Is this good marketing or not?

Have you seen the Chevy Silverado ad on TV that ridicules the tailgate step on the Ford F-150? It has been running a lot lately during network prime time. The step is an optional piece of equipment on the Ford. It folds down from an open tailgate to help people get up onto, or down from, the bed of the truck (see the picture below right). It looks like a useful innovation with a hint of gimmick thrown in.

The :30 spot stars Howie Long — former Raiders defensive lineman, NFL Hall of Famer, commensurate pitchman and all around stud — a guy’s guy. The ad is set in what seems to be a lumberyard. The spot starts with Howie loading the back of his Chevy Silverado while noticing an overweight and not very surefooted guy scampering down from the bed of his F-150 using the aforementioned retractable step. It’s awkward. It’s a bit pathetic actually. If you saw this in real life you might feel compelled to lend him a hand. The whole scene makes you think of the fat kid on the playground. After stepping down onto the ground, he starts walking toward the cab of his truck when Howie, standing tall, says, “Hey buddy, you left your ‘man step’ down” in a sarcastic and patronizing tone. He may as well have said, “Hey fat wimpy boy, can’t climb down off the jungle gym??” The now-embarrassed Ford owner stops and again scampers back to the tailgate to fold up the step. The scene ends with Howie slamming shut (with emphasis) the tailgate of his truck. The gritty truck-ad voiceover then asks viewers if they’d rather have a Ford with a man step or (be a real man and) get a Chevy. Generally undifferentiated product attributes follow until the spot ends. Now that you’ve heard my long description, Here’s a link to the ad.

I can’t decide whether this ad is brilliantly targeted at guys who may in fact be the “Ford fatty” but desperately want to associate with the Howie Longs of the World, or simply low-road, schoolyard bullying? Is Chevy targeting bullies or the bullied? The ad taps into the currently popular vein of guy humor that sarcastically calls out feminine behavior or traits — all in good fun and usually reserved for bonding around the backyard grill, the pool table or ESPN. Example: “Hey, that’s a nice shirt, do they sell mens’ clothes there, too?”, or “I’ve always wanted a manbag like that.” Funny stuff, I have to admit. Calling the Ford tailgate feature a “man step” is the same thing … kinda funny.

But in this ad, the guy on the Ford isn’t portrayed as some yuppie suburbanite who owns a pickup because he’s playing to a working man’s hero self image. To the contrary, he’s portrayed as a guy who’s been working hard all day. He’s wearing work clothes and gloves and is clearly doing some heavy lifting. This guys works for a living. His problem, however, is that he’s not Howie Long (actually, Howie Long isn’t very much Howie Long these days either … look closely). He’s not six-foot-whatever and didn’t record 91.5 sacks over his career. Basically, Howie is being a $#!!&. I know that Howie is a paid actor here, but is this what Howie really wants his personal brand to stand for? If not for the man step, I think this guy would have fallen off the truck and broken a rib or something. I feel bad for the guy, not just for being “that guy” but for being ridiculed for it (by Howie who, I guarantee, hasn’t personally loaded his truck at a lumberyard since forever.)

So is this good, smart strategy on GM’s part, or will it backfire? Seems there’s a lot of that at GM these days.

- Dave Goldberg

When I was a little kid I used to visit my father at work from time to time. He’s an oral and maxillofacial surgeon (retired) in Hartford, Conn. There was a pharmacy (Gillette Pharmacy) on the first floor of the professional building where he had his office at the time. He’d take me there for lunch (remember the lunch counter?). I distinctly remember that upon walking in he and the pharmacists would greet each other warmly. There was a relationship there. As a physician, he valued the pharmacist for his part in what we today call “the health care continuum” — in this case the natural triad of patient-doctor-pharmacist. This made sense since my father more often than not would refer a patient, for whom he had just written a prescription, to the pharmacy downstairs. Remember, back then there were neither drive-through windows, nor on line or phone ordering…just illegible handwriting on prescription pads. These were his patients. Knowing and trusting the pharmacist who would dispense drugs and provide advice to his patients was natural (today we call this a “best practice”).

Fast forward 20 years and I’m visiting my soon-to-be father-in-law, a pharmacist (retired), at his pharmacy (Colonial Pharmacy) in Cohasset, Mass. While I’m there I’m watching him engage with his customers. Not just in a friendly way, but in a manner that conveyed that a strong patient-pharmacist relationship was present, even if he didn’t know them personally. He took his job seriously. These customers came to him because they trusted him and his staff to fulfill not just a bottle of pills, but a promise that their health was in good hands.

Ancient history you say? Not really.

The pendulum is swinging back. We’ve all become accustomed to the pharmacy-as-department store model of care. Twenty thousand square feet of, well, everything. This is where you can pick up your amoxicillin — and on your long walk back to the entrance — a case of Slim-Fast, a beach chair, Halloween candy (in season) and some windshield washer fluid. These stores are built for your convenience and that’s not a bad thing. But ask the person working the pharmacy counter (who may or may not be an actual licensed pharmacist) a question such as, “should I take these with a full stomach?” and (this happens to me all the time) the person pulls the bottle out of the little white bag, lowers the reading glasses and scans the bottle’s label for the answer. I can read, too. Try a more complicated question about drug interactions or nutritional support and, well, you get the picture.

Trained, licensed pharmacists are all capable of doing an excellent job based on their extensive schooling, annual continuing education requirements and good ‘ole experience. They are all competent professionals who are taught that patient care is their prime directive. The issue isn’t the pharmacist but, rather, the pharmacy. Modern, big-box pharmacies are less about patient health than about selling higher-margin products, as well as measuring sales per square foot, customer conversion rates, inventory turn and other retail metrics. The actual pharmacy, not so conveniently located more than a Randy Moss touchdown catch away from the entrance, is a loss-leader. Margins on prescription drugs are slim, if not negative. Unfortunately, therefore, a pharmacy counter configured for high-volume, quick-turnaround, low-cost customer interactions follows.

Enter KG Partners’ client Apothecary By Design, a Pharmacy that is rewriting (or perhaps renewing) the book on the category. Their model, at its core, is simple: put the patient first and provide products, services and advice that puts pharmacies back in their rightful and necessary place in the aforementioned triad — but in a very modern way (we’re not talking about Mr. Gower’s pharmacy here from “It’s a Wonderful Life.”) Apothecary By Design is a pharmacy built to work with today’s realities. That is, today’s health concerns, lifestyles, medical establishment, payor structure and, as it turns out, expectations of convenience.

They are a pharmacy that puts patients first, offering proactive advice about anything within the realm of the pharmacists’ training, which is extensive. They offer nutritional advice as well as nutriceutical products that fully support patients’ drug regimens (their pharmacists are cross-trained in nutrition, as a matter of fact). They have a state-of-the art compounding room to fulfill the resurgent demand of both physicians and patients for these services. They also have one of the best coffee bars in Southern Maine — a new take on the lunch counter concept. And, like the pharmacy I used to visit with my father, they are on the first floor of a major medical building (the “InterMed” building in Portland.)

Apothecary By Design is planting a flag and taking the world of pharmacology by storm. They are smart, they are dedicated and, guess what … they are busy! This is working. We’ll all be the better for it, too.

-Dave Goldberg

Here are a couple of ads we’ve created for them: