The Pink Bunny is drained and maybe growing feathers
In the not too distant past, the famous qualifier in advertising was “batteries not included”. As a parent, you knew to go buy a bulk stack of batteries during the holidays for all the mobile gadgets and toys. In the heyday of disposable power, the Energizer Pink Bunny just kept going and growing. Fast forward to today and technology shifts are severely draining the battery business. The Pink Bunny could be the next sitting duck.
Credit where credit is due for the Fowl Headline
We have been long time advocates of subscribing to the many quality sources of information now available for free on the internet. Past blog posts have mentioned many of the industry “smartbriefs”.
- That product is talking to you … Literally it can!
- Shoppers are willing to pay 50% more in-store!
- 5 Reasons why Apple kicks butt in a flat world
A close colleague highly recommended one of my new favorite daily sources The Morning News Beat which always seems to have the best headlines.
I’d rather be a moving turkey than a sitting duck is actually a post about an interview with John W. Rowe, chairman/CEO of Exelon Corp, and his observations on leadership. The aphorism of the turkey refers to one critical trait of leadership mentioned in the interview with Rowe - Action is everything. It is also an astute metaphor for what happens when there are dramatic shifts in other categories, even if they are outside of your category and your control.
“Batteries Included” are draining the battery companies
In the not too distant past, everything used disposable batteries. Anyone old enough to remember portable cassette players remembers buying disposable batteries. Even early MP3 players had disposable batteries. And the major battery companies had a very profitable heyday of building longer lasting, more expensive, heavily branded “Energizer” and “Coppertop” batteries for power thirsty gadgets.
And even though the Pink Energizer Bunny marched on to lithium-ion technology, today’s portable devices went through a technology revolution. To meet the power needs of today’s devices and color screens, the batteries are inside and rechargeable in most everything from computers, to phones, pads and cameras. Except for the lowly flashlight and mouse, very few things use external batteries anymore and even some mice and keyboards have rechargeable batteries. If not a sitting duck, battery companies are a slow moving turkey.
In a recent AdAge article, Jack Neff highlighted the sorry state of battery sales:
Source: Article AdAge.
Two consecutive years of double digit, year over year declines does not bode well for the Pink Bunny who appears to be stopped in his tracks. A sitting duck is one step away from being a dead duck.
Category shifts beyond your control are just as deadly
I’m quite sure that battery companies did not stop innovating. In fact, P&G, the owner of Duracell, has invested heavily in the new A123 lithium-ion batteries. But new advances within your own category and technology do NOT ensure survival.
In his AdAge article, Jack Neff actually points out three very significant trends which are a perfect storm for the death of battery sales:
- Households with younger children use more disposable batteries, but US households are having fewer kids.
- Playing with toys is a favorite pastime of 45% of kids age 2 and under, but the favorite of only 27% of kids age 3 to 5
- Gaming and going online were the primary favorites of older kids which have replaced “toy time” … and most of these electronic devices have internal rechargeable batteries included.
Even if the major battery brands can maintain presence in some portable devices, the Pink Bunny may just be barely tapping that drum as he marches off into the sunset.
Convergence = More death threats to sitting ducks
I’d rather be a moving turkey than a sitting duck … at least movement creates some chance of survival for another day. Yet moving innovation ahead within your own category might not be enough, as in the case of battery manufacturers.
Another case in point, Intel recognizes the consumer trends for tablets and mobility. Rather than just stay the course with PC processors, they are rapidly developing processor and chipset technology to work in tablets and a host of mobility devices that currently do not run on Win-tel technology.
Talk about seismic shifts, consider the following:
- Google boasts of 500,000 activations PER DAY
- That’s up 25% over this past May
- Android’s WEEKLY growth rate is an amazing 4.4%
Google is just one of the external factors affecting products in many other categories, which is most likely beyond your control. Consider the “cloud” and what it could mean. Google’s got cloud, Amazon has launched its cloud services, Microsoft is going to the cloud for Office, as well as convergent gaming. What does this mean for categories like “netbooks” and gaming consoles?
A sitting duck is a dead duck. So I’d rather be a moving turkey … but that moving turkey better have wings and be able to jump category boundaries in today’s marketplace.
What categories do you think are sitting ducks like the Energizer Bunny?
- MP3 players including iPods (threats from the cloud and content streaming services)
- At home gaming consoles (threats from the cloud and mobility gaming on smartphones)
- Email (threats from social media networks, Skype, etc.)
- Other: __________________
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Sources:
- www.reuters.com, Google boasts 500,000 Android activations per day, June 28, 2011
- www.adage.com, Batteries Not Included in Portable Device Boom, June 27, 2011
- www.morningnewsbeat.com, I’d rather be a moving turkey than a sitting duck, June 26, 2011
- Duck Image: Franky242; Freedigitalphotos.net
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