We don’t care about brand loyalty

No one takes the time to pause and reflect if they are loyal enough to you or your product. No one. Period. I’m sorry if this is news to you.

Consumers (myself included) are too selfish. What we do care about is our own desires. Our expectations. A way to fix our problems. That is what we think about.

We are loyal to our own stuff on the inside and sometimes we look for stuff on the outside that we think may help. But that is as far as it goes. Brand loyalty is dead (or better said, it never existed).

[And if you’re wondering, yes, we do think in Sans font.]

Happy Thursday all!

Festivus on Marketing (Part 3): Feats of Strength

This is Part 3 of a small series called Festivus on Marketing (ending tomorrow of course!). You can read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.

A couple of days ago we talked about the Festivus ritual of “Airing of Grievances.” Today we’ll talk about another ritual called “Feats of Strength.” Festivus tradition states that Festivus is not over until the head of the household is pinned in some sort of a wrestling match. As Frank Costanza is undoubtedly v-e-r-y strong, the almost insurmountable feat of pinning him must have taken a great deal of strength, courage and stamina.

But in business it’s great to know that in order to win the hearts of your customers, it usually takes a far less grandiose deed. Instead, it’s usually some small acts of humanness that we remember.

Zappos surprised someone who lost a loved one with flowers. DoubleTree delights arriving hotels guests with freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Southwest Airlines spreads fun and humanness with their standup flight instruction that resemble comedy routines.

Surprise. Delight. Humanness. Repeat. Try it out – it really works!

By the way, a B-I-G thanks goes out to the refrigerator repairmen who not only fixed our refrigerator but also went out of their way to fix our garage door that had just broke. Pure awesomeness.

Have a very Merry Festivus Eve everyone!

[Photo Credit: M-J Milloy]

Why you need a bouncer

If you go to an exclusive club, inevitably you’ll encounter a bouncer trying to keep out the riff raff. They don’t let everyone in and that’s the whole point. A bouncer’s entire job is to create scarcity.

Bouncers are good. They are the gate keepers of the unique experience. We all need bouncers.

Why?

Because you can’t be everything to everyone. No bouncer means “enter the ordinary” (ever see a bouncer at an Olive Garden?). You have to decide who’s on your A-list and gets their hand stamped to come and go as they please. But maybe even more importantly, you must decide who’s not worthy to enter your club.

What is your bouncer? Does your bouncer have strict standards or does he sometimes slip and take the occasional bribe and let in someone he shouldn’t? Is your bouncer “beefy” enough (yuck, did I just say beefy?!)?

Happy Monday!

(Photo credit, sol proprietor)

3 things to truly change your business

We hear it all the time – “You’ve got to be different to make it in today’s business world.”

In other words….

Be a Zagging, Purple Cow in a Blue Ocean (a gold star on your forehead if you understand that phrase).

“BUT HOW?”, lament many frustrated companies. It seems like you make a product and BAM! 3.2 seconds later someone else has a similar product or service only cheaper. You open a store and while on your lunch break your competition has moved just down the block. I’ve found it tough (impossible?) to compete on the old 4 marketing P’s of Product, Place, Price and Promotion.

Okay, so maybe the 4 marketing P’s aren’t dead exactly, but they do seem so one-dimensional and base.

So what can we compete on?

I propose the much more dynamic and hard to copy 3 P’s – Passion, People and Promises.

• Passion. Thinking beyond 9 to 5. Daring to dream beyond this quarter’s profits. Inspiring beyond the walls of your store.
• People. Not pogs, but people. Real people with real hopes, desires, passions (see above) and fears are everywhere inside and outside your organization. Open your eyes and connect (I mean really connect) with people. See their potential and help them expand their vision.
• Promises. Make promises and keep them. Do more than what is merely expected. Dare to be bold, dare to do what no other has done.

Sadly, most companies stop after the traditional 4 P’s. Many don’t cross the great chasm carefully crafted by the few great companies that use Passion, People and Promises to their ultimate advantage and differentiation. It’s the difference between Southwest Airlines and Delta, between Build-A-Bear and Toys-R-Us and Cold Stone and Baskin Robbins.

Make it happen for your company this Monday morning.

Sequins and soul

Sequins are important to us (and no, I’m not talking about the clothes that Richard Simmons wears). They are the flash, the shiny things that catch our eye – a cool direct mail piece, a sleek and metallic colored stereo system (mostly men fall for this one) or a great sale.

But there are limits to what sequins can do (and sadly, many marketers have tried to stretch sequins way beyond their intended purpose). The great looking stereo system loses its luster if it breaks after only a few months. The direct mail campaign seems less creative if the product behind the glossy mailer is nothing but a scam. Sequins can never make up for a bad product. The market is too smart, too agile and too connected to fool most of us most of the time.

When we do fall for stretched sequins, we don’t simply put it behind us and move on. We make a mental note (and the Internet usually keeps a permanent record) of those that try to stretch sequins beyond their intention. So when we dig deeper into what you offer and all we find is a man behind a curtain out to trick us, we don’t soon forget. We feel cheated and we are much less likely to fall for your sequins again.

So the next time you are building something out of sequins for the market, make sure that it has plenty of soul to back it up.

Lame advice: Build brand loyalty

Lame advice: Build loyalty to your brand.

Not exactly. I may commit heresy as a brand/marketing guy, but here goes nothing. People are not loyal to brands. Before you threaten to take away my first born and pour lemon juice in my eyes (ouch!), please hear me out.

A brand is nothing more than a perceived expectation in an exchange of value. In other words, if you give me something that you value (your time or your money), than you expect something of value in return from me. The stronger the brand is, the greater the expectation that you have. But this expectation of yours goes much deeper than just my products or services.

You see, a brand is not just what you expect from my company; more importantly it is what you expect of yourself by choosing my brand. If you have an iPod, you expect to be (and probably see yourself as) a stylish person. If you buy a safe Volvo car, you expect to be a safe person. If you buy high-class jewelry from Tiffany & Co., you expect to be a high-class person. In other words, you expect to be what you expect of the brand.

But let’s say that Tiffany & Co. went out of business tomorrow. Since you could no longer buy their high-class jewelry, would you stop seeing yourself as a high-class person? Probably not. You’d simply fulfill your need to be a high-class person someplace else. And I’m not just talking about other jewelry stores. Even if every piece of jewelry ceased to exist in a blink of an eye (sorry Mr. T!), you would still seek out something that gives you the sense of high-class.

So you’re not really loyal to the brand, but to the underlining, emotional benefit. A brand is simply the best perceived conduit (at the moment) to the expectation you seek. So stop worrying about brand loyalty and start thinking about the best way your brand can help consumers get what they are truly after.

What are your thoughts?

Happy Monday!

Are you compensating?

No amount of success to your bottom line can compensate for failure of your trust.

Seinfeld on Marketing: Being Jay Leno’s chin

In this episode of Seinfeld on Marketing, Jerry and Elaine are discussing why no one is visiting the newly opened “Dream Café” across from Jerry’s apartment:

JERRY: He’s serving Mexican, Italian, Chinese. He’s all over the place. That’s why no one is going in.

ELAINE: Why do you keep watching?

JERRY: I don’t know. I’m obsessed with it. It’s like a spider in the toilet struggling for survival. And even if you know it’s not going to make it, you kind of root for it for a while.

ELAINE: And then you flush.

JERRY: Well, it’s a spider.

Later on in this episode Babu Bhatt (the restaurant owner) calls Jerry a “very bad man.” In reality, it is Babu who is a very bad marketer. Switching from Mexican to Italian to Chinese will only confuse would be loyal diners.

Instead, think of the role of marketing as making it very easy for your customers to describe your company to a sketch artist. If they cannot easily describe what you do, you can kiss Word of Mouth and any remarkableness goodbye. Imagine this scene where someone is have to describe your business:

“They sell stuff that isn’t expensive but it isn’t cheap either. They run ads saying they ‘care about my business’, but their employees act as if I am bothering them if I ask a simple question. Their building is mostly clean and their products are dutifully displayed, but nothing really ever catches me eye.”

If the above describes your company, you’ll never get caught and accused of being remarkable. What you need is something that stands out.

Dr. Richard Kimble caught his wife’s killer because he was looking for the one-armed man. Dizzy Gillespie’s cheeks made him instantly recognizable. And Jay Leno’s chin has done well for himself. All of these characteristics are simple to explain and very unique.

When it comes to marketing, be Jay Leno’s chin and stick stand out.

This post is part of a weekly series, Seinfeld on Marketing.

2 ways to over deliver on your promises

Over delivering on your promises to your customers can be a very powerful thing. As I see it, there are two ways to over deliver:

1. Exceed current expectations. The near billion dollar online shoe retailer Zappos.com usually surprises customers by upgrading it’s free, four-day shipping to next-day shipping. Free, four day shipping ain’t bad. But Zappos goes out of it’s way to exceed expectations and delight it’s customers.
2. Lower current expectations. My ISP seems to have a perpetual problem. According to their automated phone system, they have been experiencing an “usually high volume of calls” for some time now. When you finally talk with someone after 15 minutes of waiting, you feel lucky. Their opportunity to over deliver comes by lowering current expectations and rising up to meet mediocrity.

It’s your choice, but if I were you I’d stick with the first option.

Happy Thursday!

Seinfeld on Marketing: A call for quality

And we’re back (sorry for the delay in posts). In this episode of Seinfeld on Marketing, George bought a new (used) car:

JERRY: Hey! Did you get the Volvo?

GEORGE: No, I decided to go with an ’89 LeBaron.

ELAINE: A LeBaron?

JERRY: I thought Consumer said Volvo was the car.

GEORGE: What Consumer? I’m the consumer.

JERRY: Alright. Seems like…a strange choice.

GEORGE: Well, maybe so…but it was good enough for Mr. Jon Voight.

ELAINE: Jon Voight? The actor?

GEORGE (Boasting): That’s right. He just happened to be the previous owner of the vehicle.

JERRY: You bought a car because it belonged to Jon Voight?

GEORGE (Defensive): No, no…

JERRY: I think yes, yes. You like the idea of telling people you’re driving Jon Voight’s car.

GEORGE: Alright, maybe I do. So what.

Okay, so maybe George only bought his Chrysler because he thought someone famous previously owned it and not for the “cool factor” of the LeBaron. But Chrysler is trying to change this.

Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli (of Home Depot fame), is now mandating Chrysler’s 300 top executives call one recent purchaser each day to ask them if they are having any problems and to resolve any issues.

I love the idea of calling your customers and talking to them (how novel!) I am, however, concerned with one quote in the article. Doug Betts, Chrysler’s Vice President and Chief Customer Officer was quoted as saying, “the No. 1 influence in buying a car isn’t having Consumer Reports recommend it, it’s having a friend or family member recommend the car because they had a good experience with it.”

My problem is not with this statement (I believe it to be true). But I’m worried that Chrysler will confuse having “no problems” with your car and increasing your likelihood to talk to your friends about your new Chrysler.

A pop quiz: Quick, tell me what you had for dinner last Tuesday night? Odds are you can’t remember but I’m sure it was something that satisfied your hunger.

Chrysler’s current process only follow this same satisfaction model:

But is that really enough?

If I were to ask you about the last meal that you craved, I bet you could tell me every detail down to the last tender morsel of the pork loin or the rich and creamy sauce over your asparagus.

Chrysler should have it:

Question: Are you making something people crave or are you simply satisfying their hunger?

Happy Friday everyone!

[Side note: Can you believe that this week is the 10th anniversary of the last episode of Seinfeld (May 14th, 1998)?]

This post is part of a weekly series, Seinfeld on Marketing.