The Quisenblog

Last Friday, the last Chrysler PT Cruiser rolled off the assembly line. The iconic vehicle with its love-it-or-hate-it “post retro” looks bit the dust after a tumultuous ten year run. That an automobile model has a pillow held over its face is not news. Automakers phase out models all the time.What is news, to marketers anyway, is how this car, which sold 145,000 vehicles its first year and had months-long waiting lists at many dealers, was killed off while dealers are saddled with a bloated inventory of this year’s model.

In other words, marketing malpractice at its worst.

Like most cases of mismarketing, this one started out with success. Chrysler succeeded admirably at creating buzz for the PT even before its launch in 2001. Described as a cross between a 1930’s sedan and a vintage milk truck, it was the darling of car shows. Pre-orders were strong. Anticipation of the model drove scores of the curious (most of them non-Chrysler types) to dealer showrooms. Early adopters paid well over invoice for the PT of their choice. Fan clubs were formed. Rallies were organized. Aftermarket pimping commenced. It was also the first of the “post retro” crop of vehicles, which has grown to include the Ford Mustang, the Dodge Challenger and the Chevrolet Camaro and HHR.

The Cruiser also proved to be a demographic-buster, appealing to everyone from retirees to customizers to first-time car buyers looking for something spacious, inexpensive and yes, head-turning. (In the spirit of disclosure, I must inform you I purchase a 2002 model, which I still drive today.)

It didn’t take long for Chrysler to squander its success. Here are a few of the marketing sins commited by the automaker on behalf of the Cruiser:

• It failed to reinvest in the brand. We’ve written before about the necessity for marketers to continually add value to their offerings (click here for post). If you see a PT coming down the street, you’d be hard pressed to tell if it was a 2001 model, a 2007 model or a 2010 model. Version 2.0 never arrived. Initial owners loved their Cruisers. But when it came time to trade them in, I suspect very few bought another one. Why buy the same car twice? As an example of an automaker who has done it right, check out the 2010 Honda Civic compared to the 2001.
• It failed to understand its user base. The downside of having a product that appeals to many demographics is that it is easy to lose site of your “sweet spot.” While you never want to turn away buyers, you definitely want to cater to your bread and butter. And Chrysler could never decide who its core market was. Was it the young urban family looking for economical transportation? The boomer who was swept up in the nostalgic looks? The soccer mom who wouldn’t be caught dead in a minivan?
• It allowed the model to become too ubiquitous. This is a tough one. The idea, after all is to sell more units, right? Well, actually the idea is to make more profits, and there are a lot of ways to go on that. The initial demand for the PT should have signaled Chrysler that it had a powerful niche model on it hands, but that’s all it would be. It was too polarizing to become the automaker’s flagship vehicle. By limiting production of the PT, Chrysler could have justified a premium price, which would played into the “individualism” the model inspired. And by upgrading the model (or adding variations: a panel truck, a woody station wagon, a top-less roadster, a club coupe?) Chrysler could continue to appeal to that crowd. Make the product’s Brand Vision “Head Turner.”

A former client of mine who was in the auto business once shared with me his early indicator of when a model was in trouble. “When you see rental car lots full of them, then you know the end is near,” he said. That was certainly true of the PT.

But perhaps the biggest marketing sin committed on behalf of the PT was to take a product that inspired passion, loyalty and camaraderie and allow it to suffer a Saturn-like fate.

Good luck, Fiat. Your work’s cut out for you.

Posted by Mickey

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

admin Creative, On Clients, On Customers, Ramblings brand vision, Chrysler, marketing malpractice, mismarketing, PT Cruiser

General Motors, I really don’t mean to pick on you. Really I don’t. I know, I know. I was kinda harsh on your new Buick work, but really, I’m on your side. And I think some of your recent moves have been brilliant (case in point: bringing Joel Ewanick on board as Head of Marketing).

But then, weeks like this past one happen, and we’re all sort of left scratching our heads and lamenting “same old GM?”

First, let’s talk about the Memo. You know the one. The internal memo sent to employees that forbid the internal use of the “Chevy” name (the idea was to  forego the less formal “Chevy” for the formal brand moniker “Chevrolet” in an effort to develop a consistent brand name as the company broadens its global presence.).

Besides being a monumentally dumb idea, it shows a total ignorance about who really owns your brand (hint: it’s not you). The Chevy nickname has been around since cars had four wheels. It’s how consumers refer to their cars and trucks. It is a term of endearment, a creation of the customer. It’s a pop culture icon, showing up in movies, TV and songs (“Drove my Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry…”). It made the brand famous. And you suggest (even just internally) walking away from that? No donut for you!

Thank you, though, for having the good sense to back off that memo a few days later.

Now let’s talk tag lines. Specifically, the “May the best car win” line. When you first introduced it, I loved it. It was just what GM needed—a bold, non-compromising line that was intended to draw a line in the sand, to get stakeholders to line up in support of it. It is going on the record for standing for quality and value and being willing to fall on the sword for it. And them, unfortunately, this week you had to recall 1.4 million new units. Oops. Suddenly, visions of the Vega and the Chevette rush through our minds.

As unkind as this week was, however, neither of these marketing faux pas by themselves should prove to be debilitating. New Coke, they aren’t. But they do serve as a warning to be transparent and to serve as the customer’s advocate.

Here’s hoping you have a better week this time around.

Posted by Mickey

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Mickey Creative, On Clients, Ramblings auto recall, Chevrolet, Chevy, Joel Ewanick

We’ve all seen TV spots that really get our attention, make us laugh and inspire us to want to share them with others. But then, two seconds after they’ve ended, we can’t remember who they were for. Was the spot run on behalf of Ford or Mitsubishi? Taco Bell or McDonald’s? Miller or Bud?

Marketing purists have used examples such as this to poo-poo the benefits of creative advertising. “What good is over-the-top creativity if no one remembers who the advertiser is,” they say.

Now, however, we’re finding that even when subjects can’t recall the communication on a literal level, they retain much more information subliminally.

Recent research conducted by Melanie Dempsey (Ryerson University) and Andrew A. Mitchell (University of Toronto) proved that advertising messaging actually engages subjects on several different levels. There is the literal, linear level (“what does the communication say?”), which is what most recall testing measures. Beyond that, however, Dempsey and Mitchell mapped out how most of what is communicated via advertising messages is subconscious. The “language” of these subconscious communications is much more primal, primarily emotions, feelings and stimulating visuals.

That would explain why the consumer may remember a spot but not the advertiser the day after seeing it, yet follows through on purchasing the product at a later date for reasons unknown. Dempsey and Mitchell dubbed this effect the “I-like-it-but-I-don’t-know-why” effect.

In short, it’s more about how the consumer feels about the brand than what he knows about it.
To further test the potency of these unconscious brand preferences, Dempsey and Mitchell carried out a second experiment in which the subjects were presented with factual product information that cast their product preferences in a negative light. Despite this, the subjects continued to chose the products they “knew” to be inferior, but for which they had received positive branding associations. In other words, it is the feelings one has about a brand that contributes to brand loyalty.

You can read more about Dempsey and Mitchell’s study here.

The lesson to take away from Dempsey and Mitchell’s work is to recognize that Top Of Mind Recall is just the tip of the communications ice berg. If that is all we’re interesting in measuring, we’ll be short-changing ourselves. What’s most important is what’s subconsciously communicated under the radar.

Posted by Mickey

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

admin Creative, Media, On Customers, Ramblings subconscious, subliminal advertising, top of mind

In case you haven’t noticed, the era of “telling” has ended. The era of “trying” is upon us.

“Selling by Telling” is how we in advertising and marketing communications have made our livings since the days of Marconi. We told people why our products were just what they were looking for. How their whites would be whiter, their floors would be shinier and their hair more manageable. We skillfully created an itch with the consumer that could be salved with our product. We totally controlled all aspects of the messaging. The customer role in this process was to listen. She only heard what we wanted her to hear.

Time to wave those days bye-bye. Today, we’re not the only source of information for our customers. They’re hearing about us from their friends. From their peers. From media sources. From bloggers. From message boards. From third-party review sites.

No matter how you try to spin it, the information control we used to enjoy has gone the way of the 14.4 modem. What it comes down to for consumers is, who can I trust when making purchase decisions? In an era of perpetual spin, of misleading and manipulative messaging, of being misled and mistreated by marketers, who can blame them for not accepting as gospel everything we say?

I’m convinced that today, the best way to sell to a consumer is to allow them to sell to themselves. Instead of relying on puffery and unsubstantiated claims to win over consumers, let them discover what our product can deliver on their own. Enable communication between peers. Monitor customer reviews. Make information on your products easily available.

This changes the way we would approach marketing communications. Instead of relying on a check list of copy points, we would start with a core platform of a single, understandable believable promise, and a shared set of values. Less argument, more promise.

It also assumes that communication alone is not going to “complete the sale.” To allow someone to sell herself she needs to try our product. We need to do whatever it takes to get it into her hands and let her discover for herself that the promise we are making is true. Old-school tools like coupons, trial sizes, in-store demos and free trial periods take on a more prominent role in the marketing process. Instead of giving us a short-term competitive advantage, those things actually are critical in moving customers up the decision ladder.

Research over the past year (from Nielson and others) shows that coupon redemption is at record highs among consumers of all demos. While one can chalk this up to the stuttering economy, he must also be open to the idea that consumer behavior has made a permanent change to where “trial” has become amplified in the purchase decision process.

As part of your long-term marketing strategy, it makes sense to include initiatives that will allow consumers to use product trial as a way of selling themselves.

Posted by Mickey

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Mickey Creative, New Media, On Clients, On Customers, Ramblings

Hey, who couldn’t. We’re talking just five measly percent here.

You should be able to achieve that kind of improvement without having to break much of a sweat. You could probably get there without revamping systems, adding new platforms or hiring more bodies, right?

But imagine the impact that extra 5% could have on your brand. If your perceived quality went up 5%. If awareness, interest and preference of your brand went up 5%. If 5% more people recalled your TV spots or clicked through on your banner ads. If 5% more customers recommended you to others, or contributed to your Facebook page.

The question of course is, how do you get 5% better?

This is where it is important to be in synch with your customer. To know what compels her to do business with you. What do you give her that is better than anyone else, that keeps her coming back?

Find out why your most loyal customers like you, then improve that element 5%. If they think you have the friendliest staff, look into initiatives that could make them 5% more helpful. If they think you have the best selection, try adding 5% more SKUs. If they buy you because of your reliability, up it by 5%, perhaps by including a no-questions-asked return policy or a longer warranty period. If they buy you because you’re cheaper, investigate how you could trim prices by another 5%, or at least add 5% more perceived value. If they like your advertising, kick it up a notch and challenge your agency to up the engagement by 5%. You get the idea.

Inevitably, the success of your brand will coincides with its perceived usefulness to customers. Make your products and services demonstrably more useful to customers, and you’re golden.

And it all starts with 5%.

Posted by Mickey

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Mickey Creative, On Clients, On Customers, Ramblings 5 percent, awareness, brand image, customer service, five percent, interest, preference

Chances are if you sat through an agency creative presentation back in the days BSM (Before Social Media), you probably heard your fill of the importance of “breaking through the clutter.” The idea being that because the consumer is exposed to as many as 4,000 marketing messages (primarily via mass media)  per day, we need to create something amazing that is going to be among the 12 or so he will remember the next day.

Funny how you don’t really hear much anymore about “breaking through the clutter.” Today, we preach the gospel of “going viral.” No longer is the high-bar creating content our audience sees, remembers and likes, but creating something that folks actually pass on to their own personal networks.

So how do we approach the creative challenge when our goal is to not only have our audience remember our messages, but spread them as well?

My take is that not much has changed. The messages that we lauded as “breaking through the clutter” have way more in common with today’s “viral campaigns” than you might think. In both cases, successful messages can be described as being both “sticky” and “slippery.” The “sticky” part is pretty straight forward—it means there is an idea or concept that captured the audience’s imagination and helped them remember the message. It made an impression with them, got them involved in the message.

The “slippery” part is a little trickier to understand. It relates to the ease at which that idea is spread to others. It’s easy to describe (or pass on) to someone else.

“Hey, did you see the E-Trade spot with the talking baby?” “What do you think of that Old Spice spot with the guy on the horse?” “How about the FedEx spot where the company tried to save money with Nordic Tuesdays?” (see below) These conversations are viral. They’re an opportunity to share something you like with others. Conversations like this are nothing new.

What is new are the tools of Social Media. You don’t have to meet at the water cooler or wait for some sort of invitation to join a conversation. You can simple post it on your Facebook wall, for all your friends to see.  You can even link the spot as part of the conversation. And everytime one of them reacts to it, that messages gets even more slippery.

Content that is both “sticky and slippery.” This is where your emphasis should be. These are the filters you should use when creating or evaluating content.

My advice is, don’t get so hung up on the tools you’re relying on to spread the message. Get hung up on the message itself.

Posted by Mickey

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Mickey Creative, New Media, Social Media content, e-trade, FedEx, old spice, slippery, sticky, strategy, viral video

Ever since the first time was uttered the phrase “new and improved,” marketers have been all over the idea of adding value.

Software companies release upgraded versions. Smart phones add more capabilities. Packaged good manufacturers continually tout new flavors/colors/sizes. Your cable or satellite provider adds new networks, HD channels and On Demand options at a blistering pace. In other words, we’ve come to view product development as something that’s never finished.

The pressure to add value has intensified in light of expanded competition, not only within your immediate category but in related categories that also compete for consumer resources. (Example: an entertainment venue not only competes with other entertainment venues, it also competes with anything that vies for a consumer’s discretionary time).

“Adding value” has become ubiquitous, and is something that is pretty much expected in commerce today. If you just released Version 2.0, Version 2.1 better not be far behind.

But the question is, how many of these “improvements”  actually enhance a customer’s experience with the product or service, and how many are simply “change for change sake?”

“Adding value” is best defined as “engineering more into your product or service to help you customer have a better experience while using it.”

The benefits of adding true user value are many, including building a reputation for innovation, enhancing customer loyalty, giving customers a reason to upgrade, and in many cases, justifying a price increase. It is important to note, however, that to qualify as “added value,” enhancements and additions must be seen as being “of use” to the customer. Arbitrarily adding functionality that doesn’t improve a customer’s experience might justify the “new and improved” snipe on your packaging, but will likely garner a collective “meh” from your customers.

What’s really needed then, is a filter. And quite simply, nothing is better than “Does this improvement add to an improved experience by the user?”

One industry that has done a great job at adding value has been the auto industry. Take a look at what your new car dollar bought back in, say 1959, as opposed to today. In ’59 you could buy a new Chevrolet Bel-Air for around $2,600 ($19,500 in today’s dollars). While it bought you some nifty styling and tail fins to die for, it also bought you a car with no airbags, no restraint systems, no anti-lock brakes, no air conditioning, no 100,000 mile warranty, and no radio (those were extra). For roughly that same money today, you can get a new Chevy Malibu with all those features, plus gas mileage that’s more than doubled, improved performance and a lifespan three times the 50-60,000 miles of the ’59.

To visually demonstrate this, we present this video produced by the National Highway Safety Administration showing the effects of a head-on collision between the 1959 Chevy Bel-Air and the 2009 Chevy Malibu.

In fairness to the ’59 however, it did boast a boat load of chrome.

Posted by Mickey

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Mickey Creative, On Clients, On Customers 1959 Chevy, added value, crash test, true value

It is said that when European discoverers first came to the New World some five centuries ago, the natives they encountered literally could not see the explorers’ large-masted ships, even though they were moored no more than a hundred yards or so off shore. How could this possibly be? How do you “miss” a 60-foot ship the likes of which you’ve never seen before?

Well, the thinking goes that to the natives, their world ended at the shoreline. It was simply not possible for anything to exist beyond the water’s edge. To them, these men magically appeared out of nowhere. Even the wisest among them could not see beyond this paradigm.

Now consider how leading business people every day fail to see the “boats” right in front of them. How many times must an organization get blind-sided by new competition simply because it is unable to see beyond its own “shoreline?”

Take Sony as an example. How did the company not beat Apple to the iPod? And IBM. How were the company’s PCs made irrelevant by a 20-year-old college student building computers in his dorm room? There are plenty more examples. How did Xerox totally miss out on the desktop publishing phenomenon? How did Polaroid, the company that invented instant photography, somehow end up AWOL in the development of digital photography?

In short, how did these companies, with resources, market share and intelligence the newcomers could only dream of, get beaten at their own game? I would submit that they were unable to see beyond their “water’s edge.” They accepted as gospel the prevailing paradigm, and saw it as static, as something that would never change. After all, all these companies had an unprecedented share of the market. Why monkey with success?

To these organizations, the term “innovation” gets defined as finding ways to make your product or service incrementally better. Innovation with a “little i.” Add a few more bells and whistles. Find ways to cut production costs. Release it in some hot new color. Cut R&D, because we already have a product people love. What you end up with is a Walkman that plays both sides of the tape.

History show us settling for incremental improvements is rarely the road to long-term prosperity.

So how do you keep from “pulling a Sony?” Think Innovation with a “Big I.” For starters, develop a flanking strategy. Dedicate a meaningful budget to explore “what might be.” Treat this as “couch cushion money,” not accountable to any ROI analysis. Assign your best big-picture thinkers. Talk to customers, not just about how they like your product today, but what they expect in the future. Look at emerging technologies and trends, and ask how these can be harnessed to improve future offerings.

Above all, it helps to believe the world might not end at the shoreline, as we’ve been taught all these years.

And continually ask yourself, what boats are you not seeing?

Posted by Mickey

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Mickey Creative, On Clients, Ramblings big i, boats, explorers, IBM, innovation, Sony, Xerox

Some years ago, a fashionable boutique hotel on Manhattan’s Upper East Side was having a serious problem. Guest complaints were on the rise, and most of them centered on one particular aspect of the hotel: its elevator. In a word, it was too slow. Guests could swear they felt themselves aging as they waited for what seemed like eternity for the elevator to show up. Some became so discouraged, they reluctantly gave up staying at the quaint hotel.

Hotel management knew it had to do something. Experts were consulted–engineers, architects, contractors. These experts were universal in their recommendation: add a second elevator. This undertaking was not going to be cheap—it was anticipated to cost around $1 million as well as cost the hotel the permanent use of five guest rooms to accommodate the infrastructure of the new elevator. And it wasn’t going to be quick—construction was estimated to take upward of four months.

Management felt as though it had no choice. It needed to address the concerns of its clientele, even if it meant absorbing this huge expense and subjecting guests to the inconvenience of hotel construction. A few weeks before work was scheduled to begin, the hotel manager confided his dilemma to a long-time guest who happened to be an inventor. After the manager finished his story, the guest, who was quite familiar with the hotel and its clientele, said he could solve the hotel’s problem for $1,000. And in addition, he could have the work completed in less than one week.

The manager knew this man well, and trusted him. Yet he could not understand how he would be able to install a new elevator in one week for just $1,000. But he figured, what did he have to lose? If it didn’t work out, there was always the million dollar solution in the wings. He agreed to the man’s proposition and they shook hands.

One week later to the day, the manager walked in to the lobby and was amazed by what he saw. Instead of a new elevator, the inventor had installed a huge floor-to-ceiling mirror adjacent to the elevator. Almost immediately, guest complaints of the elevator died down.

What the inventor/guest understood was that the problem wasn’t that people were waiting too long. It was that they had nothing to do while they waited. By installing the mirror, guests could preen themselves or observe the rest of the lobby area while they waited for the elevator.

This is what is universally known as an “elegant solution.” An elegant solution is one in which the maximum desired effect is achieved with the smallest or simplest effort.

Often, what we think of as the “problem” isn’t the real problem at all. It is really just a symptom. The problem in this instance wasn’t that “It’s taking too long to get to my room” or “I’m waiting too long in the lobby.” It’s that “I’m bored.”

The behavioral psychologist Abraham Maslow once famously stated, “If all you have is a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail.” His point is that by relying on “experts” to always solve problems, the solutions are all going to look pretty much the same, growing from what the experts know best. Often the most elegant solutions come not from experts, but from creative “generalists”—thinkers who are adept at understanding the true nature of the problem and are willing to entertain or design a wide range of possible solutions.

So next time you find yourself in a situation where you feel it will take an “expert” to design a workable solution, consider also talking to a few generalists and see what they come back with. They might just blow you away.

Posted by Mickey

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Mickey Creative, On Clients, On Customers, Ramblings elegant solutions, elevator, generalists, hotel

There are some things you just sort of take for granted that most (if not all) people see the same way. The sun always rises in the east. It only rains after you’ve washed your car. And the volume of online sales is only going to grow.

Then you find out about a company like Hunter Douglas.

Hunter Douglas is a manufacturer and marketer of high-end customized blinds. An article I read over the weekend reported that the company’s management recently made a decision to stop selling product online.

I have to admit this one has me scratching my head.
I understand the intent of the company to prop up the integrity of its dealer network, and the desire to not get booted for the sake of another exclusive brand. The fundamental problem here is that Hunter Douglas is not looking at its situation through the eyes and experiences of its customers; it is looking at it through the eyes of its distributors and retailers. The oldest rule in the marketing book is to “drop your line where the fish are,” and today the fish are online. More than 70% of consumers describe themselves as “web first” shoppers, researching product and price online before any buying decision is made. And once they decide to purchase, in most categories it is easy for them to comparison shop online with just a few mouse clicks. Even categories that one wouldn’t consider to be popular with online shoppers are showing explosive growth (one example would be women’s fashions).

And to this, Hunter Douglas simply says, “To heck with people’s preferences, we’ll go back to the way we did things in the 1950s.”

While I’m sure Hunter Douglas’s management would defend this decision to pull the plug on online sales by saying they are intent on “protecting the brand” (which is code for protecting retailers’ margins), they are doing it in a way that is only going to be detrimental to the brand. The “brand” is defined by the consumers’ experiences with it. And turning its back on consumer preferences and trends is the move of an organization that is company-centric, not customer-centric. Right now, Hunter Douglas customers might describe the company as “a manufacturer of quality, custom window treatments.” But by failing to listen to customer preferences, over time it risks being known as “a company that is a pain to do business with.”

Hunter Douglas’s dilemma is a problem that’s familiar to a lot of manufacturers these days: how do I grow my sales without cutting out my established dealer network? In our estimation, there are a few things you could do to add consumer value to the retail experience. Partner with retailers to certify installers. Provide exclusive higher-end product or design options that would benefit from a more hands-on approach and allow for increased retailer margins. You could even agree to pay a small commission on each online sale to a customer within the retailer’s footprint.

Our main advice to Hunter Douglas would be, if you are serious about growing the business, look out for the customer’s preferences first, not the company’s.

Posted by Mickey

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Mickey Creative, New Media, On Clients, On Customers blinds, customer-centric, hunter douglas, online shopping