Yesterday I witnessed quite possibly the best advertising campaign in Estonia in years. Well at least in my opinion and it came from an unlikely source. Passing a Neste gas station I noticed a pretty big green banner with easily readable simple font on it.
The message stated "Futura 95 kabanoss free" and a smaller heart shaped banner next to it that said "Good for your heart". Everything of course in Estonian. I couldn't help myself and smirked.
Few seconds later I was laughing out loud.
It was just perfect - low tech, right on the spot, on message, simple and funny. For anybody not familiar with intricacies of Statoil gas stations food offering, kabanoss is something kinda like a hot dog, but not really. But what I loved about the ad was that it wasn't making fun of the quality of competitors gourmet selection, well maybe a little, it just stated the lack of it at Neste's gas stop.
Neste's clients and I'm one of them use them because the price and the speed of their self-serve stations. I know, the gas doesn't flow any quicker at their pumps, but it's just that every time when I do go to pay for gas at Statoil's little store thingy - there's a line. Guess what every other person in the line is purchasing? You got it. It's one of these hot dog type of things. All this while I'm ready to start pulling my hair out, because the whole process is taking forever. There's just too many decisions to make - ketchup or mustard or that white sauce, who knows what that is. We all know that too many options is not a good thing...
So here we go - hats off to whoever came up with this creative. It's directed at Neste's customers and it's making at least some of us laugh. There's value in that. I see too many people at gas stations who look borderline suicidal, so thank you whoever you are.
I saw another banner with "Futura 95 cholesterol free" on it and yes maybe not as funny, but still right on message. Come get your gas without clogging your arteries. Let's not forget - laughing is good for you, just like not eating your kabanoss today.
P.S. In case you miss the banners, here's the link http://www.neste.ee/etusivu.asp?path=1991;2050
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Necessary evil or just plain necessary
Hypersonic sound - some would say a really creepy new tool for advertisers who are trying to brainwash everybody around them or a real cool use of technology in cutting edge marketing world. All it really is - is a narrow sound beam that you can only hear when you stumble right onto it's path.
So while walking on a street you can suddenly hear a pitch, be it for a new blockbuster movie opening this week-end or a reminder from the makers of sunblock that at this very moment you are being fried by the harmful UV's.
Except that, it sounds like voices inside your head and unless you've counted on some schizophrenic tendencies in your not so distant future you could be slightly rattled. I can only imagine all the panic that will follow from the sometimes paranoid, passionate about human rights, all kind of advertising is extreme evil types.
I personally think it's cool. Mainly because it is something new, different and not boring. That goes for the technology, the message can still be lame, if the advertisers use the same slogans that we are bombarded with from all the other mediums.
This brings me to the point of this post. Why is it that almost everybody in Estonia loves to hate advertising? Quite possibly it qualifies for the national pastime. Nobody ever mentions the quality of advertising. In my opinion that is a very one sided and narrow point of view that is shared by the majority for no good reason.
There are so many brilliant minds working in the advertising sector, that is absolutely impossible for them not to come up with ideas that would entertain and intrigue the rest of us. Unfortunately way too often it gets all messed up somewhere in the process and what we end up with is just plain offensive.
The reason for this could be that we the consumers are not trusted by the traditional marketers.
They trust us enough to make a purchase, but not enough to engage in a conversation about the purchase and thus they end up unloading a very one sided "buy-buy-buy-don't think" advertising campaigns.
But guess what, for whatever reason we don't consider ourselves idiots. I know, that's gotta be a huge shock for them just by looking at a lot of media advertising nowadays. Sometimes it seems that they don't even try anymore. Why bother, let's just do it the way it's been done before.
And that's where the problem with advertising lies. It's not that there's too much of it or that it's too intrusive. No. It's just that 99% of it is predictable and boring and that's why everybody loves to hate advertising.
So here's a clue, make us laugh or catch our attention by giving us a scare, an adrenalin rush or anything and the national pastime of advertising bashing will, if not disappear all together, at least see a serious drop in popularity. Everybody would come out as a winner - marketers, advertisers and consumers.
P.S. Speaking of new technologies full of potential. Check this out. http://springwise.com/weekly/2008-05-07.htm#virtualwall
So while walking on a street you can suddenly hear a pitch, be it for a new blockbuster movie opening this week-end or a reminder from the makers of sunblock that at this very moment you are being fried by the harmful UV's.
Except that, it sounds like voices inside your head and unless you've counted on some schizophrenic tendencies in your not so distant future you could be slightly rattled. I can only imagine all the panic that will follow from the sometimes paranoid, passionate about human rights, all kind of advertising is extreme evil types.
I personally think it's cool. Mainly because it is something new, different and not boring. That goes for the technology, the message can still be lame, if the advertisers use the same slogans that we are bombarded with from all the other mediums.
This brings me to the point of this post. Why is it that almost everybody in Estonia loves to hate advertising? Quite possibly it qualifies for the national pastime. Nobody ever mentions the quality of advertising. In my opinion that is a very one sided and narrow point of view that is shared by the majority for no good reason.
There are so many brilliant minds working in the advertising sector, that is absolutely impossible for them not to come up with ideas that would entertain and intrigue the rest of us. Unfortunately way too often it gets all messed up somewhere in the process and what we end up with is just plain offensive.
The reason for this could be that we the consumers are not trusted by the traditional marketers.
They trust us enough to make a purchase, but not enough to engage in a conversation about the purchase and thus they end up unloading a very one sided "buy-buy-buy-don't think" advertising campaigns.
But guess what, for whatever reason we don't consider ourselves idiots. I know, that's gotta be a huge shock for them just by looking at a lot of media advertising nowadays. Sometimes it seems that they don't even try anymore. Why bother, let's just do it the way it's been done before.
And that's where the problem with advertising lies. It's not that there's too much of it or that it's too intrusive. No. It's just that 99% of it is predictable and boring and that's why everybody loves to hate advertising.
So here's a clue, make us laugh or catch our attention by giving us a scare, an adrenalin rush or anything and the national pastime of advertising bashing will, if not disappear all together, at least see a serious drop in popularity. Everybody would come out as a winner - marketers, advertisers and consumers.
P.S. Speaking of new technologies full of potential. Check this out. http://springwise.com/weekly/2008-05-07.htm#virtualwall
Monday, May 12, 2008
There Is No Tomorrow Marketing vs. Super Professionals of Customer Service
I recently got back from Morocco. 10 days in this beautiful country were absolutely amazing. So many memories and funny stories, but I would like to concentrate on two very different styles of selling and marketing that we witnessed on this trip.
The first one I would like to call a There Is No Tomorrow and the other Super Professional. Both were always around us and I mean always - literally. The first one we encountered in every store, souq and on every street corner. It was the merchants who saw us as wallets and stupid ones as that. All they cared about was the money they could make right then and there, with no thought given to the next day.
Yes I'm sure it's not usual that European tourists stay in Marrakesh for a week, but they didn't learn either. We negotiated on the price one day and they did not remembered us the next, so everything had to start from the beginning. Quite often we were knowingly willing to over-pay for their products and we knew the prices, since we had been around for few days, and that's really all you need. But they refused reasonable offers hoping to make another few % of the purchase price and we ended up walking away.
The whole style of pushing the product on us was just not very efficient. Instead trying to figure out what the buyer is interested in, they kept pushing and pushing. Almost as if what you buy is not really important as long as you buy it from them. Not smart and not efficient. Perhaps they make a quick buck every once in a while, but they would do that anyway, just because of the share size of the tourist hordes in Marrakesh.
Then there's the complete package of customer service from what I would like to call the Super Professionals. It doesn't matter that they were all 8-11 year olds. Anybody who's been to a Medina in any of the cities in Morocco knows exactly what I'm talking about. If you haven't then you probably have hard time understanding the whole concept. I'll try to explain.
The Marrakesh Medina is a maze of unearthly propositions. It took us three days before we could find our way to the Riad we stayed at after having dinner on the big square. Well, where there is demand there is a market - enter the Super Professionals of the Medina.
It all started the first night and I'm sorry I didn't witness this personally. We reached the Riad only to realize, that we had forgotten a folder with our plain tickets and some other needful travel documentation in our rental car, that we had parked just around the corner. Maybe 30-50 meters away. So two of my friends volunteered to recover the folder from our vehicle.
Alright., about 45 minutes later they returned laughing out loud. It turned out, that as soon as they walked out, they had encountered the boys hanging on the street. The boys did not bother them,didn't say a thing. They watched on as my friends made their first wrong turn into a dead end. Didn't say a thing when they made their second wrong turn into a different dead end, all this while pretending that they knew exactly what they were doing. I'm sure that must of looked believable- they were just out for a evening stroll.
Only after it became painfully obvious that they had no clue which way to go, did the boys intervene with a simple question - "Are looking for your car?". There was no blackmailing or extortion involved, nobody even mentioned money. It was just all understood. Service and Payment, but Service first. So my friends payed, got the folder and while the kids were distributing the rewards tried to sneak away.
Guess what, couple of wrong turns and they were just as lost as ten minutes ago. So they used the boys again. Now, so you wouldn't get a wrong idea, it had nothing to do with my friends path finding abilities. I confess, maybe I was just a little bit of a non-believer, but all it took was three minutes the next morning. One, two, three turns and I had no idea where I was and that was in the daylight.
So we used the boys several times and what I remember the most is the fact that after every encounter we were left feeling good about the service. They always waited before making serious contact, oh sure they were following us from the get go, but they were patient not pushy.They waited for us to show interest, either in a way of making eye contact or just responding to their jokes.
They waited for the PULL.
I think today's marketers could learn from this. Way too often are they pushing products on us, instead of making us desire the product or a service. There is no stronger logic behind the purchase, than the buyer telling him-self that the whole transaction was his idea.
The combination of push and pull is a very powerful thing.
Here they are - The Super Professionals
The first one I would like to call a There Is No Tomorrow and the other Super Professional. Both were always around us and I mean always - literally. The first one we encountered in every store, souq and on every street corner. It was the merchants who saw us as wallets and stupid ones as that. All they cared about was the money they could make right then and there, with no thought given to the next day.
Yes I'm sure it's not usual that European tourists stay in Marrakesh for a week, but they didn't learn either. We negotiated on the price one day and they did not remembered us the next, so everything had to start from the beginning. Quite often we were knowingly willing to over-pay for their products and we knew the prices, since we had been around for few days, and that's really all you need. But they refused reasonable offers hoping to make another few % of the purchase price and we ended up walking away.
The whole style of pushing the product on us was just not very efficient. Instead trying to figure out what the buyer is interested in, they kept pushing and pushing. Almost as if what you buy is not really important as long as you buy it from them. Not smart and not efficient. Perhaps they make a quick buck every once in a while, but they would do that anyway, just because of the share size of the tourist hordes in Marrakesh.
Then there's the complete package of customer service from what I would like to call the Super Professionals. It doesn't matter that they were all 8-11 year olds. Anybody who's been to a Medina in any of the cities in Morocco knows exactly what I'm talking about. If you haven't then you probably have hard time understanding the whole concept. I'll try to explain.
The Marrakesh Medina is a maze of unearthly propositions. It took us three days before we could find our way to the Riad we stayed at after having dinner on the big square. Well, where there is demand there is a market - enter the Super Professionals of the Medina.
It all started the first night and I'm sorry I didn't witness this personally. We reached the Riad only to realize, that we had forgotten a folder with our plain tickets and some other needful travel documentation in our rental car, that we had parked just around the corner. Maybe 30-50 meters away. So two of my friends volunteered to recover the folder from our vehicle.
Alright., about 45 minutes later they returned laughing out loud. It turned out, that as soon as they walked out, they had encountered the boys hanging on the street. The boys did not bother them,didn't say a thing. They watched on as my friends made their first wrong turn into a dead end. Didn't say a thing when they made their second wrong turn into a different dead end, all this while pretending that they knew exactly what they were doing. I'm sure that must of looked believable- they were just out for a evening stroll.
Only after it became painfully obvious that they had no clue which way to go, did the boys intervene with a simple question - "Are looking for your car?". There was no blackmailing or extortion involved, nobody even mentioned money. It was just all understood. Service and Payment, but Service first. So my friends payed, got the folder and while the kids were distributing the rewards tried to sneak away.
Guess what, couple of wrong turns and they were just as lost as ten minutes ago. So they used the boys again. Now, so you wouldn't get a wrong idea, it had nothing to do with my friends path finding abilities. I confess, maybe I was just a little bit of a non-believer, but all it took was three minutes the next morning. One, two, three turns and I had no idea where I was and that was in the daylight.
So we used the boys several times and what I remember the most is the fact that after every encounter we were left feeling good about the service. They always waited before making serious contact, oh sure they were following us from the get go, but they were patient not pushy.They waited for us to show interest, either in a way of making eye contact or just responding to their jokes.
They waited for the PULL.
I think today's marketers could learn from this. Way too often are they pushing products on us, instead of making us desire the product or a service. There is no stronger logic behind the purchase, than the buyer telling him-self that the whole transaction was his idea.
The combination of push and pull is a very powerful thing.
Here they are - The Super Professionals
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
