Lots of good things happening at Hunch these days.
We just published a major report called “Like dog, like owner? What our pooches reveal about us.“ It relies on Hunch data to explore the distinct characteristics (personality, media choices, many others) among fans of 44 different dog breeds. It’s a fun read.
A videographer also produced a couple of short music videos inspired by Hunch topics about NYC Neighborhoods and Public Art in NYC.
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Tagged: dog breeds, dogs, hunch
I knew it! Reprinted from the Washington Daily Tribune:
Explanation Revealed for Bureau of Labor Statistics Jobs Miscalculation
Washington — The Bureau of Labor Statistics, under fire for miscalculating last year’s job losses by more than 824,000, explained today the source of the error: A junior analyst forgot to press F9.
Apparently the analyst was using an older computer to run the Bureau’s forecasting models, and the Excel model he had built to forecast the nation’s employment figures was taking too long to recalculate.
“I used to have to go to lunch after changing some of the assumptions because the model took so long to update,” said analyst Marty Woodsby. “Even then, half the time I’d get back to my desk and have a blue screen because Excel had crashed. So I turned auto recalc off.”
“We applaud Marty’s initiative in attempting to improve productivity by switching to manual recalc,” US Department of Labor Secretary Hilda Solis said in a prepared statement. “Still, it appears that some of the follow-up procedures fell through the cracks in this case.”
The White House has called for a sweeping review of F9 practices throughout all government agencies. The initiative is expected to create more than 31,000 new jobs.
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One of my blog entries which has received significant traffic involves 19th St. Gym, a local entity which abruptly shut down for several months before recently being bought by a new owner. This post isn’t about the gym itself but rather the search terms which led people to find my post about it. I’ll also discuss the missed opportunities of local gyms to use this as a marketing vehicle.
My blogging platform, WordPress, indicates that a total of 24 different search phrases led people to the blog post about the gym. Just 2 of these phrases accounted for about 50% of search traffic: 19th street gym (where my post ranks about #5 on Google’s SERP) and 19th street gym closed, where I rank in roughly position #3. These are the proverbial “big head” terms.
The first observation I’ll make is that Google’s organic ranking algorithm worked pretty much the way you’d hope in this case. The blog entry contained a relatively large amount of unique content related to one specific topic; the content was dynamic (because I kept adding updates and readers added relevant comments); several relevant/fitness-related forums linked to the post, adding to its credibility. As a result of these factors, Google ranked the post well for the term ‘19th street gym’ and related phrases.
My second observation is that local gyms are missing an opportunity to bid on the term “19th Street Gym” to offer alternatives (more on that in a minute). The only gym showing an ad is Anytime Fitness, a Minnesota-based outfit whose nearest gym to Manhattan is 18 miles away in West Caldwell, NJ. Exactly 0% of New Yorkers clicking on that ad are going to end up joining Anytime Fitness.
Here are all the variations of search terms which people used to reach my blog post:
The 24 search phrases people used to find my blog entry about 19th Street Gym
On the one hand, you could argue that all these terms are variations of “19th street gym”. On the other hand, if we examine all the variations, this provides a pretty good example of how search behavior tends to work in general.
The graph of the cumulative search volume is a classical example of the “big head”, “long tail” phenomena you hear so much about. (My graph is flipped vs the way this is often shown, but the logic is the same). Roughly 8 phrases (33% of all phrases) account for about 80% of total search volume. The lowest volume 11 terms (46% of all terms) have only a combined 10% of total search volume.
"Big Head" and "Long Tail" search terms leading to 19th St. Gym blog post
It’s interesting to note some of the minor variations in the search phrases:
Broad, phrase, exact, negative match?
Let’s say you were a competing gym and wanted to use AdWords to reach 19th St. members. Depending on how you structure your keyword, your ad could show for a few, most, or all of the 24 different search phrases. There are pros and cons to each method.
1) Broad match terms entered in AdWords as standard text, ie 19th Street Gym
Using the default ‘broad match’ keyword phrase of 19th Street Gym would have likely picked up every one of the 24 terms above. But this has a disadvantage: some of the terms would have probably generated the wrong type of traffic for your ad. For example, people searching for “19th St. Gym bond” were interested in finding out if the gym was in compliance with its NY State bond requirement (it wasn’t), and people searching for “19th St. Gym Kelly” were clearly looking for my specific blog post.
2) Exact match terms entered in brackets, ie [19th Street Gym Closed]
Bidding on exact match terms gives you the opportunity to target specific ad copy and potentially have a lower cost per click for the specific phrase than you would have paid with phrase match or broad match. But the specificity means that volume will typically be much lower, and you’ll need to create many more specific search phrases for your account, which takes time and effort.
3) Phrase match terms entered in quotes, ie “19th Street Gym”
This would have triggered your ad for any search phrase which contained “19th Street Gym”, which was most of the variations. In this example it doesn’t provide a lot of benefit vs. broad match, but in general, phrase matching is a good compromise between the low targeting of broad match and the low volume of exact match.
4) Negative matches preceded by a minus, ie -bond
Negative match terms can be used in conjunction with broad terms to eliminate specific phrases you want to avoid, while still generating strong volume. As an example, adding -bond to the broad match phrase 19th Street Gym, would prevent the phrase 19th Street Gym Bond from triggering your ad.
Tony Soric wrote a good primer explaining match types in an Oct 2009 Search Engine Land article.
Summing up the info and examples above:
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Tagged: google, online marketing, paid search, search, sem, seo
It’s been just over a year since Bank of America closed on its acquisition of Merrill Lynch, but you’d never have an inkling that the two entities have anything to do with each other based on a transaction I conducted this morning.
You two are connected? Really?
So here’s the scenario: I wanted to move some money from a Florida-based BofA checking account to a Merrill Lynch brokerage account. My name is on both accounts. The ML folks gave me some instructions to initially have the money go to a New York BofA branch rather than directly to them. Ok, already a little convoluted, but should be straightforward since this would be a BofA to BofA transfer, right? Not so much.
Here’s how the subsequent transaction unfolded at a local NYC BofA retail branch:
Time-Pressured Customer Late For Work (me): I’d like to transfer $x from a BofA checking account to a NY BofA account in Merrill Lynch’s name. Since this is “all in the family”, can we avoid a wire transfer?
BofA rep: No, this will have to be a wire transfer, and there’s a $25 fee.
TPCLFW: But it’s a transfer to your own bank!
BofA rep: Yes, but it involves Merrill, so there’s a fee.
TPCLFW: On the phone yesterday, the 800# people told me the fee doesn’t apply for a BofA to BofA transfer.
BofA rep: I could show you the fee schedule. Or maybe you could try to get the fee reversed after it hits your account.
TPCLFW: Ok ok, I’m in a hurry. Let’s just do it.
BofA rep: Please fill out this form.
TPCLFW fills out long form and returns it.
BofA rep: I’ll need your driver’s license and your BofA debit card.
TPCLFW: I don’t have a debit card for this account.
BofA rep: That’s ok, we’ll give you one.
TPCLFW: How will you do that?
BofA rep: Just type your social security # into this screen and we’ll generate a card.
TPCLFW: But I don’t want a debit card. Can’t I just give you my social as ID and you can use that to proceed with the transfer?
BofA rep: No, because we need a debit card number for this form.
TPCLFW: <sound of teeth grinding>
Lots of typing happens, many forms are printed out, and I’m given a debit card.
TPCLFW: How long until the funds are available in the receiving account?
BofA rep: 24 to 48 hours.
Then I was given the canary carbon copy (I kid you not) of the long form I had filled out, and was asked to have a nice day. I suppose at that point the rep used the branch’s telegraph to communicate the subsequent instructions to someone else.
This whole exchange took approximately 30 minutes.
Ok, so let’s summarize: I’m moving money from one account to another (both accounts in the same name) within the same umbrella financial institution. It took 30 minutes to fill out the paperwork, will take 24-48 hours for the transfer to happen, it cost me $25, and it involved my getting a debit card that I don’t want.
Current BofA CEO Brian Moynihan was actually the executive in charge of the BofA/ML integration. Hoo-boy. Mr. Moynihan, you’ve still got your work cut out for you.
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Tagged: bank of america, bofa, gripes, merrill lynch, ml
Most branded over-the-counter (OTC) medications offer one primary benefit over their functionally-equivalent generic alternatives: a consumer perception of superiority in quality and safety. This is why McNeil’s most recent recall of Tylenol and 5 other medications, driven by both quality and safety issues, is a blow for all manufacturers of branded OTC drugs.
McNeil’s current recall is a result of an unusual moldy, musty, or mildew-like odor in the 6 different affected products (plus line extensions). The smell was also associated in some cases with nausea, stomach pain, vomiting, or diarrhea. The cause is attributed to a chemical applied to the wooden pallets used to transport packaging material.
This is, of course, not the first recall for Tylenol. Its most famous recall was in 1982, when 7 people were killed by Tylenol that was deliberately laced with cyanide. Whoever caused the issue was never caught. Even before Johnson & Johnson (McNeil’s parent company) knew the cause of the problem at the time, they aggressively pulled all products from retail shelves in a move that was long heralded as a model for crisis management. A smaller and less serious recall ocurred in 1986.
This time is different. For one thing, J&J knew about complaints of the funky odor and resulting illnesses it caused as far back as 2008. Yet they failed to either follow up aggressively or notify the FDA. And the FDA is none too pleased about that, leading to the recent issuance of a scathing “warning letter” which J&J must address within 15 days. In addition, unlike the 1982 case of deliberate tampering, this current issue seems to have been caused by sloppy manufacturing and logistics practices, plain and simple.
When you’re dealing with complex, regulated products and complicated distribution systems, occasional safety issues are bound to arise from time to time. But when quality and safety are the very aspects of differentiation on which your branded product relies, slip-ups like McNeil’s current ones can really create some serious brand vulnerability.
Generic OTC products offer absolutely equivalent efficacy to their branded cousins. So if the pricier brands aren’t perceived as truly safer than the generics, what’s left? (devil’s advocate for a moment: the branded products do tend to innovate more often with packaging and delivery system innovations…but even these functional attributes, when successful, are always quickly copied by the generic manufacturers) So fundamentally, branded OTC medications are primarily relying on their reputation and their perceived safety and quality.
There’s an old rule of thumb in advertising that it takes about 3 ‘impressions’ of a message before it starts to sink in for consumers. It’s not implausible to apply that same logic to brand crises. With at least 3 quality & safety-related recalls to date, Tylenol is beginning to send a real message that may start to sink in for consumers: branded OTC medications may be just as prone to safety issues as their generic equivalents. And if that message sinks in, its good news for OTC generic manufacturers and bad news for the branded pharmaceutical industry in general.
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Tagged: advertising, generic drugs, marketing, otc drugs, otc medications
It’s official: after shutting its doors last November, the former 19th St. Gym is finally scheduled to reopen on February 1st under new management, and will be called Complete Body & Spa.
Alex Reznik, the CEO of Complete Body, called me tonight and we spent 40 minutes discussing his background and his plans for the gym going forward.
Alex comes from a personal training background. He’s Russian and spent time in Russia’s special forces, specializing in “hardcore, Army bootcamp training.” He moved to the US 20 years ago but his company still manages personal training at several gyms internationally including the gym in the Moscow Ritz Carlton and a small workout studio in Paris. He also plans to open a gym in the near future in Tel Aviv, which is where most of his family resides.
Alex Reznik is the new owner of 19th St. Gym, now Complete Body & Spa
Alex is openly gay and has done his research about what many people cited as the most appealing aspect of 19th St: the interesting mix of people. He’s the first to admit that he doesn’t want to compete against David Barton or Equinox, but rather to try to have a unique space and attract an eclectic mix of interesting people.
At one point Alex asked me about lighting: “Do you find it too bright or too dark?” (my answer: “A good compromise; DB is so dark that you can’t find your locker, and NYSC and Equinox are so bright that you feel like you’re in an operating room.” He concurred). In fact, Alex asked my opinion about at least half a dozen other aspects of the former gym. And he said he’d like to hear from more 19th St members about what worked well and what didn’t. So please post comments below to share your thoughts.
Rough prices for memberships will be about $999/year for new members and $799/year for 19th St. members, with additional months for former members credited on a “case by case” basis (former members will be asked to show proof of their contracts). Memberships would also include towel service and a few personal training sessions. A nice new perk is for laundry service, where you turn in a bag (typically containing 1-2 days of workout clothes) that the gym will launder and place back in your rented locker.
Alex says that his target is to get 500-800 members (“1,000 max”), after which he will try to throttle memberships by requiring members after that number to only come with a personal trainer.
When asked how aggressively he would honor the contracts of former members, Alex says: “You have to realize that the former gym was $100K+ in default of rent and aggressively selling cheap memberships in the weeks just prior to closure. That former entity no longer exists, and my new rent is even higher. So while I’d like to honor those renewals, it’s just not feasible from a business perspective. But I’ll work with people on a case-by-case basis to do what I can.”
There will be a “pre-sale” opening on the gym’s premises starting January 20th. The gym will then open to former members on February 1st, with the main opening on March 1st.
Alex is planning a “couple hundred thousand dollars” in renovations, including turning the mezzanine level (reached from the staircase at the end of the entrance hallway) into 3 spa rooms. Spa services will include facials, massages, scrubbing, and waxing- “just not pedicures and manicures,” Alex says.
The Southernmost area of the gym (with the speed bag and the punching bag) will get a wood floor for classes, which will likely be offered at a nominal supplemental charge. Cardio equipment will be replaced, a limited amount of weight-resistance machines will be replaced in the short-term, and bathrooms/locker rooms will be upgraded on a “medium to longer-term basis as the gym becomes profitable,” Alex says.
Complete Body also has a location at 80 John St. Members at the 19th St. location will have access to the 80 John St. location, and vice versa. Alex also plans new gym openings on the Upper East Side and Upper West Side, of which one location will include a pool. Once open, these will also be available for use by members.
Alex has had only limited interaction with the former 19th St Gym management (and in fact hasn’t yet gotten access to the member database). But he is planning to meet next week with Brian Moss, the original owner of the gym when it was known as “Better Bodies.” His goal is to try to recreate some of the elements of what made the gym unique, including things like posting original pictures such as the one below.
The former 19th St Gym was originally known as "Better Bodies."
L to R: Steve Kauffman, Building owner; Brian Moss, Original Better Bodies owner; Alex Reznik, Complete Body & Spa owner
Finally, just for kicks, I set up a brief, 5 question survey to see how many former members are planning to come back. This takes all of 30 seconds to complete, so please give it a go and I’ll publish the results.
Update 1: January 29, 2010
The comments below certainly express a fair amount of skepticism among former members. But let’s take a look at the survey results to look at what people are saying in aggregate.
42 people have taken the survey so far; you might or might not recall from a basic stats class that this is (just barely) enough to be statistically significant if the people taking the survey are representative of all former members. Well, they’re not (necessarily), so the first thing to keep in mind is that the survey reflects only the people choosing to take it, so opinions could vary substantially among those who didn’t take it.
This was also an ‘open’ survey, in which responses were not controlled by, say, a verified email address to ensure each person participated only once. That said, I did quickly browse through the IP addresses of the responses and there were only two sets of duplicates. That’s quite plausibly explained by two former members in the same household, for example. (and one of those two dupes was my own, since Paul and I share the same computer). So my point is that while this is not a scientific survey by any means, there’s no obvious indication that anyone was trying to ‘game’ the results.
Finally, I filtered the survey’s results below to include only the 39 people who indicated they are ‘clients’ (as opposed to ‘trainers’ or ’something else’).
Enough with the caveats. Here’s what the data says. And apologies for the small font sizes on the charts; maybe I’ll improve that at some point.
1) Bad news (for new management): Most former members had more than 6 months of membership remaining on their active membership when the gym shut down. This probably translates into a lot of grumpy people:
2) Better news: Only 13% of respondents had a pending renewal which had not yet begun. (side note: I was one of those, but I’m happy to say that AMEX did finally refund 100% of what I paid)
Only 13% of former members who took the survey had a pending renewal which had not yet begun
3) Mixed news: About a quarter of respondents have not joined a new gym since 19th St. closed, 40% have joined one with only a short-term or month-to-month commitment, but the remaining 37% have joined another gym with at least a one year commitment (that’s the group where I fall):
4) The net ‘pretty good’ news (for the new management): Nearly half of the survey’s respondents indicate that they would come back “right away”, assuming “reasonable pricing.” 26% say they’ve simply “moved on”. The remaining 25% fall somewhere in between.
Now that actual pricing has been announced and former members are able to find out exactly how much the new management may work with them, it’s possible these numbers could change some. If they do change significantly over time, I’ll post another update.
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Tagged: 19th st. gym, 19th street gym, complete body & spa, gym
We have a board meeting today and I’m reminded about a memorable board meeting a little over a year ago when I was presenting Hunch’s marketing plan.
Paul and I had just gotten a new puppy (warning: video will cause severe nausea to anyone who’s not a dog lover). She wasn’t fully housetrained yet and wasn’t yet ready for a dog walker, so we were taking turns going home at lunch to walk her and spend some time with her. Whoever had lunch duty would check in after the walk via a quick phone call or IM. “No mess at home, quick #1 and #2 outside- all good!”… that sort of thing.
So anyway, here I am presenting Hunch’s marketing plan to the Board, projecting charts and recommendations on the wall of one of our conference rooms. We’re going back and forth between Powerpoint and the Hunch site, so I have a live internet connection. And all of a sudden, this appeared:
Fortunately everyone has a sense of humor (and some have dogs so they understood the situation perfectly). So besides getting some serious ribbing for being called “ding dong”, this was no big deal.
But not every situation or audience would have been so accommodating. And what if the message had said something else? You know, like: “Are you finished yet with those clueless clowns from the Board of Directors?”
Lesson learned. Before giving a presentation, turn off your IM clients and any application which might give an uninvited alert.
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I recently posted an available position for an important writing-intensive job at Hunch. The detailed job description asks candidates to send their resume, a brief email stating why they are interested, and their Hunch username.
I’m fortunate that the posting has generated a tremendous response from many qualified, articulate, and enthusiastic applicants. That’s a privilege for any hiring manager.
As might be expected, I have also received scores of submissions from candidates who made such a poor first impression that they would never be considered. I thought it might be useful to highlight some of the key differences in these two groups.
Side note: if you’re reading this and are among the candidates interested in a position I’ve posted, congratulations: you have already done more research than 80% of your peers competing against you. Good for you.
Here are some of the things which the strongest candidates do in their cover letters:
Among the most egregious deal killers that I’ve seen from candidates:
It’s a tough job market out there, but there is plenty of room for strong people to shine. And I guarantee you that if you take the time to present yourself well starting with the initial cover letter, you really will separate yourself from everyone else from the very beginning. And that can make all the difference.
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Tagged: hunch, job search, recruiting, resume tips
It’s that time again. Gyms all over the country are jam-packed with members determined to make good on their New Year’s fitness goals.
At my gym this week, there’s been nary a free locker or treadmill to be found. Forget your regular routine; workouts this time of year consist of bumping around the gym like a pinball and pouncing on any piece of equipment as soon as it becomes free. Whether it’s the 8th triceps exercise of the night or the 6th different body part, just feel lucky that you were able to do anything.
This week is bad, but things will probably hit even more of a feverish pitch in a couple of weeks as new members join and come for the first time. But then, the inevitable decline will begin. As we ease towards February, the excuses become easier. “I have to work late.” “I’ve already been once this week.” Or in my case: “After 25 years of this, I’m just tired of doing this crap.”
Finding a free treadmill has probably been the toughest challenge this week. Tonight, the only spare piece of aerobic equipment I could find was sort of a cross between an elliptical trainer, a stairmaster, and a hula hoop. I pressed “quick start” and the display said “Start Floating.” And then the foot pedals started moving in a motion that roughly resembled the way Elaine dances on Seinfeld. I was embarrassed for me. No wonder the thing was free.
I wish everyone luck with their New Year’s fitness resolutions. But I can’t say I’ll be so sorry when resolutions slip and those regular old treadmills open up once again.
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Tagged: gym, new year's
Twitter: @kellyfordnyc
