Pocket Hercules Fishes for “Sickos”

“Sicko” is one of Jack Supple’s favorite nouns. But the cofounder of Minneapolis ad agency Pocket Hercules means it in the positive sense.

Sickos are fanatics. And the brands that small-but-growing Pocket Hercules works with are sicko magnets: Rapala fishing lures, Pearl Izumi cycling and running gear, and Carl Zeiss’s sporting division, which makes riflescopes and binoculars. They aren’t sexy consumer brands. They’re “outside” companies—less domestic, with a bit of an offbeat vibe.

Jack joined Pocket Hercules in early 2007—the agency was founded by two other Carmichael Lynch vets, Jason Smith and Tom Camp. All three wanted to build an agency that let them work more directly with clients—and react more quickly and specifically to market changes—than the bureaucratic layers of a large agency allow. Those are attributes that clients with pocket-sized marketing budgets especially seek.

The gather-‘round-the-brand work that Carmichael Lynch did (and still does) for Harley-Davidson—Jack had been CL’s chairman before his current gig—is one of Pocket Hercules’ driving models. Traditional ad campaigns? Check. But sickos typically leap to different lures. Dig if you will this “urine chart” posted on porta-stalls at running events for Pearl Izumi. Runners can check their urine’s color pre- and post-marathon to see whether they’re too dehydrated or need to boost certain nutrient levels:

It also gives them something entertaining to read while waiting for a john to open up.

Then there’s this viral April Fool’s bike shorts promotion for Pearl Izumi called Project Uranus, which, um—well, check the video. Brand intimacy? You got it, pal.

Besides its outdoorsy, enthusiast bent, what makes Pocket Hercules distinctive locally and nationally is that it’s also its own client—it’s creating its own products. In 2008, it introduced Lakemaid Beer, a “fisherman’s beer.” (It’s brewed by Schell’s.)

Fun? Sexist? Both? You be the judge. Jack notes that Lakemaid, which sold about 50,000 cases last year and looks to sell more this year, has a lot of Facebook friends who are women. Sickos are increasingly female.

Me, I’d say that Lakemaid evinces a certain retro charm. Among its promotional efforts, Pocket Hercules put up Burma-Shave–style signs on Route 371 heading north from St. Cloud this summer:

(For you young people reading this: Burma-Shave was a shaving cream brand that originated in Minneapolis.) In an indirect but real way, Lakemaid playfully resurrects the spirit of another Minnesota brew with cabin appeal—Hamm’s, back when it originated from the land of sky-blue waters.

On a different (but still potable) note: Pocket Hercules’ second product, Tiny Footprint Coffee. Introduced in April, Tiny Footprint is billed as “carbon negative” coffee—its farming (shade grown) and its roasting (by Roastery 7 in Minneapolis). A part of the purchase price of each bag is donated to the “rebuilding” of the Mindo cloudforest in Ecuador. Pocket Hercules would like to open a Tiny Footprint coffeehouse, if they can find the right location.

By creating their own products, Pocket Hercules believes it understands more deeply the financial and business challenges their clients face when launching or marketing a product. The Herculeans also hope that the products can provide revenue streams that can smooth out the monthly ups and downs of typical agency income cycles.

In other words, the entrepreneurial endeavors provide a fresh perspective into sicko minds. Not that they don’t know a lot about that already: Jack loves to fish, Jason’s a golf fanatic, and Tom is an avid traveler and tri-athlete who’s ridden his bicycle through Laotian jungles.

As Stephen Dupont, who heads up Pocket Hercules’ PR practice, observes, “We’re sickos, too.”

Ginger Consulting Checks In at Checkout

Beth Perro-Jarvis and Mary Van Note, the energetic founders and sole employees of brand research and strategy firm Ginger Consulting—it’s virtual, but “based” in Minneapolis—call women a “mega-niche.”

They also say that women “influence” 85 percent of all consumer purchases. It that’s the case, I’m thinking it’s us fellas who are the mega-niche. And not all that mega.

What’s the difference, generally speaking, between XX and XY in the retail space? Mary compares the typical male shopping approach to aboriginal hunting: “catch it, kill it, drag it home.” In other words, get in and get out. Women tend to like “exploring—shopping is more an embracing experience.” (Men can get dreamy in some retail environments—like car dealerships and golf retailers.) At the same time, women also do a lot of research, particularly via the Internet.

Beth and Mary are particularly busy these days: They’ve been doing projects for retailers and consumer products companies including Target, Banana Republic, and Kimberly-Clark. The retail business has been pretty unpredictable lately, with consumer confidence measures on a month-to-month rollercoaster. Why so much work? Their clients are catching up on things.

”Everyone stalled for a while,” Beth says. During the brunt of the recession, retailers were “paralyzed.”

”Retailing was price oriented,” Mary adds.

”But the dust is settling,” Beth notes. “Retailers need to check in with their customers. They’re thinking: ‘How can our business fit in with the new normal?’” Indeed, the foundation of Ginger’s thinking is “very customer-centric,” Mary says. Adds Beth, “Customers are the only people with the power to expand your business.”

Mary and Beth work on a project basis, which is what they prefer. They provide research, ethnography, ideation, and from-the-outside insights to help retailers and retail products companies refresh and renew their marketing.

”We espouse radical simplicity,” Mary says. They’re not particularly interested in working on a retainer basis, and they certainly don’t want to spend time generating wordy reports that “feed the file drawer.” They prefer energy, optimism, fun—attributes retailers (and their customers) can use these days. “Life is hard right now,” Beth notes. Consumers are “bedraggled and beat up.”

Besides, they don’t need to spend months and months on a project—they’ve got long résumés. “We’re a premium resource,” Mary notes. Adds Beth, “It doesn’t take us very long.”

Still, their work is serious fun. A recent project, for Foster’s Wine Estates (brands include Beringer, Penfolds, and Rosemount Estate), addressed a big issue for large-scale winemakers: Wine tastes may change, but a vintner can’t simply rip out its vines and replant the latest trends. Chardonnay may have lost some of its cachet, but a winemaker still has to sell it. As Mary says, quoting a wine exec, “You need to move the juice.”

Ginger’s idea, based on their research: Concept wine. You’ve seen concept brands: Barefoot, Yellow Tail. Another (new to me) is the provocatively named Bitch from Australia. Based on Mary and Beth’s research and ideation, Foster’s is now developing some concept brands.

Ginger doesn’t always take “female” projects (one of their past clients is Jack Daniel’s). But it has become a specialty. The heart of the firm’s research efforts is its “Alpha Panel," 400 thoughtful, articulate opinionated women in 10 metro areas nationwide.

Ginger has tapped the panel’s insights for numerous projects, including a recent one that Mary and Beth particularly enjoyed—and which makes your humble blogger-dude a little nervous to discuss. It’s about, um, you know. The client: Kimberly-Clark. The brand: Kotex. (There. I’ve said it. Sort of.)

Based largely on the Alpha Panel’s insights, Kimberly-Clark took a product that has been presented in a lot of embarrassing ways—mostly by trying to avoid being embarrassing—and updating for women customers seeking real engagement, not taking-around-the-product marketing messages. Ginger and the Alphas helped shape some groundbreaking commercials (a little too groundbreaking for some stations), and stylish new packing.

“Moms rule the world,” reads a maxim on Ginger’s Web site. So why do marketers still consider women a “niche”? Is the marketing industry that behind the curve? Mary and Beth have some provocative insights on the topic. More to come.

The ADC Connection

A few thoughts on Wednesday’s announcement of ADC being acquired.

I’ve done a couple of pieces (this one’s from December 2008) on the Eden Prairie telecom equipment provider. All told, it struck me as an upbeat, quietly innovative operation, and the top managers were always open about the rollercoaster ride the company experienced during the last decade.

However close to the brink they often came, they always found inventive ways to save the business. And it wasn’t just about cash management. They had many creative ideas for improving wireless telecommunication. In short, I liked ADC.

ADC’s probably does represent the end of an era, as Steve Alexander’s thoughtful little story in today’s Strib notes. Ah, the days of Control Data and Seymour Cray! Gone the way of Wendy Anderson’s Time-cover fish.

Steve’s Strib piece strikes me as expressing the traditional view of high-tech innovation. Namely the Twin Cities needs Big Companies in order to become a high-tech center again. Otherwise, VCs won’t invest, and talent won’t be lured to our frosty realm.

It’s probably true—or truish. But does it have to be?

Take ADC. It got “big” because of the late 1990s tech bubble. After the passage of the 1996 federal telecommunications legislation, start-up phone companies shot up like dandelions in spring. Investors spread all sorts of fertilizer, allowing these newbies to buy millions in telecommunications equipment. ADC’s stock price went insane, allowing it to build its beautiful, oversized Eden Prairie HQ and to use its stock to buy numerous companies, many of which had nothing to do with its core business.

After the bubble burst in all its appalling carnage, most of those over-funded telecoms went away or got bought up by much larger firms. In wireless, AT&T, Verizon, and T-Mobile dominate. Bob Switz and his team worked hard to repair the damage, and they made a lot of headway, especially overseas. But it sounds as though the realities of the industry were working against them.

I’m no expert in technology investment, but I can’t help wondering: Is that 20th century Big-Company, Big-Payout model sustainable? Is that the way we should look at digital innovation—or innovation in any industry—in these times?

Frequent TCB contributor and local seemingly-everywhere business writer Dan Haugen has smart thoughts on this subject, also using ADC as a springboard. One of his upshots: Think smaller. Smaller is the new bigger.

My take: It’s probably better to have a lot of small and midsizes than a few bigs. Data storage company Compellent is one of those midsize companies (it may be upper-midsize) that could be one of the bases of a new tech scene. I could see a potential boom for tech start-ups that, for instance, can help facilitate better health care experiences—like improving electronic health care record keeping.

Compellent is also a useful model because it has tapped into another Twin Cities strength—marketing. Minneapolis agency Barrie D’Rozario Murphy has helped create a lively strategy that sharpens Compellent’s message to the B2B tech marketplace.

But one thing’s for sure: Start-ups are going to need access to capital. Local investors and advocates need to step up. There’s some movement in that regard. But we all have to understand: It’s a new era.

The Other Thing

There’s Lady Gaga, the Fortune 500, American Idol, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, offshoring, and consumerism.

Then there’s the Other Thing.

I’m not quite sure what this Other Thing is yet—I’m open to all help in discerning it. But it’s out there—it’s slowly developing all around us. It’s still largely underground. It doesn’t portend a revolution, exactly. I’m not sure it will ever be widespread. But it could become widespread just enough to be influential.

The fundamental thing about the Other Thing is that it’s not mass market, but it’s not anti-market either. Its characteristics include entrepreneurship, creativity, and the understanding that what back in the 20th century we called “the real world” isn’t as real as we all thought. That real innovation gives people (not “consumers”) new tools to improve their lives, rather than about manufacturing new ways to make money based on, well, not much. The feel-good, evanescent illusions that stuff engenders.

Those innovative tools are generally small in scale. They’re (mostly) under the radar. The start-ups that make them are too often underfunded.

I was about to say the Other Thing is “bottom up, not top down.” But that’s the wrong way to look at it. Given how low the “top” is regarded these days—big companies, government bureaucracy, BS-spouting politicians and corporate execs—I’m not sure they are the top.

I’ve linked to this short piece by Rhode Island School of Design president John Maeda before. I believe it points to where the Other Thing is going.

The Other Thing is more about community and curiosity than consumption. It’s local and global. Like I say, it’s a little hidden away. But it’s the good story about Minnesota’s future. Let’s hope.