USPS Spending (ESPN article)

[DirtyWorks]

The decision to drop the sponsorship was a direct result of this audit. It had nothing to do with anyone else's subsequesnt analysis, or the business environments worked in by anyone else.

I would argue that Advertising is the perfect example of doing something and having no clue how it will turn out. Most advertising doesn't meet it's goals. It didn't meet internal metrics. That's why most adverts change.

Why is the failure so important?

There have been numerous posts in this thread and others, suggesting that the USPS as a whole was quite pleased with the pro cycling sponsorship, and that just wasn't the case.

I think BotanyBay would agree, No matter what may follow, the USPS will always broadcast a message about being happy about the project. Demanding anything different will leave you frustrated because it's not going to happen.

Best case scenario "Mistakes were made while being associated with a winner." See how I turned a negative into a positive and dismissed critics in one sentence? Brilliant!

 

[MacRoadie]

Reminds me of a significant other who won't tell you anything's wrong until she has her suitcase packed. There is plenty of documented material out there that will say that USPS maintained that they were always happy. At least they said so DURING the sponsorship.

Personally, I don't think these kinds of organizations belong sponsoring private ventures like this one.

Absolutely! The folks who authorized the sponsorship, and that likely went on those junkets to France every July were likely VERY happy with their decision.

The guys who said "Hey, wait a second, does anyone really know if this is benefitting us"? Maybe not so much.

 

[MacRoadie]

I think BotanyBay would agree, No matter what may follow, the USPS will always broadcast a message about being happy about the project.

Well, I think they WANT to, as reflected in their initial desire to keep specific details of the sponsorship amount redacted and the likelihood that those responding to criticisms were the same decision makers responsible for the sponsorship policy to begin with (IE marketing types).

 

[BotanyBay]

I hate to argue with those with whom I am in regular agreement.

But, you absolutely can see what you pay for with AdWords. That doesn't mean that PT Barnum was wrong about suckers being born every minute and that people will not do stupid things, of course.

What is the value of a qualified lead? Not trying to promote Google, but the tangibility of the benefit is considerable as is the trackability of the lead and what the lead responded to. It doesn't work for all products, but where it does work, it is an enormous improvement.

I have never had difficulty demonstrating this to a Board - and ad dollars are invariably difficult to justify.

Dave.

No real argument. We're still buds. I will admit to working in marketing, but I'm by no means an arranger of such deals, and I'm definitely NOT involved in sales. I think there are many who use adwords in a way that their business would be non-existent if they didn't use them. There are others who employ them because that business book at Borders "said to".

 

[DirtyWorks]

You are correct that the most relevant part of the contract are not being discussed (that USPS had included a doping clause)- but Lance's bonus was not part of the USPS agreement.

In the ESPN documents it showed an 'invoice' from CSV (Capital Sports Venture) to Tailwind for payment of the bonus. Tailwind had a separate deal with numerous insurance companies (Lloyd's, Chubb) to cover that.

Thanks for the clarification. Then I request:

1. to summarize what if anything illegal/psycopathically immoral behavior has been corroborated by the USPS data.
2. what new illegal/psychopathically immoral evidence has appeared.

I've lost track myself.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

Thanks for the clarification. Then I request:

1. to summarize what if anything illegal/psycopathically immoral behavior has been corroborated by the USPS data.
2. what new illegal/psychopathically immoral evidence has appeared.

I've lost track myself.

Nothing.

(Not under the terms you request.)

 

[D-Queued]

Thanks for the clarification. Then I request:

1. to summarize what if anything illegal/psycopathically immoral behavior has been corroborated by the USPS data.
2. what new illegal/psychopathically immoral evidence has appeared.

I've lost track myself.

On #1, I think you have covered this already.

On #2, The ESPN article has shed new light on the nature of the dealings and concerns with USPS. The fact that USPS specifically sought, had conversations about, and received a non-doping clause is in strong contrast to Lance's sworn affadavit where he testified that no sponsor had called about concerns over doping.

That may not be enough for any sort of guilty verdict, but it certainly is consistent with a pattern of lying about doping and hiding the truth from the sponsors and anyone else.

Dave.

 

[BotanyBay]

On #2, The ESPN article has shed new light on the nature of the dealings and concerns with USPS.

Not really. It's like the field report from the platoon saying the mission went well, compared to when they used to bring in Peter Ambrose to write the history book 10 years later and discovering all was F-d.

What counts is where the rubber hit the road. The USPS can go back and criticize a failed strategy all they like, but if their current power structure allows them to still hire a bunch of fools and give them $32MM to blow on bike racing sponsorships, then nothing has really been learned.

Of course the sponsorship was bad. But if the USPS couldn't establish bonafide measures of success 12 years ago, then they should stop doing all kinds of sponsorships. Be thankful this wasn't a NASCAR team:

 

[thehog]

I could have done far better with half the money and a really high-quality direct-mail mailing list. And that figure would include ME going to Paris and partying. On my own dime, of course.

What cycling does a poor job of doing for potential sponsors is showing how one of these teams can be used to SUPPORT a much larger marketing effort. Few teams do a good job of that.

It's still a stupid decision to sponsor a cycling team. it was the wrong company to sponsor a cycling team. A company like McDonalds or Burger King much better suited to sponsor an American team. Both companies are strong in Europe but both have a stigma of being unhealthy and not very European. Coke would be another selection.

Look at T-Mobile. Born out of the ashes of a divided Germany, Germans saw Deutsche Telekom as part of old Europe. Rebranded in pink and sponsoring a German team was the right move. They had far less success on the road than USPS but all reports show tangible benefit for DT. Sponsoring football and cycling the company grew then branched into the UK then US successfully.*

Ullrich could have come 2nd for the rest of his natural life and the company kept on keeping on. That's the right company with the right sport.

Now didn't help that Ulle went under and the all the dominoes fell. Still they could walk away well in profit with still 20 million on the account handed over to highroad. T-Systems got their lock stock from the sponsorship so much so they could walk away when the doping mire hit the fan. The job had been done. Not USPS. Not matter how smart they were they were the wrong company with the wrong sport. Much like Radioshack.*

Not sure who said it on this forum but with USPS, Disco and now Radioshack the sponsorship comes from a nut on the board who loves cycling. He wants to sponsor a team against rhyme or reason. Compare that with BMC, Garmin or Highroad where the sponsor is aligned to the sport.

 

[BotanyBay]

Not sure who said it on this forum but with USPS, Disco and now Radioshack the sponsorship comes from a nut on the board who loves cycling.

It's rather disheartening once you spend so much time and money learning the academics of business and the "proper" way to climb the ladder... to find that so many key decisions are made by some key person's "gut feel".

I remember one time about 12 years ago being invited to pitch some new business at the Lucent headquarters in NJ. At that time, they were on top of the world. They had this huge interactive marketing budget sitting in front of them on a spreadsheet, and I was being asked to pitch work to them on how to spend it. After a well researched and well designed interactive spending strategy was unveiled for them, I remember their CMO for interactive standing up and saying all they really needed was a bunch of banner ads to go up on Yahoo. "Uh yeah, we can also just make you some banner ads" (in other words, I'll be happy to take your money and work with no strategy). And so we made these really generic banner ads for them. They said nothing, because no one reading the front page of Yahoo.com really understood what Lucent actually DID (not that they did much). But had they listened to our plan, we might have actually reached some relevant eyeballs and made a few sales for them.

And where is Lucent now?

 

[miloman]

It doesn't matter.
USPS had inserted a clause in the contract to protect their image or brand from negative publicity - so the end's do not justify the means.

I asked earlier (and Miloman offered to answer, but didn't) but do you believe USPS would have sponsored the team had Tailwind not signed the doping clauses in the contract?

You told me you didn't ask me, so I assumed you didn't care for my answer, just like you don't care for my opinion. Here goes nothing: Yes, I think they may have continued to sponsor the team without the clause. Nothing leading up to it suggests anything different. They sponsored them before the clause was inserted and considering they were riding high on the team’s current success, it is anyone’s guess what would have happen if they were they were told “NO”. Of course Tailwind would have never said that, it was probably more of “wink, wink, yes, we will include it.” You can argue that the clause was rather meaningless; since it was never used and it was more like a safe guard. USPS never exercised the clause. And I suspect unless something really ugly came out, they would have let the team handle it internally. It’s like when you board a plane and you are instructed that your seat is a flotation device should the plane go down over water. What are the odds that you will use it? It may make you feel better, but would you really not board a plane bound for Vegas from New York if you found out that the seat really didn’t float very well? Sponsorships, advertising, etc. are largely a roll of the dice. However you want to look at it, I think the USPS came up big.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

You told me you didn't ask me, so I assumed you didn't care for my answer, just like you don't care for my opinion. Here goes nothing: Yes, I think they may have continued to sponsor the team without the clause. Nothing leading up to it suggests anything different. They sponsored them before the clause was inserted and considering they were riding high on the team’s current success, it is anyone’s guess what would have happen if they were they were told “NO”. Of course Tailwind would have never said that, it was probably more of “wink, wink, yes, we will include it.” You can argue that the clause was rather meaningless; since it was never used and it was more like a safe guard. USPS never exercised the clause. And I suspect unless something really ugly came out, they would have let the team handle it internally. It’s like when you board a plane and you are instructed that your seat is a flotation device should the plane go down over water. What are the odds that you will use it? It may make you feel better, but would you really not board a plane bound for Vegas from New York if you found out that the seat really didn’t float very well? Sponsorships, advertising, etc. are largely a roll of the dice. However you want to look at it, I think the USPS came up big.

No - I didn't ask you - you offered.

As I already said I am not interested in your opinion as you do not provide anything to back it up - just like the above quoted post.

If you have something that counters the quotes from key personnel of Tailwind or USPS that I posted earlier by all means show it.

 

[Trailzz]

probably already posted...

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/...ps_lance_armstrong_sponsorship_worth_103_mil/

 

[D-Queued]

You told me you didn't ask me, so I assumed you didn't care for my answer, just like you don't care for my opinion. Here goes nothing: Yes, I think they may have continued to sponsor the team without the clause. Nothing leading up to it suggests anything different. They sponsored them before the clause was inserted and considering they were riding high on the team’s current success, it is anyone’s guess what would have happen if they were they were told “NO”. Of course Tailwind would have never said that, it was probably more of “wink, wink, yes, we will include it.” You can argue that the clause was rather meaningless; since it was never used and it was more like a safe guard. USPS never exercised the clause. And I suspect unless something really ugly came out, they would have let the team handle it internally. It’s like when you board a plane and you are instructed that your seat is a flotation device should the plane go down over water. What are the odds that you will use it? It may make you feel better, but would you really not board a plane bound for Vegas from New York if you found out that the seat really didn’t float very well? Sponsorships, advertising, etc. are largely a roll of the dice. However you want to look at it, I think the USPS came up big.

This is possible, but we do know otherwise. Thus, it is not probable. The facts speak otherwise and your assertion is hypothetical only, with no basis in reality.

We know that USPS asked for a new clause, and that Tailwind agreed to change the contract.

Changing a contract is non-trivial, especially for such a fundamental clause on employee activity. It does suggest a lack of confidence from the sponsor, which could potentially hurt the reputation of the team and its athletes. Given how stridently no-boy has made his case over the years, his ego alone would have been an obstacle to overcome.

We also know that Tailwind specifically negotiated to remove a similar clause from the SCA hole-in-one contract(s). Thus, Tailwind definitely did not want to sign such a clause.

In fact, Lance also removed the language from his personal contract.

Thus, Lance purposefully negotiated the removal of similar clauses from two other important contracts. Suggesting that USPS would have signed the Tailwind contract without the clause goes against all of this activity to remove similar clauses in other, related contracts.

The best part was how Lance justified all of this under oath:

Q. Okay. So I noticed in -- in your most current contract with Tailwind, there's -- there's no provision regarding doping.

A. Uh-huh.

Q. And there was one in your prior contract.

A. Uh-huh.

Q. Are you aware of that distinction?

A. Not necessarily, but that -- that's irrelevant, because if you have a doping offense, or you test positive, it goes without saying that you're fired from all of your contracts, not just the team, but there's numerous contracts that I have.

Q. That would all go away. Sponsorship agreements, for example?

A. All of them. And the faith of all the cancer survivors around the world. So everything I do off of the bike would go away, too. And don't think for a second I don't understand that. It's not about money for me. Everything. It's also about the faith that people have put in me over the years. So all of that would be erased. So I don't need it to say in a contract, you're fired if you test positive. That's not as important as losing the support of hundreds of millions of people.

The hypocrisy of that testimony is amazing.

If he had nothing to hide, then why actively have the clauses removed from contracts? If it's not about money, then why remove the clauses?

Trust in Lance, because he is the miracle come to save us?

Because the faith of all the cancer survivors around the world would be affected? All of them?

Faith? Lance is the self-appointed head of the cancer survivor church? Hundreds of millions of people? Talk about a messiah complex.

If it all about keeping the faith, then why not provide evidence that Lance isn't worried about the ramifications of anti-doping clauses?

Sounds like someone is undermining the faith.

Dave.

 

[Dr. Maserati]

probably already posted...

http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/...ps_lance_armstrong_sponsorship_worth_103_mil/

It is taken from the same AP article that went out from Los Angeles which was only missing Mark's signature.

 

[MD FACG FACP]

Why would USPS discontinue their sponsorship if they were getting so much out of it, and felt so good about it ?

 

[MacRoadie]

Why would USPS discontinue their sponsorship if they were getting so much out of it, and felt so good about it ?

Because that's what you do in a capitalist economy when you're raking in dough and all your senior execs are jetting over to Paris for free vacations in July...