Forgotten Problems

I wonder if there's any way for marketers to exploit (I hate that word) those little, almost inconsequential annoyances associated with a product or service.

For example, I just toasted a bagel. According to the bag, it's been pre-sliced.
Unfortunately, the slice only goes about 2/3 through, so I had to cut the rest myself. No big deal, but enough for me to be a little annoyed.

But, by the time I go bagel shopping again, I'll probably have forgotten all about that little problem.

It's too bad, since I'll just end up being annoyed again next time. If a bagel maker were to somehow remind me of the fact and encourage me to try their brand ("Our bagels are properly sliced!") I might become a customer. But, it's such a minor issue that I can't imagine there's any practical way to make this statement. It's hardly worth the effort of printing it on the bag.

Sometimes the Big Picture Doesn't Matter

I'm generally a "big picture" kind of guy. Specific tactics and details can always be adjusted and tweaked, after all, while the overall direction and impression should be consistent, complementary, and cumulative.

Usually:

strategy = big picture.

But sometimes that big picture is just plain misleading or unnecessary.

Take real estate. I've read a few articles lately about how the Canadian real estate market is starting to slow down. Maybe it's not a good time to buy a home or to be in an associated industry. Prices are stalling and might actually drop a bit. The number of listings and sales is decreasing in most markets. And so on and so on.

But...

This doesn't apply everywhere and especially not to every property. Even looking at a specific region the trend doesn't necessarily matter. In fact, it might actually mean the opposite of the obvious conclusions.
If people no longer want to spend a million bucks on a downtown one-bedroom condo, maybe they want to spend that same amount on a five-bedroom house in the suburbs (which is currently priced well below that level).
If a new transportation link, shopping centre, or other amenities are being added to a formerly distant and desolate area, why would demand there decrease?

So, I'm starting to think that a more accurate understanding of "strategy" is actually:

strategy = big picture + the exceptions

By simultaneously looking at the macro and the micro, you can direct your efforts towards the end result that you want but still avoid doing virtually the same thing as everybody else.

Figuring out "the exceptions" is way harder than coming up with a big picture.

You Donut

I want Gordon Ramsay's job.
Not the part where he yells at people in a fake restaurant for a game show.
Not even the part where he runs a bunch of fancy-pants real restaurants.

I want to be able to go into a business and tell them straight-out what they're doing wrong, a la Kitchen Nightmares (the British version that is - the US version is a little too fake for my tastes). I'd probably do a little less yelling and swearing, but I like the concept.

No dancing around the fact that certain employees are incompetent. No pretending that the owner's ideas are good. No being held back by "This is they way we've always done it" thinking.

If anybody wants someone to come into their business and do this, let me know. I'd probably do it for a pretty decent price.

Mad Skillz Yo

I had a good conversation with a couple of ad agency big shots last week. One of the things we discussed was their challenges in finding qualified, local people for a couple of quite technical jobs they're filling. They were quite impressed with the resume of one individual in particular, though, who provided a simple three column chart showing: 1 - his skills, 2 - how long he's been doing each, and 3 - his approximate skill level for each.

This works great for programmers, Web developers, and other roles with very clearly defined skills. "Photoshop, 8 years, advanced. Flash, 5 years, competent..."

But, we said to each other, what about those of us who can't quite quantitatively describe our capabilities? A copywriter can't really say "Heartfelt drama, 7 years, excellent. Ironic quips, 4 years, proficient..."

During the hiring/job-hunting process, this is a challenge on both sides. Employers can't clearly and succinctly define what they need, and the candidates can't simply provide a measurable summary of what they can do. My wife recently showed me a great example of this - a posting for a "Strategy Manager" with virtually no details to say what the heck this even means, let alone how someone could possibly know if they're qualified.

Even beyond employment situations, this really brings home the reliance everyone with "soft" skills must place on their personality (or personal brand, I suppose).

Professionally, who am I?

Please Flag

I like Craigslist. Sure, it's ugly and its lack of fancy features sometimes makes it difficult to find what I want. But it works. Its best feature (aside from being free) is that it has such a large user base.

Not only does this large user base help the site maintain a large volume of content, it also helps keep the site "clean". Anybody using the site can "flag" any ad that they find inappropriate (or want to commend). After sufficient flagging, bad ads are removed.

But this only works if people are actively "flagging" the bad stuff.

Same goes for any social site that's based on consumer-generated content and user control. Facebook is only interesting or useful when people actually post information or make changes to their profiles or expand their network.

But back to Craigslist... I'm really tired of seeing bad ads. In some categories, you see the same ad being reposted over and over and over and over again. In other categories, there is always a huge volume of scams. As I've posted here before, the jobs/careers area is particularly bad ("sales" does not equal "marketing" darnit) for mis-categorized ads.

This tells me that not enough people are flagging. So, please, next time you're on Craigslist flag one or two ads that are"bad" in some way.

Not Right or Wrong, Just Smart

Had an example this morning of the difference between a "professional" businessperson and someone who just runs (or works at) a business.

In a nutshell, we got ripped off -- bought a little coupon book a few weeks ago, went to use a coupon for Sunday brunch today and was told by the restaurant staff that our coupon was a fake.

Now, we don't doubt that the restaurant is being honest. They probably aren't just trying to get out of honouring the coupons.

But, their reaction could have been better.

They said: "Sorry about that. Write down your name and number though, because we're working with the police and we should be able to get you compensation."

They should have said: "Sorry about that. Tell you what, we'll honour the coupon, since it's not your fault that this is a fake. But, we'll have to confiscate the coupon book. Give us your name and number and we'll try to get you reimbursement for the original cost of the book."

Even with the coupon, the restaurant is probably still making a net profit on our purchase. If not, it was at least an effective loss-leader to get us in the door. (If the offer is too rich to honour now, why was it okay earlier, even with the cost of the coupon book?).

Regardless of how the restaurant was impacted by the actions of the third-party that sold the coupons illegitimately, the business has just lost most, if not all, of the positive impression they had made on us until that point.

It doesn't matter who's fault it is; it matters whose customer it is.

Priceless

I have an annoying habit. Okay, many. But I wanted to write about one in particular.

When I'm in a store and can't see any obvious pricing for a product, I'll tend to say "Good, looks like this one's free. Let's take a few."

It's not a rare occurrence.

Okay, maybe some stores purposely don't post their prices (Coast Wholesale Appliances is one example) because they'd rather have you speak with a sales rep who will put together a quote for you.

But what's with all the stores that just seem to be too lazy or stupid to put up a clearly-marked sign or print a few price tags?

No I Didn't

There's a bus bench ad near my house. It just has a simple photo (a stock image of an overly excited person, if I remember correctly) and a line of text with a phone number. It says "You just proved that advertising works!"

Obviously, the logic is that noticing and reading the ad means success.

Sadly, the majority of "marketers" probably think this is true.
To anyone who bothers to think about it, though, it's obviously nonsense.

Using the ad as its own example:
I'm in the marketing field. In fact, buying media is one of the main things that I do. I should be the perfect audience for the ad's message. If it really worked, I should have called the advertiser by now. At the very least, I should have remembered the phone number. Or gained some appreciation for the sophisticated elegance and tactical genius of putting commercial messages on bus benches.
Instead, I think no more positively about it than I did in the past. I'm no more aware of bench advertising than I was before driving past.
That same "You just proved..." message has been there for months, so I can only assume that nobody else has been sufficiently impressed to book that space either.

I won't belabor the point. It's simply that "Awareness is not enough". Even the old Marketing 101 "A.I.D.A." model recognizes this.

Along with the bus bench, I noticed a few other things the last time I drove down that stretch of road: some road kill and an abandoned car in the ditch (unrelated, I assume) come to mind. Did I "...just prove that roadkill and stalled cars work!" too?

Government Forms

Why do governments and "official" bodies have to make their paperwork so painful?
I understand that legal requirements need to be met, but can't a significant portion of the big words and explanations associated with those be put into an appendix or something?

Why not use plain English?

Why not simply give instructions that say, essentially:
A. Do this...
B. Then do this...
C. Then put this here...
D. And finish up with this...

Why not hire a designer to clarify big documents, adding some colour or shading or boxes or other elements to help make things clear?

Why not do a review of a user's "flow" through the process and try to clean up the usability?

It certainly doesn't seem like they've done anything like this.
(If they have, the people doing it need to be fired immediately).

Maybe the government doesn't care too much, since they don't see us as "customers". We have no choice but to go through them, so why bother putting effort into making the experience somewhat comfortable?

It seems obvious, though, that there must be an enormous number of avoidable errors in the various documents and forms that they process. Plus, aren't they human beings (okay, maybe not the politicians or some of the drones working in the offices, but at least a few people there must be decent) and have some basic desire to simply not be hated? So, on both a practical (cost and effort-saving) and emotional (being friendly and helpful) level, every organization could benefit from just being a bit more clear and usable.

Why Am I Writing So Much More Frequently?

By the way, if you're one of the handful of people who visit this blog frequently you've probably thought to yourself "Wow, he's actually updating this thing fairly often lately."

I'm hoping this will become a habit.

Coincidentally, I had a couple of pieces of related encouragement lately.

First, my lovely wife has encouraged me to write more. She actually thinks my posts are pretty good (but she's supposed to think that - it's part of her job to be supportive). She also pointed out that it's good for me professionally and helps others to understand a bit more about what (and how) I think.

Second, and on a very similar note, I saw this post on Seth Godin's blog. Essentially, he's pointing out how slowly, over time, lots of little bits of information can have a cumulative effect.

First and Last Notes

One day, I'll get around to chronicling the ridiculous customer experience situation I went through when buying a new jetted bathtub for our house.

For now, let me summarize by saying that it took over six months before I actually received the correct product in working order and was able to install it.

In the end, blame for the various problems fell on both the tub manufacturer and the retailer I bought it from. Problems included the "local" warranty repair person being located about three hours away, the wrong products being either ordered or shipped (I'm still not sure which was the case) several times, product arriving in broken condition, and slow responses from the companies involved, and an and on.

Finally, though, the right thing was delivered in proper condition. Obviously, we weren't too happy about the delays and problems. Because of the various issues we were out of pocket for related materials that we could no longer use, we were without the use of a bathroom for months, we lost a lot of storage space holding other construction materials for the room, and we spent countless hours on the phone, traveling too and from the store, waiting for delivery people, etc.

Anyways, before I end up writing the whole tale, here's my point: I still like the retailer, but I will never buy from the manufacturer again.

I think I'd be justified in disliking both parties equally. But, the difference came down to treating me properly and fairly.

The retailer was always responsive (if a bit slow) to our concerns. In the end, they compensated us financially for the problems. They didn't hesitate to try to make things write. They spent I-don't-know-how-much on deliveries (which they normally charge for), picking up broken tubs, and other extra expenditures.

The manufacturer, on the other hand, hasn't even bothered to contact me to apologize or check that everything worked out alright. Now, normally I wouldn't expect them to do anything-- the retailer is the intermediary after all. But in this case:
a.) The product comes with a very clear message in the instructions to contact the manufacturer directly if there are any problems.
and
b.) The small amount of contact I did have with the manufacturer and their representatives early on in the process was poor.

Back in elementary school, our music teacher would drill into us the importance of hitting the first and last notes of a song perfectly, because that's what the audience will remember most.

Same thing goes here. I remember the manufacturer bumbling early on, and I remember the retailer helping us out at the end. And its meant the difference between keeping or losing me (and anyone I tell about this) as a valuable customer -- the only difference that really matters in marketing.

By Any Other Name

Earth Day is coming up.

I've been thinking about the environment as a "brand", and the various problems it faces as "products" under that brand name.

Global warming seems to be the "in" problem these days. For a while, acid rain was the thing to be worried about. The ozone layer was a big deal for a while. Deforestation occasionally creeps back into popularity.

Now, I'm not one of those stubborn people who refuse to believe that the environment is at serious risk. But I can sometimes see how those people keep the blinders on since it seems like global warming is just the latest of many environmental fads. Plus, there's so much (apparently) conflicting information out there. It's quite common, for example, to see stories of bizarre weather that seem to contradict the idea that the climate is getting, well, warmer. "Ski resorts have longest season ever", "Record low temperatures in Eastern Canada", and so on. Inevitably, somebody rolls their eyes in response to these stories and says "Yup, that global warming sure is a problem," with sarcasm practically dripping off their lips.

Part of the problem is obviously education ("climate" is not the same as "weather", patterns are much more complex than "warm = less snow", etc.).

But I think a major issue is very very simple: We need to stop calling it "global warming" and refer to the problem by the much more accurate (but, perhaps, less-sexy) brand name of "climate change". Lots of people already do, of course, but it needs to be the standard term.

Unintentional Copycats

Is it mere coincidence when multiple brands use very similar imagery, jokes, music, or other elements to promote their products and services?

Probably.

In one 24 hour period last week, I noticed both Mini (launching their new minivan thingee) and Koodo Mobile (launching their mobility service) using a cheesy 70s/80s style workout motif.

This seems to happen fairly often, but I wonder how frequently we (as consumers) don't see this sort of thing. I imagine there are lots of cases where an advertiser sees somebody else using "their" upcoming imagery, music, etc. in another company's campaign and has to immediately pull the plug on their own work to avoid looking like copycats.

It's avoidable in some cases. When reality TV first took off, every second brand seemed to be using a Survivor or Big Brother or Who Wants To Be... motif in their marketing. Same thing when rap became commercially successful -- almost every ad targeting kids and young adults used a (badly written) rap.

That's just laziness. It's one thing to try to associate with a trend. It's something else to cookie-cutter something obvious.

The Mini and Koodo example seems like one of those rare cases where the agency wasn't trying to cash in on a specific fad, but coincidentally decided on a similar theme -- probably for very different reasons.

And then there's the other end of the spectrum... Don't get me started on how almost every car brand simultaneously decided to offer "Employee Family Pricing". Yeesh.

You're Not Japanese Just Because You Own a Toyota

Following up on some of the thinking in a previous post...

Social media is the sexy, "in" thing for marketing these days.
But far too many brands seem to think that simply having a Facebook profile, a MySpace page, a blog, an RSS feed, or even hosting a Wiki or forum equates to "doing" social media.

In order for it to truly work, and to be truly social, you have to honestly think of it as a community. A Facebook application is only social if people are actively using it and sharing it with others AND it inherently helps them communicate or share.
A Wiki is only social if the company is fairly hands-off and trusts other users to edit it appropriately.
A MySpace page is only social if it becomes a gathering place or a connector for likeminded (and not-so-likeminded) people.

Until your brand is regularly acting like a participant in the social media space, on par with every other user, you're still just sponsoring a marketing channel.

I like analogies...
If you move to another country, you're just a tourist. Even if you own all the gadgets and "stuff" that a local might own, you're still just visiting.

But, if you truly want to be a member of the community, you need to become friends with some locals, go where the locals go, speak the language (at least a little), eat locally-produced food, and actually understand your neighbours' beliefs, habits, styles, actions... You can still keep your own personality and approach to things, but you need to be honestly immersed in the culture, not just know about it.