Office Depot's Ben the Barber

Have you seen the new Office Depot ad featuring Ben, the barber? There is a really interesting marketing tactic at work here. Ben is depicted as a typical small business person with a local barber shop. A big chain store moves in across the street, advertising $6 haircuts. Ben is chagrined, but he is resourceful. He goes to Office Depot and buys a banner that says "We Fix $6 Haircuts." Five months later the big chain haircut spot goes out of business and Ben's business is saved. According to the ad, Office Depot's low prices helped Ben to compete. It is a victory for the little guy.



When I saw this ad, I wondered how many people would see a connection between Office Depot and the big chain that moved in across the street from Ben? Office Depot is a big chain that advertises low prices. How many small office supply businesses were driven out of business because they could not compete with advertising and pricing offered by a major chain like Office Depot? Clearly, the producers of this ad do not expect the public to make this connection. Office Depot is not the big bad chain store, like the $6 haircut chain, but the "good guy" on the side of the small business person.

Like Starbucks unbranding some of its stores in order to appear local, Office Depot is attempting to position itself as the champion of  local, small businesses. Are they tapping into a growing sentiment among some consumers that local businesses are good for communities and major chains are not? Or is it simply a recognition that their customer base is not big chain stores, but small community businesses? Or both? In any case, it is clear that they do not expect the public to pick up on the irony implicit in their ad featuring Ben the barber.

Paper or Firewood?

It might surprise people to learn that more wood is consumed in New York State in residential fireplaces than is used for paper. Finch in the Forest, a blog done by the Finch paper company, reports that the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation estimates a million cords of firewood are used in homes in New York. That is approximately 2.6 million tons of firewood, compared to 1.1 million tons of pulpwood used by all the paper mills in the state to produce paper. Pulpwood and firewood come from the same parts of the tree.

That may sound like an alarming amount of wood, until you consider that wood, unlike heating oil, is a 100% renewable resource.  Responsible paper companies, like Finch, work hard to insure that our forests will be around for hundreds of years to come. The forest products industry plants an average of 4 million trees per day, about 5 trees per year for every person in the country. Properly managed forests sustain wildlife, water quality, air quality, and provide recreation opportunities as well as a sustainable source of wood products.

In Search of the Genuine - Ladyface Alehouse

The Region's first Micro Brewery has opened in Agoura Hills. Ladyface Alehouse & Brasserie is sure to be a big success for local owners, Chef Ray Luna, Manager Cyrena Nouzille and Brew Master David Griffiths. They have a great selection of on site brewed ales as well as some hard to find imports. The menu is also terrific, featuring items styled after a French or Belgian Brasserie. The Ale battered Fish & Chips is not to be missed. On top of the great food and brew, the atmosphere of the Alehouse is casual, warm and inviting. There is a nice view of Ladyface Mountain from the patio. Above all is the sense that you have arrived at a place that is genuine, a reflection of the unique personality of the owners, and not another predictable grill or sports bar.

Regular readers of this blog (both of them) will know I don't ordinarily do restaurant reviews here. So why this one? The emergence of this restaurant says something about the future of the region. People are looking for places that are unique and different when they want to get away or relax. The Conejo/Las Virgenes region is gradually emerging as that kind of place. It is finding its identity. The City of Ventura has done the same thing over the years and Oxnard has struggled to shape an identity for itself.  The Ladyface Alehouse, the vineyard at the Westlake Village Inn, and the City of Thousand Oaks acquiring property near the Civic Arts Plaza are all indications of the emerging identity of the Conejo/Las Virgenes region.

Stackpole on The Future of Commercial Printing

From Wired for Leadership:
    "There's still plenty of life in commercial printing albeit not in the same historical sense we used to know. I don't get much junk mail in my Outlook inbox mostly because I filter the daylights out of my inbound e-mails. That's a problem for advertisers and others who think e-mail promotion can replace print promotion. While we are sure to see shifts in the future, direct mail still delivers $10 in revenue for every $1 spent. The mistaken trend by some to eliminate direct mail as part of their marketing plan only serves to showcase those firms still using the medium to their advantage. I don't know about you but I got more than my share of holiday catalogs and bought plenty of gifts at their websites. The data is clear---direct mail drives online commerce---for catalog marketers and retail. The world of printing is changing, but printers are the most resilient and innovative entrepreneurs on the planet. I wouldn't count them out anytime soon."

 Kerry Stackpole, CAE IOM President - Printing & Graphics Association MidAtlantic

Oxnard Public Library Hosts Ben Franklin Exhibit

The traveling exhibit “Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World” will be on display at the Main Branch of the Oxnard Public Library from December 17, 2009 to February 17, 2010. Here is a great opportunity to look into the life of this uniquely American genius, Benjamin Franklin. The exhibit has 1,000 square feet of photographs, artifacts and documents. It will also feature films about Benjamin Franklin and talks from Franklin impersonators that will be informative and entertaining for children and adults. The link above will take you to the Oxnard Public Library site which lists a schedule of events surrounding the exhibit.

One of the reasons I chose to make Benjamin Franklin a featured part of my blog, apart from the obvious one that I am in the printing business, is that I felt he was the embodiment of so many American ideals. He was proud of his "leather apron" status as a tradesman and wary of inherited titles or inherited wealth. He believed each man was responsible for himself, but also organized his community to take care of common problems. He cautioned against creating a dependent poor class, but was very generous and charitable with his time and money. He was not quick to join the movement toward revolution, but when he did, he put his entire heart into it, risking all that he had.

Franklin was not perfect. His family life certainly left a lot to be desired. But the public Benjamin Franklin was the near model American. Industrious, intelligent, civic minded, generous, ambitious, courageous, practical and inquisitive, Benjamin Franklin was precisely the kind of person it took to forge a new country based on democratic ideals.  "Greatness" is a term often associated with conquerors and political leaders. It is not often associated with Benjamin Franklin. He is too much the common man, too much like us. But therein is precisely where his greatness lies. Go see the exhibit at the Oxnard Public Library.