Breaking The Boomerang

Solution: No Basement

This weekend, I was talking to some friends whose children are nearing college age. As we chatted about choices and what lies ahead, they dropped the bombshell that, as soon as the kids were in school and away, they were planning on selling their home and going to something smaller. Apparently, they had been waiting to do this for a very long time, and they had only stayed in their home for this long to avoid disrupting the kids' education.

This was delivered without winks or humor, in the earshot of the affected kids. They reacted to the pronouncement with the practiced shrug that you only really perfect as a teenager. But knowing the parents in question as I do, I know they are absolutely serious, and that this is what is going to happen. This is a family that's going to go from a 3-bedroom house to a 1-bedroom as soon as they can, for the clear and simple reason that the house they pay a mortgage to hasn't increased in value, and they have no great faith in the idea that their kids are going to go to school and get out without long-term debt.And that, if they have the option to return after school, they will.

This is where you can pivot, if you like, to a political point about various presidential campaigns, or something about the housing market, or the cost of education. But as the goal of this column is, as always, to discuss marketing and advertising concerns, we're going to pivot to aspects that may be of value in your day to day. Namely:

1) Millennials are going to be co-habitating longer. When I was in my 20s, I spent about five years in the range of having housemates, before my relationships got serious enough to transition to, well, housing with benefits. Maybe that time doubles, or even stays that way after marriage. Which means that your direct mail efforts to that demographic are going to continue to draw lower effectiveness, since the churn isn't going to stop any time soon. That's independent of the demographic not really responding to direct mail in the first place.

2) The small house movement isn't going away, either. While my friends might not be willing to house their offspring into their 20s, and may be aggressively moving to prevent it, that also means that products with a big footprint are also going to be fighting market forces. Combination appliances, space savers, furniture that moves or folds or has additional storage... these are all on the side of the angels. Along with, well, storage service areas.

3) Disruptive technologies that save money, and generic brands, will continue to gain market share. While the affluent might still buy on brand or for a premium experience, Millennials and their parents aren't going to go back to old and more profligate ways of spending. They can't.

4) Retirement isn't seen as an out, either. No one in this demographic class seems to think they've got a pension, good 401K plan, iron-clad stocks or bonds, or anything beyond lottery dreams to get them into a traditional view of one's golden years. Maybe their kids eventually get to prosperity and can help, but pragmatism and just getting through the next year, then the one after that, is seen as far more relevant.

5) Technology makes diaspora much easier. In the past, people like these would be bound to an area from their friends and family, along with their property holdings. Now, thanks to social media, even those who have been in the same place for a long time do not feel obligated to remain there. When long distance phone bills no longer exist, and everyone can stay in touch in ways that were not popular even a decade ago, scattering for low housing costs and a more pleasing population density holds far less sting.

If all of this sounds sad and limiting, I won't disagree with you. My own children aren't as close to their college years, so maybe I haven't been as worn down by their teen age behavior as I will be later... but the idea of forcing a move so that I can prevent their return seems draconian.

But give me another five years, and more time where my home remains underwater, and maybe I get there, too.

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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.

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.