A buddy of mine who works in the agency world made an interesting point when we were catching up the other week. He said that when you go to pitch something to Wal*Mart, the first thing they say is “you have to lower the price.” When you go to pitch Target, the first thing they say is “let’s see the packaging.”
If you’ve seen a Target ad (and if you haven’t, welcome to Earth) or walked through one of their stores, this tidbit makes perfect sense. Continue reading
Some people who have listened to my yarping about brand issues for awhile eventually feel they have to challenge me: “You’re talking about operations, org dev, HR – you’re not talking about brand at all.”
True or false? Well, both. It just seems that when I dissect a case where a brand has gone wrong, I find that the underlying factors frequently lie well outside the purview of whoever in an organization is formally charged with branding activities. And when I see a brand that’s hitting on all cylinders, it doesn’t take long to understand how the nominal face of the branding activities are best understood as expressions of deeper organizational commitments to doing all kinds of other things right.
The upshot is that I tend to use the term “brand” in a lot broader context than some of my colleagues do. So, back to my days as a waiter and bartender… Continue reading
When I was younger I worked in restaurants. Waited tables, bartended, and supervised a staff of 50+ waiters. Waiting, in particular, taught me a lot of lessons. For instance:
Have you seen the new Cadillac ads on TV? The ones featuring Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll”? Damn, those ads just rock, don’t they? Except that they’re some of the worst ads on television, and it has nothing to do with Zep or selling out or anything like that.
The spots juxtapose a gorgeous, mint 1959 El Dorado with some of Cadillac’s new models (the CTS, XLR, Escalade and Escalade EXT) in an attempt to “leverage” (as we say in the corporate world) the legendary style of the ’50s, when cars were bigger than life. They’re using the classic Caddy, which we associate with all kinds of rose-colored Americana, to “give the rub” (as they say in the “sports entertainment” biz) to the new breed. They’re putting the two together and asking you to conclude that, damn, these new Caddies are every bit as stylish and cool as the originals. They’re American classics! Continue reading
I had a little run-in with the “customer service” folks at United Airlines last week. I won’t bother you with the details, because there was nothing particularly unique about the problem, and if you fly United with any frequency you’ve probably encountered as bad, or worse. Short version – when you strand me in a city overnight and cost me pretty much an entire workday, I don’t consider putting me up in a hotel for the night to be “compensation.” You’re the only reason I needed the hotel to start with. If I might exaggerate for purposes of illustrating a point, that’s kind of like running me over with a car, then telling me that you’ll cover the ambulance ride and we’ll be even.
Now, my first inclination was to uncork on the shrews working the Customer Disservice counter at Denver International Airport. But I changed my mind, because that would have been shooting ducks in a barrel. Granted, these people were surly even by United’s standards, and the supervisor was the single bitchiest airline employee I have ever encountered anywhere, which is saying something. Continue reading
These days no manager, director or top executive of any company in the world can speak for more than about four seconds without using some variant of the phrase “customer-focused.” Customer service this, customer-centric that, and my favorite – “delight our customers.”
And most of these folks probably believe it. In fact, you do see a lot of companies and a lot of managers devoting lots of time to figuring out how to better serve those of us on whom their professional lives ultimately depend.
But the emperor is naked, and it’s not a great look. The fact is that no publicly-traded company you’re likely to encounter is truly customer-focused.
They’re investor-focused. Stay with me for a second. Continue reading
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