Ordering a Whooper at gunpoint

No greater niche can be created then by being the ONLY provider of your product or service. Filling demand is much easier than creating it.

I saw the travel channel feature a Burger King at a Kosovo military base where all the customers were sitting around with their M-16’s having a Whopper, “Have it your way” takes on new meaning. Burger King landed the landmark military deal in 1984 after congress gave AAFES approval to sign a burger chain. A captive audience with a reported Burger King at almost every facility, it is a Monster deal. They really outflanked McDonald's. The franchising contract was for a five-year exclusive period but contained an option for Burger King to extend it for an additional 15 years. Today the golden arches can be seen on some bases but Pepsi is way ahead.

AAFES, a Dallas based 100 year old organization who claims it has a “dual mission of providing products and services to military families worldwide and generating earnings to supplement military morale, welfare and recreation (MWR) programs”. In 2006, $232 million donated to military programs on revenues of 8.9 Billion while claiming a 20% savings for their military shoppers. No competition cuts out a lot of fat apparently. The Navy only received $500,000 of the loot that year, directors must all be Generals, Go Army! To compare, Google did 10 Billion in 06, this is a massive operation. I could not find compensation for directors or executives anywhere and it looks like it is all run by non civilians.

We have all heard of $60,000 toilet seats, and $28,000 wrenches. The taxpayer price gouging aside, the military is a real plum with an amazing amount of people overlooking the market. How many people do you personally know are doing business with the military today? According to the Defense Department's annual inventories from 2002 to 2005 of real property it owns around the world, the Base Structure Report. 737 internationally and 6,000 in the USA.

Two years ago I was traveling to Jordan and we went to the US Embassy to meet the commercial officer that was there to help support US companies entering Jordan. The licensee and I went to the embassy and it was a scene out of a war zone. The embassy sits on top of a hill an absolute massive building. They did not have just a couple of security guards. In the front yard sat two giant tanks, 5 armored hummers, pill box with a machine gun turret, at least 30 of our troops with weapons walking around. You definitely did not want to double park. I am sure overstaying your visa could be really unpleasant, very sobering. Rome controlled its 800 year run with 38 military bases. We are at 6,737. Commercial conquest and military protection goes hand in hand. With the military expanding its reach now to every US embassy worldwide, how could we drop a franchise into the middle of this raging river of money? Have your daughter marry a General or playing golf with the Director of AAFES would be a good start.

By the way, Jordan itself was great; the Jordanians are very mellow for the most part. Love the food and the King, they are lucky to have him. He is smart, international, nice neighbor and great taste, his wife wow! First time I ever watched Oprah with my wife.

To become an AAFES supplier:

http://www.aafes.com/pa/selling/default.asp

Gatorade Inventor dies leaves licensing legacy

University of Florida Gatorade Inventor died today. He left a licensing legacy that will never be surpassed at the University of Florida anytime soon.

When I read about Robert Cade passing away this morning, I was teleported back to the Winter of 2005 when I made a call to John Byatt, the Director of Technology Licensing for the University. John is a real pro, pleasant and bright. We hit it off and I realized that some PhD’s can be great to work with on the business side, not just creative. I was interested in a patent they had that made roses produce more rose oil by a factor of 10. It was really incredible; they even made other flowers smell like a rose. Anyway, to avoid any non-disclosure issues, let’s just say I was impressed.

They had a very low key approach to licensing and they were flexible by University standards. When I was in their small conference room, they had the wall of licensing fame and there it was, Gatorade photos. I did not know the full story until that day.

In 1965 the football coach asked Dr. Cade “Why don't football players wee-wee after a game?" Times have really changed, my High School coach Dixon had a more colorful way to explain the processes of urine elimination, "wee-wee" was not in his Thesaurus. To get back on point, that big question led to the invention of Gatorade and a monster licensing deal that brought in 100+ million for the University. They still command 50% market share in the sports drink market and here is the real winner. They did it with three easy licensing steps that anyone can follow to produce big results with your brand.

Step #1 Research:

Dr. Cade to his research and combined it with $43 in equipment and supplies to create the first batch to test on players? It does not take a lot of money.

Step #2 Testing:

Let the team use Gatorade and they became famous a “second half team”. Use someone who will benefit from your product, you will get great testimonials.

Step #3 Marketing luck:

Gators slam the favorite Georgia Tech in the 1967 Orange Bowl and the defeated Georgia coach utters the words in the post game news conference, “we didn’t have Gatorade” Touchdown! Anyone want to rent our brand for a fat royalty check? Pepsi now owns the brand keeps the royalties flowing in. Get your name out there!

From all the creators we give a big thanks to Dr. Cade for his contribution and wish his family the best.

Thanksgiving surprise locks in recession for 2008

The stock market gave us a real turkey in the Wednesday session before the long weekend. The closing price was not only at a level that indicated the market will go lower; it was the method of the close that was most alarming. We will have a recession in 2008 if the Dow Theory is correct. The last time we had the same signal was September of 1999 which led to the recession of 2000-2002.

Our friend Mr. Dow is best known for the creation of the Dow Jones Averages. What makes his story so unique is Dow was a self made man. He was a reporter, financial writer, broker, member of the New York Stock exchange, analyst and editor.

Having moved off the floor of the exchange to commit full time to the fledgling Wall Street Journal in its 2nd year of existence, he developed the Dow Jones industrial and transportation averages to give readers a better feel for the broader market. During his 22 years on the street, he lived thru three financial panics which resulted in a contraction on the overall economy later on. He had a unique feel for human emotion and how it was expressed in stock market prices. This brought him to this conclusion.

“The price trend is not saying what the condition of business is today, but what it will be months from now.”

The market close last week was below the August low and the divergence of the move on the way up confirms a “Dow Theory” Recession is on the way. We had one right before the crash of 1929 as well.

So how do we create a thriving licensing and franchising business during the next downturn? High volume low margin businesses rely on commercial credit to fund their operations and consumer credit to buy their products. During a recession, they will get hit the worst. You can moderate the market you are in by controlling the price or controlling production. Businesses that rely on the production model are the most susceptible to recession. Position your brand accordingly and you will thrive while others get the squeeze.

Harrison Ford’s sour stomach makes sweet scene.

Franchising and Hollywood have at least one thing in common; sometimes the best scenes are created by accident. As a kid I remember watching Raiders of the Lost Ark, it was the first “Big Film” for me. Jaws was fresh on my mind every time I jumped into our pool the summer of seventy five, but Raiders was the first film that made me feel movie making had changed forever, it was just a giant film to me, absolute monster. The one scene that made such a huge impression on me was actually very simple. Amidst the special effects and rich location shots, the one very low budget scene where Indy calmly shoots the worked up swordsman was unforgettable to me. You may be surprised to know that scene was an accident, more about that in a moment.

Starbucks is also an accident of sorts. In 1971 the company was founded by a passionate trio who extolled the virtues of fine coffee making. A decade later they had four modest stores in Seattle. One early morning in 1981, Howard Schultz, the VP of an east coast houseware company noticed that a special Swedish drip coffee maker they imported was being sold by those four small Seattle stores in greater quantities than Macy’s moved in all fifty states! A plane ride later and a few restless nights, he was convinced that the market was ready for gourmet coffee on a grand scale. Who knew that tracking coffee maker sales could lead to a net worth of over 1 billion dollars! What if he did not get on that plane, what if he switched companies without investigating Starbucks, was it all an accident? Back to Harrison Ford.

Raiders was a Paramount film, directed by Steven Spielberg. The “Swordsman” scene was going on day two as told by Michael Eisner, who heard the story first hand from Spielberg. I heard the story from a friend who was at a motivational conference where he heard Eisner discussing how small things can lead to great things, still with me? My friend told me that Eisner was having a very difficult time discussing the stomach problems of Harrison Ford to his motivational groupies who had paid to hear him speak. As Eisner retold the story, on the final day of the swordsman shoot, Harrison had a major stomach problem and he was very busy running to the washroom between takes. The scene called for Harrison to get into a very elaborate fight scene with the swordsman. Short on time and very short on enthusiasm from his star Harrison Ford, Spielberg says to the prop man, “Give Harrison a gun and just shoot the guy”. Cut, print next! Franchisor tip* Make the most of your accidents, some of your big breakouts can happen when your plan takes an unexpected turn. Great moviemakers and Franchisors go with what they have to work with. If you are short on time and over budget, try the unexpected and move on.

Dyson vacuum conspiracy

I came home the other day to find a piece of equipment in my living room that looked like it had dropped down from another parallel universe. My wife told me “It cleans your carpet, his name is Dyson”. Then like taking out a meat cleaver she says with an all knowing smile “Come on, take it for a spin, its European!” I felt as if the keys to a new Porsche drop top hit me in the face, she knows my weakness for highly engineered foreigners.

I don’t know if it was all premeditated, my wife is just not sneaky. I believe others were involved. She may have actually overheard a 70 year old demo lady at Costco schooling another accomplice. “If you buy the Dyson and repeat this script to your husband, your carpet days are over”.

My buddy had been talking about a Dyson for months and going on how he loves to vacuum the carpet. I figured I just did not know him as well as I thought. Well his wife played the “Mine is bigger than yours card” I think his wife said something about “Dyson is better than your truck!” Who cannot resist that kind of smack down, he fired it up and now he is dancing around the house with Dyson twice a week. It is unseemly, at least close the blinds! Conspiracy, or just a fantastic confluence of science, engineering and marketing? I took a look under the hood and I was surprised what I found.

“We're taught to do things the right way. But if you want to discover something that other people haven't, you need to do things the wrong way.”

-Sir James Dyson

Ten years to create the motor, 5,126 failed prototypes, and almost bankrupt, it worked! The world’s first vacuum that does not use a bag, centrifugal force inside the cylinder spins debris 900 mph and never losses suction. This is a man’s vacuum! And my man Dyson has some marketing bones. The focus groups said "Make the cylinder dark, people don’t want to see all that dirt", he faded the crowd and made it clear, great move. He had his product all dressed up for the party in a rented tux but nobody wanted to dance. Not one major vacuum manufacture wanted to manufacture the Dyson. Hoover later admitted they thought about buying the patent just to bury the idea. Over the past 99 years, Hoover built up quite a bag habit, replacement bags. With the vacuum manufacturers jonesing a 500 million dollar per year bag habit, a bag free cyclone machine would be a major disruptor. *Licensing tip: large old school corporations actually have more to loose from change then they can gain from new innovation. Don’t be surprised if the big boys are not jumping thru hoops to help you realize your dreams. Old factories are expensive to retrofit. The chances of being ripped off do not go down with the size of your potential partner’s payroll, it actually increases. Like a good casino, large corporations do not get where they are by playing nice and they have larger legal departments then you do. License to someone who has everything to gain, not everything to lose. Do you think destroying their old business model will really get them enamored to your idea?

In 1991 his first design won the international design prize and landed a licensee to sell the vacuum in Japan for $2,000 a pop. He took the money from the licensing revenue and created new models that really took off in the UK, in only 30 months he captured 50% market share there. Dyson became the hottest seller in 2006 in the USA passing Hoover. Hoover started in the same year the Cubs last won the World Series, the iconic postwar symbol of prosperity that every American housewife wanted to have. Today Dyson it is in the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, Hoover is slumming the shelves of Walmart. *Don't ever lose your premium.

In 2002 Dyson made the bold move and outsourced all the manufacturing to Malaysia. The British press slammed Dyson. We say two thumbs up from us very high and one finger to the British press. Licensing Tip: If you are reading this from the USA, you will be paid in the future for creativity, not your manufacturing skills. Despite what you may hear from the political and media salad bar, it is not an abundance of cheap foreign labor that is the biggest threat to the US work force, it is a shortage of creativity, design and execution skills that is the biggest threat. People will always get paid the best when they have the most relevant skills to offer. Today, intellectual property is the security blanket of the future. The leading companies that are swimming in high margin are the ones who can design or create software, chips, movies, music, drugs…then ask someone else from a low wage market to wrap plastic around the idea and import it right back to the USA. Look at the back of your iPod, “Designed by Apple in California, made in China”. Apple’s stock is up 70% this year, Gateway (Made your computer in a barn in Iowa remember them?) Get’s gobbled up by Acer, from Taiwan for peanuts. Wake up call franchisors, the high margin is in design, not manufacturing. Be a successful global arbitrageur by exporting your ideas, and importing finished goods, and stay out of the factory.

Licensing the unnatural act

Painful stat of the day, IBM's market share of personal computers:

1981- 1.9 %

1984- 63 %

1990 - 15.2 %

2000- 5.4 %

As a kid we are really more inclined to buy and sell stuff then license stuff. The idea of licensing is not natural; it seems too complex, too intangible. Some kids pick it up quicker than others however. They are the ones who usually go on to make gobs of money while making it look easy. I watched an interview with Diddy, P Diddy, Puff Daddy, Daddy Puff…last week. I never knew he started off his career in licensing, he probably did not know it either. He recalled the look of disappointment on his Mother’s face when he would ask her for new shoes as a 12 year old boy. It hurt, the look really drove him to find a way to make money. The best gig going for a pre-teen was a paperboy but he was still too young, he needed an angle.

The ah ah moment! Cut a deal with an older paperboy to stay home then work the route; pay the older boy who already had the contract 50% of the revenues and the publisher would never know. He expanded to other paperboys and cut 30%, 20% even 10% royalties with college kids to stay on as the carrier of record and get paid for the license. As the pie grew, his share of the pie also grew. No wonder he is doing well in music and clothing, two giant licensing industries.

Somewhere along our journey, some of us pick up the fact quicker than others, more money can be made with less effort using our minds not our hands. Unless of course you have very talented hands, which I do not. Control the contract, control the cash, control the outcome.

"The day Gary Kildall went flying"

The tale of young Bill Gates cleaning up on old blue goes down in licensing lore as the Mother of all licensing deals. The legend goes like this: One fateful day in the summer of 1980, three buttoned-down IBMers called on a band of hippie programmers at Digital Research Inc. located in Pacific Grove, Calif. They hoped to discuss licensing DRI's industry-leading operating system, CP/M. Instead, DRI founder Gary Kildall blew off IBM to spend the day in his airplane, and the frustrated IBMers turned to Gates for their operating system. While he's revered for his technical innovations, many believe Kildall made one of the biggest mistakes in the history of commerce. (Strike one) *Licensing note, you cannot be great at everything.

Quick timeline recap:

1980 July 22^nd team from IBM meet Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer to discuss Microsoft products. Microsoft is 5 years old by now.

Aug 28^th Microsoft and IBM sign a formal contract for Microsoft to develop certain software products for IBM's new microcomputer. Microsoft will receive US$200,000 to adapt the operating system to the IBM PC, and US$500,000 for DOS, BASIC, and compilers. Microsoft is to have an initial version of the operating system and BASIC working by mid-January. Bill Gates also bets that IBM clones will flood the market soon and they will all need to use his software. He negotiates to also keep the copyright to the software.

Microsoft bought the rights to QDOS for $50,000, keeping the IBM deal a secret from Seattle Computer Products and inventor Tim Paterson.

Microsoft missed the January 1981 deadline, trickier then they thought. They must modify QDOS enough to avoid a lawsuit from Gary Kidall at Digital research and make it work on the IBM hardware.

1981 Aug 12^th IBM announces PC for $1,565 with QDOS, modified and renamed MS-DOS.

Gary Kidall tells IBM that its MS-DOS infringes on its copyright, He says he will not sue if IBM sells CP/M on the IBM PC in addition to MS-DOS. (Strike two) IBM agrees then goes on to charge 5 times the amount to consumers to buy Gary Kidall’s software then MS-DOS.*Licensing note, watch backend points, don’t get enamored with the big numbers and take your eye of the finer points.

Don’t cry for Gary or IBM both came out ok. Gary sold his company to Novell for 120 million in 1991 and IBM’s PC numbers went intergalactic for the first 3 years under the agreement, only to squander the lead later.

In 1981, Tim Paterson (Inventor of QDOS sold to Microsoft for 50k) quit Seattle Computer Products and found employment at Microsoft.

Which is worse?

Selling your software for $50,000, join their company and watch your new boss go on to become the world’s richest man.

Or

Take out the plane and relax for the day and get beat out of the contract of the millennium.

Or

Go from 63% market share in PC’s to 5.4% and become the poster child for letting the big one get away.

It is easy to look back and believe you are a genius and would have done things very differently if you just had their luck to be in the right place at the right time. The fact is, history is written forward, not backward. When you are in the battle the answers are only clear after the fact and the “Geniuses” get to look back and spin their prophetic take on others mistakes.

Live and learn.

Good Better Best

Last month I listened spellbound to a talk about family leadership. As a Father I am always open to creative parenting ideas. I heard him speak many times before over the years but on this day he spoke with great imagery, recalling as a young boy sitting around the fireplace with his family poring over the Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs for Christmas treasure. He said "The great catalogs were the equivalent of the huge shopping malls of today, the merchandise on those pages were alive with promise, a place the entire family could go shopping together." He talked about a merchandising technique that was a constant throughout the catalog, Good Better Best. If you were looking for shoes for example, you would see slight modifications in the stitching, style and soles to give you three distinct choices, each with their corresponding price premium. I am sure Chevy, Olds and Cadillac were born from these three simple choices. If you look for it, you will see good, better, best all around you.

The point he brought up was, "Sometimes we fill our lives with so many good activities, we don't have room for what is better or best." He went on to counsel, "We should always seek the best choices for our time even at the expense of trimming or eliminating the good choices we are currently making. Time spent on good choices will not leave room for the best choices." I know this all sounds so simple, but the time to think about simple things, simply does not exist. I was in a very relaxed state when he spoke, it really was clear to me. If you asked 10 men from 10 cultures "Are you a good Father"? I think you would have 8 for 10 say yes, but nobody would have the ego to say they were the best. If you eliminated the good and better choices and only selected the best, could you then call yourself the best Father? Maybe I am just too shallow but during this talk I caught myself thinking, "This is really good stuff, I know this would also apply to licensing, what good choices are choking off the air to my best choices in my business, I need to let it breath baby"!

Think about this, how many great Fathers do you know are total business and career disasters? (Pause wait for response). I cannot think of anyone. How many business titans are total disasters as Fathers? (Insert sound of record screech) what a list! What is the connective tissue that makes a great Father a great business man? Could the answers to the creation of a galactic class licensing and franchising company be sitting under your own roof? Your family wants your time, but needs your money, trade offs must be made. The goal is to make the best choices and move on, not get slowed down with some lame time management tricks. Anytime a decision needs to be made with your family, just repeat, Good, Better Best. This little trigger will give you huge fast results I promise. As you build your franchise or licensing program trade offs in price, style, hiring or experience must be made to get to the best choice as well. Ask yourself, "What is the best thing I can contribute, what is the best result someone should receive by interacting, purchasing, consuming or using my product service or idea? What good choices are occupying the space I should only reserve for the best choices?

Use the trigger, save time, get results. Family first! Have a good weekend.

Air Taxi or Sky Bus which would you fly?

If you are short on time, my absolute favorite way to get to the big apple from Phoenix is JetBlue. You can red eye a 7:30 am arrival and have a cheap, comfortable (For cattle class) ride into the city. Recently I was stuck on the tarmac at JFK. That is not the airport you want to be at in the rain, major delays. In 2002 JetBlue crashed the airline price fixing party and was awarded 75 slots at JFK and turned a sleepy airport into a money maker. Was JFK the right size airport to pull off the impossible? Do yourself a big favor, put down the remote, get a copy of Blue Streak inside Jetblue and prepare for a fantastic crash course in startup reality, vision and guts. Depending on which version you read, JetBlue raised 128-175 Million (The largest raise ever) to launch the airline. Who could ever slow down the brash upstart? The rain, sleet and snow that’s who.

The winter of 2006-07 was not kind to Jetblue or David Neelman (Former CEO and Founder) JFK is a rough place to hub when the weather turns.

In steps Skybus. In May of 2007 Bill Diffenderffer launched a new airline with the largest raise ever, 160 million. Again, depends what article you read. Skybus has everything I like, great name, $10 airfares, catchy marketing, kiosks only, no agents or 800 numbers, all simple self service and a major underscore major, strategic difference that capitalizes on all the missteps of canceled flights last winter for JetBlue. They seem to have taken a few sheets out of the JetBlue play book but added an old school double wing formation in common sense that I believe will score big. Quote from a recent Popular Science interview with the CEO.

“Q: You fly into obscure little airports, such as Pease International in New Hampshire. What's the advantage?
A: Efficiency. If an airplane is not in the air flying in a straight line to its destination, it is costing money. The average taxi time of an airplane at JFK is 30 minutes. The average taxi time at our airports is 10 minutes. If a rainstorm hits JFK for a half hour, you've got a two-hour backup—at ours, you wait out the half hour and then you take off. It's much easier to recover from a bad-weather event when there are never more than five airplanes on the ground.”

Starting an airline in 2007 using 10 year old cost modeling for delay impact pricing would be like using 1935 population and life expectancy models to fund our 2007 retirement plans, who would be dumb enough to do that! Can we actually learn something from the social security bust to pick future winners in aviation? The modeling fork in the road that leads to either the penthouse or the outhouse is only a mouse click away. Imagine all the old airlines that are built on old time delay costing models. Opportunity?

The FAA made a rough calculation of the annual costs of delays can be made by multiplying the number of passengers affected by the additional wait by the value of their time. In 1995, travelers took approximately 390 million trips on U.S. airlines. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the airlines recommended arriving at the airport thirty minutes earlier than normal because of the security measures implemented in July. The FAA, in its calculations, uses a value-of-time estimate of $48 an hour for business travelers and $42 an hour for non-business travelers in 1995 dollars. This yields an estimate of $9 billion per year in delay costs.

And that is just the opportunity costs for the passengers; imagine the fixed and variable cost for the airlines!

Skybus, just a catchy name or an entirely new way to build an airline? Time makes fools of us all, but I suspect a missed opportunity is waiting to accost the entrepreneur caught sleeping as a huge shift is about to occur. Leave the 160 Million dollar crap shoots to someone else willing to bet the pass line. Big returns with lower risk will reward those in the future who make moves in and around the airports that the Skybus builders will embrace to save time.

One more for the road. The money men at Morgan Stanley held out a 20 million dollar carrot and forced the management of JetBlue to ditch its original name which was “Taxi” just before the IPO. Skybus, must just be another coincidence right?

To buy the JetBlue book

To read the entire Skybus article

What’s your favorite chew?

I was in a CVS last week and came across Chocolate Bubble Yum. I loved it! I always thought the everyday American staples would be a real hot seller in the gum category. To me pepperoni pizza, nachos, chicken wings in a gum would be a great seller! The good old crap we eat by the billions must be a hit in a gum too right? “Man I could really go for some sweet and sour pork, no time, hey give me a piece of gum!” Could we see the Cheesecake Factory team up with Wrigley’s to offer branded cheesecake bubble gum in the future?

The reason it got me thinking is the gum category is experiencing major bifurcation of growth right now. The traditional lines are tanking and the “Sugar free and Whitening” categories are booming. The traditional lines need a major shakeup.

I think we will see cross licensing programs take off and create a big new branded gum category very soon. If I saw Chocolate Bubble Yum in a loud package or Godiva Hazelnut Praline Gum in a rich gold and brown package side by side, they could get an extra buck out of me for sure to go premium.

The folks over at Informational Resources Inc. confirm the growth in the new gum category is for real as they see the trend in “Functional Foods” continue to gain market share. They really have a valuable website for anyone interested in licensing in food and beverage.

Information Resources Inc.

http://us.infores.com/

Trends to Watch

• Functional Foods & Beverages Hit Their Stride: With increased availability and greater consumer demand, functional foods and beverages, which offer health and disease prevention benefits beyond basic nutrition, are at the cusp of a major growth wave in the United States. Products delivering the following benefits are poised for growth: antioxidants, heart protection, digestive aids and weight loss.

• Growing Number of Gourmets: Take the immense popularity of the Food Network, add the increased availability of more exotic spices and ingredients and the newfound time among aging boomers, and you have all the right ingredients for a boom in gourmet products.

• Kids Rule: With more than 4 million babies born last year, the United States is officially in the midst of a new baby boom. There will be a huge focus on products, services, marketing and merchandising targeting younger children. Expect to see an explosion of healthier products targeting kids and manufacturer and retailer initiatives that will help parents and children select the right products to maintain a healthy diet.

• Environmental and Social Consciousness Increasingly Influential: Concern about the environment and fair treatment of employees of food producers has become a much more significant consideration in product and store selection during the past few years, and this trend will grow stronger. There will be increased focus among fair trade products, eco-friendly products, and sustainable packaging that is recyclable, re-usable, and/or made of biodegradable materials.

• Healthcare Emerges as the New Retail Battleground: Aging baby boomers facing rising incidence of chronic disease will drive demand for prescription and over-the counter remedies, foods and beverages offering specific health benefits and healthcare education and benefits. Watch for retailers to increase focus on onsite health clinics, online and in-store educational materials, and pharmacy marketing and promotion.

• Packaging Becomes a Powerful In-store Marketing Vehicle: The need to capture consumer attention and help them find the products they want inside the store will drive new packaging innovation aimed at standing out on the shelves. Expect bold colors, unique shapes and a consistent look and feel across products within a brand. In addition, packaging will be fully-leveraged as a mini-billboard for marketing messages.

King of Queens goes to Berlin

Last November I was in Amsterdam, love it! The food, people, culture fantastic. Despite loosing Manhattan to the English, New York still gives a silent shout out to their Dutch roots with the Nicks sporting the colors of the Netherlands flag. I guess the branding gurus of the 1600's felt "New Amsterdam" does not sound like the financial capital of the world, but I bet Times Square would be a real hoot today if the Dutch were still running the place.

Anyway, I was at the RIA and I commented to someone there who seemed to have a German, not Dutch accent about life in Frankfurt compared to Amsterdam. He had this pained look on his face as if I said Van Gogh was from Cleveland. “No I am Dutch; to call a Dutchman a German means I have no sense of humor!” Ouch! It is true the Germans are a stoic bunch, if you ever want to see a real show, go to a trade fair and watch a German buyer negotiate price with a Chinese manufacturer, it’s a treat.

The Germans do have a sense of humor however; I came across a clip on The Hollywood Reporter.

“The series finale of Kevin James' blue-collar show drew 8% of the total viewing public Monday -- an almost unheard-of figure for a U.S. comedy. The figure was twice the average for "Queens"' German channel Kabel1. "Queens" also drew 2.5 million viewers aged 14 to 49, for a market share of 16.4%.”

Can you imagine those numbers! What is the cultural hook that makes that such a hit, is it all promotion? I doubt it, Seinfeld, Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond have all failed in the land of the Bratwurst.

What implications does this study have on cultural hooks in franchising internationally? Stay true or modify the formula? Sometimes you need to know when to bend and when to break your USA success rules when going aboard. In my travels Hard Rock Café, always a winner, Baskin Robbins has a lot of hit and misses. Discovering what makes a German laugh might be a big clue to where a German likes to eat.

If you want to be a great franchisor, travel! You will see so many American branded franchises abroad, and fantastic domestically grown brands. Here in the USA, not a lot of those great foreign concepts have made it here yet. With the cheap dollar, maybe its time to go the other way. Many things to sleep on, Dream Big!