Is customer service a dying art?

This post questions whether the quality of brands’ customer service is too often neglected, while the beginning and middle parts of a customer’s brand journey, (more commonly understood to be the customer experience), take not only the marketing spotlight, but the budget as well.

The final stage of the customer journey is arguably one of the most significant. This is the point of transaction engagement. This is the point at which a customer’s journey translates into a purchase decision. Currency is traded for product or service. The customer must necessarily feel engaged with the brand emotionally to increase likelihood of the ‘experience’ being sought after repeatedly. If the customer service falls short after a customer’s seamless multi dimensional ride of alluring brand messages, quirky digital media marketing, engaging retail promotions, experiential marketing efforts and even solid press… if the final customer touch-points disappoint on any emotional level, the brand increases its risk of losing that customer and then some – let’s not forget the frightening power of word of mouth.

Knowing that customer service falls smack bang along the journey, be this at the end or during the brand relationship, why do brand guardians, their marketers, brand managers and agencies consistently botch up the final detail? Receiving good customer service is synonymous with fine dining. If you are nudged out the door too soon after paying the bill, the bitterness lingers.

Facebook wants brands to get liked

Facebook’s Like button is a curious brand metric that most of us take as read. But what does it really mean and to whom? A report conducted by social media specialists, Lithium and the Chief Marketing Officer Council, in the US, surveyed 1,300 consumers and 132 senior marketers to find out. The report, posted on http://www.allfacebook.com – the Unofficial Facebook Resource, makes statistically clear that both marketers and consumers have different understandings of the “Like” function. As an aside it is possible that initially Facebook may have undervalued the strength that the “Likes” function is proving to offer brands, and it is being made increasingly clear by on-line media that marketers will be left behind if they don’t start using this data strategically.

I thought it would be an interesting exercise to track the movement of Facebook Likes for brands that received press in last week’s online editions of AdNews and B&T Weekly. Here’s what I found - Facebook Likes. A couple of observations that I think are worthy of a mention are:

- If your brand is speaking to the media about current brand marketing activity, make sure your online presence is up to speed.  Grant’s Whisky has no Facebook presence and using Facebook as a holding page is just disappointing.

- If the global brand’s Facebook presence is that much more dynamic than the local presence, there’s work to do. It was a challenge to locate Coca-Cola Australia, so when a brand is choosing a Facebook name, be smart about it.

- Telcos have traditionally produced some of the most dynamic TV campaigns we see, yet Vodafone and Optus’ Facebook presence visually lags behind. Laziness?

- Lastly, isn’t there something oddly inconsistent with a major publishing house not having a strong presence online?

Brand consultancies getting editorial

Perhaps brand consultancies have finally reached a level of maturity in Australia to be detected by both client and media radars. A decade ago it was all begging and bribery to successfully place a brand consultancy news story, unless you were dealing with a UK journo or a niche trade title. But here we are in 2012 and B&T has run three online stories already this week not to mention the run Campaign Brief has also given a few. I aways knew it was just a matter of time, even if journalists continue to insist on referring to corporate design work as ‘logos’ rather than identities.

Pronto Software has unveiled a new identity as it expands it’s business into a range of local and international sectors. I especially like Managing Director, David Jackman’s stand against conformity when he said – “ In creating this new branding, we have made every effort to produce something unique and different that would challenge the relative conformity of the entire Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Business Intelligence (BI)space.”

For the entire story see the following link –   http://www.bandt.com.au/news/marketing/pronto-software-rebrands-with-interbrand

Melbourne brand agency Paper Stone Scissors has won the creative account for Highpoint Shopping Centre after a four way pitch with unnamed agencies. Paper Stone Scissors will be tasked with rolling out the new brand direction, owned by the GPT Group, as part of a $300 million development project set to be completed by the end of 2012. WOW – this story’s even sitting on the front page of Campaign Brief’s website today. http://www.campaignbrief.com/

Thirdly, Melbourne brand agency Tank has appointed Crystal James as client services director. The newly created role, to be based out of its Melbourne headquarters, signals the business’ growth which is forecast to double over the next two years. James formerly held the position of business development director at rival agency RCo Brand Communications where she was business development director. (Again please use above B&T link for full story) and visit Tank’s website on http://www.tankbranding.com.au/

Downdown thumbs down

Big Red’s lack of creativity afforded by Coles must be an excruciating result for DDB to bear. This campaign is a perfect example of the sort of dialogue that clearly did not take place between client and agency Big Red; the sort of dialogue that was the catalyse for starting this blog in the first place.

Surely ad agencies with their strategic thinkers and creative teams are hired specifically to transpose business needs and objectives into strong visual ideas, (or yes, you keep the creative in house and end up with low-grade creative). Guess what – a strong visual idea can also provide the emotional triggers to ultimately convert to sales, and it has a positive lasting impression.

The question even supporters of this campaign need to be asking, regardless as to its possible success (although show me the numbers), is why client and agency opted for such poor creative to achieve this?

Coles knows its audiences well and has proved itself a savvy marketer across most platforms, yet ‘Downdown’ is definitely not where advertising should be. Airing of this style of advertising is commonplace in the US and less so in the UK, but only outside of prime-time viewing. Meanwhile in Australia, we don’t even question why advertisers like Harvey Norman produce powerpoint-like ads that bark at us aggressively both visually and aurally, as if to say that research has shown that after a 10-hour day we will respond positively to being communicated to in this way.

This blogger’s view is that advertising can not be deemed to work if it increases sales only. There are other brand issues at stake. Good advertising only works if there is an idea. An idea is only a creative idea if achieves lasting emotional and behavioural positive change. These words need to be thought about closely.

There is no real ‘idea’ in ‘Downdown’. Someone just said, “Lets change the words in ‘Downtown’, slap big, red thumbs on people’s wrists that can also be used instore, use people who look and sound like they’re real staff …what a laugh.” Indeed Coles, but an embarrassing one! If this was intended to be a piss-take, it is not at all clear.

And did Coles do its socio-demographics research to know who its viewers might be before spending up big during Wimbledon this year? I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only one with my big red thumb hitting instant MUTE between games.

Innovation absorption

I’m like a kid in a candy shop when it comes to lists, especially when it gives me a numbered list of worldwide creative ideas. Take a look - http://www.trendwatching.com/briefing/#happiness

QuickerFeet than you

Timing is everything whether you’re a marketer or a consumer. Let’s be honest, brands miss out on business just as often as their consumers miss the right deal, but only due to bad timing. Introducing Quickerfeet, a technology that finds consumers and promotes relevant offers when the time’s right and in the right location.

On 15 February this year, US company  Valuevine Inc. launched Valuevine Connect, a location analytics technology for retail chains, restaurants, franchises and multi-location businesses. The technology’s Australian licence will be carried by The Bendalls Group and will be launched some time in June. Available as an iPhone app, the benefit to consumers will lie in having the choice to receive marketing messages that are relevant to them at the right time.

In the US Valuevine’s technology works by pulling together online consumer content posted on review community sites such as Yelp, City Search, Facebook and check-in social media sites Foursquare and Gowalla. It then uses this information to provide marketers with reports showing consumer trends and activity.

Consumers should be celebrating the new-found channel of power that social media has enabled. It’s integration with commerce is one of the most intelligent and useful applications of market information the digital age has seen.

http://socialtimes.com/quicker-feet-iphone-app-promises-this-type-of-ad-50-off-if-you-come-to-our-store-within-5-minutes_b43546

JWT’s female creatives pull some Kotex punch

"I just started bleeding & I feel fantastic!" Typical image used for feminine hygiene products.

JWT’s latest campaign for Kotex works for all the reasons the media have spelled out. But for many women it will work simply because it was created by women, and therefore makes sense. It’s not that the ads are even that hilarious – JWT could have pushed the humor further – but the campaign is market focused, clever, relevant and fresh.

In the close to 33 years of my mensturating life, advertising agencies have strangely rationalized that clients selling tampons and pads – conservatively categorized as ‘personal hygiene’  products –  would do just as well to be communicated by the half of the population who don’t buy (or rarely) buy these products, who don’t use them and wouldn’t know how to put one up ‘there’, who actually don’t have vaginas and who probably wouldn’t know how to take the packaging off either a tampon or pad if asked. Advertising execs are a strangle lot indeed!

Tampon and menstral pad advertising has, up until now, been pretty much dreamed up to suit male fantasies or could it be just plain stupidity – it’s not clear which.

Kotex U: old print ad

Gone are those bleedin’ days when we women should feel we are fabulously feminine which actually = getting onto the third day with four to go – bloated, cramping and craving chocolate; OR that our hormones should be stable which actually = “I’m going to kill the kids and ask for a divorce tomorrow, I can’t live like this anymore”; OR that the wind in our hair and our flowing white gown trailing behind us in real life means - “My roots are growing out and I can’t fit into the cocktail dress for Friday’s awards night”, all the while we’re straddled on a handsome black stallion with stretches of warm sand tempting perfect intimacy, comfort and happiness which = “No, I’m not up for it, how could you possibly think I would be? I just really need to sleep.”

So, hats off to Kotex for moving on. I can now relate to Kotex as a brand. It speaks to me, it has a sense of humor, it understands my experience and it can provide me with a decent product when I need it. What more could a girl need?

Maybe Kotex should be the new generic word for tampon from now on. I know I’m going to start using it.

If  you haven’t seen the TV spot yet, follow the link below -

Kotex TV campaign

Branding spaces = emotional living

Dental Spa KU64, Berlin.

“Have you had a good day?” – the bottom line is that your answer to this question rests entirely on your emotional and physical experiences since waking up this morning. Whether it be your work setting, a trip to the dentist, the production you saw last night, even your train ride home. The state of being awake is your body’s involuntary experience with the world. It moves through spaces, inside and out, in parallel with your emotional reality. Physically and emotionally you are intrinsically bound.

Sears Sky deck, Chicago

Trendwatching.com talks about experiences and storytelling in relation to status, and our quest for status as consumers. The ever growing trend towards individuality whereby we seek experiences (in many forms) that others haven’t, is the means by which we achieve status. However, achieving status through difference is extremely hard to find. Just when you think your new wardrobe purchase will set you apart, someone turns up wearing the same; just when you think you’re on top of the latest news, someone will disappoint you by giving you a more updated version, and just when you think you’re blogging about something new, you get a damn email alert beating you to it.

How is this relevant to emotional spaces? Two of the most talked about ‘platforms’ in marketing today are social networking where emotional connections are made with ourselves and others, and experiential marketing where we experience a brand physically, leading to an emotional response. For marketing to arrive at this junction where the relationship between our emotional and physical worlds are recognized is one of the most significant developments in the commerical world. The images shown intend to illustrate how our physical experiences are inseparable to our emotional lives, and therefore how brand perceptions can be formed based on these.

We have a mutually beneficial relationship with brands so let’s all look forward to having more meaningful brand interaction with them to feed our emotional and physical well-being. Brand owners and marketeers, step up that creative gear, please!

Sex and smokes used to work

Blow in her face and she'll follow you anywhere

This copy line for Tipalet cigarettes marketed to men, will give you a laugh! How bold we once were.

As a follow up to the last post, I came across some interesting work showcased on Lovely Package, a comprehensive and good looking packaging blog worth visiting. Check out the student designs for Nomad Self Lighting cigarettes by Matthew Smiraldo, Norway’s Andreas Fossheim’s packaging for cannabis cigarettes (if they were legal), and Derek Hunt’s packaging for X Tobacco. Cool stuff.

http://lovelypackage.com/category/tobacco/

Brand-less cigarettes: tobacco companies not happy

Smoking Kids

Australia is about to become the first country in the world to ban tobacco companies from branding their products. As of July 1, 2012, no brand images or colors will be permitted in cigarette packaging design. Additionally, there are to be restrictions introduced online plus a 25 percent hike in excise tax bringing a pack of smokes to about $A16.70 or $US15.40.

In Australia where tobacco advertising is outlawed, the government described cigarette packaging as, “one of the last remaining frontiers for cigarette advertising.” And so it looks like Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd is about to take the big boys down. Only brand and product names will be allowed using a standard color, position, font and size making cigarette packs look similar to a prescription medication.

Of course this is a serious deal for tobacco companies going forward and let’s not forget the design companies that do their work who are paid extremely well but never publicize such relationships for fear that it would affect their own corporate brands. (I know because I worked for one of them).

Health warning on Australian cigarette packs: mouth cancer

The New York Times spoke to Imperial Tobacco who ludicrously responded by saying that there’s no evidence to support this action as effective in reducing consumption. Well, er, no…it hasn’t been done before so no, there isn’t evidence yet, but you just wait. And interestingly publicly trading tobacco giants Philip Morris (PMI) and British American Tobacco (BAT), Australia steered clear of stating the legal action that the industry could pursue but both wanted to put the possible case forward of there being constitutional issues relating to intellectual property and international trade obligations.

Clearly they’ll fight the ethical position and discard their social responsibilities, whatever it takes to get rich on the addicted and lure the young. Gotta love their passion. But as Susan Mercado, the World Health Organization’s regional advisor said in an emailed statement to the New York Times today, “Australia has taken a stand against all forms of advertising of a product that kills half of the people who use it.”

Currently Australian cigarette packaging carries health warnings as well as graphic photographic images showing the possible results of long-term smoking such as gangrenous limbs, cancerous mouths and blindness. (See above image).

So, what does the government intend to do with the $5 billion generated over four years that it forecasts to make out of this initiative? It will be reinvested in the national health care system. Take note America!

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/30/business/global/30tobacco.html

Anyone remember chocolate cigarettes? Well, you can still get them, frighteningly enough. In my opinion, these should be banned too. At least the ones below have health warnings about chocolate consumption!

Chocolate cigarettes with warnings