Bunny Burgers: Is it Mkt Research or PR

The dearly departed “Spy” magazine did a story where they spoofed several large PR firms regarding a fictitious new chain of fast food restaurants called “Bunny Burgers.” The idea behind the chain was that these QSRs would stock live bunnies, cute ones, and grind them up on the spot to give their customers the absolute freshest meat in their hamburgers. Spy festooned this idea with a fake client with lots of fake money and rented a suite in the Ritz Carlton overlooking Central Park and invited 9 PR firms to bid. Of the 9 PR firms contacted, all 9 were interested in Bunny Burgers as a client and 3 of the 9 were asked to come to the Ritz to discuss the matter. Of the three, none were prepared to turn down the business although one responded seemed diffident about the idea. The other two were quite enthusiastic about it, one even noting how much the public in California would love this idea. The magazine noted, “… as a general philosophical defense of her and her peers, it is important to remember that by the very nature of their profession, they [PR people] are constantly required to represent clients seeking to market stupid, tasteless and even immoral products.”

In a follow up to the PR firm interviews, Spy hired Mark Penn, yes that Mark Penn, to conduct a focus group on the topic. Per Pen’s observations, "Even though we got people to take the first bite, they really wouldn't take a second or third… Scientifically, we tried the concept on them, we tried the reality on them, and most people didn't like either. As well as we could package it, as well as we could add sauce to it, they just didn't like it…. Clearly, if someone tried to go forward with Bunny Burgers, they would have picketers, protesters, riot outside the Bunny Burgers stands, and so the product couldn't make it."

Spy’s conclusion, “For our investigation of the world of fast-food marketing, we discovered a yawning chasm between the enthusiasm of our PR professionals and the outright, unapologetic disgust of the dining public.” Having been around long enough to see several new prospects of the “Technology of the Future” come and go, having seen these technologies of the future accompanied by market forecasts of how this new thing is going to go off like a rocket, I often think to myself, “Bunny Burgers”.

The full Spy article may be found here.

Smellivision

In April 2011, I published an article in High Resolution entitled "Smellivision vs. OTT". The article concludes, "In general, with so many new, excellent devices for viewing video, the living room TV sets would benefit from expanding on what cannot be done in a mobile setting, raising the bar for the viewing experience, providing a more engrossing experience. That already happens with the better sound that is available. Development of other features, possible smell, most certainly wider aspect ratios, would be of benefit as well. With Best Buy’s decision to expand their mobile device stores and downsize some of their main store square footage, it seems that the mobile device is on the rise at the expense of the conventional TV. While 3DTV is the current excitement and 3D can be a differentiator between fixed and mobile viewing, I feel that something else would be beneficial." The full article is available from Veritas et Visus. What I said about 3D goes double for 4K.

After I wrote the article, I saw some reports of researchers in Korea working on a Smellivision product. Now HP and Intel are doing likewise but for the digital signage market. Actually, as with other technologies, having a revenue stream behind it might mean that this technology as well gets pioneered in digital signage before finding its way into consumer TV. 4K makes more sense for signage than as a consumer product. No doubt other technologies will follow this path as well.

Glass is Hard Pt III

Two extreme stories regarding glass chemistry. In the first, after bringing in a new furnace (the furnace had been torn down and rebuilt with new brick, this must be done periodically) the glass coming out of the furnace was foaming. It was full of bubbles. After more than a month of researching the problem, someone though to ask the old melter (the person in charge of running that furnace) about the problem; he had retired between the last rebuild and this one. He had no idea about what to do, but he did comment that whenever he brought in a new furnace, he always through a silver dollar in for luck. In the second story, one of the company’s CRT making glass furnaces suddenly started have well above average product breakage at the customer. Coincidentally, they also had a problem with their glass molds; molds that were supposed to last for weeks were lasting only days.

The first story was told to me and may be apocryphal, the second, I actually witnessed and was a participant in reaching resolution. They were both essentially the same problem. In the first story, it can be hard to appreciate, but commonly parts per billion of some element or another, can have a large effect in stabilizing or processing the glass. Much of glass development is taken up not with developing new glass chemistries but in determining how a glass will react with the impurities it picks up from the furnace. Parts per billion, below the resolution limit of most x-ray machines commonly used for measuring glass chemistry, can have a determining effect on the glass suitability for a particular application. In the second story, one of the recouperators, the part of a glass furnace that captures the heat and sends it back to the furnace, had collapsed and the furnace was being fired with just one recouperator. Although the glass chemistry as was closely monitored before and after the collapse, the glass chemistry measurements usually do not include one of the most important elements, Oxygen. When the recouperator collapsed the melter changed the way he fired the furnace with changed the oxidation state of the glass. The glass chemistry before and after the change was the same but no one was looking at the oxygen.

Fusion glass, used as LCD substrates, is made in platinum lined furnaces to minimize an impact refractory contamination can have. However, raw materials can still have a huge impact. For most "dirt is dirt and sand is sand" however for glass and ceramic making, many times, even when the mining location is changed within the same mine, it means requalifying the process.

LCD v. OLED TV

When no one had heard of an LCD, the companies developing the technology, RCA and Westinghouse, were both TV makers and the objective was to build a TV with the technology. However, we would still not LCD TVs today if it were not for the notebook computer providing a product that could not be made without it. The notebook provided a high valued product that could afford the LCD price tag ($1000 for a 10.4") while the industry cost reduced and perfected the product for consumer TV. Actually, the path was notebook, then monitors, then TV.

The fact that the public has gotten used to the idea of a flat panel does not make it easier for OLED technology, it makes it harder in that their is already a product there that is very cheap and its performance is more than fine. Even though OLED visual performance will be better, no one is unhappy with current LCD performance.

What will make OLED technology and what will eventually make an OLED TV commonplace will not be the immediate application of the technology to TV but an application not currently served by LCD; most probably a new product or new form factor that takes advantage of OLED's ability to be made as a flexible or fracture resistant display.... Dick Tracy's watch or some sort of wearable device. Once volume is generated form this new application, OLED can come down in price and be a TV.