Category archive: Marketing

Tuesday, February 14, 2006

Barclays Bank's customer service Rx

Peter Curtis writes on The Business Editors blog of Barclays Bank’s plans to go cheesy with their customer service.

As the BBC reports, its ATMs are to be renamed “holes in the wall” and a sign in the window is to welcome customers with the message “Through this door walk the nicest people in the world”. Give me strength.

Perhaps I’m just a miserable curmudgeon, but I’m afraid there’s something about this faux-chumminess that makes me want to heave… By all means talk to me in plain English – ditching the jargon that often surrounds financial products can only be a good thing. But don’t pretend to be my friend – it simply isn’t credible.

The problem, of course, is that money - not even the amount in Barclays’ coffers - cannot buy credibility. No matter how much a business wants to appear to ‘keep it real,’ the money-churning, almighty effort it constitutes to them still shines through. You can almost hear the bank managers groaning in anticipation - along with customers.

What would it take to really shape up their customer service? Curtis has a practical suggestion:

If Barclays can deliver genuine improvements in service, that will be something worth shouting about. As someone who’s fed up of negotiating labyrinthine bank call centres, a renewed focus on a more branch-based service would certainly be welcome.

More generally, I’d suggest this prescription (from Adrants via the Big Blog Company):

Give a shit. Basically, that’s what this boils down to. Consumers are not a vast collection of numbers on a spreadsheet or a nice collection of 5 categories with silly marketing names like “early, suburban adopter.” They are people with real concerns that will, ultimately, lead to a better product. Listen and give a shit. That’s good marketing medicine.

Verizon CMO Stratton talks tough to agencies

Oneangrycustomer relays the details of Verizon Wireless CMO John Stratton’s take on what awaits ad agencies in the years to come. Sounds like someone’s been taking a ride on the Cluetrain (or listening to Kevin Roberts of Saatchi & Saatchi). Some highlights of Stratton’s remarks:

“What you’ve been selling for the last 50 years no longer works.”

“Before they figure out where to put their money, your marketer clients will hire and fire agency after agency, seeking someone, anyone, who can tell them where they might go next.”

“But your clients actually need more than just an audience. One of the consequences of the evolution of our media-delivery systems over the last 10 years is that the audience you do ultimately find is much less receptive to the message you’re trying to send. They are absolutely armed and ready to get to the content they want while avoiding the message you are trying to implant within it.”

“They need much more than an audience. They need an audience that cares about what they have to say. They need their message to be relevant to the audience they are saying it to.”

It is tempting to wonder how it could take so long for such educated and experienced people to understand this. But it is refreshing and heartening to hear very blunt talk along these lines from someone in Stratton’s position.

The fact is that individual companies have been figuring this out on their own, without much guidance from industry bigwigs or major research projects, for years now. It is, after all, pretty straightforward to understand. The question for businesses everywhere is whether or not they are going to wait on the industry bigwigs and major research projects to help them figure out how it all applies to them. If the answer is no, keep visiting this blog or get in touch.

Monday, February 13, 2006

A message to Madison Avenue

A letter to the editor in the New York Times:

We have a message for the movers and shakers of Madison Avenue: “Tone down the relentless yammering; you’re talking too loud for us to listen.”

As quoted in Alex Wipperfurth’s Brand Hijack.

The demise of attention-jacking

Humorist Dave Barry isn’t joking when he says that:

We can no longer compel people to pay attention. We used to be able to say, there’s this really important story in Poland. You should read this. Now people say, ‘I just look up what I’m interested in on the Internet.’

Barry is talking about newspapers, but this is another point that applies across all attempts to hijack attention.

Link via oneangrycustomer ("Chronicling everyday brand experiences” and well worth checking out on a regular basis.).

Sunday, February 12, 2006

Passivity ≠ interactivity

Here’s a spot-on observation from Jeff Jarvis, in a post entitled Interaction vs. reaction: But enough about you…:

The problem with media’s definition of interactivity is that’s all about controlled reaction to media’s agenda: Come talk about our stuff. It is designed like a children’s museum, with buttons you can push to keep you busy and happy. That may not be the intent, but it is the result and message of forums and chats and blogs that are about what the newspaper publishes. And it misses the point.

This applies, of course, not only to media. The same could be said for about 99% of the business and advertising world’s definition of interactivity. It tends to go something like this…

"Passivity ≠ interactivity" continued...