Craft Risk, Or Drink She

Not A Joke, Honest

Not to put too fine a point on this, but there's a story that showed up in my social feed this week that I feel like I need to discuss. It is a story that I'm not sure that I can easily share with you, or one that I should just jump into.

So if you are squeamish about body issues, move on, by all means, move on. We'll have something far more palatable for you next Monday, on our normal publishing schedule.

Still with me? OK, you're brave. Here we go.

There is a craft beer start up that is using crowd sourcing. The goal of this project is to mix bacteria from a particularly salacious model, seen above.

Well, to be more accurate, bacteria from discharge in her nether regions. They'll mix that into the beer to create an, um, unique product.

No, seriously.

And no, I'm not linking to it. I'm sure you'd be able to find it all on your own.

Since the project launched on April 1 and would seem to be a fever dream from the worst of bro culture, many hoped this was just some publicity stunt and bad joke... but, well, no, it seems to be moving forward. According to my sources on this (for the record, I'm not much of a beer drinker), there's been beer made with all sorts of other human biological contributions, so maybe it's just me that is considering this beyond the pale. Or, at the very least, worthy of public health regulation and censure, because you would have to think that this might put the drinker at risk for something. I'm not a scientist, but I'm also pretty sure that adding in bacteria for marketing sizzle is also being done for health reasons.

Maybe you're more of a free market uber alles person, and wouldn't want the government to step on innovation. I used to work with a guy who subsequently bankrolled caffeine-infused jerky, which has made it all the way into big box retailers all across the U.S., so good for him. The market will decide.

But let's get back to the potable. The very nature of it reminds me of a moment during a golf round. I was playing with rented clubs at a really nice course in Southern California, and was paired up with an eccentric and outgoing rich guy. We bonded well enough, and eventually made our way to a par 3 on the back nine. I pulled out my 5-iron and hit it fairly well, but the ball wound up short and to the right. My playing partner then told me to hit another, but to try his club, and handed me a 5-iron from his bag. Which felt really good in my hands, and produced a pretty shot with more length and a sweet bounce up on the green.

Handing the club back to him, I thanked him for the experience... and was told how much the club cost. If true, it was something like 50X more than any iron I'd ever used before or since. I'm not entirely sure, because at the moment when I got this information, my brain short circuited with the deep desire to never, ever touch this club again, for the fear it would break in my hands and be the most expensive second of my life.

That's the nature of gear that's wildly beyond your price point and comfort level. If you really like it, you might not be able to live happily with anything less. When I've taken my wife out for test drives in the past three months, we haven't looked at cars that are dramatically beyond our price point, because, well, the same reason.

So, to finish up on this, and hopefully provide the final word on this sort of enterprise, a final question to anyone who might want to bankroll or try this concoction...

What, exactly, would a positive end result be?

Since the three most likely reactions -- disgust, delight and apathy -- all put the user in a position that's much worse than where they were before the experience?

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

What Drives You

Not A Problem

Occasionally in pitch sessions or interviews, I'm asked about how I've accumulated the work experience that I've pulled off. I'm happy to tell the story, of course, because you can't really do this gig unless you're able to tell a story... but the one that I share with clients isn't entirely the full ride. If I can beg your indulgence for a few hundred words, I'll give you that, and also what's really driving this train.

Six months before I proposed to my wife, she suggested that we do a seminar together. It was the kind of thing that I would never have done on my own, and never did again... but what I got out of it was substantial and lasting, and I still use aspects of what I learned to this day. With the change in both of us, I proposed on Christmas Eve, and we set the date for mid-May.

Our wedding, you will probably not be very surprised to learn, was a festival of marketing, and great humor. We're not formal people, we had a great deal of similar friends and family, and so we had lots of touches like business reply postcards for the invites, logo merchandise, and a themed URL (Wedding Fun Now, Dot Com. No, seriously.) We actually turned a profit on that, and saved the money for a down payment on a house.

Three months after the wedding, we had found a house a few miles away from where I worked. My job was secure, for a business that had been around for half a century... but I got a job offer to join the dot-com economy on the West Coast. My wife gave me the green light to not just put off a home purchase and move, but also drove out with me in a rented U-Haul with our pets and possessions, despite having her own contracting gig that required her to fly back East after the trip. Our lives got even more interesting when, after the flight back, she learned that she was pregnant with our first child. Whom she carried for the first two trimesters, alone, before we were able to reunite.

Six years, three rentals, three start ups and two kids later, she had a fresh network for her business, a deep fondness for the Bay Area... and a husband who had limited prospects for ever affording a house anywhere closer than several hours away from anyone we knew. So she green-lit another big dramatic move, this one landing us halfway between Philadelphia and New York. That was ten years and four start ups ago now, along with the start of my consulting business. (We now own a house, and one of these days, it might even be worth more than we owe on it.)

So what I've become, over the course of my adult life, is a consultant who has been able to learn a ferocious amount from too many start ups in too many consumer categories... because I've had the base and support that's made it all possible. In all of those jobs, I've been able to bring high focus to the work, not just because that's how I'm wired, but because my wife has given me the freedom to do that. Along with the confidence to always know she had my back, and that she trusted me to do what was right, in the long-term, for the family.

It's her birthday today, and what I really wanted to do for her was get her a new car that we've been researching and planning since the start of the year. That plan was compromised by forces beyond our control, a tax bill from several years ago, that exists due to a mistake from an old employer, unrelated to my consulting work. It will likely resolve in our favor, but in case it doesn't, we have to put off the purchase. It's just, honestly, the worst.

Just like 15+ years ago, when we postponed home ownership, she will support a decision that requires faith in her spouse.

And just like then, she'll make me understand, in ways that are simple and profound, why she's the best thing that has ever happened to me.

So, if you want to know how I've managed to keep moving forward, and to always be in a position where I'm learning something new, and striving to be better?

It's because I've got someone who brings that out of me.

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.

Thinking About Cell Phone Guns

Reach Out And Touch Someone

By now, social media has had weeks to deal with the land rush business involved in the gun that looks like a cell phone, seen at the top of this piece.

As a marketing and advertising consultant who has worked on a sizable number of client concerns that went against my own personal beliefs, I'm not going to get into how I feel about this. As a pro, you have to take the mindset of an attorney, argue the best case in the court of the marketplace, and trust in the verdict of the public. Doing anything less limits not just your billings, but also your opportunities to learn for future clients. I've learned some truly breakthrough points from clients that I rarely discuss. It's just the way of the work.

So what's really telling here isn't the existence of a weapon that looks like something else... but that it's the first of its kind. As the market demand shows, there's a strong desire for many enthusiasts to carry a firearm without anyone knowing they have one. We've also established that due to effective lobbying, restricting the hobby is rarely a legislative possibility.

So the question isn't whether or not there will be cell phone guns. More, it's a question of when the piece will be both, and much more concealable.

But let's go further, really. Why should things that a user wants to conceal look like, well, what you'd expect them to look like? Putting the same phone tech into something that looks like a compact mirror would seem to be easy, and a natural for a younger demographic, especially in a school setting. Make it more like a tape measure with a slide out screen for hard hat types, and yes, that's another seemingly simple transformation to firearm. I'd be surprised if an adult toy that allowed for a more discrete pass through an airport security checkpoint would be a tough product to sell.

Oh, and if you can combine all of these capabilities into one device?

I want to make ads for that product.

And have equity in the company that makes it...

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Feel free to comment, as well as like or share this column, connect with me on LinkedIn, or email me at davidlmountain at gmail dot com, or hit the RFP boxes at top right. RFPs are always free, and we hope to hear from you soon.