Customer First

The product is often not what we sell

 

 

The National Trust gives us a great reminder that the products you sell are not necessarily what the customer is buying. Here the National Trust is not promoting the stately homes (the product) they promote a great family day out (the value). The product is the enabler that delivers the desirable customer experience. It is worth remembering that often customers do not value the product, they value what the product can do.

SO in communication we must make sure we work hard to promote the value before we promote the product. “It is not what we do; it is what we do for you”.

The National Trust reminds us that the customer creates the value and our products are only there to deliver it. The product is behind them. This is what we mean by ‘customer first’

Two corporate advertisements –

    

BMI Healthcare - featuring an emotional cocktail: of attractive female image of customer saying “How do I choose the right private hospital for me?” Answered by a persuasive use of endorsement “Over 6,000 consultants choose to work with BMI” given depth through performance claims “Outstanding clinical teams, state of the art equipment … the largest private hospital group…” And clearly branded. This is a persuasive corporate ad.

Coca-Cola - mmmm powerful use of the iconic image of the branded bottle shape with unequivocal performance claims in red (brand colour reinforcement) capitol letters for emphasis “NO ADDED PRESERVATIVES. NO ARTIFICIAL FLAVOURS” reinforcing the strapline ‘The real thing’ since 1886, stakes the claim of provenance and leadership. A confident ad yet somewhat flaky – so full of sugar nothing survives (and isn’t refined sugar an added preservative?) and the flavours? Tastes pretty artificial to me. The strange thing is I bought a tub of diet Coke for the children this week… So whilst I think the ad sucks, it has affected my choice at Tesco. Bad ads can be as effective as good ones – visibility creates favourability

In a digital world devoid of empathy, Coke gives us a refreshing alternative.

I love the new Coca Cola campaign. http://www.metacafe.com/watch/210959/coca_cola_grand_theft_auto/ If you haven’t seen it, it features an upside down version of Grand Theft Auto – the morally bankrupt computer game. In the Coke version the character gives a little love accompanied by the line ‘give a little love and it all comes back to you’. A really ‘refreshing’ campaign brilliantly positioned (all the target group will be Grand Theft players) and brilliantly executed – it made me smile.

Eden – ‘Working with the grain of nature.’ includes knife fork and spoon

First you need to know what your brand essence is and then you need to live it. Living the brand is easy to say but like many things it is difficult to do. Great brands reveal their differentiation in the detail. A colleague gave me this wooden cutlery set from the Eden Project. www.edenproject.com It would be so much easier to source regular plastic cutlery and yet they go the extra mile to reinforce their uniqueness.

Eden lives its organic brand values. “We … explore ways of working with ‘the grain of nature’; bring together science, art, technology and commerce; get together with others worldwide to share ideas; share ideas with you.”

Persil shows how the emotional creates value and the rational delivers it.

This campaign by Persil is a great example of customer centricity. It is a masterclass in balanced communication. The campaign recognises that customers not only value clean clothes they value getting clothes dirty even more! This campaign balances both the rational (getting clean) with the emotional (getting dirty). Persil uses the customer desire itself to differentiated the brand. This differentiation is obviously available to others however the brand that claims the customer centricity first owns the mind share.

Gordon's - Ironic Advertising placement

Watching the dramatisation of 'The Harlots Progress' this week on channel four, which by the way was great as it juxtaposed contemporary behaviours in our society, binge drinking, unruly youffs, sex trafficking etc, with what was going on in London in the 17 hundreds. The parallels were striking and strangely comforting as you come to the realisation that there is nothing new really, same vices, same old, same old. Our current horrors have all been done before - nothing much creative in the horror department really - anyway I digress...

I couldn't help but chuckle at the cheeky bit of advertising buying by Gordon's Gin which ran in the ads in the programme - . Ironic - in 18th century Britain I believe the programme stated that 30 million gallons of gin were consumed each year and the illicit stuff was sometimes cut with sulphuric acid. Gin was the escape from poverty and hunger and propagated untold misery.

I am lead to believe from this that any reputation has some merit in the cynical world of advertising - The Hogarth dramatisation made us think of gin in 1760 and the advertisers showed us where to get it in 2006. There is a reassuring circularity here I think.

Two brands one lifestyle

This is ostensibly a product ad but one that has emotional depth – containing situational, aspirational, conceptual and endorsing messages in the narrative behind the image. Looking at this ad I was minded of the political nature of branding. These two mega brand icons join forces in this communication to empathise with the viewers’ lifestyle. As viewer you complete the trilogy – the shoes; the music; the runner.

This communication stimulates all the senses:

• kinesthetic: the sensations of running;
• auditory: listening to your favourite music;
• visually: with the black/white aesthetic; and
• conceptually in the shared Apple/Nike lifestyle.

If in doubt - Just pun it!

It’s a classic ‘pun and a picture’ ad. This has got to be the commonest creative fall back position. If a lot of sitational advertising is trying to leverage deep emotions and feelings, we can place most punning ads in the superficial category – no less effective because of it. When all else fails reach for the dictionary and employ a bit of good old-fashioned wordplay. Puns work by playing on the ambiguity and innuendoes of words – the amusing, clever or frightening double entendre. These combinations and connotations give the viewer’s mind a bit of a sensory workout (not unlike the effect of using humour in cartoons) and the reward for the advertiser of this stimulation is the attention required to get the message across and hopefully remembered.

The pun is often used to combine the values of your product with values the customers’ value, as is the case here.

The communication power of the pun is enhanced by placing the product in the customer’s context – in this case the sandwich in your kitchen.

Cartoons generate emotions and emotions make memories.

This ad is a bit of a rip-off of the classic ‘mini-adventure’ campaign but is an example of the use of cartoons to persuade your target audience to recieve the message.

Placing your product as the hero in a cartoon story is a tried and tested ad platform. – VW also used this approach when they promoted the VW beetle relaunch a few years ago. Their campaign featured a 'Dennis the Menace' cartoon and the headline ‘fun on the outside and serious within’.

Cartoons appeal to the child in us and have been used successfully to position products for both men and women. The cartoon genre is not only the preserve of fun products – cartoons are have also been used to advertise serious content such as social services, child abuse and today there is a cartoon campaign to attract community police officers.

A cartoon is a very persuasive and memorable medium. The US military know how effective it is to use words and cartoons and use them in many training scenarios.

“Paul Haney, director of ethics and corporate compliance programs for Lockheed Martin, expressed faith in the effectiveness of humor by saying, "People relate to 'Dilbert' and find it to be non-threatening. The characters can say what people are really thinking.... The cartoon breaks down a lot of barriers in discussing delicate situations that people encounter in their jobs" (Carey, 1998).”  Read more at http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2405/is_2_128/ai_77674939/pg_3

Customer last!

 

Most of the time we put the customer first in our communication BUT the classic product communication is the exception to the rule. If the customer is looking at your equipment it really is time to show your pride in it - when intimate you CAN talk about yourself! Make sure you tell the customer what your product can do. (click on thumb nails to view these ads)

This is the one time you do not put the customer first – this is all about you, you, you! (with a little bit of customer e.g. the washing baskets or the couple in the distance...) When the customer has had the chat up lines, and been rewarded by your conversation they are ready to consummate the deal – they are ready to hear about you… Open the flood gates and let them have it!

If you are going to talk about yourself – which is basically what a classic product ad does – don’t hold back! Go for the big brash claim, lots of big numbers and performance stats. Promote the benefits and features that are unique to the product you are selling first - customer context second.