I saw this article on MediaBuyerPlanner.com about the return of the TV show Jericho. You may recall that Jericho was cancelled due to poor ratings, but brought back to life following a massive response by fans. I've never seen the show myself, but it has a substantial group of hard-core fans.
This is happening with increasing regularity, and it's great to see that broadcasters have opened their eyes (well, a little bit) to the fact that popular shows don't necessarily look that way immediately when you examine the numbers.
In the article, it explains that Jericho was brought back on a probationary basis to see if it could improve in the ratings. Unfortunately for fans, Jericho's ratings are actually worse than before.
I think this illustrates a major problem with "TV thinking". To the broadcasters and traditional advertisers, it's all about ratings and share. But Jericho fans are clearly nuts (ha ha - if you get this joke, write a comment to show how smart you are) for the program. Does it really matter if only a tiny percentage of the population watches it? Their devotion, I think, more than makes up for their relatively small numbers:
They're reliable. Advertisers know that these folks are going to be tuning in each week.
They're enthusiastic. Any group that can get thousands of people working together towards a (let's face it, quite trivial) cause must have a lot of energy and initiative.
They're distinct. Perhaps not a perfect audience for every advertisers, but surely there are some brands that are extremely relevant to this audience.
They're loyal. They've stuck with a show they love. A TV show is, essentially, a brand in itself. Isn't it logical to assume that these types of people will be loyal to other brands? Especially ones that they know have helped revive their favourite program...?
Which brings me to my second complaint about traditional TV: enough already with the 30-second spot. Just tacking on any ol' commercial to a program just because it reaches a certain vague audience (A25-54 or whatever) is just stupid. Maybe it works okay for generic programming like the news or a very broadly-targeted hit sitcom, but there's no reason to think this approach will work well with a niche show like Jericho.
Instead of trying to sell traditional advertisers on traditional ad units in the traditional way, CBS should be packaging Jericho in a special way.
How about trying to get Sony or Microsoft to sponsor the whole thing each week, and promote the heck out of the latest post-apocalyptic Playstation or XBox game? (a perfect fit with the show's subject matter and audience)
Or run each episode without commercials, but have a five minute intro and a five minute outro each episode featuring the show's creators endorsing something they love?
Or tie-in with related Web sites, with ads that drive viewers to those properties (and then try to sell to them at that point)?
Or totally support the fan's "special club" mentality with exclusive offers, etc.? Remember in "A Christmas Story" when Ralphie was anxiously awaiting his secret decoder, and then sat absolutely riveted to the radio waiting for his secret message? Imagine hundreds of thousands of grown adults doing something similar.
Obviously, these are just some crazy ideas, but my point is that we almost never see anything like these on TV. I really doubt it's because they don't work, simply because:
a.) Stuff like this was actually the norm for decades in the early days of TV
and
b.) It hasn't been done nearly enough recently to prove that it's a bad idea.
I guess my point is, Mr. TV Executive:
It's not always about how many people you can reach. Who they are, how you reach them, and what you say to them are AT LEAST as important.
Friday, February 22, 2008
Tuesday, February 19, 2008
Another Example
Similar to my recent post about losing a bit of revenue versus losing a customer entirely, here's a broader example:
I'm in the market for a mortgage for an investment property.
I have a pretty much perfect credit history and zero current debt other than a mortgage on my principal dwelling (and in that case the house is worth at least double the mortgage value).
In addition, the rental market is very strong where the investment property is located. I should easily be able to charge enough rent to cover the mortgage costs each month.
I was pre-approved for a mortgage with a tiny little local credit union (G&F Financial) about a year ago when I first decided to purchase this property.
In the meantime, I've changed employment.
Okay, I understand that any lender would be cautious if the conditions of an initial agreement have changed. They have every right to re-examine my application.
But, they've not only decided not to honour the original approval, but aren't even in the running any more. Apparently, they don't want my business, even if they could charge a higher interest rate or change other requirements.
My mortgage broker was immediately able to find an alternative lender for me. Which indicates to me that I'm not really a bad customer or risky proposition.
Like the previous examples, where companies would rather lose a customer and hurt their brand reputation than lose a small amount of revenue, this company would rather lose a customer and hurt their brand reputation than take on a TINY bit more risk.
Whatever a brand is insisting on (whether it's maximizing revenue, zero risk, immediacy, or something else), they need to ask themselves if this insistence is worth losing a customer.
I'm in the market for a mortgage for an investment property.
I have a pretty much perfect credit history and zero current debt other than a mortgage on my principal dwelling (and in that case the house is worth at least double the mortgage value).
In addition, the rental market is very strong where the investment property is located. I should easily be able to charge enough rent to cover the mortgage costs each month.
I was pre-approved for a mortgage with a tiny little local credit union (G&F Financial) about a year ago when I first decided to purchase this property.
In the meantime, I've changed employment.
Okay, I understand that any lender would be cautious if the conditions of an initial agreement have changed. They have every right to re-examine my application.
But, they've not only decided not to honour the original approval, but aren't even in the running any more. Apparently, they don't want my business, even if they could charge a higher interest rate or change other requirements.
My mortgage broker was immediately able to find an alternative lender for me. Which indicates to me that I'm not really a bad customer or risky proposition.
Like the previous examples, where companies would rather lose a customer and hurt their brand reputation than lose a small amount of revenue, this company would rather lose a customer and hurt their brand reputation than take on a TINY bit more risk.
Whatever a brand is insisting on (whether it's maximizing revenue, zero risk, immediacy, or something else), they need to ask themselves if this insistence is worth losing a customer.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Stop Lying To Me
I like my printer. It's an Oki colour laser.
Works really well, was a good price, networks to my computers relatively easily, and the output is quite clear.
But I don't know if I'd buy another one from this company.
For at least three months it's been giving me an error message saying that the black print cartridge needs replacement. Usually it's just a warning, but sometimes it actually stops printing. At that point, I just remove the cartridge and put it back in. I don't even have to shake it. It then prints just fine for a week or so before doing it again.
I realize that printer companies make most of their money from selling ink. But I don't think they need to resort to lying. It's one thing to have a message telling me that I should get a new cartridge because the current one is almost empty. It's something completely different, though, if it's actually pretending that there's no more ink.
As in previous examples I've written about, this tactic seems silly (if it's intentional and not a technical error): why risk losing me as a customer just to sell me an extra ink cartridge or two? The ink actually lasts a really long time. It's quite efficient. I should be telling everybody about how great it is that I can print thousands of pages on my Oki printer without changing a cartridge.
They've managed to change a great product attribute into something negative.
Works really well, was a good price, networks to my computers relatively easily, and the output is quite clear.
But I don't know if I'd buy another one from this company.
For at least three months it's been giving me an error message saying that the black print cartridge needs replacement. Usually it's just a warning, but sometimes it actually stops printing. At that point, I just remove the cartridge and put it back in. I don't even have to shake it. It then prints just fine for a week or so before doing it again.
I realize that printer companies make most of their money from selling ink. But I don't think they need to resort to lying. It's one thing to have a message telling me that I should get a new cartridge because the current one is almost empty. It's something completely different, though, if it's actually pretending that there's no more ink.
As in previous examples I've written about, this tactic seems silly (if it's intentional and not a technical error): why risk losing me as a customer just to sell me an extra ink cartridge or two? The ink actually lasts a really long time. It's quite efficient. I should be telling everybody about how great it is that I can print thousands of pages on my Oki printer without changing a cartridge.
They've managed to change a great product attribute into something negative.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Take Your Pick: Lose A Few Bucks or Lose A Customer (and your reputation)
What is with companies that would rather squeeze a few extra pennies out of a customer than keep that customer happy?
A few personal examples:
I'm going to Hawaii for a friend's wedding in a few months. For a variety of reasons, they had to change the hotel we would all be staying at. I had booked a room at the initial hotel through a service called BookIt.com (no link, because they don't deserve any traffic from me).
Here's the cancellation policy as it appeared in the reservation confirmation e-mail I received:
"No Penalty if cancelled before Jul 24, 2008 Lose 1 Nights Room & Tax if cancelled on or after Jul 24, 2008"
Great. This was part of the reason we felt so comfortable booking so far in advance.
But guess what they told us about when we tried to cancel due to the hotel change...
Yup, hidden in the small print is a contradictory statement:
"All cancellations are subject to cancellation fees ranging from $19.95."
Okaaaay... I assume they can get away with this because they define "penalty" differently than they define "fees". But, whatever, it's still deceptive. Basically, the "No Penalty..." line is nice and prominent in all their materials, but the "...subject t cancellation fees..." line is hard to find even if you know it's there.
But ethically questionable behaviour aside, what really bugged me is that we had to fight to get the $19.95 fee waived.
The dumbest parts:
1. We would have gladly re-booked through the same service for the replacement hotel.
2. The cancellation was made within just a couple of days of the booking. The credit card deposit hadn't even been processed yet.
3. The wedding party isn't huge, but we still account for several rooms. You'd think this would earn us some respect if nothing else.
4. We spent quite a while on their 1-800 arguing with their call centre rep.
Perhaps realizing that I could simply cancel the credit card transaction, they finally relented and gave the full refund without a fee (or penalty or charge or whatever they want to call it).
As a result of their actions and attitude they:
a.) Lost me as a customer. Not just for this trip but for any trip in the future.
b.) Lost the others in the wedding party as potential future customers.
c.) Probably spent more than the $19.95 fee in call centre costs.
d.) Guaranteed that I'll remember the poor experience and will tell everyone I can not to deal with bookit.com
Another example:
I'm a customer of Citizens Bank and have been very happy with them. Strong and ethical brand, good customer service, good interest rates, low fees...
My wife has had an account with a local credit union her entire life, and even though we're gradually consolidating all of our accounts, she was hoping to keep an account open with her credit union.
Seeing that our joint account at Citizens was earning a very nice rate of interest and had no monthly fees, noted that her credit union account was actually costing her money each month and wanted to see if they (the credit union) could address this. She had only a handful of transactions in a typical month, but had a fairly healthy amount of savings sitting in the account. But, she was earning a pitiful interest rate and had to pay ridiculous fees for even her minuscule account activity.
When she approached them looking for a more reasonable fee structure or better interest rate, they seemed to forget that:
a.) She could easily transfer all of her business elsewhere
and
b.) She had been a lifelong customer and could be retained quite easily
Long story short(er), they wouldn't budge, despite the above simple facts. So, she's now left them entirely and has no intention of going back.
Even if all might have earned off her in the future was one loan or mortgage or RRSP, etc. the profit from that would have easily covered what they lost in monthly fees.
Maybe in both cases it's simply a case of frontline workers not having the authority or knowledge to recognize and react appropriately to situations like this. But it seems much more systemic.
So my question is simply: Why would ANY brand make the conscious decision to lose (and annoy and alienate) a customer for the sake of just a few dollars?
I'll end on a positive note:
My wife also recently tried to renegotiate her cell phone plan. She's been been a customer of TELUS for many many years. Her family were extremely early adopters of mobile phones and have been with TELUS the entire time.
After a mediocre experience with one independent dealer, she spoke with another dealer who then passed her over to the phone company directly. They recognized her history with them, saw that she could be retained as a strong customer with minimal effort, and immediately did whatever it took to match or beat anything the competition was offering. Needless to say, she's still with them. Sure, maybe they're missing out on a few dollars each month, but there's a very good chance she would have switched to a competitor if they weren't willing to budge -- perhaps just out of principle. Just as importantly, though, she remains an advocate for TELUS. If they hadn't treated her right, though, it's quite possible she would be telling all sorts of people how TELUS has gone downhill lately and really let her down...
A few personal examples:
I'm going to Hawaii for a friend's wedding in a few months. For a variety of reasons, they had to change the hotel we would all be staying at. I had booked a room at the initial hotel through a service called BookIt.com (no link, because they don't deserve any traffic from me).
Here's the cancellation policy as it appeared in the reservation confirmation e-mail I received:
"No Penalty if cancelled before Jul 24, 2008 Lose 1 Nights Room & Tax if cancelled on or after Jul 24, 2008"
Great. This was part of the reason we felt so comfortable booking so far in advance.
But guess what they told us about when we tried to cancel due to the hotel change...
Yup, hidden in the small print is a contradictory statement:
"All cancellations are subject to cancellation fees ranging from $19.95."
Okaaaay... I assume they can get away with this because they define "penalty" differently than they define "fees". But, whatever, it's still deceptive. Basically, the "No Penalty..." line is nice and prominent in all their materials, but the "...subject t cancellation fees..." line is hard to find even if you know it's there.
But ethically questionable behaviour aside, what really bugged me is that we had to fight to get the $19.95 fee waived.
The dumbest parts:
1. We would have gladly re-booked through the same service for the replacement hotel.
2. The cancellation was made within just a couple of days of the booking. The credit card deposit hadn't even been processed yet.
3. The wedding party isn't huge, but we still account for several rooms. You'd think this would earn us some respect if nothing else.
4. We spent quite a while on their 1-800 arguing with their call centre rep.
Perhaps realizing that I could simply cancel the credit card transaction, they finally relented and gave the full refund without a fee (or penalty or charge or whatever they want to call it).
As a result of their actions and attitude they:
a.) Lost me as a customer. Not just for this trip but for any trip in the future.
b.) Lost the others in the wedding party as potential future customers.
c.) Probably spent more than the $19.95 fee in call centre costs.
d.) Guaranteed that I'll remember the poor experience and will tell everyone I can not to deal with bookit.com
Another example:
I'm a customer of Citizens Bank and have been very happy with them. Strong and ethical brand, good customer service, good interest rates, low fees...
My wife has had an account with a local credit union her entire life, and even though we're gradually consolidating all of our accounts, she was hoping to keep an account open with her credit union.
Seeing that our joint account at Citizens was earning a very nice rate of interest and had no monthly fees, noted that her credit union account was actually costing her money each month and wanted to see if they (the credit union) could address this. She had only a handful of transactions in a typical month, but had a fairly healthy amount of savings sitting in the account. But, she was earning a pitiful interest rate and had to pay ridiculous fees for even her minuscule account activity.
When she approached them looking for a more reasonable fee structure or better interest rate, they seemed to forget that:
a.) She could easily transfer all of her business elsewhere
and
b.) She had been a lifelong customer and could be retained quite easily
Long story short(er), they wouldn't budge, despite the above simple facts. So, she's now left them entirely and has no intention of going back.
Even if all might have earned off her in the future was one loan or mortgage or RRSP, etc. the profit from that would have easily covered what they lost in monthly fees.
Maybe in both cases it's simply a case of frontline workers not having the authority or knowledge to recognize and react appropriately to situations like this. But it seems much more systemic.
So my question is simply: Why would ANY brand make the conscious decision to lose (and annoy and alienate) a customer for the sake of just a few dollars?
I'll end on a positive note:
My wife also recently tried to renegotiate her cell phone plan. She's been been a customer of TELUS for many many years. Her family were extremely early adopters of mobile phones and have been with TELUS the entire time.
After a mediocre experience with one independent dealer, she spoke with another dealer who then passed her over to the phone company directly. They recognized her history with them, saw that she could be retained as a strong customer with minimal effort, and immediately did whatever it took to match or beat anything the competition was offering. Needless to say, she's still with them. Sure, maybe they're missing out on a few dollars each month, but there's a very good chance she would have switched to a competitor if they weren't willing to budge -- perhaps just out of principle. Just as importantly, though, she remains an advocate for TELUS. If they hadn't treated her right, though, it's quite possible she would be telling all sorts of people how TELUS has gone downhill lately and really let her down...
Sad News For Online Video
In some ways it's a good thing: Nielsen has announced plans to measure online video streams as part of their TV viewing measurements. Finally, traditional advertising types are realizing the value of online.
And maybe this will open some eyes to just how horrible traditional measurement is.
(In a nutshell: TV is a passive medium and ratings are measured through a sample panel of viewers. This combination means that you have to estimate the total audience for a program at a particular time AND you still don't know if that audience are even paying attention to the television or not at that moment.)
But, I'm concerned that this will bring even more 0ver-simplification to online marketing; lowering its uses to nothing more than "fancy TV". It doesn't matter whether content is being delivered through a TV set or a computer -- slapping a short commercial message onto a video isn't very effective, creative, or intelligent. I worry that big agency types are merely going to think "Great! Here's a way to increase our reach by a few million eyeballs!" and start buying up all the online video content as if it were just another TV channel.
What about engagement? What about interactivity? What about depth of information?
And maybe this will open some eyes to just how horrible traditional measurement is.
(In a nutshell: TV is a passive medium and ratings are measured through a sample panel of viewers. This combination means that you have to estimate the total audience for a program at a particular time AND you still don't know if that audience are even paying attention to the television or not at that moment.)
But, I'm concerned that this will bring even more 0ver-simplification to online marketing; lowering its uses to nothing more than "fancy TV". It doesn't matter whether content is being delivered through a TV set or a computer -- slapping a short commercial message onto a video isn't very effective, creative, or intelligent. I worry that big agency types are merely going to think "Great! Here's a way to increase our reach by a few million eyeballs!" and start buying up all the online video content as if it were just another TV channel.
What about engagement? What about interactivity? What about depth of information?
Thursday, February 7, 2008
How To Ruin an Online Contest
So I tried to enter a contest sponsored by a certain mobile phone company and a certain magazine for small businesses. Chance to win a Blackberry and a magazine subscription. Cool.
Except that they have an incredibly inflexible online entry form.
First, it requires that I put something in the apartment/suite number field.
Second, it requires that I enter the postal code in one particular format.
Third, after fixing both of the above, it gives me the error message " Incorrect captcha value entered. Please try again." I'm still scratching my head about that one.
I'm sure their conversion rate has been terrible for this promotion.
Except that they have an incredibly inflexible online entry form.
First, it requires that I put something in the apartment/suite number field.
Second, it requires that I enter the postal code in one particular format.
Third, after fixing both of the above, it gives me the error message " Incorrect captcha value entered. Please try again." I'm still scratching my head about that one.
I'm sure their conversion rate has been terrible for this promotion.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Have our standards been lowered too far?
Why is it now an expectation that something will go wrong?
It's pathetic that most products don't work like they're supposed to. Those that do work only last a couple of years at most. Same things with services -- when was the last time you had a truly great experience from a service provider?
It seems that a great experience with no problems is now the exception to the rule.
I'm falling into Seth Godin-ish territory here, but it's really beginning to bug me: companies, large and small, seem more interested in conning me into buying something than in making that 'something' actually worth buying.
Right now, I'm typing this post on a laptop (a Dell) that turns itself off if it's not on a perfectly flat surface. It's only a couple of years old. It is, in fact, a replacement for another laptop (a Toshiba) that self-destructed within a few months of purchase.
I just spent over half a year waiting for a bathtub (made by Maax) to arrive (from Home Depot) that wasn't either damaged or built to the incorrect specifications.
Sock-making technology has been around for, what, a few hundred years? And yet most socks I buy still have that annoying seam going right across the toes.
I bought a coffee today (at Starbucks) and the lid was simply incapable of attaching securely to the cup.
My cell phone (a Samsung) is actually pretty good, but has a simple and completely-preventable flaw -- I can't add a new contact if they share a phone number with a previous contact, even if all the other contact information is different.
Sure, some of the above are just annoying, but WHY are companies so incapable or unwilling to get better? More importantly, WHY are we, as consumers, settling for this? And WHY are we as marketers not demanding that our companies do things better?
It's pathetic that most products don't work like they're supposed to. Those that do work only last a couple of years at most. Same things with services -- when was the last time you had a truly great experience from a service provider?
It seems that a great experience with no problems is now the exception to the rule.
I'm falling into Seth Godin-ish territory here, but it's really beginning to bug me: companies, large and small, seem more interested in conning me into buying something than in making that 'something' actually worth buying.
Right now, I'm typing this post on a laptop (a Dell) that turns itself off if it's not on a perfectly flat surface. It's only a couple of years old. It is, in fact, a replacement for another laptop (a Toshiba) that self-destructed within a few months of purchase.
I just spent over half a year waiting for a bathtub (made by Maax) to arrive (from Home Depot) that wasn't either damaged or built to the incorrect specifications.
Sock-making technology has been around for, what, a few hundred years? And yet most socks I buy still have that annoying seam going right across the toes.
I bought a coffee today (at Starbucks) and the lid was simply incapable of attaching securely to the cup.
My cell phone (a Samsung) is actually pretty good, but has a simple and completely-preventable flaw -- I can't add a new contact if they share a phone number with a previous contact, even if all the other contact information is different.
Sure, some of the above are just annoying, but WHY are companies so incapable or unwilling to get better? More importantly, WHY are we, as consumers, settling for this? And WHY are we as marketers not demanding that our companies do things better?
Not My Definition
I read a good article in the UK publication Marketing Week this morning.
It discusses some challenges facing the Stella Artois brand in the UK.
There are several interesting points, such as contradictory positioning of the brand as "premium" while selling it with discount offers, and the challenge of dealing with retailers who are unwilling position different brands differently.
But one thing in particular that struck me was this:
It discusses some challenges facing the Stella Artois brand in the UK.
There are several interesting points, such as contradictory positioning of the brand as "premium" while selling it with discount offers, and the challenge of dealing with retailers who are unwilling position different brands differently.
But one thing in particular that struck me was this:
When it was introduced in the UK in the early 1970s, Stella grew slowly. Its real success came in the aspirational 1980s as more pubs in the Whitbread estate began stocking it and people warmed to its premium positioning. But introducing a 5.2% lager into a culture where people were used to knocking back four or five pints of much weaker beer, say 3.4%, appeared to contribute to drunkenness. Stella confused the term “premium” with being high strength. The new breed of “premium” lagers were blamed for creating an army of “lager louts”.
In short, the word "premium" evolved from meaning "worth the higher price" to "gets ya' drunk faster".
This wasn't entirely Stella's doing, but for a category that they essentially created in the UK, they didn't do enough to control its terminology. Of course, there's more to their troubles than language, but this certainly illustrates the importance of perception and definition.
When the concept of "premium" was changing, I wonder if Stella:
a.) Could have fought back with messaging like "Premium means more than just strength" (lots of fun ad ideas could fit that direction)
or
b.) Would have been better off abandoning the term and re-positioning themselves away from other "strong" competitors, creating a new category once again.
In case the link above doesn't work, you can find the full article here:
http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=59494&eid=167&ln=01
This wasn't entirely Stella's doing, but for a category that they essentially created in the UK, they didn't do enough to control its terminology. Of course, there's more to their troubles than language, but this certainly illustrates the importance of perception and definition.
When the concept of "premium" was changing, I wonder if Stella:
a.) Could have fought back with messaging like "Premium means more than just strength" (lots of fun ad ideas could fit that direction)
or
b.) Would have been better off abandoning the term and re-positioning themselves away from other "strong" competitors, creating a new category once again.
In case the link above doesn't work, you can find the full article here:
http://www.marketingweek.co.uk/cgi-bin/item.cgi?id=59494&eid=167&ln=01
Friday, February 1, 2008
Quality: Part 2 Subsection A
A little follow-up: Saw this article about Ford on CNN.com.
Basically, Ford execs are admitting that previous model years of the Taurus weren't very good.
On the plus side, it shows that they're be a bit more transparent and acknowledging their flaws. Hopefully it will lead to better products in the future.
On the other hand, it kinda shows that the whole "Quality is job one" positioning was just something the advertising department came up with and had nothing to do with how their vehicles were designed, made, or distributed.
Basically, Ford execs are admitting that previous model years of the Taurus weren't very good.
On the plus side, it shows that they're be a bit more transparent and acknowledging their flaws. Hopefully it will lead to better products in the future.
On the other hand, it kinda shows that the whole "Quality is job one" positioning was just something the advertising department came up with and had nothing to do with how their vehicles were designed, made, or distributed.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
