Team Aaker/Smith V-Day Movement (2010-ish edition)

Happy Valentine’s Day!  It’s Devon.

It’s an understatement to say we didn’t have our act together during the holidays.  So: Happy Valentines Day letter! By sending it when you least expect it and then branding it Team Aaker/Smith V-Day Movement, we’re creating a differentiated offering. A quick review of market research reveals that despite minimal personalization, the open rate for Valentines is off the charts, bumping up with “Someone tagged a photo of you on Facebook” emails. Another insight: very few Valentines Day cards are sent, yet people still report significant expectation and interest in receiving them. This is called an “expectation-reality gap.” Gaps like this lead to depression & overeating.  My goal: close gap, prevent depression, spread love. I’m what they call a “gap-filler.”  Also in the positive column: I’m writing this in WordPress and I’m ready for the inevitable picketing by the no longer necessary Microsoft (Word), Georgia-Pacific (paper), HP (toner) and the USPS.  Open-source technology marches on (FTW)!

My secondary goal: maximum reader reach.  My success metrics 1) become trending topic on Twitter 2) Achieve click-through > 2% then 3) go viral. Confident, I ordered a Gulfstream G650 today to ensure getting it on my 10^th birthday in 2012 when the letter has billions of viewers that I monetize through my patented Social Sharing Norm Conversions® Product Integration and Upward Revenue Stream Dynamics.® That’s right: you’re monetized. I’ve already said too much. If you even think about beating me to my goal, I will use the persistent cached cookies embedded in this page to find you.  (Just make sure to turn off all your pop-up blockers and privacy controls before you click on each and every link in this letter. It’s your duty).

Lets start with a recap of the highlight of last year: Disneyland!  A brief reminder of what happened:  We prepared for the trip for weeks, filling our jean pockets with cookies for sustenance, and brushing up on our Disneyland history. On arrival though, we found the parking: painful, tickets: expensive, lines: long.  On the upside, my dad found an iPhone app with GPS-driven map, ranked attraction checklist and crowdsourced wait-time guide to get us around the park strategically, guaranteed to optimize our fun while minimizing time spent in lines. Unfortunately, between the display, the 3G radio and the GPS, the iPhone punched out in under 30 min. Necessity forced us to try something arguably better – a cleverly color-coded, conveniently foldable, pocket-sized tool. It’s called a map. It’s provided by Disneyland. Amazingly it’s free (the only free thing at Disneyland).  So that was fortuitous.  But then Téa Sloane got hungry (“I HUNGRY!”), saw an apple and stole it. Lost teaching moment.  Regaining our momentum, we then decided to check out the Haunted House.  About 45 minutes later (Disneyland excels at line-length deception), we step inside and I, instead of embracing the hauntedness, analyzed the technology that creates the ghosts (“holograms!”). That put a damper on the mystique for some. On the way out, we found our au pair who was shaking from dehydration and heatstroke. Being a “doctor,” mom recommended she eat some grapes. Seconds later, her body decided to put the grapes in reverse. We left seeking a place with less bad advice and fewer bystanders, she slept the entire drive home. We were required to be silent the whole time. So it ended on an upnote.

Despite this successful trip, we did not go to Disneyland again this year.  My parents said that we should “protect those memories” and not taint them with “new Disneyland memories.” They called it this “Strategic Memory Protection” and cite this paper as backup.

So we spent last summer in more pastoral ways – chasing lizards, digging holes, and “appreciating the moment.” It drove me crazy; the days could not have been longer.  I treated it like I was doing hard time. First, there were the prison push-ups, (great for the guns and chest). Second, breaking down electronic things I wanted to understand (challenging, screwdriver required), then trying to put them back together (near impossible, time machine required). Third, coming up with viral campaigns to promote my products.  The first product was a lemonade stand, where we missed an opportunity to leverage social sharing, but I won’t repeat that mistake with Téa Sloane’s upcoming birthday party where social sharing will take center stage, culminating in a birthday movement.

Téa Sloane is doing great.  She’s a Tasmanian Devil version of my mom. She finds instant messaging frustratingly slow. Appropriately, Téa will sign her name “ETA” or “EAT.” Both work for her; she is very time driven and enjoys a wide variety of food.

Téa Sloane firmly believes a thing’s sparkliness signals its quality. July 4th is a high quality holiday; Cinderella wears high quality clothes; mom’s clothes from the ‘80s are outstanding.  She’s is also an “out of the box” thinker, viewing either/or options as an invitation to brainstorm a third option. Samples:

• You can have carrots or broccoli. “Neither!”
• You can have a cookie or ice-cream. “Both!”
• You can come with me or dad. “Stay home alone!”

Cooper has an uncanny sense for what others should be doing. He’s a shoo-in for becoming Dr. Phil’s retirement replacement or a Partner at McKinsey. He has a portfolio of 17 distinct sketch characters and 20 accurate verbal impressions. He has a solid New York accent, a Crocodile Dundee-Australian sure to offend anyone from OZ and leveraging pre-adolescence he can respectably belt out a pregnant Alicia Keys and a Jay-Z impression within the same song. He’s working on a remixed demo of an original piece so JayZ can sing it. If you tell him you’re going to New York, he’ll likely ask you to drop it on JayZ when you’re there.

My parents are doing great. Dad’s on a media blitz with The Dragonfly Effect; he’s commenting on things that he’s is an expert on as well as other things that to me sound better left to the State Department. He speaks on both with confidence; clearly no one notices the difference.  He retains his weakness for palm trees and tiki-themed knickknacks as well as his strength in the form of his “no-cookie diet” (25 months and counting).  Mom continues to focus on work, cuddling with us and avoiding cooking (for everyone’s sake). Her difficulties have progressed from meal production malfunctions to problems with food consumption as well. Here’s a recent picture from a party where she tried to cook and also eat.

No one looks as good (or happy) as she does immediately after burning a hole clear through her shirt-over an open flame-while wearing it. This was a new high for her.

We hope that your Valentines Day is filled with strategically protected memories, sparkly things and movements of all kinds.  Happy V-Day, and good in closing your own expectation-reality gaps!