Fizz from ConsumerPop

Project Runway on Lifetime

Fast Company has a profile of Lifetime CEO, Andrea Wong. You might remember her as the visionary that brought UK sensation, Strictly Come Dancing, to the U.S. and ABC in the form of Dancing With The Stars. She's smart, connects with consumers and has a great eye and intuitive sense for what attract viewers.

A couple of interesting facts in this article tell me a lot about why Project Runway feels different on Lifetime than it did on Bravo despite no major obvious changes in the format of the show. It's all about the production. It's why a wearable-by-real-women design by Shirin won and good television, obviously-should-go-home-but-totally-would-have-stayed-on-Bravo characters like too-conceptual-for-America Malvin and I-want-a-partner-who-can-carry-me Mitchell were Auf'ed.

First fact is that (I had forgotten) original producers Magical Elves have been replaced by Real World creators and spawners of much of contemporary reality television Bunim-Murray. Project Runway has always reeked of the heavy hand of producers in its decision making (along with the judges "would I wear it?" tastes). But new producers appears to equal outcomes that will better appeal to the demographics of the Lifetime audience than the Bravo audience, i.e. wearable vs. drama.

Second fact has to do with those audience demographics. I would have guessed they would be substantially different but wow, I wouldn't have guessed the differences would be this vast:

It won't be easy for Lifetime to make the Runway halo effect work. ["O]nly 4% of Lifetime viewers are cognizant of Runway," says Lifetime marketing head Bob Bibb.

I guess the subtle changes are evidence of Project Runway and Lifetime making it work. Carry on.

Lessons from Top Chef: The Quickfire Way to Business Failure

Top Chef is a reality show on Bravo where chefs compete for cash and prizes in the tradition of Project Runway, with which they share producers.  The second season of Top Chef kicked off this season and the most recent episode offers a stark and simple business lesson: If you offer consumers what you want rather than what they want, you will fail.

The contestant who last week heard the words: "please pack your knives and go" was Emily Sprissler.  And it wasn't her rather dubious belief that her self-professed "foul-mouthed and ill-tempered" persona would propel her to victory that did her in.  Rather it was her arrogant view that she knew better than consumers what they should want to eat.

In the first "quickfire" challenge, the chefs had to quickly whip up an ice cream which would be judged by people enjoying a day at the beach.  Emily was horrified to arrive and find that there were a bunch of "snot-nosed" kids awaiting her ice cream and she proclaimed: "I hate kids!"  One woman who dared to wrinkle her nose at Emily's ice cream was declared by Emily to not be worthy of her ice cream because the woman had a "huge ass."  Not surprisingly, Emily received among the fewest votes from the crowd.

The second "elimination" challenge involved interpreting a childhood favorite and creating a dish for T.G.I.Fridays casual dining restaurant which would be judged by firefighters.  Emily upon learning of the challenge complained that she is only interested in fine dining cuisine and expressed unwillingness to make any effort to genuinely respond to the challenge.  When the chefs went shopping for her dish she kind of glumly threw her hands in the air and said something along the lines of, I guess I'll make surf and turf because they (presumably the unsophisticated boobs who eat at Fridays) like that kind of thing.  In addition to her obvious disgust for the whole challenge, I have to wonder... whose childhood favorite dish is surf and turf?

Needless to say, Emily was eliminated.  Betty Fraser, who won this challenge and the previous episode's, won both challenges, in part, because of her obvious enthusiasm for delighting the people who ate her food, whoever they were.  Lee Anne Wong from season one has a blog where she analyzes each episode and she faults Emily for not "playing up to" and "underestimating" her consumers.  However, those qualities are for show.  I'd argue that her downfall was the result of being completely uninterested in understanding what would please her consumers.  If you aren't in the business of delighting the people who buy your product, use your service or eat your food and instead are concerned with delighting only yourself and indulging your tastes and interests then ultimately you will end up with one customer: yourself.

Tags: Top Chef

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Meme Monday

Elisa asked, I deliver...

4 Jobs I've Had
1. Selling men's cologne at Macy's
2. Marketing Jell-O
3. Teaching Fellow at UCLA
4. Assistant at a day care center (1st job)

4 Movies I can watch over and over
1. Apocalypse Now (the horror...)
2. This is Spinal Tap (it's one louder)
3. The Wizard of Oz (you've always had the power)
4. Passenger 57 (C'mon - they get off the hijacked plane, have a chase with a motorcycle through a carnival, get back on the plane and take off again.  Plus, "Always bet on black."  How can you ever get tired of seeing that?)

4 TV shows I love(d) to watch
1. Buffy the Vampire Slayer
2. Homicide: Life on the Street
3. Lost
4. The Partridge Family

4 Places I've been on vacation
1. Hawaii
2. London
3. Woodstock, VT
4. Montreal

4 Favorite dishes
1. Miso Cod at Nobu
2. Seared Tuna
3. Double Double at In-N-Out Burger
4. My grandmother's lemon cheese (curd)

4 Websites I visit daily
1. Google
2. My Yahoo!
3. Blogher
4. Lifehacker

4 Places I'd rather be
1. Hawaii
2. Visiting friends or family
3. In Lincoln, NE picking up the $365 million Powerball check
4. Right here, right now

4 Bloggers I'm tagging
1. None
2. I'm pretty far down the blogging long tail so just about everyone else I know has done this already.
3. I learned my lesson with tagging bloggers I don't know with memes - if you don't know someone and don't know that they don't do memes, they may never speak to you if you try to get to know them by tagging them with a meme.
4. I encourage you to explore my blogroll and I'm sure you'll find several interesting answers to these questions.

So That's What the Kids Today Are Into...

U2 - a band that's been around for 25 years.  When Bruce Springsteen inducted the band into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, he talked about how his teenage son is into the band's latest release.  How does U2 stay relevant to new generations of rock fans and not become a nostalgia act?