Archive for Branding
Coca-Cola Tampers With its Brand Again — in a Good Cause
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Coke has done it again – tampered with its brand by changing the color of it famous red cans to white for a holiday promotion with the World Wildlife Fund.
The promotion was to raise funds to bring awareness to the plight of polar bears, an endangered species. It caused a huge kerfuffle among consumers.
Many confused the holiday Coke can with the silver Diet Coke can — horrors. Coke was forced to recall more than a billion of the white cans and restock their shelves with the familiar red ones. Read More→
Customer Service Starts at the Front Desk
Posted by: | CommentsA company can make the best products, but if customer service is bad, there goes the company’s reputation – and sales. I was reminded of this the other day when doing a few errands.
Service with a Smile From TD Bank
TD Bank's Penny Arcade
I started at TD Bank, well known for its “Penny Arcade.” It’s an automatic coin counting machine in each branch that saves you the trouble of rolling all your coins. I save all my change in a plastic container and when it’s full I bring it to the bank – it’s usually around $100 (today it was $105.35) and treat it as sort of a present to myself.
Immediately on entering the branch on Third Avenue, a receptionist greeted me with a smile and asked, “Can I help you today?” She offered to help deposit the coins and then asked if I would like to open an account.
After the machine issued a receipt, I brought it to a teller who welcomed me and asked how I wanted my money. That was a nice touch – so I said in $20 bills. Then she also asked me to open an account. Not this time, but maybe next time? I left as a happy non-customer.
Too Busy for a Greeting at Ethan Allen
I walked a couple of blocks and entered the Ethan Allen store where I had bought an ottoman, which needs a minor repair. Two people at the reception desk. No greeting. Just bored expressions. Finally I told them what I wanted and one of them said in an unfriendly tone of voice, “we don’t do that here – you have to call customer service.”
Then she went back to reading messages on her iPhone while her colleague looked up the phone number and handed it to me on a slip of paper. I thanked them and said goodbye. No response. I like Ethan Allen products, but this kind of service doesn’t make me feel good about the brand.
A Helping Hand at Bloomingdale’s
Bloomingdale's little brown bag
My last stop was Bloomingdale’s to shop for a housewarming gift. As I wandered around the gift department seeking inspiration, a sales person came up to me with a big smile and asked if I needed help. Score a point. I found a very nice tray, a pitcher and some bowls and as I struggled to carry them, she immediately took them from me and brought them to the cash register while I continued to look. Two points.
I was happy with my choices, so she rang up the sale and packed them up. I left with a good feeling about Bloomingdale’s. (I also love the yogurt at the store’s 40 Carrots restaurant).
Burnish Your Brand
Companies spend millions of dollars on advertising campaigns to build their brands. But often the first contact a customer has is with a receptionist or a sales person. These employees need to be trained in proper customer service. Don’t think of this as just another below-the-line expense. Consider it an investment in your brand, which is your most precious asset.
Drum Roll: I Have a New Online Social Media Bio
Posted by: | CommentsA friend is forwarding my bio to his agency’s new social media director who might need some outside help. As I was touching up a paper copy to send as an attachment, I asked myself, “Are you nuts?” Paper bios and resumes are so 20th century. My entire business life is there for everyone to see on my blog. I tooled around the web to find out what other social media consultants are doing and, sure enough, they have online bios.
Paper bios are so 20th century
Then another “boing” moment. I should add my new bio as a page on my blog, with a new tab “Social Media Bio.”
When I finished writing, I looked at my About page and it seemed bland in comparison. Dull actually. From me, the word mechanic (as someone once called me after I told him what I do). So I immediately ditched the About page.
This is not contest, in the sense that you won’t receive any prize, but I’d welcome your comments on my new Social Media Bio. I’m still tinkering with it. Think I’ll move the search box further up, and make a couple of other tweaks.
But I’d love to hear from you, dear readers, about what you like, don’t like or what I might add or delete. Thank you.
P.S. Since writing this post, I’ve updated my bio based on advice from readers and several experts, and also changed my navigation tab back to “About.” I’m still not sure I’m keeping that term. As always, your thoughts would be appreciated.
What Physics Can Teach Us About Marketing
Posted by: | CommentsI never thought about physics and marketing in the same breath. But Dan Cobley, a marketing director at Google, is passionate about both, using the principles of physics to explain the fundamental theories of branding. For example, a larger particle, a larger mass, requires more force to change its direction.
It’s the same with a brand, he states. The more massive a brand, the more force is needed to change its positioning. And, Cobley says, that’s one of the reasons why Arthur Andersen chose to launch Accenture rather than try to persuade the world that Andersen could stand for something other than accountancy. It explains why Hoover found it very difficult to persuade the world that it was more than vacuum cleaners.
In physics, you can never accurately and exactly measure a particle, because the observation changes it, he says. The message for marketers is try to measure what consumers actually do, rather than what they say they’ll do. He gives the example of the group of moms who talk about their wonderful children in a focus group, yet buy lots of junk food, helping McDonald’s to sell hundreds of millions of burgers every year. These are among the gems in this talk “What Physics Taught Me About Marketing” that Cobley gave at a TED conference in July.
