Let Your Fans Call Your Products Whatever They Want

...And maybe you don't have to win a bet to be a good gambler

Hello Gobbledeers,

How’s it going?

I’ve always found it a little bit odd that there are two sayings that are completely at odds with each other.

Saying 1: Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

(Aw, that’s lovely.)

Saying 2: Out of sight, out of mind.

(Aw, maybe that’s less lovely.)

Maybe somehow both can be true at the same time. I have no idea.

I’m mentioning that because we’re about to find out which of those two sayings is true:

I’ll be taking off from writing Gobbledy for the month of August.

My daughters are both heading off to college in a couple of weeks, and my wife & I are pretty focused on dealing with that (both emotionally and the logistics of it all).

You, my fine readers, deserve my undivided attention. And you will get that undivided attention starting right after Labor Day. And apparently then for the rest of my life.

But, fret not - I’ll be sending a Gobbledy Classic (tm) every Wednesday in August. There was a whole year where I barely had any readers, so they’ll probably be new to you anyway. You’re welcome.

In the meantime, I’m still working - please, set up time to chat. I’ll miss writing, so I’ll (somehow) be even more excited to chat with you. You can set up time here. And as I keep mentioning, I’ve helped a bunch of clients fix their homepage messaging by working with them on a 2-day workshop that’ll change how they talk about their product. We can discuss that too…

See you in September…

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My 2 Favorite Headlines This Week

AdAge offered this headline:

I didn’t even click through to read the story because there’s nothing the story could’ve said that would’ve been better than that, unless that Bronx hospital recently hired Kurtis Blow to run their cancer unit.

That said, if breakdancing can help end cancer, then who am I to complain?

And what if ending the male loneliness epidemic were just as easy? Or even easier? TechCrunch shares:

I’ll admit it took me a bit to realize that the name of the company is “Friend” (which I didn’t gather from the headline, but I did gather from the image credit.)

But I’d like to have a quick word with the PR team at Friend:

Hello PR Team at Friend - As a friend, I’d like to share one quick bit of advice:

If you are selling a $99 necklace that uses AI (?) to combat the epidemic of male loneliness, maybe - just maybe! - the photo that you send to publications to accompany the story should not be the “Before” version of the Before & After shot. Like instead of your product that cures loneliness (?) being displayed on an unsmiling gentleman who is sitting, ahem, alone, maybe you could show, say, 2 people together, suggesting that your necklace that uses AI will help you (in some manner, which I may have found out had I read the article) not be alone.

Like if Friend’s next product were a gel that uses AI (?) to combat the epidemic of male pattern baldness, this would be a poor image to provide to the folks at TechCrunch:

But if they somehow DID manage to get the late Telly Savalas as a spokesman, what a coup! Though an odd choice of spokesman for an AI-inflected hair growth gel.

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Venture Capital Success

We don’t like to jump into politics here, but some of you may have heard that there is a presidential election this year. Really.

And the person selected by one of the candidates to run as their Vice President is Ohio Senator JD Vance.

Vance, as you also may have heard, was, at some point in his past, working for a venture capital firm for a couple of years.

And a recent WSJ article offered a little bit of insight into his tenure in that profession, including this quote from one of the partners in his firm:

Colin Greenspon, who co-founded Narya with Vance, said the nature of early-stage venture investing means it is too early to tell if his investments will ultimately be successful. But “it’s 100% not too early to tell that he was a good investor,” he said.

If I understand this correctly:

• In the venture world, it takes a number of years (let’s say typically at least 5) to tell whether an investment will be successful.

• Vance worked at a venture capital firm for much less than 5 years.

• Therefore “it’s 100% not too early to tell that he was a good investor.”

So let’s imagine that me and my friend Gary* (who sent me that WSJ article) went to Vegas tomorrow and he said to me, “I’ve never bet on sports before, let’s go place a bet on the Super Bowl.” And then he placed a bet on the Super Bowl (which takes place next February). If I told you, “It’s 100% not too early to tell that Gary is a good sports gambler” you would respond, “It’s 100% not too early to tell that you are full of shit.”

(*Gary would never go to Vegas with me.)

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Star Wars: What’s in a Name?

One of my wife’s claims to fame is that she has not seen Star Wars. Nor any of the films in the Star Wars universe. This story is not for her.

For everyone else…

You may have heard about a video titled “The Spectacular Failure of the Star Wars Hotel” posted by a woman named Jenny Nicholson which served as a critique of her visit to the Star Wars Hotel at Disney World.

It is here that I will tell you now that the video is 4 hours long. Also, it has 9.5 million views.

It is also here that I will tell you I have not watched all of the video (yet?). But I have watched some of the video.

If you work for a company that has fans (not “customers” - every company has customers…I mean “fans”), then you should invest 4 hours in watching the video.

The parts I have watched are such deeply felt critiques of the experience, and such a great reminder of what it means to be a fan - and the expectations that go along with it - it’s an incredible insight for marketers.

But I did want to share one very short clip that made a great point (as the Twitter user mentions below):

She’s talking about product names, and how Disney has changed all their product names for various reasons, and none of those names are the names that fans actually use, and one of the drawbacks of that is that when Disney hires influencers to talk about their products, it comes across as inorganic because nobody uses the names they’re using. Here’s what she says (apologies for the length, but the point is really good):

In the olden days, Disney would call stuff by fairly natural, simple names: Tomorrowland, Space Mountain. The Alice in Wonderland ride is called Alice in Wonderland.

They don't do that anymore…Now Disney products are called things like the Little Mermaid, Ariel's Undersea Adventure; Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind; Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge.

So you end up with all these products which colloquially, nobody calls by their actual registered name. People say, “Star Wars Land,” they say, “The Star Wars Hotel.” People say, “I want to ride the Cars ride.”

They don't say I want to ride V8 or Springs Racers. And the big problem here is, if you make contracts with influencers and you require them to call your products by the full legal names, they're going to sound like you're paying them.

Imagine if I told you, “I went to Disney World and saw Star Wars land. It was pretty fun. I saw the Star Wars bar and I went on the Millennium Falcon ride.”

Now imagine if I told you, “This summer I got to experience Star Wars Galaxy's Edge at Disney's Hollywood Studios. I loved seeing Oga's Cantina and blasting off on Millennium Falcon's Smugglers Run.” Which one do you believe more? And yet Disney's marketing team is absolutely allergic to just letting people call things by their casual nicknames. And I think it makes all media they produce, host and sponsor sound extremely insincere.

Well damn, if that isn’t a really great point about how to balance the needs of your legal team (“but it’s legally named Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge at Disney’s Hollywood Studios!” and letting your fans own the narrative around the products they love.

In other words, you can call Gobbledy whatever the hell you want. As long as you make a 4-hour Youtube video about it.

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As always, thanks for reading to the end. I was serious about what I said at the beginning - I’m happy to chat with readers. It doesn’t have to be about hiring me to help you with your messaging either (though I’ll certainly talk about that)…we can talk about the great podcast Shell Game, for example. Or whatever.

Enjoy the rest of your summer…