Dr. Ferrari & Pier 1's Slow Death

For the past 2-3 weeks I have been following Pier 1 Import's rapid decline in sales and stock share value. Being that Pier 1 moved their headquarters to our hometown of Fort Worth a few years back, I am especially interested to see what happens with this company. As one anaylst from forbes.com stated, "Pier 1 hit on a successful merchandising idea - with wicker furniture - but forgot to adapt its offerings to changing trends."

So as I'm reading various financial analyst's opinions on the failing wickerness of Pier 1, I decided to see if I would recognize any of the names of the big dudes who run this failing corporation...well much to my surprise, my former college chancellor was listed; none other than Dr. Ferrari from my first 2 years at TCU. Apparently Michael R. Ferrari, age 66, has been a director of Pier 1 since February 1999 and is a member of the audit committee, and
he is also the president of Ferrari and Associates LLC, a higher education consulting firm he established in May 2003 (the month he retired from TCU). Hum, wonder if he didn't have anything to do with bringing Pier 1 to Fort Worth (since he was working in FW as a university chancellor...)

Concluding Thoughts...
#1 Pier 1 said it had hired JP Morgan to help evaluate strategic alternatives and advise the company on a potential transaction to sell its credit card business, review its store portfolio and possibly sell other assets. A possible sale of the company has been the subject of market speculation for weeks.

#2 If I were an investigative journalist I would look more in to Ferrari's connection and interdealins with Pier 1.

click here for fun reading on the topic

tags:

Pier 1 , Pier 1 Imports , Financial News , Advertising , News , Fort Worth , Michael R. Ferrari

Graduation Fun!

We spent last weekend in beautiful Colorado for my sister-in-law's college graduation, YEA! We were so happy to get to celebrate with her and the family. Erin is pictured above in her stunning mustard yellow graduation gown with her super-duper fiance, Steve.

The graduation ceremony was the most entertaining graduation ceremony I have ever been to. It was short & sweet (my own graduation was way too long), Erin was getting her degree and one of the girls who graduated was named Katrina Storm ... no lie. The best speech line from the event was when the alumni representative for the university came to the mike and said, "Let me make one promise to you all: WE WILL FIND YOU!" Love it.

eBay this

A group of marketers led by Julie Roehm, senior VP-marketing communications at Wal-Mart, today put out the call for advertisers to contribute $50 million for a test of an online auction system to buy and sell TV advertising.

The Big Idea
The proposal is a more contained version of a big idea that Ms. Roehm has been pushing for nearly two years. In a June 2004 Viewpoint essay in Ad Age, Ms. Roehm -- then a marketing executive at DaimlerChrysler's Chrysler Group -- proposed replacing the TV upfront market with a Nasdaq-like online trading system for commercials.

How It Would Work
eBay presented an online trading platform that could be used. The "Media Marketplace" home page would allow an advertiser or agency to click on a desired network, age, gender and time; see the available inventory; see the time remaining in the auction; and then enter a bid. If successful, the buyer soon would get the message: "Congratulations! You are the Winning Bidder!" The system could work in two ways: A forward auction, where buyers bid for available inventory; a reverse auction, where media sellers responded to a buyer's request for proposals for, say, 20 gross rating points for men age 18-34.

Closing Thoughts
I think the proposed solution would only increase the competitive nature of media buying. With instanteous access to advertising pricing and bidding, the pressure for advertisers to be on top of their game only increases. Overall, a great way to replace the current model that is at least 40-years old.

Humor for your Bumper

Thank You for Smoking; PR 101

Here are a few PR lessons that can be learned from the recent film Thank You for Smoking. In this film Aaron Eckhart plays Nick Naylor, a lobbyist/PR representative for big tabacco, who spins on behalf of cigarettes while trying to remain a role model for his twelve-year-old son. This film was highly entertaining and highly educational. I sat in the theater and empathsized with a man who supports a bad habit of smoking.

Lessons...
*Create an emotional connection between your company/product/position and your audience; human emotions are irrational and prompt people to act and think in ways they wouldn't normally.

*Make your negative aspects your positive attributes. At one point in the film, Nick is kidnapped and gets about 50 Nicoderm patches slapped across his body, and his body eventually goes in to nicotine shock. The doctors tell Nick that he would have died if it had not been for the fact that he was a smoker. As a smoker his body had become acclimated to nicotine. Praise the Lord for cigarettes.

*Be honest, admit your mistakes when you mess up. Nick is not a very moral man and therefore ends up having an inappropriate relationship with a reporter who is doing a story about him. He admits this and somehow he is human and his audience forgives his wrongdoings.

So I thought this was an entertaining flick with interesting characters and some PR lessons, anyone else seen this movie and have some thoughts?