When the next greatest thing is lined up to replace the thing you just bought, it would seem that brands based on service and particularly good, or compelling customer service have a sustainable competitive advantage over those that offer product-based features that can be copied or improved upon.
So what about those "service" businesses that have a low cost of entry (whether price, or emotional) and arguably offer very similar products and services as the next guy? How do they sustain customer commitment when they don't constantly release the newest greatest version? These businesses occupy a space that is service-based for sure, but if not careful, the "product" they offer can be thought to be very much the same as one down the street at the next place. Here's what I mean ...
While it would be tough to get most of us to change hair stylists (high emotional price of entry) what about nail salons or coffee shops? Sure they offer products of course, but their business model is based on offering a certain customer service. I have my favorite nail place now (those who know me from previous lives are laughing out loud hysterically now), and when I've been rushed for time and not near my nail place, I've gone to another, thinking, what could the difference really be right? Same deal with coffee places - I have my favorite weekend Starbucks. There are two others within a one mile radius, and on those occasions when it's just been more convenient to go to one of them, it's just not the same.
So what is it about these largely commoditized service businesses that makes the difference? It's the memory of previous interactions and exchanges we've shared that creates a common knowledge. It's that the women at the nail salon know I am from Canada and ask about when my next trip home will be, then proceed to tell me the latest about their cousins who live there, or the road trip they once took up to Vancouver from San Diego, 20 hours long. It's the woman at my Starbucks who remembers my drink and when I divert from it, asks me why and weaves it into a fun conversation with a vibe all her own.
It's connection. I will drive for that. I will put off my nails for a week rather than take a risk, on what truly is a low cost item, that my experience won't be what I want. Customer service, and a true, authentic, meaningful connection to the customer can turn even commoditized purchases into competitive advantage.
curiosities and things worth wondering about brands + community
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Marketing today: the best of both sides of the brain
Today was one of those days where I used every inch of my brain at work. The left side spent a chunk of time analyzing home sales absorption pace, calculating cost increases and thinking about projecting inflation rates. And it hurt. The right side earned its keep today envisioning the customer experience we will create in a new community, and thinking about the power of the subtlety of words chosen for the planning principles that will drive the development and creation of the same community.
As I sat in traffic driving home I thought back over the path of my life and how I ended up here in a senior marketing role. The only non-medical person in a family of well-accomplished doctors (all with PhDs or very focused specialties) ... I have my four year undergrad ... I never quite fit the family mold. But as marketers go, I pride myself on being one of the lucky ones who covets the balance between expansive "how might we" creativity and an almost forensic love of the analytical detail.
So, I may not be able to operate on an eye to save someone's sight, or save a trauma patient in the ER, or manage highly complex drug therapies for a rare auto-immune disease. That much is for sure.
But I can thank whomever and whatever got me here for the awesome opportunity being a marketer today provides to test the creative and analytical sides of my brain. It's a precious balance, and one that keeps each day interesting.
As I sat in traffic driving home I thought back over the path of my life and how I ended up here in a senior marketing role. The only non-medical person in a family of well-accomplished doctors (all with PhDs or very focused specialties) ... I have my four year undergrad ... I never quite fit the family mold. But as marketers go, I pride myself on being one of the lucky ones who covets the balance between expansive "how might we" creativity and an almost forensic love of the analytical detail.
So, I may not be able to operate on an eye to save someone's sight, or save a trauma patient in the ER, or manage highly complex drug therapies for a rare auto-immune disease. That much is for sure.
But I can thank whomever and whatever got me here for the awesome opportunity being a marketer today provides to test the creative and analytical sides of my brain. It's a precious balance, and one that keeps each day interesting.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Casual Gaming. Big Escape. Bigger Money.
News broke today that Electronic Arts is acquiring the mobile game creator, PopCap, for $650M, and additional stock and performance bonus options that take the price up to $1.2B.
Wow. Big money for the mobile games, casual entertainment space. Bejeweled is one of PopCap's most popular assets, and with this acquisition it joins Angry Birds (from Chillingo) under EA's growing ownership.
Whether waiting at the doctor's office, or for your carpool buddy to join you on the ride home, or when attending a boring speaker at a conference, or waiting to pick the kids up at school, there's nothing casual about casual mobile games. They are ubiquitous and obviously fill a void. Space. Time. Easy escape. Whatever this void is, the value continues to increase.
What happened in days of old before handheld devices created a captive market for new casual games? I remember the very rare occasions I took an airplane trip as a kid, and buying word search and crossword puzzle books to pass the time. or MAD comics, and the Archie Digest. Same deal. Different time. Different media. And I would bet a whole lot less profit.
Find a void to fill.
Create a product that sticks.
And sell to the highest bidder. Then enjoy the ride until another innovation comes up to fill that space we humans need to constantly fill up with stuff like Bejeweled that exists to just give us a break.
Wow. Big money for the mobile games, casual entertainment space. Bejeweled is one of PopCap's most popular assets, and with this acquisition it joins Angry Birds (from Chillingo) under EA's growing ownership.
Whether waiting at the doctor's office, or for your carpool buddy to join you on the ride home, or when attending a boring speaker at a conference, or waiting to pick the kids up at school, there's nothing casual about casual mobile games. They are ubiquitous and obviously fill a void. Space. Time. Easy escape. Whatever this void is, the value continues to increase.
What happened in days of old before handheld devices created a captive market for new casual games? I remember the very rare occasions I took an airplane trip as a kid, and buying word search and crossword puzzle books to pass the time. or MAD comics, and the Archie Digest. Same deal. Different time. Different media. And I would bet a whole lot less profit.
Find a void to fill.
Create a product that sticks.
And sell to the highest bidder. Then enjoy the ride until another innovation comes up to fill that space we humans need to constantly fill up with stuff like Bejeweled that exists to just give us a break.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Gen Y Purchase Preferences = A Real Shift in Desires
Saw this recent data dump on the car purchases made in 2009 and 2010 by Gen Y buyers http://yhoo.it/nZaghd and though not one to take the "fear" side of the argument, in that decision makers in Detroit need to fear for their future, the parallels to what we see in housing preferences are solid.
Gen Y prefers smaller, less expensive (and that translates in more cases than not into foreign) cars. In our customer research on home shoppers in America we see the same thing - they tell us they want smaller houses, less expensive houses, but houses that are all about style and living the way they want to live.
Who's out there NOT saying to themselves, "When will it come back to the good old days? When will this economic shift get behind us and we can get back to building bigger homes, more of this and that? We know this is just a cycle and it will swing around again."
Those leaders and industries who are NOT looking in the rear view mirror and longing for a tired and irrelevant past will benefit from this forever-changed world. What a cool opportunity. Bring it on!
Gen Y prefers smaller, less expensive (and that translates in more cases than not into foreign) cars. In our customer research on home shoppers in America we see the same thing - they tell us they want smaller houses, less expensive houses, but houses that are all about style and living the way they want to live.
Who's out there NOT saying to themselves, "When will it come back to the good old days? When will this economic shift get behind us and we can get back to building bigger homes, more of this and that? We know this is just a cycle and it will swing around again."
Those leaders and industries who are NOT looking in the rear view mirror and longing for a tired and irrelevant past will benefit from this forever-changed world. What a cool opportunity. Bring it on!
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Facebookers organize post-riot clean up event
It's 8am and already 12,000+ people indicate they are attending an event communicated on Facebook to clean up last night's mess.
http://on.fb.me/lfPyNp
THAT's the Vancouver the world knows and loves. Again, the power of the social media community
http://on.fb.me/lfPyNp
THAT's the Vancouver the world knows and loves. Again, the power of the social media community
Social media called on to assist police in Vancouver riot
It was a hockey game people. Not a war for food or clean water. Or standing up for personal rights and freedoms. It was a hockey game.
How embarrassing and stupid. The blight of 1994's riot was behind us, and the Winter Olympics last year were peaceful, celebratory and a beautiful display on the world stage.
Now this.
As we worried for family who were among the crowds in the streets of Vancouver, and searched for whatever coverage we could find from San Diego, social media, and Facebook specifically, took its rightful place as an organizing tool.
http://on.fb.me/muLnRn
People from all over are using this page not only to express their frustration and shock at the disrespect shown by a minority of rioters (NOT fans), but more importantly, they are using it to post pictures taken at the scene and asking anyone who knows these people to tag them and assist police in bringing them to justice.
Let's hope the power of this amazing social network works. It's enabled "prosumers" to create content. This time it shows people that in the greater community at large, whether that's the city of Vancouver, or the social media community, your public behavior, now more than ever is just that - public.
How embarrassing and stupid. The blight of 1994's riot was behind us, and the Winter Olympics last year were peaceful, celebratory and a beautiful display on the world stage.
Now this.
As we worried for family who were among the crowds in the streets of Vancouver, and searched for whatever coverage we could find from San Diego, social media, and Facebook specifically, took its rightful place as an organizing tool.
http://on.fb.me/muLnRn
People from all over are using this page not only to express their frustration and shock at the disrespect shown by a minority of rioters (NOT fans), but more importantly, they are using it to post pictures taken at the scene and asking anyone who knows these people to tag them and assist police in bringing them to justice.
Let's hope the power of this amazing social network works. It's enabled "prosumers" to create content. This time it shows people that in the greater community at large, whether that's the city of Vancouver, or the social media community, your public behavior, now more than ever is just that - public.
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Just follow the signs...
Sunday night, and I am in Seattle (ok, technically at the moment, Tacoma). Tonight's travel experience reminded me yet again of the importance of signs. Not just having them, and placing them in places where customers will hopefully see them, but thinking like a customer, putting yourself in the mindset of someone who needs to actually use the signs to navigate. It sounds so easy right?
The flight from San Diego was easy and uneventful. We landed in Seattle at the farthest gate from the exit of course, but no issues. First stop, restroom. Easy, it was clearly marked. Next stop, rental car.
Intuitively I knew it must be out near Baggage Claim, though no signs for rental cars appeared as we exited the secured zone. Our leap of faith paid off and we found the parkade with the rental cars and a moving marquee sign that listed a number of car companies as being on the 1st floor (there were 4 floors in the rental parkade). National was one of them, and we had a reservation with them for an SUV so we could travel the many miles up and down the I-5, and all the connecting highways in the submarkets we would spend the next two days exploring.
At this point, my travel companion Jane said to me, " that was smooth and easy". She and I have had too many trips together where we have gotten lost getting out of the airport, mostly in Houston. One year we were there on business more than 10 times, and got lost every time. It's a city where highways have multiple choice names, and directions.
I digress. Tonight we are in Seattle, on the 1st floor of the rental car parkade, following the sign that says, "National, Row P". There is one SUV left, and as we were loading our bags into it, a woman who works for National walked over to confirm we had an SUV reservation. We did, with the "Emerald" (read: VIP) version of National.... which is one floor up on the 2nd floor. Lacking emotion and energy Jane tried to explain there was no sign indicating that. The woman in green started to argue, and soon thought better of it, but maintained that yes, there was a sign, in the elevator.
That would mean you would need to know to get into the elevator. Nowhere among the signage we followed to get us this far did we see special mention that Emerald was on the 2nd floor.
As we schlepped our bags back through the parkade, re-tracing the signage we had followed, and arriving at the elevator, the 2nd floor wasn't even on the list of options. Another leap of faith, we get into the elevator and there in 12pt type is National, and then in 8pt type beneath it, "Emerald - 2nd floor".
Yes, there was a sign. But not along our path of travel which meant it was useless to us in our wayfinding effort. Think about all the paths of travel your customers take. Think about their frame of mind, and other things they are thinking about when trying to navigate their way through your business.
Jane and I found our SUV, loaded our bags once again and headed out for the 1-5 south. Thankfully, there is only one road out of the rental car parkade and the directions all along the way were clear and easy. We found our way to the hotel without one wrong turn. We just followed the signs...
The flight from San Diego was easy and uneventful. We landed in Seattle at the farthest gate from the exit of course, but no issues. First stop, restroom. Easy, it was clearly marked. Next stop, rental car.
Intuitively I knew it must be out near Baggage Claim, though no signs for rental cars appeared as we exited the secured zone. Our leap of faith paid off and we found the parkade with the rental cars and a moving marquee sign that listed a number of car companies as being on the 1st floor (there were 4 floors in the rental parkade). National was one of them, and we had a reservation with them for an SUV so we could travel the many miles up and down the I-5, and all the connecting highways in the submarkets we would spend the next two days exploring.
At this point, my travel companion Jane said to me, " that was smooth and easy". She and I have had too many trips together where we have gotten lost getting out of the airport, mostly in Houston. One year we were there on business more than 10 times, and got lost every time. It's a city where highways have multiple choice names, and directions.
I digress. Tonight we are in Seattle, on the 1st floor of the rental car parkade, following the sign that says, "National, Row P". There is one SUV left, and as we were loading our bags into it, a woman who works for National walked over to confirm we had an SUV reservation. We did, with the "Emerald" (read: VIP) version of National.... which is one floor up on the 2nd floor. Lacking emotion and energy Jane tried to explain there was no sign indicating that. The woman in green started to argue, and soon thought better of it, but maintained that yes, there was a sign, in the elevator.
That would mean you would need to know to get into the elevator. Nowhere among the signage we followed to get us this far did we see special mention that Emerald was on the 2nd floor.
As we schlepped our bags back through the parkade, re-tracing the signage we had followed, and arriving at the elevator, the 2nd floor wasn't even on the list of options. Another leap of faith, we get into the elevator and there in 12pt type is National, and then in 8pt type beneath it, "Emerald - 2nd floor".
Yes, there was a sign. But not along our path of travel which meant it was useless to us in our wayfinding effort. Think about all the paths of travel your customers take. Think about their frame of mind, and other things they are thinking about when trying to navigate their way through your business.
Jane and I found our SUV, loaded our bags once again and headed out for the 1-5 south. Thankfully, there is only one road out of the rental car parkade and the directions all along the way were clear and easy. We found our way to the hotel without one wrong turn. We just followed the signs...
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