Ultimate Branding

I am in San Diego today.

It seems for the better part of the last six months, there has been a great deal of information on the slowing housing market throughout much of the United States. No surprise really, the housing boom carried a somewhat weak economy for the last three years fueled by low interest rates, new housing developments, and Americans worried that if they didn't buy now they'd be priced out of their respective market.

Almost all would say that we are now in a housing bust (not a total bust - but at the very least a mild bust which has lead to very noticeable slowing). Hardest hit have been the markets who were on fire just 12 months ago -- like Las Vegas, Sacramento and San Diego.....

Especially, Downtown San Diego where there is a new high rise condo project on every corner. The market is flush with pricey loft units overlooking the Gaslamp or Pacific Ocean; but fewer and fewer buyers are feeling the pressing desire to pay $600 a square foot for a peice of property which may loose value six months from now.

So, with all this negative press in the air -- imagine my shock when I saw "300 suites sold in 9 hours." At first, I was sure it was a joke. But sure enough, after I checked with the sales staff, yes they had really sold 300 suites in just under 9 hours. Amazing.

Were the suites/units the best available on the market? Did the building have an amenity that no other building had? Were there some other major perks that were encompassed in the purchase? No, no, and no way.

What was the story? This is an example of ultimate branding 101.

With each and every corner being developed by big, faceless developer types all of the new high-rise condo units had become ubecquitous. Every unit was the same. Every unit was overpriced.

Wnter The Hard Rock Hotel-Condo project.

How they sold 300 suites in one day in a down market in not a story of construction or design, or even location (where real estate reigns king). No, this was a story of branding. The Hard-Rock created an ethos about their hotel-condo project made people from all over feel that this was the only place to buy. It was so fundamentally "cool" that there was really no other choice. There was this creation of a vegas-like casino slash San Diego beach-club that would attract all the pretty people. For many, this sealed the deal right away. Its no surprise that the units themselves are nothing to write home about. In fact, just down the street their are two much nicer condo projects with better design and functionality that aren't selling as quickly. But atlas, sometimes branding your concept is more profound than the product itself.

The Consumer Experience

It seems like everywhere I go I am bombarded with ideas on how to
help grow our business. The notions come from unlikely people and unlikely places.

Take for instances a recent trip to Orange County. In between meetings, I had a chance to browse the Apple store at Fashion Island Shopping Mall. If you have never been to Fashion Island than you are seriously missing a parade of what I call “$30,000 Millionaires.” There is a display of money, cars, plastic surgery, and brand overload that I don’t see often.

I am a huge Mac fan. I have two Apple computers, use iMovie constantly, and even use my mac for spreadsheets. Whenever I am in a new town I like to check out the Apple store and see how each store differs. Apple retail stores are simply brilliant. Steve Jobs and his international branding team have developed the ultimate consumer experience. The Apple lesson can be summed up briefly: I decided I wanted to purchase an item from the store. There was a long line (Holiday Shoppers!) and an Apple associate saw that I was looking for a quick purchase. With a hand-held register, the associate took my credit card, swiped it, emailed me a receipt and gave me a bag to boot. The process took maybe 45 seconds. Apple made a sale because they were flexible and recognized the need of the consumer. Not only did they make a sale, but they landed a client for life; and in addition, they furthered emboldened their brand image as being on the cutting edge of technology and innovation.

American Youth Sports Leadership Group

Today we announced that we were underwriting a program that is going to help make wide-spread changes to the current plight of youth sports in America.

The program dubbed, The American Youth Sports Leadership Group, is aimed at creating a culture that embraces sport, and helps youth achieve great things on and off the field.

There will be more detailed info coming the next few days, and there will be a website situtated shortly. We are hoping to officially launch the program in Jan 2007. The short-term goal will be to host a Youth Sports Summit in Sacramento, CA during the month of October 2007. Speakers, events, and sponsors to follow soon......

Please let us know your comments and feedback.

Book Update

I have received a lot of emails lately asking what was the status of my book, The Sociology of Youth Sports: The Demise of American Amateurism. Well, the long and the short of it is simple: its almost done!

I have been working on the book for the better part of the last two years, and I still have little more to flesh out. All in all, I can honestly say that writing this book has been the most profound experience in my life. It has helped me to focus on what my passion is, and how best to reach those goals.

With a little bit of luck, I hope to have the book available by August of 2007.

If you are curious about the book, please feel free to send an email to me: bdowning@esmgroup.org

Thanks to all for your support.

Globalization

I have always prided myself as being someone who is savvy with the new globalized world that we all live in. However, it wasn’t until a recent trip to Europe that the effects of our globalized world began to truly transcend upon me.

I was sitting at Heathrow Airport, waiting for my connecting flight to Athens. There I used my Apple laptop to connect to paytrust.com, a website that allows you to manage amd pay your bills online. One by one, I paid my mortgage, credit cards and car lease. While I was there, sitting next to me was a German woman sipping Italian coffee, eating a ham, cheese, and tomato croisant while talking on her Samsung cellular phone. The era of globalization was running around me at light speed, and it seemed that I was finally starting to get it.

Three hours later it felt good to be back in Athens. It had been almost a year since my last visit, and it was clear that the Olympics had been a positive influence for the city. Despite leaving an enormous debt on the economy, the infrascture had improved, the metro system was clean and fast, and modern architectural improvements made to the airport gave you the feeling that you were in Singapore or Munich.

For me, these trips have always been twofold – an opportunity to see friends and family, but more importantly it give me an opportunity to revaluate my point of view. In the United States we take for granted, oftentimes, our wealth. As a country, our prosperity trumps developing nations in Eastern Europe by a freighting level. In the day to day grind, it is easy to get locked into what I call the CNN version of the world; leaving the United States helps to put everything in place for me. The rest of the world has a different lens from which they view current events. No single perspective is entirely right or wrong, but seeing the full spectrum has always helped to focus me.

While Greece has remained an anomaly of sorts – a country that has sucessfully left one foot stuck in the past, keeping close at hand the traditions and culture that has come from its rich history, and yet still striding forward with one leg trying to grab hold of the new, fast-paced globalized world. Greece is very much a dichotmy of culture; old versus new; macro versus micro.

Sitting at the Monistiraki, where once the ancient Greeks traded their crafts, you can’t help but look around and notice changes. Now the area is lined with restuarants, tourists, shops, and peddlers selling bootleg cd’s. The smell of Americana and old europe combine together and travel throughout the district.

Spending the day with my aunt, we were sitting at a Turkish bistro, eating Kabob and catching up with family news. Then it hit me.....Globalization is now here too.

I was sitting in Downtown Athens, in a Turkish resturant, eating and drinking with a 72-year-old Greek woman who was sending a text message to her son asking if he wanted to join us for lunch. Over the radio blarred Madonna, as waiters quickly ran between tables trying to handle the overflowing dinning area. One of the bus boys had Nike tennis shoes. The owner was sporting a new blackberry. Globalization Greek-style.

Later that evening, I was meeting my youngest cousin for dinner at Cafe Zoe inside the Intercontinental Hotel. From the moment you walk in you are almost thrown off guard – The massive hotel lobby is more like a Vegas-style Casino than a hotel in Greece. English, Turkish, Farsci and Mandarin can all be heard as we made our way through the smokey seating area where hotel guests were sipping on Russian Vodka, Greek Wine and American Beer. When Tom Friedman wrote in his book, “The World is flat” I had my doubts – but not now. The world is not only flat, but it is now shrinking.

It seems that no matter where you go – there is a global culture – one single global brand. While this may be a bit of exaggeration, you wouldn’t know it by spending some time at the Athens Intercontinental Hotel. We sat down to dinner, and the waitress very promptly came over and asked if we wanted to have anything to drink. She didn’t ask us in Greek, she asked us in English! We responded in Greek, and the waitress seemingly had to fight for words to reply. She admitted to us later that she was not Greek, but Bulgarian, working in Greece for a short time to earn extra money. She spoke Greek, but said she spent so much time speaking English at the hotel that it had become second nature.

Two days later I was on the road again. This time headed to Faraklada – a small village in the Peloponnese nearly three hours by car from Athens. Here my mother was born and raised before she came to the United States. The town of maybe fifty families is sterotypical of most villages throughout the country. The homes, many of them built in the late 1800s are made of stone, and have not seen significant improvements since that time. Walking up the stairs of my mother’s home always had a familiar feeling. The concrete steps have seen many years of family reunions, birthdays, and weddings. At the top of the stairs my uncle was waiting for me with open arms, his mustache and beard just as I remember. His pants and shirts torn, his hands rough from the day’s work in the field, and his deep laughter that bellowed throughout the house. It was good to be home.

Later that afternoon, we went out to olive orchard to inspect this year’s crop. Things had not changed since I last visited two years ago. The old, worn tractor still sat in its place next to the work shed, the concrete road still not finished ran along our property before turning into a dirt path. In the distance, the corn slalks were larger than ever.

The weather was chilly. The clouds began to creep though the valley. My uncle looked at the sky in digust, hoping that the weather would hold for another week or so. He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket, and began typing. I was shocked. “What are you doing,” I asked. He indicated that he was sending a text message to a farming collegue in the village approximately ten miles away to see if the rain had come there. In what he called a growing competitve market for olives, he had to stay ontop of the weather patterns more precisley in order to make sure that weather didn’t negatively influence his crop. He said that within twenty five minutes he could text 13 workers from the village to come to the orchard if he needed help to protect the crop from the storm.

On my way back home, again I was sitting at Heathrow. This time my lens was altered. I didn’t have to look for signs of globalization. It had been cemented in my head that everyone and everything around us is a part of the new world order. There are some in this world that fight change, and see Globalization as a way for the rich to get richer and the poor to stay poor. It is true that this point of view has validity, but if there was one thing I learned on my trip it was that if we embrace this new found connectabilty, even the most unlikely of people can impress you with their ability to navigate this new world.

High School All-Star Game

Once again we are going to be hosting the Sacramento-area High School All-Star Soccer Game. We will be posting information about the match coming up in the next few weeks, but we are looking forward to hosting the 3rd annual match in late November.

Last year over 30 seniors from a variety of high schools participated in the match. We are looking forward to another great game.

Be sure to visit www.elite-soccer.com to get more information.

An interesting day......

Yesterday I had lunch with a friend of mine. It had been sometime since I had seen him and it was good to catch up. The last time we had caught up he had just graduated with his MBA from Davis and was searching for a job in the real estate market. Since then, he has been hired by a national homebuilder and was really enjoying his job.

As the conversation continued, we talked about how we had met each other. At the time, he had just graduated from Stanford and was working with a start-up company called Core Youth Centers. It was an amazing company that focused on helping kids from the ground up -- athletics, college consulting, mentoring, etc.... In many ways, it was CORE that inspired me to start ESM. Sadly, CORE had a short fuse and made it only a year or so before their venture capital money dried up. But what we both remembered about CORE was the feeling that the kids had when they walked in the doors. To this day, I haven't seen a more passionate, productive and fun environment in our area for kids.

While my friend is convinced now that there is no successful business model that could sustain such an operation, I remain a little bit more optimistic. In fact, at ESM we have spent a substantial amount of time trying to tweak business models in order to find the right combination that would allow us the opportunity to bring CORE 2.0 back to our area. As our non-profit arm, Education Now, prepares for a huge undertaking -- a capital campaign to raise $5MM -- that will help us develop such a centre for kids that will once again give them an opportunity to grow mentally, and physically we realize what a challenge is ahead of us. However, I can honestly say that there is no issue more paramount to our mission than the completion of this proposed project.

As always, I am interested to hear about what others think? Would a multi-use sports facility that would house sports and academics be a successful proposition in Sacramento? and beyond?

Digital Recruiting and the Growing Internet Social Network

As I was sitting at Starbucks in the heart of the San Francisco's Marina district, I was reading the latest addition of Business Week. I was intrigued by the cover story, which claimed: "Learn how this kid made $60M in 18 months." Like a lot of media publications, there has been a re-focus on Web 2.0 companies in Silcon Valley that are being run by 20 or 30-something dot.com'ers who have used the profound leap in technology during the last few years to breakthrough and start companies focused on making life easier and more mobile.

At the heart of this revolution has been the Myspace.com and Facebook websites which have trailblazed the new era of social networking on the internet. As I read the article, I started to get really interested in some of the sites, but more importantly the people behind the ideas. Some of the individuals they spoke about were the founders of such companies like PayPal, Digg.com, and Yelp.com, as well as others. The more I read, the more I wanted to learn.

I jumped on my iTunes and tuned into the Business Week podcast that just happened to have the writers of the story discussing this topic with the help of their editor. The more I heard, the more I wanted to keep learning.

During the course of the day, I couldn't help but think about how the things I was reading about related to The ESM Group and our goal of helping kids achieve amazing things.

Our website SoccerProfiles.org, which we started two years ago, was an effort, and still is, on our behalf to help streamline the recruiting process for student-athletes who need assistance in building, updating and distributing their player resumes. What we found out when we launched the site is that there is an amazing connection in the soccer community between kids and parents. We saw that our traffic went higher and higher each day, as word slowly crawled across the country. Now in our 3rd year, we have registered users from 44 States, as well as India, Canada and Australia.

I guess the most profound lesson our team has learned is the that the barrier to entry is very little nowadays. Soccerprofiles.org was an idea of ours, and with a little consulting, a dash of web design and an internet connection we were able to grow our presence with little or no advertising. Now, as we enter a critical year for our growth, we plan to spend a substantial amount of money to grow our brand and take control of a very fragmented market.

The next wave of digital recruiting is going to come from a person or group who can find a way, like the founders of Web 2.0 companies, to make the process more enjoyable, mobile and connected.

The Health and Fitness Market

On my way to San Diego this weekend, I had an opportunity to read some great articles in various Business Journals from around the United States. I came across one article, which talked about Bunker Hill Capital's investment into a Sacramento-based fitness chain. Unlike national giant 24 Hour Fitness, the fitness chain known as California Family Fitness, focuses on building clubs that attract families. Their concept has worked, and they have built a strong chain of stores in the Sacramento area during the last decade or so.

What really struck me was, why are venture capital groups investing in fitness groups -- or more importantly, why are they investing in the health and fitness of kids? One of the concepts I have talked about in a variety of papers, blogs, and lectures has been this notion that youth sports in the United States is big business. No wonder then that vc groups are looking to cash in on the returns that are surely ahead for the youth sports and family market. With the flood of reports about the unhealthy lives our kids are engaging in nowadays it is clear that some are trying to find a market niche for profit.

Just the other day, I came across another article that talked about another vc firm leading the second round of funding for a high school sports website called Maxpreps (www.maxpreps.com). Its just another example of the money being thrown at youth sports both at the club and high school level.

In the wake of these readings, I have been thinking a lot about my book (in progress) titled The Sociology of Youth Sports: The Demise of American Amateurism, and the necessity to focus a lot more on the economics of youth sports and how that is also contributing to the changing landscape of how we view youth sports. A great deal of the book focuses on the culture and social dynamics of youth sports that have been a very profound influence in the way we deal with kids, both on and off the sports field.

I am interested to hear from others about their experiences with youth sports, and how big money is changing the way we think about this market segment.

Summer Ending, School Starting....

August 1 always signifies the end of summer and the focus back on school and fall sports. It seems that the last few days we have received a lot of calls from parents who want to know what they need to be doing in order to get their students back in the swing of school and start competing against the process.

Each year it seems that competition gets tougher and what we did last year, isn't good enough for this year. My only real advice to folks is that success during the school year is usually directly proportionate to the student's ability to stay focused throughout the year. Too many times kids go through ups and downs -- often times leaving a big hole to get out of with little time to do so. The cautious, hard-working, and detailed oriented student can find themselves within striking position of the grades they want as long as they stay in the game....

A couple of suggestions:

*Get organized. Have a separate folder for each class. Keep an assignment book so that all work due is logged.

*Work your teachers. It is never too soon to start building a relationship with your teachers. Often times, the difference between the B+ and the A- is a little bit of effort from the student.

*Get help. A lot of kids think that a tutor is a sign of weakness. It's not. The top kids across the country all get tutored to make sure that they stay at the top of the class. If you need help in a class, seek help asap.

I am sure that as the school year gets in full gear, I will begin blogging a couple of times a week. Please send me your comments or emails: bdowning@esmgroup.org

France's World Cup Win Felt on Pitch, Back at Home

France’s World Cup win signifies profound success, not just on pitch.........

Munich, Germany – France’s Semi-Final victory over Portugal last night marked a significant day for the French. For a country that has dealt with a great deal of social and political strife over the last year, the euphoric win and entrance to the World Cup Final provided the French people with something to smile about.

When the tournament began, the future looked bleak for Le Bleu. The French were dismal in their opener and only became more creative slightly as the first round proceeded. However, France, a team that has some of the world's most experienced players, managed to gain a berth to knock-out stage. There, Le Bleu finally showed glimpses of what we know they are capable. Needless to say that the win in the Quarters versus Brazil was special, Wednesday's win was memorable.

Portugal had its chances. With the retirement of Luis Figo, the Portuguese Capitan, on the line -- there was a sense in the crowd that they may just pull one off for their skipper. And despite the whistles from the crowd upon every touch, Christiano Ronaldo made the French defense look slow and foolish at times. His creative back-heel with about ten minutes to go nearly created the equalizer that Portugal was in search of.

But when the whistle blew, the French fans rocked the stadium with chants of "Zie Zu" in honor of Zidane's PK and game winning kick.

However, the cheering, for the French, was not just about football. France has over the last year been rocked with political and social upheaval on an unprecedented scale much to the dismay of its upper, elite politicians and aristocrats. The nation's youth have cried out for reform -- a need to help them find jobs and allow the young French of the future to take hold of the economy, the political landscape and the culture. For too long, the French have contained the social discontentment of its youth and the staggering unemployment.

However, many doubt that the French run to the WC Final will produce any sort of sustained change in the political nature of the French community. Most there have had enough of President Chirac, his henchmen, the weak economy and particularly the EU. With so much at stake for the French –- much more than football –- one would think that the French government would try to mobilize a sentiment behind the success of the team and the potential success of a World Cup Championship. However, nothing of the like has occurred, and you can hardly be surprised given the fact that the top French officially are fundamentally out of touch with the French people.