Buying a New Car: Observations and Learnings
A couple of weeks ago my wife and I bought a new car: a 2012 Honda CRV. The entire experience was remarkable, and it highlights the core marketing challenge we all face. Earlier this month we visited our local Honda dealer, Fletcher-Jones. We use Fletcher-Jones for service. We did a test drive on a new CRV and liked […]
2012 Kellogg Super Bowl Advertising Review
That was quite a Super Bowl! The Kellogg Super Bowl Advertising Review results are in. You can see my thoughts on the ads here: https://kelloggsuperbowlreview.wordpress.com/
Defensive Strategy, Super Bowl
Dannon Fights Back
Dannon will debut its first Super Bowl ad on Sunday, promoting its Oikos brand of Greek yogurt. The move seems a little debatable on the surface. Oikos is a small brand, with nothing close to the size or reach of big Super Bowl advertisers such as Budweiser, Toyota or Samsung. Other small food brands have […]
Carnival’s Branding Problem
This is tough time for Carnival, the world’s largest cruise company. The big issue, of course, is the sinking of the Costa Concordia off the coast of Italy. This is a branding disaster for Costa and for Carnival. The problems are fairly obvious. First, it is tragedy, with more than a dozen deaths. Second, this […]
Cardinal George’s Branding Lesson
Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George recently provided a vivid lesson in the power of branding. Several weeks ago, organizers changed the route and start time of Chicago’s gay pride parade. Cardinal George was concerned that the new schedule would result in the parade interfering with the morning worship service at a neighborhood church. On Christmas, a […]
The Sears Endgame
This week brought more bad news from Sears, with the company reporting weak holiday sales and announcing that it would close more than 100 stores and take a $1.8 billion charge. Sears is a fading enterprise. Sales are down from $53.0 billion in fiscal year 2007 to $43.3 billion in 2011. The stock is trading […]
Hilton Recovers
Last week I wrote a post about my stay at the Minneapolis Hilton and how the front desk team didn’t respond when I informed them that my visit was rather disappointing. I used it as an example of a missed opportunity in service recovery. Several hours after I put up my post, however, I heard from […]
Hilton’s Missed Opportunity
Service recovery is incredibly important, especially in a world with blogs, Facebook and Twitter. An unhappy customer can do a lot of damage. Sometimes there isn’t much you can do; the person is unsatisfied for one reason or another but you don’t find this out and so can’t address it. It is hard to deal […]
Dunder Mifflin Paper
Quill, an office supply company owned by Staples, announced today it was introducing Dunder Mifflin paper. Dunder Mifflin, of course, is the fictional company featured on NBC’s popular show The Office. So is this a smart move? I think so, for three reasons. First, it will create enormous PR buzz. The news is already showing up in […]
Black Friday Fades
Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, is a day unlike any other. It is the one day of the year when everyone in the United States is expected to go shopping. And many people do. Stores feed the frenzy with aggressive deals, encouraging people to get out early and line-up for the biggest savings. The […]
Three Notable Articles
Today’s Wall Street Journal has three notable articles about branding. All three are worth a read. The first article is one about the challenge of creating a powerful brand experience when shipping items through the mail. This is a significant issue; when a customer purchases a product at a high-end retailer, the buying experience is an […]
Walmart’s Healthcare Opportunity
This morning NPR reported that Walmart was planning to become a major player in healthcare in the United States. This afternoon Walmart denied the story, saying the document NPR saw was real but “overwritten and incorrect.” Reuters quoted Dr. John Agunobi, president of Walmart U.S. health & wellness as saying, “We are not building a […]