies, doctors, and hospitals, they can do this for agencies that handle data. Impose fines for those that fail to properly safeguard this information.

3) Devise software to spot telltale signs of potential identity theft on credit applications. Surely things like a name being spelled incorrectly, incomplete or inaccurate information on applications, or an address that is different than one that is currently on your file is a good way to spot this. If the software spots something potentially wrong, the credit should be flagged and an attempt to contact the individual should be made immediately at the existing address/phone number.

4) Require manditory reporting to government agencies ANY time the same social security number is given for two different names. I once had access to a database to investigate fraud where you would often find the same Social Security number tied to seven or eight people.

5) Credit companies should provide a free notification service for any changes to your credit report via e-mail.

I'm sure there are other ideas, but something must happen soon. Credit Bureaus, Banks, Colleges and other people who hold personal data must start holding themselves accountable before the government and/or lawsuits do.

General Motors -- Time to Downsize

I'm not one for encouraging anything that might cause people to lose their jobs, but it's time for GM to go on a diet.

They're predicting a negative cashflow of about 2 billion dollars, per the USA Today, which also reports that $2000 of EVERY VEHICLE goes toward healthcare expenses.

The problem with GM is that for years they've been producing numerous model lines with little to distinguish them except questionable reliability and cheap looks and feel. The one brand that they managed to make some headway with, Saturn, was undone by its seeming unwillingness to update the style of its vehicles. Its reliability slipped, as did GM's apparent desire to maintain it, and now it's just another nameplate for the company.

It's time for GM to consolidate its model lines and its models from the reported 80 to a much lower (and more manageable) number. They should take a lesson from their Japanese competitors and reduce the lines down a few nameplates with distinguishing traits (entry level, middle of the road, luxury for example), and concentrate on making cars that people want to buy because they're good cars, not because they have hefty discounts or favorable financing. A greater focus on quality (which is all over the map, per Consumer Reports) wouldn't hurt, as would some nice looking entry level models that rope in young buyers and keep them buying GMs as they get older.

Hate your job? So does India!

Couldn't stop laughing at NPR's Marketplace report that the people working the call centers in India hate their jobs, are getting burned out, and turnover rates are huge. It's getting so bad that they're having to go to less qualified people who have trouble speaking English.

To listen to it here.

An overture for tortured buzzwords

While looking for advertising for my blogs, I found this brilliant piece of copy on the website of Overture.com under "Partner Solutions".

"Achieve superior monetization for your site with our customized solutions."

Apparently the person who wrote this got paid by the syllable. Guess "Get paid with our customized advertising" didn't sound professional enough. The saddest part is that the word "monetization" isn't even used correctly.

Per m-w.com:

Main Entry: mon·e·tize
Pronunciation: 'mä-n&-"tIz also 'm&-
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): -tized; -tiz·ing
Etymology: Latin moneta
1 : to coin into money; also : to establish as legal tender
2 : to purchase (public or private debt) and thereby free for other uses moneys that would have been devoted to debt service
- mon·e·ti·za·tion /"mä-n&-t&-'zA-sh&n also "m&-/ noun

Screw the $21.4 Million, I want 3 Months of Tech Support.

NPR had an amusing take on the points in bold during their business report this morning. You can hear it here.

Carly Fiorina to get $21.4m severance pay
By Scott Morrison in San Francisco in the Financial Times
Published: February 13 2005 20:09 | Last updated: February 13 2005 20:09

Carly Fiorina will be paid a $21.4m severance package after being fired as chief executive of Hewlett-Packard last week. She will also be able to keep her computer and receive free tech support for three months.
The controversial Ms Fiorina, considered one of the most powerful women in corporate America until her departure, will get $14m of her severance in cash, equal to 2.5 times her compensation last year, and receive another $7.38m in performance related bonuses.

Ms Fiorina was asked to resign after the computer and printer maker's shares fell 50 per cent and her $19bn acquisition of Compaq Computer in 2002 failed to generate promised profits.

The terms of the severance agreement, which were detailed in a regulatory filing late on Friday, include the vesting of her 6.07m Hewlett-Packard share options. The average exercise price of those options is $35.73 per share, well above HP's closing price of $21.30 on Friday. She has one year to exercise the options.

The company also provided her with a number of other severance related benefits, including $50,000 for financial counselling, legal and outplacement services. She will also receive administrative support for a six-month period, maintenance of home security for a one-year period and an undisclosed cash payment for the balance of her unused vacation time.

She received $1.4m in salary, a $1.57m bonus and options in the fiscal year to October 31 2004, down from her total compensation of $6.64m the year before.

Even after jumping almost 7 per cent on the day of her departure, HP shares have fallen more than 9 per cent in the past year. The group trades at a significant discount to its rivals due to concern about the company's ability to execute its strategy profitably.

Ms Fiorina, who was hired in 1999 to shake up the “gray old lady of Silicon Valley”, dropped a bombshell in late 2001 when she announced her intention to buy Compaq, the struggling PC maker. That touched off a high-profile proxy battle with Walter Hewlett, then board member and son of co-founder William Hewlett, who said the deal would dilute the value of HP's printing business.

She won over investors by a narrow margin and earned the grudging respect of doubters by integrating the two companies ahead of schedule. But the acquisition failed to boost earnings and HP gave up its lead in the PC market to Dell. HP's corporate computing division has also struggled in the wake of the merger.

Her business career began at AT&T, where she rose to be a vice-president by the early 1990s, impressing with her intelligence, professionalism and style. She made her name when AT&T took the decision to spin off its telephone equipment business in 1995, now known as Lucent Technologies.

One way to keep a Wal Mart out of your neighborhood

This wonderful story from Canada, courtesy of USA Today and the AP:

Union Plans to Sue Wal-Mart Canada

TORONTO, Feb 11, 2005 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- A union Friday said it will file charges against Wal-Mart Canada for exhibiting "bad faith" during its first-ever contract talks by secretly planning to close the affected store.

Earlier this week the Canadian unit of retailing giant Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said it will close the store in Jonquiere, Quebec, in May.

In October, a few months after the store received automatic union certification by the Quebec Labour Relations Board, the company revealed the store wasn't making money.

The company said union demands wouldn't allow the store to operate efficiently and profitably, compounding its already "fragile" economic state.

At a press conference Friday, Michael Fraser, the Canadian director of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, questioned whether Wal-Mart ever had any intention of reaching a collective agreement with the union.

"Wal-Mart made its decision to close the store months before we sat down at the table with them. They made a decision the day the labour board certified the union. Everything since then has been a charade," he told reporters.

The union, which is also skeptical about the company's characterization of the store's economic condition, will be filing unfair labor practice charges. The union plans to ask the province's labor board to force Wal-Mart to prove the store wasn't profitable.

Fraser said it's "quite a coincidence" that the first Wal-Mart store to be unionized in Quebec is also losing money. He said the store's closure is really meant to send a message to Wal-Mart employees in Quebec and across Canada.

Wal-Mart Canada spokesman Andrew Pelletier said the company would provide the store's financial data if requested by the labor board. He noted the union could have seen the income statement for itself, as company negotiators brought it to bargaining meetings.

Pelletier also dismissed allegations that the company bargained in bad faith. In fact, he said the conciliator acknowledged that Wal-Mart Canada bargained in good faith, and he expects the conciliator's report to say so when it's released in the coming weeks.

"We're not the ones that walked away from the bargaining table," Pelletier said, adding that the company initiated the bargaining process and asked for a conciliator. However, in applying for binding arbitration, he said the union was effectively telling the company it wasn't prepared to budge from its monetary demands, which on top of a struggling store made the situation "untenable."

Fraser said the union was not calling for a boycott of Wal-Mart stores as it's engaged in organizing other locations across the country.

It would be interesting to see how many stores Wal-Mart has closed because they are unprofitable anywhere. I'm guessing the number is few or none. There have been other stories of Wal-Mart taking drastic action to quell unionization in the past, including switching to prepackaged raw meat instead of meat cut inside the store to keep its meat department from unionizing.

So, the message is clear to all the communities across the country that don't like the affect that Wal Mart has or will have in their community. Just help organize a union in your local Wal-Mart, and they'll be gone in a hurry.

Fired and forced to live on 21.1 Million

Poor Carly Fiorina. The now ousted CEO of HP will have to walk the streets knocking door to door with her resume hoping to find work, forced to live day to day on a measily severance of 21.1 million.

Perhaps she can look to the buddies that have gone before her, the thousands of people laid off since she took over the company. Maybe they can help her find another CEO position where she can do her best to bring a company down.

Carly was yet another in a long list of CEOs more concerned with their own well being and public stature than in understanding and improving the companies they work for. Carly's completely misguided merger of HP with Compaq created, like most mergers, was less than the sum of its parts. How she thought it was a good idea to merge HP with a company whose biggest asset was one that they already held (namely, a PC business on a downward slide) is a mystery to many.

What kills me is that the price of failure is a 21.1 million windfall that she'll enjoy until some other company picks her up and allows her to lead them down the path of nothingness.

Subway -- Jared is right. Subway's a healthy alternative to the wax paper wrapped heart attacks at other restaurants. I enjoy their sandwiches quite a bit, even if they have less meat on them than Kate Moss on a hunger strike. Having visited 178 Subways in my lifetime (all within a mile radius of my house), I've noticed that almost all of them have the following in common:

1) Awful bathrooms. I think one of them near me was used to film Trainspotting.
2) Sub Nazi owners. My local one has a husband and wife (I assume) who act like you're trying to rip them off when you ask for an extra napkin.
3) The Subway half measure and/or Elastic Veggies. The half measure is when your "sub artist" takes a large handful of vegetables and taunts your sandwich with them, holding them over, as though blessing your sandwich with them, but then only puts half of them on your sandwich. The rest go back in the bins. Elastic Veggies is when the worker grabs a tiny amount of vegetables and pulls them apart with both hands as though willing them to fill the entire length of your sandwich.
4) The one sub, one napkin rule. This rule seems universal. While most fast food places will allow you to pull a ream of napkins out if you want, Subway keeps them under lock and key and has its workers parcel them out like they're giving out gold bullion. I wonder if Jared has to ask for more than one
5) The gloves. I have never figured this one out. They're doing sandwiches, not surgery. For all I know, the guy just swabbed the toilets with his elbows just prior to slipping on the gloves. A thin layer of plastic (which that person grabbed all up and down while slipping on his fingers) isn't going to protect me from Mad Sub Disease or any other sub bourne illness.

I can only figure that Subway is 1) run by the biggest tightwad franchisees in the business or 2) charges so much for its supplies that its owners have to pinch every last penny or go under. All of the above are minor annoyances, but I'd love to once have a sub where I didn't have to ask them to put more vegetables on.

When Black Friday comes.....

Black Friday. I had never heard this term for the day after Thanksgiving until last year. Now there are whole websites devoted to talking about the sales (and leaking sale prices) on that day.

Now I can't say I've ventured out to REALLY shop on this day recently, especially not at 6 AM.

Which leads me to this thought....

Why in the world do all of these companies start their sales at 6 AM? I understand the thinking that you want to catch people before everyone else does, and that if they happen to come late, maybe you snag them for the stuff that isn't ridiculously low. But......

Why not promote opening your stores at noon? If you're a big enough store (like Target), the promise of a crazy sale later in the day will have people holding money back for you, and probably snag more people who find the idea of getting up at 6 on the day after Turkey Day insanity.

Or maybe not.

As a decade long Diet Coke drinker, I've occasionally only had the regular kind available to me. Whenever I drink it, I think, "This was the stuff I loved as a kid?" Never was quite sure why it didn't taste as good. The story below might answer my question. It also makes me wonder why Coca Cola doesn't seize on this opportunity to make the true Coca Cola Classic (made with sugar) available to all of us. They could put it out in smaller bottles or charge a premium price and I'm sure they'd make enough to pay for it.

<<Mexican Coca-Cola taking root in U.S.

The Associated Press

LAWRENCEVILLE, Ga. - Deep in the heart of Coca-Cola country, there's at least one place where the iconic caramel-colored fizz doesn't reign supreme - or at least the version most Americans know.
At Las Tarascas Latino Supermarket, 30 miles from the soft drink giant's world headquarters, store manager Eric Carvallo adjusts prized bottles of Mexican Coke displayed prominently at the front of the store.

He then briefly points over his shoulder to a noticeably smaller display of American Cokes tucked in the corner.

Carvallo notes that his store goes through 10 to 15 cases of Mexican Coke each week - his entire stock - while he's barely able to push the five cases of the domestic version he orders.

"Sometimes I have it left over. Sometimes a case, case and a half. So it's a lot of difference," he said.

Taste is the main reason why his discriminating shoppers buy Mexican Coke - they say the cane sugar sweetener used in Mexican Coke has a sweeter, cleaner flavor than the high-fructose corn syrup in the American version. Many are willing to pay $1.10 per 12-ounce bottle for the imports, even with cans of American Coke sitting nearby for 49 cents each.

"You drink it and taste it - it's something you tasted all your life," said Carvallo, referring to the many immigrants who prefer Mexican Coke over its American counterpart.

While the flavor of Mexican Coke provides a taste of nostalgia for immigrants hundreds of miles from home, its retro green-tinted contour glass bottles have also caught on among some baby boomers, who can recall a time when their cola was made with sugar - before rising costs drove U.S. bottlers to switch to corn syrup in the 1980s.

With a niche market for Mexican Coke taking root in the United States, The Coca-Cola Co. and its bottlers are quietly looking to block its passage across the border.

One reason the Atlanta-based company wants the drink to have a low profile in the United States is that bottlers here don't profit from sales of the import, which are produced by independent Mexican bottlers. Mexican Coke, brought in by third-party distributors and retailers, infringes on franchise territory rights of the U.S. plants.

John Craven, editor of BevNet.com, an online beverage industry newsletter based in Cambridge, Mass., suggested Coke also might want to quell any potential demand for a formula that would cost more to produce.

Martin declined to specify what action the company has taken to curb the gray market trade of Mexican Coke, saying only that "our bottlers discourage that practice."

Discouraging the imports may be all they can do, since Mexican bottlers legally produce the drink and third-party distributors and retailers aren't bound by contracts between Coke and its U.S. bottlers.

"It's very tricky for them to enforce," Craven said. "It's not a product that they can get Customs to stop at the border since it's not a counterfeit."

Coca-Cola said it has been unable to track exactly how much Mexican Coke is sold in the United States, although some industry observers say the company's concerns are unwarranted since sales likely pale in comparison to its American counterpart.

"If there's a tiny amount of Coke from Mexico sold in the U.S., it's a pin drop compared to the ocean of American Coke sold by the U.S. bottlers," said John Sicher, editor of the New York-based industry publication Beverage Digest.

Craven agreed, but noted the company's resistance to this budding niche market. "Consumers are starting to wise up to a lot of these smaller brands that are out there, these regionally premium sodas," he said.>>

Last night PBS presented an excellent show about Wal-Mart, details of which can be found here. The show addressed my concern about how Wal-Mart shifted from "Buy American" to selling stuff produced mostly overseas, stating that the change came when Wal-Mart started to see its stock price drop and wanted to increase profits. They flooded their stores with hundreds of cheap imported items with high profit margins. The strategy worked, and continues to this day.

What the show also made clear is that Wal-Mart now ropes its suppliers into a deal with the devil that can hurt ill prepared companies who cede too much up front. Former Rubbermaid executives discussed how that company originally enjoyed a great relationship with Wal-Mart, one in which their sales skyrocketed. When Rubbermaid's costs skyrocketed due to the cost of raw materials going up, they tried to pass this on to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart advised Rubbermaid that they would either have to eat the costs or see their shelf space dwindle. When Rubbermaid refused to lower the prices Wal-Mart went elsewhere to get similar products and cut its shelf space devoted to Rubbermaid way down.

As a result, Rubbermaid lost lots of money, and eventually was taken over by Newell. THe town of Wooster, known as the home of Rubbermaid, lost its plant, which was sold in pieces, with much going to overseas producers.

Of course, you can argue this was Rubbermaid's fault. After all, someone was able to step in and do what Rubbermaid did cheaper and better. And you wouldn't necessarily be wrong. But, as this story and one about Vlasic on Fast Company (here) demonstrate, Wal-Mart forces the hand of companies both big and small to play ball or suffer. Wal Mart believes that prices should go down, not up, and believes its suppliers should help its "rollback" policy by lowering or keeping their prices the same year in and year out. They even go as far as to suggest that they move their production overseas to keep the costs low.

The end result of this is anyone's guess. You have to think that low prices aren't necessarily good if more and more of the country has less disposible income, especially in the small towns that Wal-Mart made its bones in.

Blue Light Special In Craftsman Tools

When I heard the news today that K-Mart was buying Sears, I thought, WHAT? That's kind of like MC Hammer buying Donald Trump, isn't it? To see two formerly huge names in retail get together in an attempt to survive/compete with other, more successful retailers was somewhat alarming.

The "synergies", to use a buzzword, don't seem to be there, other than both are retailers. K-mart was, of course, the Wal-Mart of its day, where you went for cheap day to day purchases and Sears was where you went to buy well made inexpensive clothes and long lasting big ticket items. Crossbranding would seem to create serious issues for the most valuable parts of the Sears brand, Kenmore Appliances and Craftsman tools, both of which are associated with high quality. Assuming that K-Mart slaps either name on cheap garbage, the value of these names will diminish greatly.

Additionally, I can't imagine K-mart having much to add to the Sears line, except maybe Martha Stewart's name (which they already had in paint), assuming that name still has value. With Sears trying to pick up its image in recent years, adding a retailer whose name is synonymous with both bankruptcy and "blue light" specials won't suddenly bring shoppers through the doors.

Of course, I hope I'm wrong. As a kid who loved the Sears catalog and has fond memories of trips to both stores in my childhood, I want to see both succeed. Maybe combining forces will give both a needed shot in the arm.

I'm one of those lucky people to have been blessed with a Wal-Mart in my neighborhood for going on 3 decades. Wal Mart opened its first store in the Louisville, KY area 20+ years ago in Crestwood. The store, which would probably fit nicely into the clothing section of the SuperCenters built today was a wonderful place to shop. Open from 10 to 9, the store was a perfect discount store for a small town, with good prices and friendly people.

I thought of this today as I grabbed a pack of cups out of my cabinet to get some water. They were the Wal-Mart brand, which I bought because it was cheap. I looked at the back and saw they were "Made In Mexico".

Nothing new, of course. Cups, toothpaste, housewares, clothes, and other items have been increasingly coming from across our borders for the past several years.

However, this put the spotlight on something that Wal-Mart used to carry in its back pocket as a great reason to shop there. It was saving American jobs. The Wal-Mart of my youth played up this fact in posters displayed throughout the store. Wal-Mart prided itself on giving contracts to television makers, bicycle makers, and garment manufacturers and rescuing the jobs there. I remember the signs counted the jobs that were saved.

The irony, of course, is that as Wal-Mart killed K-Mart and became the discounter in this country, the aggresive business tactics it championed eventually ensured that the jobs it saved would go elsewhere. Conspicuously absent from Wal-Mart these days about buying American. Save for the occasional note on the Sam's Choice products, the only American jobs that Wal-Mart is willing to hold onto seem to be the ones in its stores.

What also seems to be lost, at least in my experience, is the idea of the "hometown" Wal-Mart that is such an important part of their ads. As Wal-Mart has grown, it has gone from a nice place to shop to a place you go because you have to. My local Wal-Mart where I live now was built small and expanded, and still seems too small. The people that work there are less than friendly, the store is filthy (as are many in the Louisville area), the shelves are a mess, and the checkout lines are almost always backed up.

It's no wonder that Target has come on strong. Cheap chick has become the alternative of choice to those of us fed up with Wal-Mart. Target's clean, brightly lit stores, while not always as cheap as Wal-Mart, are places where the budget conscious among us can go and shop and enjoy ourselves.

Granted, Wal-Mart will not suffer financially anytime in the near future, and I'm probably in the minority of people who really have begun to hate shopping there. But I think that its general shift away from the things that once made it a pleasurable place to shop.


So what can Wal-Mart do to improve?

1) Clean up its stores. I've been to Wal-Marts that are nice and clean in other states, but most of them seem to be in smaller areas where the competition for labor isn't as great. In areas such as Louisville, where low paying jobs are a dime a dozen, Wal-Mart seems to get by with skeleton crews. Because the stores are open 24 hours and remain relatively busy that entire time, the stores have to be stocked, cleaned, and reconfigured on the fly. While it may not be feasible to shut down overnight, even a simple closure for a few hours once a week would work wonders to make the stores more pleasant to shop in.

2) New uniforms. Okay, this may sound dumb, but Wal-Mart's uniforms are absolutely horrible. They are 300% polyester and seem in danger of turning their wearers into human torches if they get to close to a heat source (like a warm blanket). Gas station attendents are better dressed.

3) Stock the crap you know people buy. I drink a LOT of soda. Because of this, I buy lots of cheap Sam's Choice Soda. Apparently lots and lots of people do the same, because they are ALWAYS out. Now Wal-Mart got where it was by tight inventory management. But I have to think that having enough Dr. Thunder on keep the shelves stocked throughout the course of the week isn't going to throw Wal-Mart on the downgraded stock list anytime soon.

4) Build more grocery only stores. We just recently got a new Wal-Mart neighborhood grocery, and I like it. The shelves are usually nicely stocked, the prices are great, and the store is much more pleasurable to shop in than the Super Duper Centers that combine groceries, housewares, gas stations, mortgage companies, paintball arenas, and OB/GYN services under one roof.

5) Get off your moral soapbox. On a recent trip to Wal-Mart, I found I could buy Grand Theft Auto (a violent, profane, sexist videogame full of sex, violence, and profanity), Body Double (a movie full of much of the same), and a number of Stephen King novels (chuck full of the same as well). For some reason, if you decide to sing about any of these same themes, Wal-Mart doesn't want you. WHile I appreciate Wal-Mart wanting to look out for children, I think I'd rather have my child have access to Eminem's latest than a movie where people are killed by a power drill or a game the main theme is how many crimes you can commit. Yeah, this probably won't save or make Wal-Mart much money, but it certainly does annoy me.

I wonder if I'm the only one slightly saddened by Howard Stern's announced departure from broadcast radio to the unchartered territory of satellite radio on Sirius. One imagines that in 5 years, Sirius may be crying too.

Certainly to Howard, the 500 million dollar deal makes sense. After all, it's 500 million. Years of taking crap from the FCC, his bosses, critics, and religious groups has probably taken its toll. Given the draconian measures of Michael Powell and the FCC (who seem to respond only to complaints, not to people who tell them they AREN'T offended), Stern probably got tired of having to censor his material down to half the intensity of what he could do even a year ago.

I'm even sure his fans are applauding. Finally, we can hear bits as their meant to be heard, unfiltered conversations, clips that couldn't be aired, skits that were deemed too offensive previously.

But therein lies the problem. Pushing the envelope is usually more entertaining than obliterating it. There is a certain sense of amusement in listening to people try to get away with as much as they can. Without the threat of censorship, the show essentially would lose the edge it once held. Because they can get away with more, it isn't hard to see the show going for more cheap easy laughs than actually working to be humorous. Add to this the fact that being crude for the sake of being crude gets old quickly. And one would have to guess that the guests who already were fearful of going on there will now run the other way when they know the show is no holds barred.

What is also missing in the equation is that radio for most of us is background noise wherever we are. Most of us started our day with Howard in the shower, Howard for breakfast, Howard on the drive to work, Howard until 11 O'Clock at work. While the show was crude, seldom was it such that you couldn't listen to it in mixed company. With the move to Sirius, if Howard decides to let the f-bombs fly and turn the naughtiness up a notch, the potential for the same audience he enjoys now dwindles considerably. I can't see many people wanting to pay $12 a month solely for programming they will only be able to listen to for 30 minutes to an hour a day.

Still, I hope I'm wrong. Howard has proven to be a survivor, and I would have to imagine his ego wouldn't let him exit radio a failure, as though a man with 500,000,000 could ever be considered a failure.



(c) 2004 Rob Mattheu