Kudos for a change ...

Those of you who know me know that one of my pet peeves is national advertisers who don't think that Alaska and Hawaii are part of the nation.  In particular, I've railed against companies and organizations (including the US Department of Commerce!) who use an outline map of the "48 states" to represent the nation.

From the AT&T Website

On this blog, I've identified AT&T wireless as one of those culprits ... and I wrote their management expressing my dismay.  Well ... their latest advertising has magically inserted Alaska and Hawaii onto the map.  I don't know if it was in response to my complaint, but someone seems to have listened.

Thanks, AT&T. 

Unintended Consequences on a Grand Scale

I've written about the idea of unintended consequences before.  Unintended consequences are the bad outcomes that come from perfectly good intentions.  They usually occur because people don't think through all of the interrelated consequences of their actions. 

I've just attended a conference in India where I can foresee the government pursuing a very logical concept that will likely reap a consequence they don't want.  The numbers in India are unbelievable.  There are roughly (nobody has an exact count) a half a billion people in India under the age of 25 ... and a huge number are coming into the workforce every year. To find jobs for all these young people, the government wants to set up training programs modeled on the U.S.  Some of these training programs make a lot of sense.  They're looking at the hospitality industry as a new source of jobs.  Hospitality is growing rapidly around the world and, as a service industry it creates a lot of jobs for each dollar of revenue.  So that's good. 

Another industry they're looking at is retail.  This one is much harder to understand.  The good intention is to streamline the retail industry and increase its productivity.  Now, this was my first trip to India, but what is striking about the country is the scale of the retail sector.  There are literally millions of little shops run by individuals or families.  They look incredibly inefficient, but, on the other hand, they employ a lot of people.  If you could somehow transform this chaotic system and make it more like the US, it would certainly become more efficient - but it would eliminate a lot of jobs.  In this case, the inefficiency of the existing system is supporting a large workforce (albeit at extremely poor wages).  A new, more productive system would increase wages, but eliminate lots of jobs.  So, if the government of India is seeking to increase employment, it might be well advised to look at training workers for other industries.

Can't Employees Pay Attention?

I'm on the road staying at a hotel.  Last night I had dinner in the hotel restaurant.  The food was good, the service was lacking, but there was one thing that drove me up a wall.  The background music (which was actually louder than background music should be) was Mozart's "Eine Kleine Nacht Musik."  Now, there's nothing wrong with that.  I like Mozart and Eine Kleine Nacht Musik.  It's a beautiful little piece that runs about a minute and thirty seconds.

Here's the problem.  That was the only music they played.  It was looped, so it played over and over and over again.  We were in the restaurant for about an hour, so I heard the piece approximately forty times. 

Here's what I wonder.  Why didn't any of the staff at the restaurant notice this ... and change the CD or turn the blessed thing off??  The problem in the service industry often is that we train people so specifically to look after their assigned duties that they don't notice anything else might be amiss. 

When I worked for a Pizza Hut franchisee, I remember going into one of the restaurants in the summer and noticed that the promotional placards were still up for Christmas.  Didn't the manager - or anyone else - notice that Jingle Bells was no longer playing on the radio?  Once again, they were probably so focused on their assigned tasks that they didn't see that something very obviously was wrong in their peripheral vision.

It isn't easy, but in the service business we have to train people to do their jobs, but just as importantly we need to train them to see the big picture.  

I'm Picking on United Again

I guess I shouldn't pick on United Airlines so often in this blog ... but they're such an easy target.

I just got off a long international flight (Honolulu to Tokyo) and had plenty of time to read the inflight magazine.  In it, there was a self congratulatory article about their executive chef and the wonderful inflight menus he is creating.  The article featured and displayed first and business class meals (though it did mention creating meal boxes)  The only problem is that I was reading this article in coach just before being served possibly the worst inflight snack I have ever experienced.  It was a very dry and stale "croissant" (I had to put it in quotes) and a fruit cup with exactly two pieces of pineapple and two pieces of cantaloupe.  And, of course, the airline doesn't even serve complimentary meals in coach anymore.

There were two photographs accompanying the article.  One was the smiling executive chef.  The second was a gorgeous shot of a meal featuring a rare cut of beef.

United's management seems oblivious to the reality that 90+% of the passengers reading this article are reading it in a coach seat.  Like the Greek myth of Tantalus, they see something they want, but they can't have it.

The lesson here is that you shouldn't oversell your product.  It just ticks people off.  United does this routinely ... recently featuring "new improved" business class flat bed seating in business class, for example, when the great majority of their fleet doesn't have it installed.

Let's be honest about what we sell. 

Appreciating Non-Rational Customers

I recently spoke to a group of architects and engineers.  They were talking about the need to expand the installation of solar water heating and photovoltaic panels in Hawaii. 

The conversation reminded me of some research we did at Ogilvy & Mater related to a solar installation marketing program we were managing for Hawaiian Electric.  The client had all kinds of data about how much money the customer would save by installing solar.  Those rational claims got translated into rational advertising focused on money.  They didn't work very well. And the client was perplexed.  Why weren't these systems selling better?  What rational human being would NOT install solar when it paid for itself and, in fact, would save them tons of money over time? 

The answer, of course, is that humans are not rational, at least they're not rational all of the time.  They're not necessarily crazy, just non-rational.

To delve into the problem we conducted some qualitative research.  What we found was that customers understood the money saving story.  They got the joke, so to speak.  They just didn't want the hassle of doing the installation.  With that bit of understanding, we focused on a target that didn't have that objection.  We did a direct marketing campaign aimed at people who already had a building permit.  If the objection is that I don't want the noise, dust and hassle of a solar installation, let's talk to people who have already decided to put up with that.  The result was a higher incidence of purchase as customers simply added solar to the remodeling project they were already doing. 

Dr, Steuart Henderson Britt

One of the great teachers in my life was Dr. Steuart Henderson Britt.  He was a psychologist by training, but he trained us to think like social scientists to delve into the real motivations for consumer behavior.  Think like an anthropologist to understand cultural motivations.  Think like a sociologist to understand societal norms and mores that drive behavior.  Think like a psychologist to recognize the inner workings of the mind and how they affect purchases. 

Dr, Britt was a wonderful teacher.  One of the things I remember most was that he put a jar on the desk in front of the class ... and we had to contribute a quarter every time we said "I think ...."  It's not what I think as a rational marketer that's important.  It's how the customer behaves.  And that behavior is often driven by non-rational motives.

Greed. It's what kills the Golden Goose

I have been a paid member of the United Airlines Red Carpet Club (now the eponymous United Club) for many, many years.  I have dutifully paid annual dues - now $500 for individuals and $750 for couples - because I received a value commensurate with the price.  What I value is a quiet oasis in the middle of chaos.  And that, to me, is worth the price. 

A few years ago, some brilliant marketer decided to change the model.  In addition to selling annual memberships at a fairly high price (and resulting in some feeling of exclusivity), the airline now offers one time passes for $50 per entry.  So, unless you're flying more than 10 segments a year, you don't have a good reason to buy the annual membership.  I suspect the airline will see an erosion in membership as a result.  What's worse, by offering an inexpensive entry to the hoi polloi, the club has 1) become more crowded and chaotic, and 2) has lost its cachet as something special.

I'm sure that the person who suggested this based the recommendation on the premise that it would increase volume.  And it did.  The clubs are very crowded - but at the cost of eroding the brand and its margins.

The same thing can happen with many products and categories.  Stanley Plog wrote a wonderful book titled "Leisure Travel" all about marketing destinations.  In it, there's a wonderful chapter titled "Why destinations decline and fall and nobody does anything about it."  The problem is over-development and the motive is greed.  Hawaii's Waikiki resort area was greatly overdeveloped ... and the cost of redevelopment has been high (but necessary to make the destination attractive again).

I guess the moral of the story is that you need to watch the diet of your golden goose. 

Hooters: A Great Place for the Whole Family

In the "what were they thinking" department, Hooters, the puerile purveyor of titillation as a condiment, targeting the forever-adolescent has announced that it is remodeling its restaurants with an eye to developing the family market.  Really.  Here's the story.  Now, I have nothing against puerile purveyors of titillation.  They've clearly developed a brand and segmented the market to appeal to the forever-adolescent.  But, if they think they can expand the brand to capture the family market I think they're going to, uh, go flat.

Some brands can be extended.  Dove soap can extend to moisturizers, because that's related to Dove's core brand.  Hawaii can extend its vacation brand to the honeymoon market, because they're related, too.  It's much harder for Hawaii to extend its brand to attract business meetings because the imagery for business is clearly separate from the brand imagery of a Polynesian paradise.  And Dove may run into trouble as they've tried to stretch the brand into the men's moisturizing market.

When you name a chain of restaurants "Hooters" and you are known for your scantily clad waitresses, you've pretty much cast the die.  Changing Hooters is a little like Harley Davidson saying "you meet the nicest people on a Harley."

If Hooters proceeds with this, they'll face two big problems.  First, families are not going to have Hooters top-of-mind when it comes to a family night out.  That's one.  Second, if they are successful in attracting families, they're going to turn off their core, testosterone-drenched customer base.  It's a lose-lose.

There's another adult brand that famously attempted to extend the brand into the family market:  Las Vegas.  The brand of showgirls and casinos decided to go after the family market for a brief period.  I was talking to one of the Vegas marketers about their initiative and why they abandoned it.  He said, succinctly, "we consider family to be the "f" word now."  Clearly, what goes in Vegas is adult fantasy, not family entertainment.