"Adapt, react, re-adapt, apt"
Thanks to Michael Scott for providing the title for this post.
Back at college, our philosophy 101 class erupted in meticulously crafted debate and name-calling when we discussed Nietzsche's infamous proposal that "God is dead." It's a shame everybody remembers Fred for that particular comment, when one paragraph or so later, he asked, "Must not we now become gods ourselves...?" That always seemed to us to be the real point.
FTD has gotten some well-deserved heat for running an adwords scam, to trick folks into thinking they're buying from a local florist, when, as the Real Florists blog points out, "...flower orders sold through that site are processed by FTD and are either drop-shipped...or transferred to real local florists, less $13 - $15 services fees and 27% commissions."
It's just one in a long line of legitimate complaints that honest-to-goodness florists have against the wire services. 1-800 Flowers recently caught hell for perceived false advertising regarding shipping fees. Besides the ever-growing list of new misdeeds, the wires services suck in general. When you order from them, your flowers arrive in a cardboard box, get substituted, etc. We discuss this on our about page, where we zinged 1-800, and Florist Detective breaks down the situation far better than we ever could.
Now, here's where Nietzsche comes in...
OK, we get it. The wire services blow. Legit florists have well-founded compliants against the big guys. They're not playing fair. More than that, they're wrong, underhanded, deceptive, opportunistic, and have about as much passion for flowers as CarMax has for automobiles, or that any other clearinghouse has for whatever products they skim.
So, now what? Rather than join forces to sue the internet, what if we all helped each other find new opportunities? Instead of building our relationships on a mutual hatred for the wire services, what if shared ideas and passion stuck us together?
The wire services aren't going to change. We can spend our lives trying to nip at their passing tires, or we can accept the rules of engagement. This terrain suits us. The great thing about the internet isn't the instant gratification and boundless reach that has helped the wire services make their mints. Above all else, the fluidity of the online space makes it so gosh-darned wonderful. It's constantly changing, and with each miniscule fluctuation, we're presented with new opportunities.
The bulky wire services can't take advantage of these changes. Imagine if someone at ProFlowers wanted to christen a bouquet the ****Head from Buckhead. The idea wouldn't make it past the water cooler. How long do you reckon it took ProFlowers to come up with their tagline, "Send love, not like?" How many committees do you suppose were involved in massaging the copywriter's original idea until it turned into the ineffectual blob we all know and love?
Begininning this weekend, we're going to start moving on producing Banana Florist video content. We're going to do things that the wire services could never dream of doing, and even if they did, they could never dream of getting it past their gatekeepers.
All of us have these kinds of opportunities. Instead of focusing on the big guys' shortcomings, maybe we can start to concentrate on what makes each of us interesting in the first place.
Comments
Thanks again for the notice...and I like your idea of banding together to do what we all do best...be Real Florists.!
Posted by: BOSS | February 20, 2008 07:37 PM