Top brands built on service and convenience

New York-based branding company, Brand Keys, recently completed its annual survey of the USA's top brands.

Top of the class is Google, closely followed by Yahoo, Avis, LL Bean, Coors, J Crew, Samsung, Hyatt and Verizon. (Yes, I know that's only 9 companies but there seems to be no number 8 this year!)

What's interesting is that it also splits it by category which is useful if you're fighting in your space. In Automotive for example, the top brands are Toyota and BMW; Ford is ninth. In Computers, Apple is number one.

According to Marketing Daily, Robert Passikoff, founder and president of Brand Keys, says service and convenience carries the day. "We estimate that 70% of loyalty is emotionally based, which is why Internet companies like Amazon.com are doing so well: either serendipitously or by strategic plan, they decided that they wouldn't be merely an electronic cash register, but that they would form a kind of community, and that's where the emotional bond comes in. Consumers are loyal to companies that treat them right, regardless of whether they do so over the counter or through the Web."

Tim

Wal-Mart goes green(ish)

At least it's honest!

Wal-Mart's Chief Executive, H. Lee Scott, announced recently that, "We make no claims of being a green company. But what we are saying is we're doing sustainability in a way that's real and right for Wal-Mart."

Everyone is trying to take on a cape of greenness these days and sometimes it's difficult to sift what's real and what's marketing fluff.

Wal-Mart has the added hassle of being really big and really conspicuous. The Washington Post reported recently that, "a coalition known as the Big Box Collaborative organized 23 nonprofit organizations to deliver a harsh critique of Wal-Mart's sustainability initiative, arguing that it mislabeled organic food and that the large number of stores it plans to open will negate efforts to decrease its greenhouse-gas emissions."

It's tough at the top!
Tim

The picture was taken by Sporing Dew whose pictures are on Flickr.

Starbucks now on TV

Starbucks is starting a national TV campaign to combat a stuttering share price, falling sales and falling numbers of customers. (As reported in Seattlepi.com). Apparently this is the first time its rolled out a national campaign although some its earlier TV ads were quite funny. I particularly like the Eye of the Tiger one.

Chairman Howard Schultz said, "Consumers over time would not be satisfied with a "commoditized experience or flavor" (eg McDonald's) and they would trade up to the company that built the industry."

You can see the new christmassy ads here.

Tim

Marketers getting politer

According to a report in emarketer.com, we marketers are getting politer when we tackle email.

Almost 60% of companies in 2007 sent their e-mail recipients to pre-populated Web forms if they want to opt-out. (This was 30% in 2005). And, 65% of e-mail opt-out links led to a page for registrants to make changes to their subscriptions. (This was 12% in 2005).

This is good news and makes the internet a more approachable place for the bulk of potential buyers.

The graph highlights the number of people that actually open email they have requested. This too is a solid number and may be shows that we are getting better at permission-based marketing.
Tim

Interrupting a service transaction

While I was checking out of Futureshop the other day, the assistant who was taking our money was twice interrupted by her colleagues during the transaction.

The first time, her cashier neighbour asked her what colour Christmas decorations she should put up around her register. In fairness, her neighbour realized her mistake, stopped talking and then asked me what I recommended.

The second time, a manager came up asking for a superman game on a shelf behind her. He found it and walked on by, blithely ignorant of having almost had to talk to a customer.

Service is such a simple process and learning not to interrupt seems a critical part to me.
Tim

Sourcing an iPod

My son went in to The Source to buy an iPod the other day, with his birthday money burning a hole in his pocket, while I waited outside with the dog.

He came out and announced that they did not have it in stock but could order it by Tuesday and what did I think. He went back in and came out again and said this time they were not sure they could get one until the end of the week.

We left, without one (and went to Futureshop where we picked one up off the shelf).

To my mind, The Source missed an easy sale because they did not engage with a teenager - either because they did not believe he had cash and didn't take him seriously, or because they could not be bothered. He would have waited a few days for an iPod - he just needed to talk to someone who could enthuse him and talk to him about all the cool varieties of iPods and found out what he wanted.

It was a missed opportunity by an otherwise reasonable store.
Tim

The joys of buying

I had to buy a Microwave last night so I popped in to Futureshop.

I stood in an aisle of microwaves of different models, colours and sizes for a minute or so looking at the assistant who was on the phone, until he saw me and came over to see how he could help.

"I need to buy a Microwave."
"What size do you want?" asked the assistant.
"I don't know. I think the one that we have, which has just broken, is about this size," I said, pointing to one near by.
"Well, why don't you buy that one then?"

Well, thanks for all your insight and guidance Mr Futureshop assistant.
At least its service staff in the iPod and camera sections are excellent.
Tim

GM gives Chevrolet a green light

Everything is green at Chevrolet. In an effort to be perceived as green and to turn around its flagging fortunes, Chevrolet wants to be known as an environmentally friendly company, according to the Detroit News. The new tagline is "Chevrolet, from gas-friendly to gas-free."

The marketing strategy includes Chevrolet's five "Fuel Solutions": more efficient internal combustion engines; biofuels such as E85 ethanol; gas-electric hybrids; electrically driven vehicles; and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.

It's a reasonable move for a company in trouble at a time when the world is "going green". But a piece published by the Center for Media research should make GM cautious. It says, 7 in 10 Americans either "strongly" or "somewhat" agree that when companies call a product "green" it is usually just a marketing tactic.

That's a lot of cynics to convince!

Tim

Integrity is at the heart of a good company

Seaweed is all the rage at Lululemon Athletica. The company has a product line called VitaSea, which is apparently made with seaweed. It “releases marine amino acids, minerals and vitamins into the skin upon contact with moisture.”

It is obviously appealing to a high-end market and is riding the wave to profitability and growth.

But, the New York Times commissioned some research and reported that "there was no significant difference in mineral levels between the VitaSea fabric and ordinary cotton T-shirts". It then quoted the company's founder, Dennis Wilson, as saying, “If you actually put it on and wear it, it is different from cotton. That’s my only test of it." Oops.

However, one day later, Lululemon Athletica put out a media release, saying it had re-tested the fabric and said it stood by its claims. It quotes the CEO, Robert Meers as saying that, "Integrity goes to the core of everything we do and is at the heart of our relationship with our guests."

"Guests"?

Lululemon Athletica is absolutely right to quickly test and counter these charges which will be, potentially, highly damaging to the company. But it will has a long way to go to prove its claims and to get its executives to be consistent in its messaging.
Tim

Carleton University improves its ranking

Macleans has just released its survey of Canadian Universities and Carleton University is much happier than it was a year ago.

A year ago it was put at the bottom of the class in a ranking of Canadian Universities by Maclean's magazine. In fact, it was so upset with the way Macleans did its analysis that it joined 25 other universities in refusing to participate.

This year, Macleans changed the way it surveyed the universities. Instead of relying on student information provided by the universities, the rankings are based on data from Statistics Canada, the federal research funding agencies and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries.

Carleton jumped from last place (11th) to 7th among schools with a comprehensive mix of professional programs. Which is good news for Carleton and good news for Ottawa.

If nothing much changed in the Universities over the last 12 months, it may not say much about the value of Macleans surveys but it's all good bragging rights for admission teams.
Tim

McDonald's aims to take on Starbucks

Dominating the fast-food industry is not enough for McDonald's. It now wants to take on Starbucks with premium coffee.

According to Advertising Age, the coffee business in the US is worth about $60bn. (Yes, that's a lot of cups of coffee!) McDonald's claims to own about $6bn of that market and wants to increase it with sales of high-end coffees and smoothies. Everything that Starbucks sells, in fact, but cheaper.

The president of McDonald's U.S., Don Thompson, said "We want to move from beverages as an accompaniment to a beverage destination".

It'll be fascinating to see how they get on. It is a master at operational excellence and speedy customer service but its client base and its customer style seem completely different to that of Starbucks which dominates the space. Can it change the space?
Tim

Wal-Mart stretches its credibility

Wal-Mart's new ads claim that the store saves the average family $2,500/year. Great claim.

However, Advertising Age is reporting a survey that says, unfortunately, only 4% of people believe that claim. That's a serious mis-match.

Ignoring the validity of the claim, Wal-Mart is on dangerous ground if it moves ahead with the ad. It could find that if you tell people something for long enough, they will eventually start to believe it. Or it could find that it alienates its customers, who start to dis-trust what Wal-Mart says, thereby losing goodwill.

Whether or not the message is valid, you have to wonder about the validity of the marketing approach.
Tim

Bizarre Fernet 1882 ads

If you are looking for weird ads look no further than Fernet 1882 ads, created by Madre in Buenos Aires. This one is even weirder than the big head. Apparently it's a new brand of Italian drink.
Quirky but fun.
Tim

How to find out the meaning of a word

My youngest came running in to study this evening wanting to get on the internet via my PC. His brother was on the kids' PC and he couldn't get access to dictionary.com to find out the meaning of a word for his school project!

So, I introduced him to the paper dictionary concept which was quite popular in its day.

Ah, how times have changed. I remember the day when....blah, blah, blah.. [Rattles on until child dozes off...]
Tim

Can you hold please?

Every time I call my doctor's office I get a voice that says, "Can you hold please?" Frequently, I am not given the time to respond before the voice disappears and I get suspended in space for a few minutes. I know they're busy, and I now my call is never a life and death issue, but EVERY TIME?

"Can you hold please?"

There must be something wrong with the work flow, the call routing, the staff or the staffing.

Doctors are in the enviable position of being in short supply so there is no real need to sort this out but it would be nice to have your call received in a professional manner. It's a bit like people who put you on hold when they get another call on their cell phone, but that's a whole different issue...
Tim

The "Hold On" photo was taken by Esther17 whose pictures are on flickr.

Wal-Mart's online in a big way.

The Wal-Mart website attracts 800 million visitors a year!

Walmart.com CEO Raul Vazquez is quoted in a Marketing Week article as saying that the site is booming, ""Over the next three months we'll have about 300 million visits to the web site."

Wal-Mart is now running special promotions to attract more people to their web site and to increase "stickiness".

According to Marketing Week, "Wal-Mart doesn't break out Walmart.com revenue, but Vazquez says that, overall, U.S. online holiday sales are expected to rise about 20% this year. Walmart.com's sales should increase between 40% and 60%."

That's substantially increased activity!
Tim

Political sycophancy

I do not normally write about politics as it is off-target for me and there are so many commentators that do it well, but I couldn't pass this one by.

Laurel Broten, just demoted from the Ontario Liberal cabinet, told the media that she asked Premier McGuinty to be dropped. (The Ottawa Citizen reports that the Liberals deny that).

She said, "I really want to spend more time with my children. I want to raise good kids like Premier McGuinty's mom did."

Pass the sycophancy bag.
Tim

There's no money in food!

There's an interview in Marketing Daily with Herb Sorensen, global scientific director of shopper insights for TNS North America, on what the arrival of Tesco means to North American food retailers.

Tesco's strength, apparently, is that it defines itself by the customers who come through its doors, rather than what it sells. The new Tesco stores will have a much smaller product range in line with shopper interests, instead of the thousands with which we are currently presented. Will it make a difference? We'll see.

Interestingly, he says the reason others don't do this is that the profit on food does not justify it. Food retailers make money by, in priority order:

• The promotional fees marketers pay for shelf space
• The revenue earned from "float," or handling cash
• Real-estate
• The profit made on food sales to customers

So, profits from food sales are really not that important!
Tim

Retail service not all it could be

This month's Profit magazine has an insightful article on secret shopping in Toronto. A journalist, Laura Pratt, went shopping with Andrij Brygidyr, president of A@A Merchandising Ltd, to show us the state of customer service in retail stores.

We all have our own personal horror stories of appalling service but it is fascinating to read about a "professional" shopper. Developing a culture of superior service is tough, particularly when you have hundreds of stores and thousands of staff. The article shows how few companies do it well.

His grades go from an A+ at a Black's Photography store to an F at Circuit City, PJ's Pet Store, Fossil Watches and Sony Store.

Brygidyr comments that the one thing every person did wrong was to not ask for the order.
Tim