Marketing to go..

I so agree with Sir Paul McCartney on this issue. Of course his record company should have been able to hit him with a raft of ideas within a couple of days of being requested for that - particularly by someone of Sir Paul's sales calibre.

I know businesses who take 5 days to decide on a really very minor matter. That's often a detachment from instinct and passion:

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,22923669-1702,00.html

Test your knowledge on Tudor times

I've very impressed with this site when I clicked to it from Cardinal Wolseys blog. Great game. Informative and yet not too long and a great package for what it sets out to advertise. I had hoped to save the beheading..but....
Before you run and gets your kids to play it too, watch the site in it's entirety as it advertises The Tudors tv series and so has flashes of sex scenes after the game though you need to click forward:
http://www.tudorsdvd.co.uk/game/

You know you're living in a poorer suburb when...

Local shops sell cigarettes individually. True. People here can literally go in and buy one cigarette from a packet. It's a service.

Please, show others their lives mean something.

You're a seventeen year old boy. You have no family to go to at Christmas. You live on the street. The Salvos found you one day and gave you a card to go to a hall for a lovely Christmas lunch. It's great you have a lunch.

You have no gift. There's no-one to tell you that to them you mean something. That your presence on this Earth is important.

You're an 86 year old lady with no family. You have made yourself a little Christmas lunch.

No-one has come to show you that you life has really meant something to them.

***

Please, go buy two Hoyts movie tickets and ensure they will be given to a 17 year old on Christmas day.

Please, go buy some soap and a washer and a lovely book and ensure that they will be taken to the 86 year old lady on the day.

Please, show others their lives mean something.
Check with your local Salvos or St Vincent de Paul or similar and find a way to show someone in need this Christmas that, to someone out there, their lives mean something and they are not forgotten.

Open Letter to Mr Sol Trujillo

Without Prejudice

Mr Trujillo, since you took over the pivotal role with Telstra:

1. Costs are up

2. Services are very much reduced. Across the board. Don't look to broadband successes, or provision of services to the outback (only), or profits, or shareholder happiness or your own salary et al as your benchmark of Telstra success Mr Trujillo. Become a basic customer of your own company and see what it is like at this point. It's not a happy engagement.

3. Errors are multiplying. Errors, errors, errors. In connections and in advice and it is people like me Mr Trujillo that have to make up the slack on these matters and often out of our own pocket. For the last two years I have experienced repeated Telstra errors. Don't worry, not in billing. The bill is generally correct even though I am probably paying almost double what I should be because your staff have failed to put me on the right plan, despite calls from me about the issue.

4. Telstra workers are demoralised. You might not have 'got' Australian culture Mr Trujillo but there was a time where, even if Telstra's company's policy was a bit wanting, you could generally get great service from the technicians. Your policies have effectively removed this and drained away client satisfaction.

5. The public face has become highly problemaitc. Your company appears to have shown problematic decisions and responses to do with social responsibility both in your advertising and in your services. Only these week we have the 'soft porn' issue re the Telstra site. Why is your company failing on these issues? How about only worrying about the bells and whistles on your website once you've got basic service 'right'?

Perhaps it's hard to see that good basic service reaps profit. It does.

6. Impractical processes are encouraged that multiply unnecessary costs.

With all this you still have the confidence, or the ego, to fight the new government. How do you feel you are serving the interests of the public, your clients Mr Trujillo with your sarcastic humour and 'tude?

We've not got a telecommunications carrier Australians can generally be proud of Mr Trujillo. Your governance has not improved service and pricing conditions. And still you argue free market pricing.

Embrace the Kumbaya (if you will) Mr Trujillo as, on your own, you're letting the fire go out.

I call upon the Labour government to do what they can to end Mr Trujillo's contract with Telstra.

Susan Plunkett

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter!

I loved this piece from the Vicar of Dibley when I first saw it and now I have the DVD I've been able to watch and enjoy it again. I was recently reminded of this material in a conversation with Drew McLellan. I'm sure some clever advertising bunny out there somewhere will adapt this one day:

Top Ten Views Around The World

I saw this pictorial via news.com.au today. The site invites other nominations and I hope people send in and celebrate the beauty of this incredible world we live on and in:
http://www.news.com.au/travel/gallery/0,23607,5028064-5007153,00.html#

Grab the Pencil and Play

For anyone who hasn't come across the Leo Burnett site please do take the time to have an explore and see what you think of the pencil device. I'm often an impatient site explorer and even I was willing to sit and adventure via the pencil:
http://www.leoburnett.com.au/

When You're Told You're Doing Too Much For The Clients#2

The clients will end up loving YOU too much rather than our service.

How about:

1. The business decides to investigate just-what-it-is that generates such good feelings towards the staff member and works to replicate this in a) other service centres in its organisation (and to train in-coming staff), and b) potentially within the organsational ethos.
2. Determining whether the staff member is actually making up for a short-fall in the business product or service.
3. Recognising that the connection is worth harnessing for research purposes.

Unless a business feels a staff member is being somehow subversive and swinging client perceptions to the negative re the business service, I'd treat a staff member well liked by the client base as if they were a valuable resource, rather than a problem child.

When You're Told You're Doing Too Much For The Clients

I raised this issue on another blog and received some very supportive comments. What does it say about an employer who tells an employee that they are 'over-servicing' the client?

Wouldn't you think an employer would be delighted to have attentive and comprehensive staff, given of course that other clients are not made to wait unduly?

Not necessarily.

Two rationales from employers I've heard:

The clients will end up loving YOU too much rather than our service.

Other staff cannot or will not give the same service as you and thus you set unrealistic expectations in clients for the general service they will receive at this business.

Are some of you folks blinking reading this? Let me assure you, both these examples are real.

I've love to hear some comments on this but I'm going to take one of the issues to the next topic in a day or so.

Industrial Spam

I'm sure the folks at morpheusmedia won't mind my copying a post on their recent industrial spam blog. Great topic.

Hi, for confidentiality sake I won’t put my name up but you can see my email of course ;)

Industrial spam really concerns me. I completed a freelance job recently for someone who is sending thousands of emails out and apparently, in many cases, sending them over and over to the same people. I was really uncomfortable with this when I heard about it.

I gather the idea is to both give people a heads-up about their service, but it is also a war of attrition. If I am correct about who their target audience for this spam is, the primary reason they are getting away with few complaints is that the recipients have indicated in another forum an interest in the topic that the business service caters for. It’s a good guess many would be intrigued or at least sympathetic enough with the theme not to object.

Those who will violently object in a reply email rarely follow that up by making a formal complaint to a governing authority.

So, this comes down to an issue of ethics in part. Is the company branding as socially responsible? If they are then how do they justify their industrial spam against the known backdrop of increasing consumer resistance and objection to the practice.

Just because they can?

Vale Bernie Banton

A hero of the rights and health of workers and indeed the general public. Despite the ravages of his illness Bernie was never swayed from his path. A 4 billion dollar fund for victims of asbestos and, perhaps more importantly in the immediate term, ensuring various medications were placed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (and were thus affordable for the average family). In his acceptance speech on Saturday evening, our new PM praised Bernie. Our thanks must also go to the Banton family and of course our deepest condolences. It's bitter-sweet that individuals must work so hard for justice and then lose their lives however I am so very grateful Bernie saw justice finally achieved before he passed away. What courage and commitment he had to hang on those last days until he could be assured. Please rest now Bernie, you deserve it.
http://www2.skynews.com.au/news/article.aspx?id=203393

Film Buff's 100-1 Countdown

What incredible attention to detail the film buff who made this film had. The film shows clips that literally contain the numbers 100 down to 1. There are some intriguing twists. It's a longish film so be prepared for that or watch an excerpt. I can think of several interesting applications that could creatively utilise this film in episode form. Oh, and great film quality also:

Cheap Look Ads

I really cannot stand these style of ads Google have developed particularly when they are found right in the centre of vision across the middle of the site page. They lack design style and look cheap to me and definitely 'add on'. I'm actually surprised Google ran with these. They're like a 90's flashback for me (italics mine):

Trading Cards
Check out our list of huge range of of trading cards. Visit now
www.Indexmeonline.com

The lament of the external staffer

Many business hire freelancers and consultants. Many hire part-time staff. Many of these work at distance.

One of the problems 'at distance' workers experience is not being treated as part of the fold. Now, for most this isn't a problem unto itself. Many freelancers are so used to being independent you come to enjoy it and you're more than happy to do without the occasional lunch spread or morning tea festival. However, one should not be invisible to management when it comes to feedback.

No situation should ever exist of in-house staff being celebrated for tasks that external staff also do; but the latter group are ignored.

Management also needs to recognise that in-house staff wind up knowing about each other's lives and this can generate empathy and greater tolerance. I regularly observe a manager giving grace to an in-house staffer, and happy to give that grace, but then become tight and annoyed when an external employee needs time off. If managers want to develop strong bonds with external staff they need to look at what they provide to internal staff and see exactly the same is offered to those external. Dare to think creative and, [I added this later] socially sustainable.

Tis the season...

Yes I'm a critic of the Lovemark concept as it applies across all sectors of the populace. I don't agree that people on low incomes seek mystery, sensuality and intimacy from their shopping experiences as such. Sometimes yes but all the time, no.
That said, I did nominate the Salvation Army.

In my letterbox today came a flyer describing some of the items the Sallies would welcome distributing to people for Christmas. There was a stock array of food items: puddings, jelly, soft drinks, cereals, tinned foods and meats, longlife milks and custard and so on; christmas crackers.

There was also a list I'd like to offer here:

Deodorant
Conditioner
Toothpaste
Disposable Razors
Shampoo
Soap
Toothbrush
Children's story books
Teenage story books
Fiction

When you are next at the supermarket might I encourage you to select one or all of the toiletry items and take them to your local Salvation Army Office or similar charity who offer such items to families at Christmas. I always find discount stories have a decent array of kids books.

No preaching, just if you'd like to.

K-Mart here also has a Christmas tree at stores where wrapped gifts for people can be left. You choose a tag from the tree and buy a gift to suit the age group and gender.

Ad Content and Social Responsibility

Sadly I did not retain a copy of my post however it was "interesting" to have a post of mine on this topic removed from a marketing company site recently. Perhaps one of the examples I offered touched a sore spot? Perhaps the potential of any kind of critique of advertising was a no-go area.

I think it a shame when corporations commence blogs (fashionable to do so?) and then shy away like frightened horses from the most conservative of critiques. If that's the way they want to run their blogs I suggest they make them staff only or invitation only.

The points I raised in the post were:

a) How could individual advertisers make such incredible social gaffes at times - indicating a lack of research and social knowledge savvy (being 'out of touch'), and

b) Should marketing companies strive to include social responsibility within their corporate philosophy and in all the ads they compose?

I gave two examples. One was an ad when a woman hops out of her car and punches a guy in the nose in the car behind her. I don't find that ad funny but concede it was the sort of humour appreciated in the 50's (I Love Lucy). However, in an era of road rage and some very sad events arising from this social problem, should an agency steer away from using any violent actions such as the one I described, in their campaigns?

I believe "yes".

Bouquets to a lady called Lisa...

Some time ago I spoke on Kevin's blog about issues to do with service and response to product or service flaws. I had bought two DVD's on two occasions from the same major retailer and twice had to go back because they had put the wrong disks in the packs.

From that very same retailer I bought a packaged DVD set.There was usual blurb on the case about content in the episodes (including guest appearances) and indeed certain images were imprinted on the disks themselves. However, in viewing the disks it became obvious that certain content was missing. I didn't have the wrong disks: content was simply missing.

I personally went to the store and discussed this. My name and number were taken. Nothing. I was again in the store and raised this. THIS time one of the staff did call the distributor but rang me later the same day to say they (retailer) could do nothing about the issue (vis it's not our fault so we can't do more than this). I rang the distributor myself and wound up with a branch of the distributor and a lady called "Lisa".

Lisa was aware I wasn't seeking my money back and that I was simply trying to advise about a problem issue. We discussed the nature of the problem and I was offered two new DVD's gratis for having been "disappointed" with my purchase.

I mean...YAYYYYYYYYYYY. NOT for the freebies per se but because of the RESPONSE.

In these times of such focus being placed on service and connection, I rarely am given the kind of response Lisa offered me. That response shouldn't be a rarity in my life.

Oh, and why do I go to that retailer in the face of my disappointment? Because I am pressed for certain choice where I am. If I locate a suitable alternative I will move on.

Image of roses from http://www.rogersroses.com/

The "Conversation Economy" according to Armano

I came across this article from Business Week and thoroughly enjoyed the sense making of it. I could relate to this piece because David's comments make sense of my own focus on 'village' and my belief that 'village' is what people seek and long for (and naturally gravitate towards).

His comments about Bud interface with repeated comments I have made this past 12 month about the hundreds of thousands of dollars corporations are pouring into the technical sides of sites without anything outlaid on understanding how people use sites, read them, respond to them and so on. I simply do not understand this imbalance.

I have written a book on social life online (or rather a slice of life online) and there is a wealth of literature that can readily inform corporations on the very matters I outline - yet............................

David's article can be found @ http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/apr2007/id20070409_372598.htm
Image of David copyright of that site.

Grow One for Movember! Sponsor?

Here in Australia (and hopefully throughout the world) men's health issues are becoming as well known and profiled as women's health. Movember is a simple and fun way to raise funds for Prostrate Cancer Research and to support beyondblue and issues of male depression.
Depression is a highly problematic societal health issue and suicide rates in the male population are so terribly high.
My son is participating in Movember and would welcome sponsorship. He is in a workplace team and their employer will match dollar for dollar to $2K:
http://www.movember.com/au/donate/donate-details.php?action=showrego®o=86628&country=
Moustache image from http://moustache-enthusiast.deviantart.com/art/Moustache-Avatar-Pack-36004227