Astonish Your Customer(s)

Astonish your customer(s) ... Isn't that the responsibility of every company and marketer? Isn't that what every customer wants? 

Every marketer needs to constantly ask ... What audacious promise could the brand make (and keep) that will astonish our customer(s)? 

 

Asking the question is easy. The "how" is hard. This blog will provide the "how" by profiling the example of the do-ers, the original and unconventional thinkers and, especially the brand builders that astonish their customer(s) without the resources of the big companies.  

(TY: Paul Arden, Seth Godin)   

Learn from Lotto

The Mega Lotto game offers an interesting study in human behavior. If you don't play, you can't win. If you buy one ticket, odds against winning are enormous. If you buy two or more tickets, your odds essentially remain equally as long. Yet millions of people play because they love the feeling they get when they but it - the anticipation, the suspense, the swirling thought of what-will-I do-with-the-money. 

Suppose you created your own lottery, with friends, family, whomever. People would be assigned a number based on the order in which they bought their $1 ticket (1, 2, 3 and so on). At the end of the week, all the purchased numbers are put into a hat and one is picked - guaranteed payout, every week. 

Suppose you recruited people that are interested in a certain cause and included a requirement that half the winnings go to the cause, each week.

Simple and fun, while doing good.  

The real point is - could you design a product that possessed many of the same qualities of Lotto - the model works for that business and maybe it can for another.

O.D.O.o.O.D.O.  

Can't have it = Want it

Hugh MacLeod: Advice for Entrepreneurs includes the following gem (along with others in his list).

"People want what they can't have. In fact, that's pretty much all they want." 

That question would be a great starting point for a product innovation exercise.

Start by finding and listening to a community (a group of people who are proven to actively, frequently and passionately interact with one another) and find out what they want and don't think they can have.   

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.

Invisible to Infinitesimal to Tiny to maybe Small

From the founder of Sam Adams Lager Jim Koch: “We’ve gone from being invisible to infinitesimal all the way up to tiny. We’re not even small yet,” Koch said of his company, which now makes nearly 2 million barrels a year and has 0.8 percent share of the U.S. market. 

The perfect story of focus, patience, improvement, focus, patience and results.

When the industry was all about quantity, Jim was about quality. Now that quality is in vogue via the very resilient craft beer movement, he is about quality and variety and exploration.

Jim and his team give this quality product energized differentiation with seasonal offering that keep the loyalists engaged and give the not-yet-loyal a reason to give it a try.

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.

Why is marketing such a fascinating exercise

"Once we move beyond the simple satisfaction of needs, we move into the complex satisfaction of wants. And wants are hard to measure and difficult to understand." - Seth Godin

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.

You can learn from a frog

Only in rare instances will successful brands specifically and publicly tell you how they got to where they are in helpful, informative and actionable detail, which imparts a lesson (rather than in a self serving PR kinda way). 

Frog Design is that rare brand, company, serial market-maker.

Learn from one of the best by reviewing the numerous bite size yet piercing case studies that cover 13 different industries.

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.

Here's one method - what's yours

Why are cleaning products strictly functional and based on problem/solution? Can customers and cleaning products have an emotional relationship?

The founders of method products saw a real relationship between consumers and their home.

Your home is your second skin. Your home is as very personal.

They looked at categories like skin care as inspiration, where consumers often buy into a philosophy or lifestyle and then a range of products which reflect that sensibility.

The founders combined design elegance, a point of view and a free prize (green) to create a breakthrough line of products. 

It started with a critique of the current industry, a point of view and an unapologetic sense of mission about how it could be different and better. 

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.

TY: Adam Morgan

 

Industry-wide spec

"There's no reason that your printer (or, your product) should be less elegant than a BMW Z4 Roadster. When you look at most cars (or, your product), you get the feeling there's one global manufacturer." - so says, Laurenz Schaffer of BMW Group Designworks USA

How true, especially in my industry (CPG)! I guess it is due to the relentless practice of "follow the follower" that pervades most industries.

Product design is the next frontier for brand innovation, especially for those brands that want to survive and thrive in markets where every product essentially meets the core needs (not wants) of consumers.

Alan Webber, co-founder of Fast Company magazine says that the real purpose of design is to "Solve problems, Initiate change, Announce innovation".  Sounds good.

Design is also a means to meaningfully and dramatically differentiate your brand or amplify the underlying message or value proposition that your product offers.

Take Dyson vacuums - James Dyson not only designed a breakthrough mechanism to inhale dirt, he took the added (some might call it unnecessary) step of adding a secondary dramatic design element by wrapping that mechanism in a stylish outer "skin". 

Design: it is not a nice-to-have, or a maybe, or a step at the end of the process to pretty-it-up - it's the difference-maker and a great path to validate a premium price. 

O.D.O.o.O.D.B. 

Deliver the present & Protect the future

Read the Ad Age article from Denny's CMO Mark Chmiel about the requirement of CMOs to deliver the present (sales), while protecting the future (build the brand).

Denny's and Mark faced what many marketer face - Denny's sales were continuing to decline and consumers were not excited by the brand. In fact, the 56 year old brand has 95% awareness and 90+% trial, which meant that consumers felt that they knew the brand.

How to re-energize and re-activate consumers, or better said, how to deliver sales, while simultaneously building the brand? Note the requirement for simultaneous results.

Denny's chose to adapt the highly successful Hyundai Assurance program to the Denny's business and consumer with Free Grand Slam day (advertisied on the Super Bowl). The result: over 2 million consumers visited Denny's that day.

You may think that anyone can give something away and get a lot of response due to the lift from a Super Bowl ad. You might be right but how many give-aways also build the brand for the long term, a la Hyundai (and only-time-will-tell Denny's)?

The article is more expansive than the above topic, as it speaks eloquently about the way CMO can, and must, stay in alignment with the CEO and the Board of Directors by staying sales focused.

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.   

Bait-N-Screw

I am in the market to buy a car and have a very good credit score. I have owned and leased new and used cars. I don't think I have ever had a monthly payment less than $400 and more often it is closer to $500, for cars that cost about $40,000.

I asked the GM of a car dealership why I never seem to be offered the low monthly rates quoted in TV ads, that range from $199 to $329 for very expensive cars. He told me that those deals are for a short time period (24-36 months vs. usual term of 48-60) and for low annual mileage (8,000 vs. average 12,000-15,000).

So, it is a bait-n-switch offer - employed by all the major players in the industry. A technically accurate offer, but one that does not align with the way people purchase/finance or drive their cars.

When you learn that an offer is bait-n-switch, do you ever say ... Well, I should have known better? Or, The company is being fair and treating me with respect. Or, I really like to do business with a company that behaves this way. Me neither.

If even banks like ING Direct and Ally are now winning by being totally upfront about what they will and won't give you for being a customer and treating customer using the "Golden Rule", why aren't any major car companies following suit? When an industry is hurting badly, is it smart to promote via a bait-n-screw strategy?

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.

I'm not such a good judge

Do you ever recommend or buy a book for a good friend relating to a topic that you know he is deeply interested in and find out that he never touched "your" book? 

Are you ever surprised about the clothes or shoes a good friend wears or the car he drives?

Are you ever surprised about the movies or music that your friend loves?

Are you ever surprised about the girlfriend or spouse that your good friend has chosen?

Has a good friend, whom you know well, ever told you something about himself and you say, "I didn't know that?'    

It happens to me all the time.

So, if I can be so wrong about the tastes of just one person that I know well, what makes me think that I can make an accurate judgment about the tastes of a mass of people that I view from 30,000 feet?

I need to get involved in my customers lives - become a part of their life and the Tribe(s) they hang with - to really have a chance at understanding and serving them.

O.D.O.o.O.D.B.