CigarPlaces.com Featured on SmokeStack Radio

Last night I had the distinct pleasure of joining Scott Stokke on his weekly cigar radio show, SmokeStack Radio.  Scott and I first met through the LinkedIn Group Cigars & Professionals, and I’ve become a huge fan of his show.

It turns out that Scott is a frequent traveler and avid CigarPlaces.com user, so it was great to get his take on the website and the new Cigar Places iPhone app.  I had a chance to explain the history of the site and we even brainstormed about some new features for upcoming versions of the iPhone App (if you missed the show, you’ll just have to watch the App Store and see what happens!).

Scott’s interview style keeps the show fast-paced and high energy, and makes it a must-listen for any true cigar lover.  He’s also a guy that understands the important role that a good cigar bar or cigar lounge plays in a cigar smoker’s life, and he makes the point known by asking each guest on his show about their favorite memory when they were smoking a cigar (“don’t tell us about the cigar, tell us where you were and what the occasion was”).

I used the opportunity to talk about a yearly Christmas tradition that I have with my close friends, and also to get in a quick plug for one of my favorite cigar bars, The Godfather Cigar Martini Lounge.

Live on Wednesdays at 10pm ET / 9pm CT

Don’t miss it!  Add SmokeStack Radio as a friend on Facebook, and visit the Internet Radio America website to tune in (just open the page and wait for the live stream to start – couldn’t be easier).

The Cigar Places iPhone App lets you access the power of the world-wide directory of cigar friendly places right from your iPhone! Watch a quick demo of the Cigar Places iPhone App as it is used to:

• Find cigar friendly places nearby (using GPS).
• Find cigar friendly places by conducting a search.
• Add a cigar friendly place that isn’t on the map yet.

The Cigar Places iPhone app is now available in the App Store here:   Cigar Places iPhone App

Since 2008 we’ve been focused on fighting back against regulation that has made it harder and harder to find a cigar friendly place.

With the help of cigar smokers like you who have added their favorite spots from around the world, CigarPlaces.com has grown to include well over 3,500 cigar bars, shops, and cigar friendly places world-wide.

Today we took it up a notch.

With a couple of touches on your iPhone you can now find a cigar friendly place no matter where you are, using the Cigar Places iPhone App.

Find the app in the App Store here:  Cigar Places iPhone App.

This week we’ve made the long-anticipated leap to integrating Categories into the listings on CigarPlaces.com. This powerful new feature will us all get a better understanding of what to expect before heading out the door to check out a new cigar friendly place.

Do they sell cigars there? Is there an outdoor patio to sit at? How about a walk-in humidor? Do they serve food or alcohol?

We’ll now be able to answer these questions with a quick glance!

Adding and Removing Categories is Easy

Like every other aspect of our listing (reviews, photos, etc), we’re relying on you, the local expert to provide the best information.  Adding a category to a listing is really very easy.  On any listing page, you’ll see an “[Edit]” button, or a “[Categorize this Place]” button (if the place doesn’t have any categories yet).

Simply click the button to bring up the “Add or Remove Categories” window.  Click remove next to an existing category if it doesn’t belong, or select a new category from the drop-down and click “Add” to add it to the listing.

Find a place that can’t be categorized?

When going through the design and development exercise, we took a good look at the huge database of cigar friendly places that you’ve added up to this point, and tried to pick out as many categories as we could.

I’m sure we missed some though.  If you can think of any that would be valuable, leave them in the comments section below and we’ll add them in.

Now head over to the map and make your favorite listings better!

… but not for the reason that The Economist suggests.

The recent article in The Economist entitled, Up in smoke – Why size matters more than ever puts forth the idea that because of economic declines and regulations that dictate where we can smoke, smokers of traditional “large” cigars are turning to miniature, cigarette-like cigars to get their fix.

Although the data that their premise is based on may be factually correct in that traditional cigar sales are on the decline, and miniature cigar sales are increasing, the idea that the same consumers are switching from one to the other is almost certainly not the case.

To understand how these two seemingly related products don’t compete with each other, we utilize a framework called Jobs-To-Be-Done.  The Jobs Innovation Framework is based on the simple concept that consumers “hire” products to help them with “jobs” that they need to get done.

Observing a group of men smoking a cigar in a typical environment (at a cigar lounge, on the patio/porch, on the golf course, fishing, etc) will make some of the jobs that cigars do for us fairly apparent:

• Help me slow things down (give me a reason to slow down).
• Give me a reason to be with my friends, bond, and relax.

Conducting more intensive Jobs research/design work would definitely uncover additional jobs, but these are most likely some of the main jobs that consumers hire cigars for.

The interesting thing about Jobs is that they are technology/product independent.  If suddenly we were to take cigars out of the equation (off the market and out of the consideration set), the Job that the consumer has doesn’t change.  The consumer will simply search for something else to hire (in this case, a bottle of scotch, a hunting trip, a poker game, etc).  This is how we as consumers innovate.

Unfortunately these types of misinformed intra-category competitive assumptions are made all the time.  In the confections industry, marketers and product developers have been perplexed by the ways that the Milky Way bar competes with the Snickers bar.  Upon deeper examination, it’s clear that they never compete with each other.  Consumers reaching for a Snickers bar are typically gearing up for a future event.  It’s food-like, “packed with peanuts,” and can act as a meal replacement.  Take the Snickers bar off the shelf, and those consumers will reach for an apple, a Red Bull (for the energy), a hamburger, etc, but never a Milky Way bar (which is designed with caramel and nuget to deliver pure indulgence).

The Implications

Claims like those made in the Economist article can have dangerous outcomes.  The smart CEOs, marketers, and product developers in the cigar industry can easily fall into a trap that leads them to think, “how can we take some of the attributes of the miniature cigar, and integrate them into our traditional cigars to make our cigars compete better?”

After all, it’s a logical line of thinking if you accept the idea that the miniature cigar is stealing market share from traditional cigars!

Unfortunately there are real forces acting against the consumption of cigars.  These include the regulations that the Economist article references, a greater awareness of the health risks, and the taxes that are layered onto the product and drive up its price.

In order to continue to compete and grow, those of us in the cigar industry need to gain a better understanding of the Jobs that cigars do for consumers, and then innovate around how to do the jobs better while reducing the new barriers that have been put in place.

The Solution

Those of us who enjoy circling up the guys slotting out a period of time to talk and relax will still continue to do so.  The Job won’t change.  But if it becomes too difficult for us to pull a cigar into those moments, the products that we use to enrich that experience just might.

The image below is used to describe the forces come into play during a purchase and consumption moment.

When we think through the decision making process in the context of, “should I try to get the guys together tonight for a cigar,” it’s painfully obvious how regulation, taxation, and health concerns contribute to the bottom half of the diagram (potentially making F3+F4 > F1+F2>.

The good news is that there is so much room to innovate around how cigars are made, distributed, sold, and enjoyed, that the space is full of innovation potential.  Even in the face of nasty regulation and taxation.