Enya and Applebees

 

I am an associate professor in a school of business.  My primary areas operations management by title.  This includes supply chain management, forecasting, purchasing, warehousing, transportation, inventory and production management, quality management, metrics, project management.  I am nowhere near being an ‘expert’ in all of these areas, but I do have some experience in most of them and expertise in specific applications. 

When it comes to marketing and advertising?  I am only allowed to teach one class:  Marketing Channels and Supply Chain which was given to me because of the emphasis on Supply Chain and Channels.  Beyond that, I am in over my skis as they say.

But this doesn’t stop me from contemplating idea and notions about marketing and advertising and then expressing my contemplations in this blog.  This long prelude is simply to state this this is exactly what I am about to do in this post.

The other day while watching TV, I saw a commercial that really caught my attention… which is the primary intent of advertising as far as I know.  It was for the Applebee’s, a casual dining restaurant chain serving up American fare.  The reason it caught my attention was the music chosen for the commercial.  It was “Only Time” by the Irish singer and composer, Enya.

This song was from her 2000 album, A Day Without Rain.  The album was ethereal, Celtic, new age, with what me might even hope or project Druid music to sound like.  The album was soothing and calming.  It was meditative and, perhaps even, transformative.

Enya was already famous a dozen years before I heard this album in the early 2000s as I really have not followed popular music since 1976.  Since then, a few performers have gotten my attention.  Enya was one of them. 

How did this happern?  I was in Uruguay of all places.  My friend and colleague, Alberto Deambrosi, picked me up to go to the Colgate offices and warehouse.  He had this album on, and I asked him about it. He said he listened to it every day on the way to work.  He said it as the perfect album to clear and calm his mind on the way to work.  Also, after work, it helped him detox from the stress of the day.

When my return home, I bought the album, and it quickly became a favorite.  It really was soothing and calming.  It nurtured introspection.  It was also perfect background music for working.

Upon hearing the “Only Time” cut from that album used that Applebee’s commercial, my first thoughts were how and why did this come to be?  It seemed so incongruous to use this music to pitch anything including Applebee’s “2 for $25 featuring new sizzlin’ skillets.”

The man and woman in the commercial are in new age awe with sizzling steak dishes float by them.  I found it eerily awkward but also mesmerizing.  The windblown hair of the actors and their blissful gaze at the dishes floating by them was quite effective with Enya’s sound track.  It did what it was supposed to do.  It got my attention and had me thinking about going to Applebee’s using a song from an album that was once my favorite.

Growing up, I never paid attention to the music or jingles of television commercials.  Sure, there were some catchy tunes but most of the once popular music used was from my parents’ generation.  It didn’t fully get it until I heard the first pop song that was a favorite of mine used in a commercial that I understand that the ad was targeting me and using the power of nostalgia to sell whatever it was they were selling.  I felt a bit offended, a bit used, and, perhaps for the first time, as a young adult, that innocent days of childhood were well behind me.

Music is also a business.  Artists and promoters make a living from the creation, recording, and performing of the music.  If more money can be made from allowing a special piece to used in a television commercial twenty years later, who am I to be a wee bit offended by it?

Have I gone to Applebee’s?

Not yet.  The closest one is 25 miles away.

But, really, truly, who can say where the road goes and the day flows…

 

 

 

Who can say where the road goes

Where the day flows, only time

And who can say if your love grows

As your heart chose, only time

 

Who can say why your heart sighs

As your love flies, only time

And who can say why your heart cries

When your love lies, only time

 

Who can say when the roads meet

That love might be in your heart

And who can say when the day sleeps

If the night keeps all your heart

Night keeps all your heart

HHS

In my last post, I wrote about the US being governed by executive order and the rapid pace of downsizing the US Government.  Per Statista, 2.93 people are civilian employees of the federal government.  Does this make the Federal Government the largest employer in the Country?  It certainly does.

Consider the Department of Health and Human Service (HHS) example that is in the news today.  The estimate of those being fired is about 62,000.  OK, I will admit my naivete and freely admit that this number is staggering to me.  If you had asked me how many employees the Department of Health and Human Services had, I wouldn’t have guessed anywhere near 60,000.  I would have guessed 10-15,000.

Bear in mind, this number of 62,000 is just the number being fired at this one department, HHS.  This number of 62,000 is about the one-quarter of the staff at HHS.  This means HHS employs around 248,000 people nearly a quarter of a million people.  Wow.   I clearly have no idea the breadth of HHS’s work.

The Department of Education on the other hand only has 4,133 employees.  I would have guessed 1-2,000.  The plan is to reduce the workforce there by 50%.

Is the Federal Government bloated?  Are there too many people on the payroll?  Are the various departments and agencies involved in programs and activities that are not essential and should probably be cut or reduced in scope?  I am guessing the answer is probably yes to each of these questions.  I believe the private sector, the corporate world, has many more workforce reductions as they must answer to investors.  The economy expands and corporations hire workers.  They grow their staffs.  When the economy wanes or contracts, they reduce or right size the workforce to remain profitable or to minimize their losses.  I do not recall the Federal Government ever being subject to such a cycle.  Sure, the revenue from taxes expands or contracts with employment rates.  I also suspect some programs are sunset due to their work being done or no longer needed, but other agencies and departments are created to help govern emerging areas of importance.

Joe average citizen, with yours truly as a prime example, is oblivious to this government bloat.  When I ask friends and colleagues to guess the size of HHS, everyone underestimated the size by a factor of ten. 

I am against the ‘Chainsaw Al’ approach to staff reduction.  It works, eventually, but it is so disruptive and so 1990s.  It could, in this case, be a tactic to drive a bit of fear of losing their jobs to the employees that remain which may be a new feeling for federal employees.  I would have rather evaluated each of the programs or initiative by an evaluation process that rates the value of the program/department to the population and thus decide which programs to keep untouched, keep with smaller budgets, and which to eliminate altogether.  For those departments to be reduced or eliminated a plan should be developed on how to achieve the reductions to minimize the impact to stakeholders, suppliers, grant recipients, and citizens outside of HHS.

The DOGE way is certainly quicker if it doesn’t matter what level of disruption and chaos is left in the wake.