Okay, one more peeve for today.
Does anybody really care that SC Johnson is "A Family Company"?
What on Earth does that mean, anyway? And is it really so important that it hasn't to be mentioned at the end of every ad?
If it's meant as a slogan, it's kind of lame.
If it's meant as a legal disclaimer or description, I just don't get it. Are they worried someone's going to perform a hostile takeover or something? "Oh wait, it's a family company! Never mind, guys. Let's go buy up a different firm!"
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Abbreviate or Don't
This one's been bugging me for a while...
What's up with "BMO Bank of Montreal"?
I thought the purpose of an abbreviation or acronym was to SHORTEN a word of phrase. They've added three syllables to their name instead.
Kentucky Fried Chicken didn't become "KFC Kentucky Fried Chicken".
International Business Machines doesn't call itself "IBM International Business Machines".
And who decided that the letters should be in that order?
Does it stand for "Bank Montreal Of"?
What's up with "BMO Bank of Montreal"?
I thought the purpose of an abbreviation or acronym was to SHORTEN a word of phrase. They've added three syllables to their name instead.
Kentucky Fried Chicken didn't become "KFC Kentucky Fried Chicken".
International Business Machines doesn't call itself "IBM International Business Machines".
And who decided that the letters should be in that order?
Does it stand for "Bank Montreal Of"?
Sunday, December 9, 2007
Tell Me I'm Not Being Pessimistic
Watching Survivor last week (sue me), I became a little suspicious.
A basic, and fairly predictable, element of the players' strategy on the show is to start voting off the physically dominating players once the two tribes have merged. (For those who don't watch: when the tribes merge, everyone starts playing every-man-for-himself, and has a chance to win immunity from being kicked off each week). It generally makes sense to get rid of the people who are likely to win individual immunity in the challenges.
But this season that hasn't been such a major concern. The immunity challenges have been much more varied than usual, with a combination of balance, accuracy, speed, memory, etc. being vital. Strength, in fact, has been the one attribute relatively less important for winning these challenges.
Spoiler warning for those who watch the show and aren't up-to-date...
Very interestingly (at least to my suspicious mind), in the episode AFTER the physically strongest (by far) player was eliminated, the immunity challenge finally required a lot of strength an endurance. The players were dragging themselves through it, clearly exhausted.
Essentially, the big strong guy that everyone was concerned about competing against was doing no better than the others for several episodes. Suddenly, once he's gone, the competition is something he'd probably win.
Now, I'm not claiming that the game is fixed. But, it certainly seems reasonable for me to be a bit suspicious. Why would the producers of the show want to get rid of the big strong guy rather than anyone else? I don't know. And chances are, it's just a coincidence.
But how hard would it be for the show's host to mention something (within the context of an episode) like "Remember that the next challenge could be anything. The order of the challenges was selected months ago, without any consideration of which contestants might still be in the game. The next one could be something that you're all good at, or something you all have to suffer through..."
We're still taking their word for it, but I think the simple act of acknowledging that circumstances might look a bit strange would alleviate many of those concerns.
Same goes for any other brand.
Most are pretty good at stating, via media statements and the like, that consumer concerns are unwarranted. They try to take control of those suspicious thoughts. But, this generally happens outside the context of the brand experience.
If I've heard a rumour about a product being unsafe, for example, there's something satisfying about seeing the packaging or instructions or the product itself making a claim about safety. Much more so than hearing the identical statement made via a press release or similar.
Within my brand experience, just reassure me a little bit and I'll probably be much more content and trusting.
A basic, and fairly predictable, element of the players' strategy on the show is to start voting off the physically dominating players once the two tribes have merged. (For those who don't watch: when the tribes merge, everyone starts playing every-man-for-himself, and has a chance to win immunity from being kicked off each week). It generally makes sense to get rid of the people who are likely to win individual immunity in the challenges.
But this season that hasn't been such a major concern. The immunity challenges have been much more varied than usual, with a combination of balance, accuracy, speed, memory, etc. being vital. Strength, in fact, has been the one attribute relatively less important for winning these challenges.
Spoiler warning for those who watch the show and aren't up-to-date...
Very interestingly (at least to my suspicious mind), in the episode AFTER the physically strongest (by far) player was eliminated, the immunity challenge finally required a lot of strength an endurance. The players were dragging themselves through it, clearly exhausted.
Essentially, the big strong guy that everyone was concerned about competing against was doing no better than the others for several episodes. Suddenly, once he's gone, the competition is something he'd probably win.
Now, I'm not claiming that the game is fixed. But, it certainly seems reasonable for me to be a bit suspicious. Why would the producers of the show want to get rid of the big strong guy rather than anyone else? I don't know. And chances are, it's just a coincidence.
But how hard would it be for the show's host to mention something (within the context of an episode) like "Remember that the next challenge could be anything. The order of the challenges was selected months ago, without any consideration of which contestants might still be in the game. The next one could be something that you're all good at, or something you all have to suffer through..."
We're still taking their word for it, but I think the simple act of acknowledging that circumstances might look a bit strange would alleviate many of those concerns.
Same goes for any other brand.
Most are pretty good at stating, via media statements and the like, that consumer concerns are unwarranted. They try to take control of those suspicious thoughts. But, this generally happens outside the context of the brand experience.
If I've heard a rumour about a product being unsafe, for example, there's something satisfying about seeing the packaging or instructions or the product itself making a claim about safety. Much more so than hearing the identical statement made via a press release or similar.
Within my brand experience, just reassure me a little bit and I'll probably be much more content and trusting.
Thursday, December 6, 2007
Is Order Important?
So, I was sitting down to dinner a couple of nights ago and the phone rang. Call Display told me that it was a bank calling. I'd normally just ignore a call from a business at that time of day, but when it's a bank, it could be something important, right? With thoughts of "we've noticed some unusual credit card activity...", or mystery deductions from my account, or maybe an exciting job offer, I decided to answer it.
Nope. No important customer service news.
They just wanted to tell me about an incredible new insurance product.
This was the first time I'd heard about this product, and I might even be in the market for something like this. But I lost interest immediately.
Why make an initial contact with customers using one of the single most hated and annoying marketing vehicles on Earth? I interact with, and receive communications from, this bank in a variety of ways. I log-in to my online account fairly regularly. They send me e-mails. They send me printed statements. I subscribe to their e-newsletter... Seems like there are lots of other ways for them to reach me.
It seems pretty basic to me: the order in which communication channels are used is as vital as the selection of the channels.
How about raising my awareness of the product via something relatively unobtrusive, like a simple ad unit within their Web site? If it piques my interest right away, I can click to find out more. If I don't care, I can ignore it and move on.
Then maybe follow up with an insert in my next monthly statement and in my next e-newsletter. Tell me a bit more about the product. Include a special offer or other incentive. Again, if I'm interested I can make the effort to find out more.
Then maybe, just maybe, use a phone call as a third contact if I somehow appear qualified or interested based on whatever criteria their database marketing people have specified. (And try not to call me during dinner, but that's an entirely different post).
Obviously, the above is just an example, and isn't always the "right" order.
If something's extremely time sensitive, maybe the phone call should come first.
If the product or offer or message isn't particularly important, don't even bother using more invasive communications tools.
If the message is important but kind of boring, start with a medium that can add some excitement, then follow up with something more descriptive and informative...
Whatever makes some logical sense in each particular case.
My big questions are:
1. What was the genius at the bank thinking when they decided that the call center should be the first point of contact to promote this new product? Are they hoping to rush people into saying "Yes"?
and
2. Does the sales pitch actually work better this way? Maybe I'm just over-thinking it or over-sensitive to this stuff. Perhaps the bank has some campaign metrics that justify this process. But do customers really say "Golly, I was just in the middle of dinner, but if you're selling an insurance product that I've never heard of before... Well, heck! I don't mind leaving the table for a few minutes to talk to you!" ?
I lost a pile of respect for this particular bank that evening. I think that qualifies as a Bad Branding experience.
Nope. No important customer service news.
They just wanted to tell me about an incredible new insurance product.
This was the first time I'd heard about this product, and I might even be in the market for something like this. But I lost interest immediately.
Why make an initial contact with customers using one of the single most hated and annoying marketing vehicles on Earth? I interact with, and receive communications from, this bank in a variety of ways. I log-in to my online account fairly regularly. They send me e-mails. They send me printed statements. I subscribe to their e-newsletter... Seems like there are lots of other ways for them to reach me.
It seems pretty basic to me: the order in which communication channels are used is as vital as the selection of the channels.
How about raising my awareness of the product via something relatively unobtrusive, like a simple ad unit within their Web site? If it piques my interest right away, I can click to find out more. If I don't care, I can ignore it and move on.
Then maybe follow up with an insert in my next monthly statement and in my next e-newsletter. Tell me a bit more about the product. Include a special offer or other incentive. Again, if I'm interested I can make the effort to find out more.
Then maybe, just maybe, use a phone call as a third contact if I somehow appear qualified or interested based on whatever criteria their database marketing people have specified. (And try not to call me during dinner, but that's an entirely different post).
Obviously, the above is just an example, and isn't always the "right" order.
If something's extremely time sensitive, maybe the phone call should come first.
If the product or offer or message isn't particularly important, don't even bother using more invasive communications tools.
If the message is important but kind of boring, start with a medium that can add some excitement, then follow up with something more descriptive and informative...
Whatever makes some logical sense in each particular case.
My big questions are:
1. What was the genius at the bank thinking when they decided that the call center should be the first point of contact to promote this new product? Are they hoping to rush people into saying "Yes"?
and
2. Does the sales pitch actually work better this way? Maybe I'm just over-thinking it or over-sensitive to this stuff. Perhaps the bank has some campaign metrics that justify this process. But do customers really say "Golly, I was just in the middle of dinner, but if you're selling an insurance product that I've never heard of before... Well, heck! I don't mind leaving the table for a few minutes to talk to you!" ?
I lost a pile of respect for this particular bank that evening. I think that qualifies as a Bad Branding experience.
Monday, December 3, 2007
A Brave New World
Us: “How would you describe your brand?”
Us: “We’d like to talk about things beyond that. What are your brand attributes?”
Client: “The font is large… if that’s what you mean.”
Us: “But that’s not really your brand is it? I mean what do you stand for, what do people think about you?”
Client: “Well, here’s our Vision statement. Does that help?”
Us: “Let me put it a different way: if I mentioned your organization’s name to a regular customer, what would their first thoughts be?”
Client: “Hmm. I guess they’d think of our logo. It’s our name in a distinctive font…”
And so began a week of amazingly painful meetings. I was working for a professional services firm at the time, and we were attempting to help a client establish a stronger presence online – something consistent with their traditional and “real world” brand. I’m paraphrasing in the above conversation, but not really exaggerating. This client clearly didn’t understand even the definition of “brand”, let alone have any understanding of what their’s might actually be.
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