All Our Yesterdays – Trade Shows

One of my clients is planning on attending a couple of trade shows as part of their 2007 marketing plan. It was a case of recalling all my past learning and trying to formalize that so that we made the investment worthwhile.

In the middle of the planning, I attended MacWorld in San Francisco. I’d forgotten the sheer exhaustion of attending – let alone exhibiting at – one of these events. It all came pouring back!

So did the glaring shortfalls that seem so obvious as I walked around. Clearly organizations go to such events to generate business, awareness, or to reinforce a purchase decision. There were companies there who, it seemed to me, had not thought about any of these things. Many clearly had. I’ll focus on the sins I saw:

* I’m a big Tivo fan and TivoToGo has just been announced for the Mac. To use it you need a copy of Roxio Toast (a multimedia application and CD/DVD burner) and Roxio had a booth with the product for 1/3 off – way to go! Now the MacWorld folks are one of the many who believe that in order to register and pay them money, I must be forced to submit (i.e. it is mandatory on the form) all manner of information.

As an aside, this is one of the things that pushes my hot buttons (the fact that it is mandatory), so I, as a marketing professional I always doubt the efficacy of such data as I assume that there are many who do as I do and put in information that the recipient, presumably, takes as gospel but is in fact meaningless. So my occupation on this one was Coronation Programme Seller. For those of you not in the know, we haven’t had a Coronation in the UK since 1953. I have also been a chicken sexer and other dubious occupations. I have data for each of the other, in my judgement, intrusive or unnecessary questions. So when YOU, the customer buy this data, be very aware that I, and I believe many others like me, exist. You may not get what you think you are paying for…….

Back to MacWorld; so, I filled in this web form and the basic data (name address etc) are correct and encoded onto my badge. I’m at Roxio, you will recall. I want to buy their product, I really do. So I fight (really!) my way to the front, and ask one of the staff. I get a huge form. “Still using paper” I joke. I look at the form askance, this is like War and Peace.
“Why do you want a shipping address?”
“So we can ship the product to you.”
“I’ll just take it with me.”
“Oh, we don’t have any here.”

End of conversation! How can you go to a trade show to sell and not have product? They tell me I can order on the web, at the show price. Guess what? I can’t. Do you think I have bought their product?

* More booths than should be the case have NO information to attract an attendee to talk to them. Nothing about their product, nothing about what they do, or why I could/should be interested in them. Why be there?

* There were some booths (mercifully few at this show) that have obviously temp staff who have no idea about their products and services. They can’t answer questions, they don’t ask me for my information – what is the point of being there? It is arguably a negative brand touchpoint.

* How many booths have no product information or literature? More than a few. What was the objective in attending?

* Some get it right. I use (or rather used) a product that was in attendance so I went over. I am a happy mapping advocate with attached GPS on the PC. On the Mac it’s a poorly served segment. I was overjoyed when I saw a review of such a product, and bought it (expensive too). It’s a good looking program, it’s just that it is functionally poor (read unusable) for what I want to do. Put in a street address and find it. It doesn’t do that (you have to put ion a lat/long). Anyway, I removed it and vented – quietly – at one of the staff. I had no expectations beyond venting. I got an email from the CMO this week, thanking me for my feedback and asking me to stick with them. Impressive. Maybe I will give the new version another chance.

So all in all, I remain dubious about the ROI of trade shows. We shall see how my client does……

{Product, advertising, Apple, customer, customers, Marketing}

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Apple, Brand, customer, customers, Marketing, Product, User Experience

I take it all – well nearly all – back

In my last post here, I lauded Apple’s service and people. And I stick to that, however, I saw the other side of the coin today.

Stick with me whilst I rant a little. We buy Apple products, at least in part, because of the design, or style that they have. And I’m seeing a lot of MacBooks out there, so I’m not alone. But the incomplete product set means that there is no power adapter for use in cars and, more importantly, aeroplanes. I travel a lot – I crossed a million miles in less than three years with American – and a flight has to be productive time for me. So, when planning for a two week trip to Europe I bought the travel adapter kit and tried, tried very hard, to buy an adapter for use on the flight.

There is no such animal.

I have used the iGo Juice for many years and like it. But the fancy magsafe connector on the MacBook is not available, so I’m back to Apple. Except Apple don’t have a solution. They recommend a Kensington inverter that plugs into the airline outlet and into which I plug the regular Apple power supply. Well, the inverter is like a black brick (remember that design/style thing?) and adds another chunk to the things I need to carry (and I’ve downsized my briefcase in order to meet the stupid Heathrow smaller size restriction…..). However, I have no other option and I have projects that need to be done…..

So I buy it $70 – as much as a power supply itself – and off I trot. It is encased in a sealed hard plastic bubble which has to be destroyed (with sharp scissors) in order to extract the item of value. Regular readers will detect that one of my marketing hot buttons has been pushed.

Hard. Very hard indeed.

Which school teaches marketers and product managers to do this? Why on earth do we need packaging that is impossible to open without brute force? HP has incurred my wrath for this before. Back to the point. The packaging is totally useless by the time I have extracted the inverter so, of course, I ditch it (into the recycling).

On the flight back – a 12 hour Heathrow to LAX excursion – the inverter refuses to work. It will light up and power the machine for about 30 seconds an then the red light comes on and the power indicator on the MacBook goes out. Needs must, I do what I can. I spend the rest of the flight wondering how I explain to the client – the one who is being billed $300 per hour on this project – why his work isn’t done as planned and committed. Well, I’m a big boy I can manage all of the crap that accrues from such project misses.

So, I’m back in San Francisco and I have a note to return the inverter. I dig out my receipt and head to Apple. “I need a supervisor to authorize a return without packaging”. Supervisor arrives. Refuses to accept a return without packaging. I explain, quite patiently for me, that the packaging has to be destroyed to extract the product to discover that it is faulty. She understands. I know she “understands” because she keeps telling me so. Except that her definition and mine don’t seem to come from the same dictionary. So even though she concedes that the problem is real, there is, apparently, room for “understanding” but no room for flexibility.

Rules is rules.

She tells me that she can show me where it says that returns must be in the original packaging on the receipt. I tell her that we have spent over $5,000 with Apple in the last month – yes we did plump for the iMac for Barbara as well as my machine and the inevitable addons. “Am I to walk out and not spend any more with Apple? Over a defective $70 part?” It looked like the answer was yes and I picked up the inverter and was ready to head out. She offered to exchange it. Not really what I wanted, but again I’m out of options. This whole saga has been one of bad options only being available. Perhaps that’s what one gets for buying things on the 13th of the month.

Apple – Steve or Phil are you listening? – I love your products. I love the design. I’ve been a rabid advocate of you and yours. But you people need flexibility. If they have that empowerment (and I’d be amazed if they don’t) then they need training. I was talking to a supervisor apparently, but she still needs training. Even if I’m not the perfect customer – and I could believe that – I am a customer. One who spends a lot of money. One who has sold a lot of Apple gear. One whose profession is Word of Mouth marketing. Who has some vague idea of my lifetime value to Apple.

One who has been royally and utterly pissed off by rigid adherence to an unimplementable rule over SEVENTY dollars. My perception of your brand is a reflection of every interaction I have with your brand. Your brand equity with me has just gone waaaaaay down.

Details, details….

It’s all in the details…. The customer experience that is. After a couple of years of getting the email information from audible.com they finally made me an offer that hooked me. If I sign up for their platinum service, I get 24 credits and a free iPod Nano. The iPod alone costs $199 from research on the Apple site. Sounds like a good deal, though I don’t hold out much hope of how much the credits may get me. And the contrast between the two customer experiences, Audible and Apple, could not be more stark. Read on……..

Now I haven’t had a iPod since I sold mine a couple of years ago, preferring to play music on my PC when traveling. It works fine when in an aircraft, but commuting on Bart or car journeys is not viable with the PC (though I do admire the folks who Bart (can’t believe I’ve just made that into a verb – am I finally becoming a real American?) listening to their PCs on Bose headphones). But attempts to use my Treo as an MP3 player have been fraught, non-productive and haven’t got me reducing the number of outstanding podcasts I have in the listening stack.

So I sign up. Now the Audible site is about average in the customer experience – that is generally poor – it assumes all sorts of details that shouldn’t be assumed. But again, pretty much par for the course. How did I know that you can’t download an iPod interface (it’s assumed that you will use iTunes, but as there is a download for every other device, why would I assume anything else? And how do I know if I need the Audible Download manager or the iTunes plugin or both (still haven’t worked that out – I got a way to do it that works and it’ll do). There is more …. I know you want to hear it, but that’ll come below…..

So the package arrives. I open it and the iPod packaging feels smooth and sensuous. The iPod illustration (face at front and profile on the back) are not just printed, they are also embossed. The core slides out and opens to reveal the iPod Nano on the right half and a package of the accessories in a separate enclosures (a bit less packaging still would be good on the components please Apple). It looks, feels and reeks design as part of the whole – not as an afterthought to get the core product from A to B.

I remove the parts and plug the USB cord (with nice plastic end protectors) into the iPod and then into the PC. I did glance at the 4 step instructions, but it wasn’t actually necessary. Everything starts up without any action from me. iTunes (already installed) starts, the registration web page starts up automatically and guides me through registering the device. Now if ONLY the serial number was readable – I had to get a spare pair of glasses to uses as a magnifier and even then it took three goes. How about reading it from the device (I found it on a menu much later), fro me and entering it, Apple? I guess their demographic isn’t 50+ specs wearers……..)

Nothing short of a stunning customer experience….

So search for and download some books while I’m waiting. I have a pleasant experience, I find that the Aubrey and Maturin series by Patrick O’Brian are each 1 credit. So I can get all 20 (yes I know there are 21) and still have 4 credits remaining. That is real value in my book (sorry!), as each is unabridged and constitutes 12-15 hours of Patrick Tull’s stunning readings. I highly recommend them.

Now I have them downloaded (it would have helped to understand the Audio Format icons by each one to ensure that I had the correct version, but clicking on them doesn’t work….). And of course I want them in the order of the series. No way! I can’t rename them it seems and when I do so in iTunes, (being smart enough to create a smart playlist) of course it reads them in again as the titles are different…. and so on………

Enough!

The short of it is that Apple ‘gets it’ that customer experience – the whole experience – and audible doesn’t. Or if it does, it’s not reflected in their products.

Tags: Customer Experience, Service, WOM

Advertising in the 21st Century

I was listening – well sort off, I tuned it out mostly – to more gnashing of teeth and wailing from the media industry about how we viewers were avoiding their ads. The latest “ruse” they have employed is to get actors to speak about products as part of the script….

Jay Rosen talks in ‘People Formerly Known as the Audience‘ about the shift in power and that once control is ceded to ‘the masses’ it cannot be regained. I guess the power of the many, enabled by communication, over the few.

This, and a few other teasers, got me thinking – a rare and dangerous thing – about advertising. The regular stuff, the ads that we see on TV all the time. Turns out, I’m not as unique as I was hoping – many of us watch ads that are appealing, and will even seek them out. This was reinforced by a friend (a senior at USC) who has just passed his driving test. After getting over his shock that I not only knew about YouTube, but could show him fun stuff there, he showed me the new VW ads. ‘Unpimp Your Auto‘ is a series of three (search for tags pimp, auto and VW) ads that his generation are seeking out. Yup, that is that they go online and watch them, show them to friends, talk about them. Now THAT’s an advert.

Ditto for the Apple Mac ads are interesting in and of themselves. But the spoofs (for all of them search for tag truenuff) ALSO build credibility for the Mac too. Apple could pay for such ads, but this way they garner huge credibility on the back of someone else’s dollar. That’s RoI!

Now to some of the challenges. Talk a look at Cubicle Wars. Do it now, then read on.

What was the product? I had to go back and look twice. Compelling, funny and a great piece of work – but I can’t remember the product even now. All I can recall is that it’s a report writer. So compelling ads are not enough – there needs to be some good hook.

Also, in the Mac spoof noted above, the company Truenuff included a link along with all the spoof ads. Only problem is, that the link generates an error 404. Whoops. Even a link to the main domain didn’t work. Today, there is a redirect to a blog on Myspace.

So what’s my point? That good, innovative, compelling ads can be produced and we, the customer, will actively seek them out. Smart marketers will will stop trying to force advertising upon us and learn to have us seek it!

Oh, and execution (especially around the whole user (customer) experience) is still all!

Great customer experiences to us all.

Tags: Advertising, Media, WOM

{advertising, Brand, customers, media}

[composed and posted with ecto]

Technorati Tags: Advertising, Media, WOM

The Coffee Rant

You know, I’m getting to the stage where I KNOW I inhabit a different world than everyone else. Up until I got older, I used to only suspect that that was the case. Now I know it.

I’m turning into a curmudgeon – what am I going to be like when I get old? I’m less tolerant than ever of ‘fools’.

The latest outrage is having to learn the lingo in order to achieve the simplest of purchases. And all those who INSIST that I use their exact dialect in order to part with my hard earned cash and pay their wages.

All I want is to buy a coffee. Albeit an upmarket, yuppiefied bloody expensive coffee, but coffee nonetheless.

This basic of life – at least according to Jack Aubrey, and who would disagree with him? – this basic, is now unobtainable without entering into some foreign language negotiation. A bit like giving the password to demonstrate that one is entitled to drink it, or to be in the club.

Perhaps they know that I’m only pretending to be a cool, self-assured executive?

Let me explain……… Depending on where I am, I have to use the appropriate code to order the volume of liquid required – Starbucks insists on Venti; Peet’s on Large; Costa on Massimo…… for the same thing. Woe betide anyone who mixes the metaphor – have you seen the look one gets asking for a Venti in Peet’s? Or vice versa, of course. Perhaps it is to discourage those of us who have been known to do deliberately!

A simple use of the English language (I include American English in this definition) such as ‘the largest latte you have’ results in an indoctrination in their particular dialect of the code.

The WORST example, I’m afraid to say, was on a trip to the UK. The Costa Coffee bar in Reading, Berkshire. (That’s BARKshire for my US based colleagues, despite the way it is spelt).

‘Yes?’ says the barista (see, the language has started already). ‘The largest non-fat latte you have, please’.

‘You mean a skinny Massimo?’. ‘I mean the largest one you make, made with non-fat milk please.’ ‘Yes, that’s a Massimo.’

‘Then I’ll have one of those please. To go’.

‘ONE SKINNY MASSIMO LATTE, TO FLEE’. That’s another thing – it seems to be part of the culture to have to bellow the order from one person to another – it must be written into their procedures manual – even when, as in this case, they are standing three feet apart. And ‘TO FLEE’?

Where are they from? This is pretentious nonsense at its worst. Are they trying to make me feel totally alienated? Do they intend to try and make me feel like I’m not of their clan?

Their whole marketing thrust is presumably the inverse, to make me feel good about them and their product. Somewhere there is a poor bloody marketing gal working hard to create this ‘ambiance’ that makes me feel ‘welcome’. At one with them and their brand.

Advice to poor bloody marketing gal (or guy) – all my interactions with your brand (and I do mean ALL of them) affect my perception. Including – nay especially – with your people. When they look down their nose at me because I choose (remember, I’m a curmudgeon) not to use their language. When I’m indoctrinated in (their version) of ‘correct usage’. Why not just smile and do it, they MUST know exactly what I meant and want. But no, I have to be disciplined.

You will come to learn that one of my principles (Graham Principle #1) as far as customers are concerned is ‘Smile while they kick you in the teeth’. Perhaps not quite literally, but you get my drift. The customer is Queen (to quote Tom Peters read his freely downloadable presentations). We will come back to this in subsequent posts.

So I shall do as I have always preached, and vote with my feet. I don’t inhabit Costa anymore. I’ll walk further, spend more if necessary, elsewhere.

And that, dear readers, is the key. Unless we vote with our wallets/pocketbooks nothing will change. Graham Principle #2.

And whilst the coffee vendors may be frustrating, they are far from the worst offenders. Lets’ talk (in a future rant) about ISPs – I just went through what mine described (and I didn’t detect the humor) as a ’service upgrade’. And, as Jimmy Cricket says ‘C’mere, there’s more’.

Soon.

Tags: andy sernovitz