Be Nice to Your Guitar (and Your Customers)

This morning I listened to a live webinar put on by John Bernard of Mass Ingenuity. He spoke about how the combination of social media, cloud computing and the millennial mindset (not wanting to wait for anything) are combining to change the ways companies interact with their customers in ways so profound that it is difficult to comprehend the changes how the new marketplace works. He said that we have moved from the era of mass production into the era of mass customization, where products and services are more tailored to customers’ needs. He especially mentioned how meeting customer needs through good service is more important than ever.

Bernard cited United Airlines’ baggage handling service miscues in the case of musician Dave Carroll as an example of how companies should not respond. In case you haven’t heard, Dave’s $3,500 Taylor guitar was destroyed during one of his trips on United Airlines and he went through months of troubles with the company to try to get them to rectify the situation. Things finally turned his way after he wrote a song (complete with music video) about his troubles that became a huge hit on YouTube. There are actually three videos in the whole series. Here’s the first one:

It’s true that some people write bad things about a company just to advance their own agendas. In the past, the companies might be able to ignore them and the problems would go away. However, with the speed that information gets passed around these days, it is imperative that businesses monitor what is being said about them in social as well as traditional media (that reminds me, I need to Google ‘Caffeinated PDX’ to see if there’s anything being said about it. Hold on a minute, I’ll be right back. . . . . Okay, we’re good for now). While it is impossible to know everything that is being said about your company, you must take care to monitor the problems and put out any fires before they get going too strong.

Although I question Bernard’s claim that this one incident with United led to an $180 million reduction in market capitalization for the company, his point was a good one. Customers have more power to expose companies’ misdeeds than in the past, so companies must be more alert and responsive than ever. Of course, those of you with your own businesses already knew that, right?

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It's Hard to be Julia

I think I’m in the wrong line of work. Reportedly, Julia Roberts pulled in a million plus for shooting an ad for Lavazza’s automatic espresso machine—without saying anything. All she does is sip an espresso and smile. Here's the commercial—Don’t worry if you don’t understand what the Italian actors are saying. From the look on her face, I don’t think Julia does either.

Apparently she really does have a million dollar smile. That means that mine ought to be worth at least a cup of coffee (maybe even a vacuum pot). I think I’ll have my agent call Lavazza’s marketing department. . .

In other celebrity coffee endorsement news, George Clooney and John Malkovich team up to sell Nespresso.

A longer version of the ad is here. George and John aren't doing so badly for themselves either.

Coffee is NOT on the Way Out

Janet Morrissey wrote an article for Time this week that implied that young people are not going to drink coffee in the future because they drink Red Bull or other energy drinks instead. I disagree, and judging from the comments, so do many others. According to the article, the heavy marketing that energy drink companies have done to give energy drinks a ‘party drink’ image is a sign that coffee’s future is not bright.

There is no question that the energy drink companies have been pushing hard to reach college campuses. At PSU, there is a vehicle parked somewhere on campus at least once a week where young, good-looking people hand out free energy drinks to students. And I admit to being surprised when I read about the twenty-something PR consultant who said he didn’t drink coffee because it tastes bad (He drinks Red Bull, and he complains about the taste of coffee?).

 However, if you spend much time in coffee shops, you see young people everywhere. When I worked at Starbucks in Boston, we had a large group of regulars that came over every day from a nearby high school (sometimes twice!). The cafés around PSU are jammed every day with the 18-24 year-olds that are mentioned in the article. I stopped in at the PSU library the other day and was surprised to see a new coffee bar in the lobby. This evidence leads me to believe that coffee is not doing too badly in the under-30 crowd.

If you want to make the case that this age group won’t be drinking more Folgers in the future, that’s different. After all, this is the generation that came of age during the golden era of Starbucks. Of course they’re not going to accept the taste of pre-ground or freeze-dried coffee that has been stored in a can for six months! However, predictions that young people will not be drinking coffee in the future are like predictions that bell-bottoms would never be seen again after the 1970s. They make for a good story at the time, but years later, people look back at and laugh about them. In twenty years, we will be able to look back and this one and laugh too.

[note: Portlanders will be proud to hear that Stumptown was mentioned in the article as a place where younger people do have a good coffee experience (at the Stumptown Ace Hotel in New York City)].

Sì, la bellezza ha un gusto

Going to business school, you get to learn all kinds of fun stuff, especially if you haven’t spent much time in the corporate world. Our first term of the MIM program we took marketing from Brian McCarthy, a former GM of marketing at Microsoft. His class was lots of fun and very informative, and it really opened my eyes to how companies try to reach customers. The biggest challenge that all companies have is trying to get people to try their products. Then they try to create some type of emotional bond with their customer. Most people are creatures of habit, and once they find something they like, it is hard to get them to try new things. You could say that marketing is the science (or art) of overcoming that resistance to change.

Ever since taking Brian’s class, I pay more attention to ads and commercials. I try to figure out what they’re trying to communicate. For example, I will see a commercial for Chevrolet pickups and try to dissect it. What is it trying to say? Chevy Trucks (a more “manly” word than pickups) are tough, reliable and American. The message goes beyond the products being sold and moves into the realm of emotions and values.

One of the projects we had to do for class was to develop a marketing plan for some type of product. We could either choose to market our own business idea or we could take some company’s product that we liked and pick a country outside the US in which to market it. I chose to write a marketing plan for Illy coffee in China, probably because I was drinking a lot of Illy coffee at Park Avenue Café at the time.

One of the things I came across when I was creating the marketing plan was the following commercial (it’s much better if you play it with something that has good speakers and turn up the sound):

Elegance. Style. Art. Beauty. The finer things in life. These words describe what comes to mind when I watch that commercial. I was captivated when I saw it. The music (Atlantico by Roberto Cacciapaglia) was dramatic, the images were beautiful and graceful and the tagline, La bellezza ha un gusto (literally “beauty has a taste”), captured the spirit of both Italy and the company. Italians care deeply about the quality of the food and drink they consume, and their companies are well-known for their beautiful design (think Ferrari, Ducati, Gucci).

In the marketing plan, I wrote that the commercial would resonate in China too. The people in both countries have a strong appreciation for beauty. Italy and China are also the home of two of the world’s most important ancient civilizations and if done right, a campaign of “East meets West” over a cup of Illy could be very effective.

One question about the commercial is whether it ended up selling more coffee or not. I have no idea, but at the very least it provided me with some entertainment for a while. Two years later, I still haven’t forgotten about it, so Illy was effective at reaching at least one customer. My question is, does it capture your attention like it did mine?