Saturday, December 31, 2016

India's Powerhouse Economy


India now has the 5th largest economy in the world having surpassed Britain.  If you're not focused on the India marketplace, you might want to see what this unique country has to offer.

It's the Little Things That Matter — My Experience in Dry Cleaning

It's the Little Things…My Experience in Dry Cleaning Hell

My wife and I are high users of dry cleaning.  Having two professional jobs you tend to need your clothing cleaned on a frequent basis.  And given that, we probably have a higher than normal customer lifetime value.

And we’ll pay for service.  Unfortunately, we’re also very forgiving of mistakes and give people more chances to correct situations than we should.  Which leads me to my latest experience AND solution blog post.

We’ve had the same dry cleaner for probably 5 years or more.  We’ve suffered through damaged clothing, lost shirts, not having the dry cleaning picked up and delivered for 6+ weeks.  The last straw was an incorrect billing of $700.  This incorrect billing forced me to reconcile 6 months of billing — a 4 hour job.  End result, we owed them $100 for the last couple weeks of cleaning.  Having to actually “manage” my relationship with a dry cleaner is completely unacceptable

Enter the solution - Men’s Warehouse Cleaning Services (www.mwcleaners.com). .  I was amazed at how the dry cleaning service has changed for the better.  And although some of you might already be experiencing such service it was completely new to my wife and I.  Here’s what I found:

  1. Drive through lanes (3 wide) where an attendant will greet you and take your dry cleaning from your car and deliver it back to your car when you return.
  2. Professional attendants — who are courtesy, helpful and attentive.
  3. Frequent purchase programs — I can get a free shirt for every 20 cleanings of a shirt.  A great cross sell to get customers into Men’s Warehouse stores.
  4. Free plastic collar inserts — holy crap!  I loose those things all the time, so having these is fantastic.
  5. On-time pick up and drop off of dry cleaning.
  6. Quick service — 1 day max for anything.  In fact, the attendant asked me if I needed something even faster as they would get it done immediately.
  7. A summary of the billing and a quick review by the attendant of the invoice —ensuring it’s correct and that the number of items I brought in were what I was leaving with.
  8. The assurance that if anything was not perfect, I need to contact them and they’ll make it right.
  9. Altering service — yes you pay for this, but the attendant always mentions they’ll check for any buttons, etc. and alter those if required.  That saves me time and keeps me from having frustrations when I slip on a shirt.
  10. A clean retail environment.
  11. And higher prices.  Yes it costs more.  But, the price of the above services is worth it.  Service continues to matter folks.  And I continue to believe that the key differentiators with business is service and authenticity.  
  12. Online Account — holy crap I can actually get access to the status of my laundry, etc.  

Men’s Warehouse get’s it.  Provide great service, keep customers happy and do an above normal job of the core offering leads to a higher household lifetime value.

Scott



Friday, December 30, 2016

The Death of a True Pioneer



The serious part of this post — We should recognize public service personnel (police, fire, etc.) and our armed forces who give the ultimate sacrifice.  These are the unsung heroes.  So please take time to think of them this holiday season.

Now for the humor part of this post — 2016 saw the death of many celebs.  And those deaths should be mourned as their talents and contributions will be missed.

However, all of us need to pay homage to a man, no… I mean a pioneer of invention.  Yes, I’m talking about the inventor of the Red Solo Cup — Robert Hulseman.  Mr. Hulseman passed away last week at the age of 84.  And his contributions to the world are incredible:


  • The ability to personalize or write your name on a Red Solo Cup
  • Always looking for the Red Solo Cup over any other color available… by the way, who invented the Blue Solo Cup?  The Yellow Solo Cup?
  • A container which could be used to carry water, ice tea, milk, mixed drink or my personal favorite beer from an icy cold keg.
  • Exactly the right size — just enough liquid to keep you from having to make multiple trips back to the drink line.
  • And durable - you had to make a real effort to get those bad boys to crack.
  • Fit perfectly in a car cup holder.

And I know there are many more, but I’m getting a tear in my eye so I’ll stop here.  For those of us who are true lovers of the Red Solo Cup I invite you to listen to the tribute song and video made popular by country artist Toby Keith.  I’ll never be able to listen to that song again without a tear in my eye and a cup in my hand.

And as you celebrate New Years, lift your cup and toast Mr. Hulseman.


Scott

Wednesday, December 28, 2016

CMO's Take Back Marketing?



I’m catching up on my reading this holiday week… unfortunately, I’ve let it pile up, shame on me!
The October 31 issue of Advertising Age has an interesting article in the Opinion Column summarizing a recent speech given by Bob Liodice, President-CEO of the Association of National Advertising.  With an article titled “ANA Chief Calls on CMO’s to Take Back Marketing, but Do They Really Want to?” got my attention.

A top line on the article:
1.  Company sales performance is growing at 2% annually
2.  9 of 10 big brands are losing share
3.  Overworked and under trained marketers
4. CMO’s need to lead – drive business results, etc.
5.  Brand building is waning
6.  Competing financial decisions

A few thoughts…
1.  Big brands might be losing share – competition from overseas competitors, outsourcing to lower costs and lack of innovation are surely some of the specific reasons.  Building the brand is critical but there are other factors which are probably impacting growth.
2.  Medium and smaller brand growth – looking at the big boys is great, however I wonder if the same sales performance issues are impacting those further down the size scale.
3.  Training – yes it’s a huge issue.  Everyone talks about it, but it seems no one actually does it.  It’s not just sending people to courses.  It’s giving them projects beyond their skill sets and mentoring/teaching them to do it.  It’s allowing for failure.
4.  Skill Sets – what use to be the norm is for Marketers to be skilled in all aspects of the marketing trade – PR, brand, media, direct, social, mobile, search, web, advertising, production, creative, strategy, planning, database, writing, etc.  However, today there is so much specialization most Marketers don’t know how the pieces fit together.
5.  Financial Management – this isn’t anything new, so I wonder why it’s all of sudden considered a big issue.  Where to spend or invest marketing dollars varies by each business… but where most get it wrong is that they invest in areas which don’t drive sales, pay for things which really aren’t true marketing expenses and a whole bunch of other areas which I won’t go further into.
6.  Never Outsource Strategy – if you’re not smart enough to develop the foundation of your company’s marketing strategy,  then you shouldn’t have the job.  I’m not saying you shouldn’t work with others to develop the strategy, but outsourcing it to a 3rd party isn’t wise in any situation.  
7.  If leadership is showing where we need to go then management is about actually getting it done.  And some Marketers don’t have a great track record of late on not only leadership but management as well.  The media rebate scandal, allowing procurement to own agency selection/management, outsourcing strategy to agencies – these are all symptoms of not focusing on block and tackling marketing. 

The ANA’s call for CMO’s to take back marketing?  CMO’s should have never let it go in the first place.


Scott

2017 Marketing Predictions



It's that time of year to begin predicting what's ahead for the Marketing industry in the new year. Here's my attempt....

1.  More scandals regarding the way agencies, suppliers and clients work together will continue – see Department of Justice investigation of agencies.
2.  Marketing and media budgets will increase based on business friendly optimism of a Republican controlled White House and Congress.
3.  More clients will hire media audit companies with many finding they are due rebates.
4.  There will be an increase year over year in agency reviews – the media audit scandal, the public discussions on agency executive compensation, etc. will add more gas to the ever raging fire.
5.  Media rates will fall.  The 2016 scarcity of television and digital from the Olympics and election cycle will put more inventory in the 2017 market.  But the Super Bowl will still be over priced.
6.  TV talk shows, political news programming and comedy shows will see rating increases based on a Trump White House – lots of humorous material, questions and concerns will draw viewers.
7.  Yahoo! will go into fire sale mode.
8.  Content will become interactive – helping to keep consumers engaged.
9.   More live streaming of events, conferences, presentations, etc.
10.  Marketing automation will continue to grow across all sectors.
11.  Social will transform with a higher focus on direct ecommerce purchases.
12.  B2B marketing will start to take the lead on best practices. 

Scott