The Keurig Effect

[bruto]

I haven't followed the Keurig story, but I do wonder if the decision to drop Hannity was as unalloyed as the OP suggests. Keurig is, and has long been, associated with Green Mountain Coffee (the first manufacturer to provide Keurig pods, who later purchased the company), and I suspect that Suburban Turkey is right in suggesting that the negative publicity preceding the drop was quite uncomfortable for the parent company, which styles itself as fairly hip and organic and whatnot, despite its rather non-green coffee maker.

I'm a little surprised that a company like Green Mountain (or what was by then Keurig Green Mountain) was tone deaf enough to advertise on Hannity in the first place. I bet Speeder and Earl know better!

 

[theprestige]

It was always thus. To quote Phineas T. Barnum^*:

"There's no such thing as bad publicity"


_____________________________
^* OK, like so many things, maybe he did not say it:
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/there-is-no-such-thing-as-bad-
publicity.html

But, as they say, "There is Nothing New Under the Sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

I think the rise of cancel culture shows that there is indeed such a thing as bad publicity. But actually there are plenty of examples going back much further. There's the Streisand effect. There's the myriad of publicity setbacks that plagued the Hillary campaign (remember Comey's October Surprise?).

Let's see. Sarah Palin garnered a lot of publicity, and probably cost McCain the presidency. South Africa got a ton of bad publicity for apartheid. We have laws about libel, slander, and defamation; and we have courts that consistently uphold the idea that these are harmful, not helpful, publicity.

What might have been true in Barnum's case (even if he never said it) is that in his line of work, he had a knack for turning bad publicity to a business advantage. Or at least a knack for weathering it without having to shut down. Ronald Reagan had a similar knack, somehow surviving Iran-Contra with his image intact. But Carter was pilloried for Operation Eagle Claw - no good publicity for him there! And I think everybody agrees that whatever else it was, Benghazi wasn't good publicity for Hillary Clinton.

It seems that Donald Trump has a similar knack to find advantage in bad publicity, or else just shrug it off. And I guess people are saying Elon Musk has the same knack? I could go along with that. But the whole cave-diving Twitter thing wasn't good publicity for him at all, no matter what the maxim says.

 

[HansMustermann]

I haven't followed the Keurig story, but I do wonder if the decision to drop Hannity was as unalloyed as the OP suggests. Keurig is, and has long been, associated with Green Mountain Coffee (the first manufacturer to provide Keurig pods, who later purchased the company), and I suspect that Suburban Turkey is right in suggesting that the negative publicity preceding the drop was quite uncomfortable for the parent company, which styles itself as fairly hip and organic and whatnot, despite its rather non-green coffee maker.

I'm a little surprised that a company like Green Mountain (or what was by then Keurig Green Mountain) was tone deaf enough to advertise on Hannity in the first place. I bet Speeder and Earl know better!

Well, Keurig and their exact motives and circumstances are rather irrelevant there, since, as I was saying, they're not the ones who planned to use the effect. They're just the ones to whom it happened (noticeably enough) first. They weren't planning to create a crap-storm, they were trying to avoid one. Doesn't even really matter WHY they were trying to avoid one. Honestly, at that point, that was what everyone and their PR department DID about their corporate image: try to keep it as clean and as far from crap-storms as humanly possible. Keurig didn't actually do anything special for that time.

That a crap-storm did happen and that it actually boosted sales is what turned out to be interesting. It was not planned or expected by Keurig themselves, but other companies did take notice that this was an option too.

 

[Chanakya]

I'll never understand advertising and marketing. To the best of my knowledge, I've only responded negatively to an ad and become less inclined to buy the product. With the possible exception of product placement, which I did respond to when younger.

Keurig, for instance. I tried one at a friend's house, and thought it made abysmal coffee flavored water. The ads or news stories or whatever have no influence on my thinking about the product. For all the talk of 'advertising does this, exposure does that', I don't see why. It carries the assumption that people are remarkably helpless to the power of suggestion, and infinitely malleable. A bunch of economic Manchurian Candidates. I would hope normal people weren't.

*looks at sales data*

*sighs*

I don't know if it actually works, sometimes there's correlation and sometimes there isn't -- and when there is, whether correlation is indeed causation can be, and is, argued every which way.

But they do try their ******* best to, as you say in your next post, manipulate people. Using things like NLP and subliminal messaging to influence consumer behavior, that's a done thing. If at all it works, I'd say it's diabolical; and even if it it doesn't, it's still creepy.

 

[Thermal]

I don't know if it actually works, sometimes there's correlation and sometimes there isn't -- and when there is, whether correlation is indeed causation can be, and is, argued every which way.

But they do try their ******* best to, as you say in your next post, manipulate people. Using things like NLP and subliminal messaging to influence consumer behavior, that's a done thing. If at all it works, I'd say it's diabolical; and even if it it doesn't, it's still creepy.

Yeah, seeing Bruce Lee wearing Asics shoes just once made a loyal buyer of me as a teen. The Blues Brothers wearing Ray Bans worked too. But now, pretty confident ads have either no effect or negative. If someone is prying money out of my wallet, my feelings about them don't weigh in. Its best value v features.

I wonder how much being reluctant to spend at all effects advertising influence? I see an ad and think 'they are trying to deceive me. I don't like/trust this company'. Brands I don't see ads for, I feel better about.

 

[HansMustermann]

Maybe, but then you don't work in the same way like most people. Most people dread the most something they have no idea about. That's why publicity works.

Note that I'm not talking about either marketing or PR there, which are entirely different dishes. Just publicity. As in, you've heard of that company before.

Most people seem to basically go to the shop or on Amazon and be confronted by a bewildering array of names. Just for coffee machines, you see stuff like Bosch, Philips, De'Longhi, Melitta, Miele, Keurig, Krups, etc. WTH do all of them even do? Why is the Miele more expensive?

Of course, you could study reviews for each model, and if you actually believe that the market functions like in the ideal free market model, make a perfectly informed decision and pick exactly the best one for the money. Most actual people don't.

Just going "oh, I've heard of Keurig before" is already a step in the right direction. Well, for Keurig, anyway.

 

[Thermal]

Using your coffee maker example, the last one I bought needed to be teal colored to match my wife's inexplicable decision to have all countertop appliances teal colored. I had a choice of three. Never heard of any of the brands. Similar reviews. Chose the cheapest. Now I'm happy. Pretty much how all my purchases go. 1) what has what I want? 2) is it a fair price? 3) Is there another option which is similar in 1 or 2 but much better on the other?

Eta: couple exceptions: American/locally made is a big plus. Nothing by Nike under any circumstances. Waterproof anything is good

 

[theprestige]

Using your coffee maker example, the last one I bought needed to be teal colored to match my wife's inexplicable decision to have all countertop appliances teal colored.

Heh. Supposedly Big Business sits down every year to decide what next year's Color is going to be. As far as I can tell, it's mostly an exercise in figuring out what direction the popular trend is trending, and then going all-in on pushing that trend. A couple years back it briefly made the news that some shade of orange had been picked. So maybe your wife got hooked by the Teal Year.

 

[Brainster]

Millions of people who hadn't even heard the name Keurig before, now couldn't go anywhere online without being constantly reminded that (A) they make coffee machines, and that (B) they must be pretty good machines, if all these ultra-conservative types had had one, and their ONLY complaint about it was the lack of advertisment money for Hannity. It was more exposure and in fact downright advertisment in just the first week than Keurig's marketing budget would have gotten them in a whole year.

I'm kind of amused at the notion that there were a whole lot of liberals out there who'd never heard of a Keurig machine, but whatever.

If you ever wonder what was with the Gillette and Nike ads that provoked a similar reaction, and similar spikes in sales, yeah, that's what.

You are aware that about six months after Gillette's infamous ad, Proctor and Gamble (the parent company) had to write down the value of the brand by $8 billion?

 

[Thermal]

Heh. Supposedly Big Business sits down every year to decide what next year's Color is going to be. As far as I can tell, it's mostly an exercise in figuring out what direction the popular trend is trending, and then going all-in on pushing that trend. A couple years back it briefly made the news that some shade of orange had been picked. So maybe your wife got hooked by the Teal Year.

Nah. She makes up things in her head that often don't exist, looks me in the eye and says "find"

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

I think the rise of cancel culture shows that there is indeed such a thing as bad publicity. But actually there are plenty of examples going back much further. There's the Streisand effect. There's the myriad of publicity setbacks that plagued the Hillary campaign (remember Comey's October Surprise?).

Let's see. Sarah Palin garnered a lot of publicity, and probably cost McCain the presidency. South Africa got a ton of bad publicity for apartheid. We have laws about libel, slander, and defamation; and we have courts that consistently uphold the idea that these are harmful, not helpful, publicity.

What might have been true in Barnum's case (even if he never said it) is that in his line of work, he had a knack for turning bad publicity to a business advantage. Or at least a knack for weathering it without having to shut down. Ronald Reagan had a similar knack, somehow surviving Iran-Contra with his image intact. But Carter was pilloried for Operation Eagle Claw - no good publicity for him there! And I think everybody agrees that whatever else it was, Benghazi wasn't good publicity for Hillary Clinton.

It seems that Donald Trump has a similar knack to find advantage in bad publicity, or else just shrug it off. And I guess people are saying Elon Musk has the same knack? I could go along with that. But the whole cave-diving Twitter thing wasn't good publicity for him at all, no matter what the maxim says.

I think the value of the publicity depends on how well you were known beforehand. If you have prior public exposure, an "incident" will harm you with some people and that might overweigh the good it might do in other people's eyes. If you are an unknown, any publicity is more than you had before. We had an example here in TO of "Balcony Girl" who became (in)famous for a selfie of her throwing a chair from a high balcony into the street. She seems to be burning through her 15 minutes of fame fairly fast however.

 

[theprestige]

I knew exactly who you meant by "balcony girl". So I guess that was some really effective publicity.

 

[bruto]

I'm not entirely convinced the Keurig was taken entirely unaware here, but it's likely the crap storm they got was a better trade than they'd bargained on. I think they were not so much avoiding a storm as choosing which one, having already gotten some flak for a system that generates a good bit of waste, much of it plastic. But either way, it seems the size of the net positive effect was a surprise.

I think a lot of people were probably aware of Keurig, but not aware of its being so closely associated with Green Mountain Coffee, which cultivates an eco-friendly, fair trade, sustainability, etc. image.

Anyway, these days it's obviously a good idea to look at association not only on the positive side (my hero eats Wheaties, etc.) but on the negative, especially if your villain hates your product, not for what it actually is, but for political reasons.

 

[HansMustermann]

I think they were not so much avoiding a storm as choosing which one, having already gotten some flak for a system that generates a good bit of waste, much of it plastic.

Well, that's still not a fundamentally different idea, even if it may differ in the exact details and circumstances. It's still the traditional approach to PR, where you try to minimize the amount of crap-storm around your company name, even if you can't completely eliminate it, rather than deliberately provoke one for publicity.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

And interesting (at least for me) aside wrt Keurig is that before it hit the market I participated in a consumer survey on what I thought about the idea of making coffee in a machine that used single serving/use containers. I said it was the most ridiculous, useless idea I had ever heard of and no one could possibly be so lazy as being unable to brew a cup from scratch. I just chalk this up to my once again misunderstanding the mass mind.

(And just don't ask me about the idea of selling water in plastic bottles.)

 

[Leftus]

And interesting (at least for me) aside wrt Keurig is that before it hit the market I participated in a consumer survey on what I thought about the idea of making coffee in a machine that used single serving/use containers. I said it was the most ridiculous, useless idea I had ever heard of and no one could possibly be so lazy as being unable to brew a cup from scratch. I just chalk this up to my once again misunderstanding the mass mind.
(

My first reaction was "that's not going to be enough coffee"

I do have a knockoff, but I use it to make (iced) tea and hot chocolate.

I did use one once and I share the assessment that it was weak ass, and slightly cool, coffee. Also, it was either as slow, or slower than my coffee maker.

 

[bruto]

I never much got the idea of a Keurig at home, as cleaning a coffee pot is really pretty trivial, and it's so easy to fit ordinary equipment to make the amount you need at the strengh you like. Where the Keurig really makes sense is in waiting rooms and the like, where coffee is offered, but one cannot predict how much or when. It's a boon in places like garages and hospitals where you're waiting for service, and much better than having a pot that's usually either over-boiled or empty.

 

[theprestige]

I never much got the idea of a Keurig at home, as cleaning a coffee pot is really pretty trivial, and it's so easy to fit ordinary equipment to make the amount you need at the strengh you like. Where the Keurig really makes sense is in waiting rooms and the like, where coffee is offered, but one cannot predict how much or when. It's a boon in places like garages and hospitals where you're waiting for service, and much better than having a pot that's usually either over-boiled or empty.

This. In the home it makes no sense. In the workplace it's different.

No more slapfights about not brewing a new pot. No more slapfights about whose turn it is to clean the pot. No more wastage of 4-5 cups of coffee per day.

You walk into the break room, brew one cup of your preference, and walk out. Sure, you have to stand around while your cup brews. Maybe that's offset by the fact that you're never expected to brew a whole pot for the entire office.

I worked in an office that had one for a while, and it was pretty convenient - before the environmental backlash made single-serving brewers a mortal sin.

But not convenient enough for me. The whole process was still too fiddly, and I couldn't quite get in the habit of cleaning my mug. So I'd just hit Starbucks on the way in, or hit the Starbucks-run kiosk in the lobby, for my one (disposable) cup per day.

Eventually, Ms TP turned into a multi-cup-per-day coffee fiend. She invested in a proper home brewing device that turns out a whole pot in a reasonable amount of time. I invested in an insulated tumbler with a sealed lid. Now I wake up every morning, pour a fresh cup of coffee into my tumbler, seal the lid and shake to stir, and leave the rest of the pot for Ms TP. Before the Covid Times, the tumbler would ride to work with me in the morning, and ride home again in the evening, where it would be rinsed out and set aside ready for the next day.

 

[Dr. Keith]

We have one at home and it is perfect for us. We each have a cup first thing in the morning. Most days my wife has her second cup at work and I will get my second cup later in the morning either at home or work, depending. In the winter I like a cup of decaf in the afternoon.

Some days we need two cups. Some days we need three. Some days we need four. Some days they will all be consumed within about an hour and a half. Some days it will be several hours between the first and the last. That odd cup of decaf in the afternoon is never predictable.

Making a 4 cup pot every morning would mean wasting half the pot half the time and having burnt or cold coffee sometimes. Making a two cup pot every morning would mean making a second one or two cup pot some mornings. And really, making small pots of coffee never is as good as big pots.

I think the key to being happy with a keurig is being frustrated by all the coffee one regularly pours down the drain. It wasn't a big deal when I could drink the remains all day and not worry about it messing up my sleep patterns, but throwing out pot after pot every day gets to be a bit much.

The second part was realizing that neither of us have very good taste in coffee. I can tell the difference between a decent cup of coffee and a great cup of coffee, but a decent cup is fine for my morning cup. Every once in a blue moon I would pick up some fancy beans and grind a small batch and run them through the aeropress, but fuss outweighed the joy.

Once we found a cup that we both liked, it was a pretty easy switch.

 

[smartcooky]

It was always thus. To quote Phineas T. Barnum^*:

"There's no such thing as bad publicity"


_____________________________
^* OK, like so many things, maybe he did not say it:
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/there-is-no-such-thing-as-bad-
publicity.html

But, as they say, "There is Nothing New Under the Sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9)

Also, the Streisand Effect, or the Spycatcher Effect, and a quote from Oscar Wilde...'There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.'