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November 14, 2009

Buddy the Elf, what’s your favorite color?

Posted by Grendel's Mother under free, marketing
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The headline of today’s post is one of my favorite lines from a movie I love called Elf. Will Ferrell is hilarious as Buddy, an adopted Elf who leaves the North Pole and travels to Manhattan to meet his dad. While visiting his dad at work, he answers the phone, “Buddy the Elf, what’s your favorite color?” One day, I would like to work in a place where I can answer the phone that way.

Things have been busy for me lately and so less time for “observing” potential topics for this blog. But what I have noticed lately—which is kind of hard to miss—are the beautiful colors of the leaves. The trees have been building up their food reserves for the winter and the little leaves are shriveling up and dying. But boy do they go out in a blaze of glory.

And after reading an article about colors in Marketing News, a magazine published by the American Marketing Association, I thought it would be fun to talk about how we can use colors to influence people’s perceptions of brands, buying behavior, and moods. How you decorate your living room is your own business. Various cultures have different views on colors and what they mean, but below are some general color associations that I got from a Web site called Buzzle.com.

  • Red: power, passion, courage, vitality, excitement, strength, speed, love, heart and warmth.
  • Yellow: light, cheer, sunlight, happiness, creativity, confidence, self-esteem, intellect, innovation.
  • Blue: caring, devotion, trust, wisdom, peacefulness, serenity, loyalty, truth, coolness, harmony.
  • Green: nature, fresh, growth, abundance, life, youth, renewal, hope, fertility, peace, balance.
  • Orange: energy, warmth, contentment, fruitfulness, strength, security, sensuality, abundance.
  • White: pure light, energy, truth, perfection, serenity, harmony, loyalty, sincerity, clarity.
  • Black: formal, reserved, drive, dignity, reliability, authority, power, prudence, wisdom, glamour.

I believe that blue is the color most often used in business. And it makes sense considering how the color is perceived. Orange and red are often used in fast food—cheap and quick. Can you think of brands you like and the colors they use? Based on the descriptions above, do those colors accurately reflect how you feel about the brand? Something to think about.

And in answer to Buddy’s question, my favorite color is green. But I sure do like seeing all of the colors in nature. And while this has nothing to do with colors, I feel compelled to note that Office Max created some great buzz about their brand by developing the Elf Yourself video application through JibJab. Creativity and innovation can cause something to spread as virally as the swine flu. Try it, it’s fun.

 

 

 

October 17, 2009

Even God uses PR and marketing professionals.

Posted by Grendel's Mother under God, marketing
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Church marketing? It may seem weird to think of a church conducting marketing but it makes sense. After all, God wants us to spread the good news and to do that it helps to invite people to come hear about it at church. I attend Fairfax Community Church and their creative department does a really nice job on not only their direct marketing pieces but also the set designs, videos, and all the other creative elements that can be seen in and around the building.

But some churches are too small to be able to print shiny brochures or even mail letters. They sometimes rely only on the marquee outside their building (and maybe some word-of-mouth viral marketing mixed in with some help from the Holy Spirit). Lately I’ve seen some pretty funny messages on some of these marquees. It just goes to show you that God will you use your gifts with whatever tools you have at your disposal. The first rule of marketing is to get people’s attention and these are some signs that got mine. (I wonder if the pastors’ sermon deliveries are as good.)

  • America needs a faith lift.
  • God answers knee mail.
  • Tomorrow’s forecast—God reigns and the Son shines.

Now, I know this isn’t relevant to church marketing but it relates to signage so I’m going to fit this in. The people at Wal-Mart could learn a lesson from this post about writing smart signs. Seriously, who is the genius who posted these two signs together? Communication is key. And so is the Word. Want to come to church with me next weekend?

 

No parking but turn off your engines while parked. Huh?

No parking but turn off your engines while parked. Huh?

 

October 1, 2009

Experiments in time travel. Or, just being stupid.

Posted by Grendel's Mother under marketing
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I have already talked about customer service in another post but feel it’s necessary to do so again. I’m sure all of you have had your share of less-than-stellar service from people you are paying to help you and I would love to hear your stories. This is a tale of my most recent experience and I’ll start off by saying that I don’t heart Cox Communications. Not at all.

First of all, I find it reeeeaaaaaalllly hard to believe that they have been given awards for good customer service. I don’t know who voted for them or any of the methodology involved in the research that backs that claim, but I think it must be a sham. It has to be. Let me tell you why.

First, I’ve had dealings before with the customer service people in their office near my home and they treated me as if I was interfering with their donut break and that I was the stupidest person on earth because I couldn’t read their minds and didn’t know all of their policies by heart. That was before. This last experience was so bad it was comical. I can’t make this stuff up.

Tuesday

I go into their office and talk to the pleasant customer service lady about how I need a cable card for my TiVo. She says, “A technician has to come out.” “Okay,” I say. After lots of typing we make an appointment. I say, “I have a TiVo, so do I need to do anything or does the technician need anything for that?” She replies, “No, they’ll have everything they need.”

Thursday

The appointment was set for 10 a.m. –12 noon. When no one showed up I called Cox.

  • Me: “Hello, I had an appointment for a technician to come out 10 a.m. –12 noon.” Pause here because there was no response. “No one showed up.”
  • Alicia, the customer service lady: “Hold on.” “Okay, they’ll be there at 11:47.”
  • Me: “It’s 12:18.”
  • Alicia: “It’s 12:18?”
  • Me: “Yes.”
  • Alicia: “Hold on.” “Okay, they’ll call you in about five to 10 minutes to let you know when they’re coming.”

Thirty minutes later the phone rang and I got an automated message saying that a technician would be arriving soon. When the technicians finally arrived, they did not have the proper equipment with them.

  • Technician: “Oh, you have a TiVo. We need a converter box for that.”
  • Me: “I told the customer service person about it and mentioned that specifically.”
  • Technician: “Yeah well, customer service didn’t put that on the work order.”

So basically, they had to come back later that night and still couldn’t finish it because I had not gotten the set up done ahead of time (something that the technician told me that customer service should have told me about).

Friday

So third time’s a charm and on Friday morning they came back to place two little cards in the two little slots in my TiVo. Seriously? I needed two guys to do that job? I really need to get a union job. That way I can hang out with pals and blame all the crap on customer service.

The Following Week

Now just to add a bit more fuel to this burning disaster, I also switched my phone over to Cox because the geniuses in their pricing department figured it out so that if I added a service, my bill would be ten dollars less than it currently was. I understand pricing and bundling and have worked out some complicated pricing structures myself, but that one doesn’t quite seem like a logical way to run a business. But so be it. The customer service guy I talked to told me that the phone guy would be coming out in a nice short window of time, 1–9 p.m. After my steep intake of breath he told me that I would be getting a call one hour prior to the arrival of the technician so I wouldn’t be trapped all day. I did get a phone call. From a customer service rep telling me that the technician was knocking on my door and there was no answer. Thanks for the one-hour warning call Cox, you managed to screw up yet again.

Final Conclusions

Is your left hand talking to your right? Are the executives, marketers, finance personnel, etc. talking to your front line personnel? Are you hiring competent workers and training them properly? From my perspective there are a lot of companies out there that need to seriously work on their customer service skills. Because after all, it’s just your brand image that’s being shattered. And that usually translates into less revenue and bad reviews on blogs. So there. And while the phone guy was still in my house I got a cutomer service follow-up survey call from Cox. I told them the job wasn’t finished yet and we hung up. But because I didn’t get a call back, I’ll express my opinions now. You stink Cox.

 apathyn1n

 

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