Category: Uncategorized

Never Anger a Customer Who Can Sing

I once heard Marketing Consultant Paul Weyland remark at a seminar that if you have an unhappy customer, “You need to either make him happy, or kill him and bury him in the backyard.”

United Airlines did neither with this passenger.

I don’t have any way to evaluate the particulars of this story. But apparently Dave Carroll of the band Sons of Maxwell flew United  a while back, and something bad happened to his $3,500 guitar.

Carroll responded by making the video below. He posted it on July 6; in less than three days, it’s been viewed more than 255,000 times, and has generated nearly 3,000 comments — very few of which are sympathetic to the airline.

Two more videos are in the works. Enjoy this one, and ponder: how much will United Airlines’ inability or unwillingness to make one passenger happy cost them in damaged reputation and lost business?

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YGc4zOqozo]

 

UPDATE 7/28/09: According to Business Week, the video has now been viewed more than 3.5 million times. United Airlines has made a $3,000 donation to charity at Carroll’s request, and says it will “do a better job” deciding when to bend rules on passenger compensation for damage.

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Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein, Portland’s Advertising Expert, at 503-323-6553.

Branding Still Has Value

Branding’s gotten a bad rap lately. In an economy that has made marketing money increasingly difficult to come by, it’s not unreasonable to want a measurable return from every single dollar invested.

Because branding campaigns generally don’t have a measurable response mechanism — or even an offer to respond to — it’s easy to conclude that they don’t have any effect.

Sometimes they don’t.

And sometimes, a paragraph like this one jumps out of a Wall Street Journal article:

On a recent afternoon, at a supermarket in Chicago, Laura Gilligan confronted a salad-dressing aisle filled with dozens of varieties spread across two dozen brands. After staring for nearly a minute, Ms. Gilligan, a computer-company manager, chose Kraft Foods Inc.’s cucumber-tinged light ranch. “There’s too many choices,” she said. “I just went with Kraft because I know Kraft.”

What caused her to choose that dressing? It wasn’t a coupon, or a direct-mail pitch, or an email, or a pay-per-click ad. Kraft will never be able to figure out what “worked”.

And yet, something did. Faced with “dozens of varieties spread across two dozen brands”, shoppers often just grab something familiar and throw it into the cart.

What “worked” was the years, and dollars, that Kraft invested in building the Kraft brand.

This doesn’t mean that the direct-response advocates are wrong. But they aren’t completely right. Even in today’s economy, there’s real, tangible value in good branding.

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Check out Phil Bernstein’s Facebook Fan Page — and become a Fan – here

Click here to learn the shocking truth about Phil Bernstein

Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising and Marketing Blog.

Request your free copy of Phil Bernstein’s white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them here.

Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein, Portland’s Advertising Expert, at 503-323-6553.

What’s a Commercial Supposed to Do?

There’s quite a hoo-ha in progress over this year’s Radio Mercury Awards — the judges decided not to award prizes in several categories, including station-produced spots. Much of the discussion centers around the criteria, and what constitutes a good commercial.

Among the most compelling takes is that of Scott McKelvey,  Director of Creative Services for TargetSpot. McKelvey’s thoughts recently appeared in Tom Taylor’s Radio-Info Newsletter. I’d link directly to it, but the only place I can find the quote is in my email box:

I submitted a commercial for an award for the first time about 10 years ago while working for a New Jersey station. The New Jersey Broadcasters Association, to their credit, required a letter from the advertiser that said the entry was effective. The advertiser sent the following: ‘Thank you for entering our commercial for an award. Even though it didn’t work, we thought it was really funny and creative, and we appreciate the time and effort you put into it.’ He may as well have said, ‘Thanks for wasting my money, jerk.’ This was my wake-up call. Unlike established national brands that spend millions to build market share and top-of-mind awareness, local advertisers need to see ROI. Does this mean commercials for local advertisers can’t be creative or funny? Absolutely not. But it certainly is not a requirement and should never be the goal. The goal should be to sell the product, whether that leads to an award or not…

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Check out Phil Bernstein’s Facebook Fan Page — and become a Fan – here

Click here to learn the shocking truth about Phil Bernstein

Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising and Marketing Blog.

Request your free copy of Phil Bernstein’s white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them here.

Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein, Portland’s Advertising Expert, at 503-323-6553.

Dispatch from the “Weird Coincidence” Bureau

I heard John Prine for the first time while selling my plasma in 1978. The economy was in the dumper, and plasma-selling was one of the few ways a broke college student could earn a few bucks in Eugene, Oregon that year. The song was “Fish and Whistle”, and that afternoon I took my plasma money to Everybody’s Records and bought a cassette of Prine’s Bruised Orange.

Fast-forward to a Tuesday morning 31 years later.

I have a job that pays better and doesn’t involve needles. I don’t own a cassette player, and haven’t listened to Bruised Orange in at least a decade. I’m getting ready for a Portland Business Alliance networking event, which will take place at Talecris Plasma in Southeast Portland. Local public radio station KBOO is playing as I shave.

And “Fish and Whistle” comes on the radio.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with advertising and marketing. But I had to write it down somewhere.

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Check out Phil Bernstein’s Facebook Fan Page — and become a Fan – here

Click here to learn the shocking truth about Phil Bernstein

Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising and Marketing Blog.

Request your free copy of Phil Bernstein’s white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them here.

Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein, Portland’s Advertising Expert, at 503-323-6553.

Reassuring Words for Marketers and Advertisers

Christopher Kindall, host of television’s America’s Test Kitchen, discussing the long-term prospects of expensive kitchen gadgets like the panini press:

“When people have available income, they’ll do stupid things with their money again.”

I feel better about the future already.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

Check out Phil Bernstein’s Facebook Fan Page — and become a Fan – here

Click here to learn the shocking truth about Phil Bernstein

Click this link to subscribe to Portland’s Finest Advertising and Marketing Blog.

Request your free copy of Phil Bernstein’s white paper, The Seven Deadly Advertising Mistakes and How to Fix Them here.

Got a question? Call Phil Bernstein, Portland’s Advertising Expert, at 503-323-6553.