Does Madison Avenue shape the way Americans view themselves?
I recently read an article on the AMC hit series Mad Men that asked if Madison Avenue shaped the way Americans view themselves. I thought it was such an intriguing question that I’ve decided to post it and see what you think. I'd love to hear from all my fellow advertising friends. Leave your comments below.
Those of you who have worked in either sales or customer service probably know that old adage about how a happy customer tells a friend, but an unhappy customer tells 10 friends. Well, that’s no longer true. You see, the web has changed everything, even for customers. Now, that unhappy customer posts intimate details about their bad experiences on blogs and message boards that reach millions of people everyday and can live on forever.
Companies are allocating more and more dollars to marketing on the web. A few are also retooling their customer service for the web. The most aggressive are trying to get ahead of the (customer-driven) curve by monitoring blogs and message boards for customers venting about bad experiences with their company and actually (gasp) responding. Not by issuing cease and desists, but by contacting the customer and trying to make them happy again. (See New York Times article)
Take a recent situation with Norwegian Cruise Lines (NCL). I’m taking a cruise this fall on the recently refurbished Norwegian Sky. Well, that ship’s first couple of sailing this summer have turned out to be disastrous. And passengers have vented about their experiences on industry message boards, like CruiseCritic.com. NCL didn’t respond for several weeks as passengers vented to each other, future passengers, and, most importantly, potential passengers. A group of self-qualified newbies to cruising and enthusiasts. Well, a representative finally did start posting a canned, scripted response that was almost hostile – threatening those who were talking about canceling with cancellation fees. While the representative may have decreased the call volume to NCL about the situation, they did nothing to put past, future, or potential at ease or make them fell better about NCL. What a disaster.
But wait, there is hope! While unhappy people are now telling millions, their happy counterparts now have an avenue to express their satisfaction with even more people as well. So it is now even more of a worthwhile investment, for your brand’s sake, to turn those unhappy customers into happy customers. Companies spend millions on building their brands through advertising. Now if they just put forth as much effort on sustaining them through good customer service. It’s cheaper than advertising.
Today the city of Los Angeles will vote on a year long ban of new fast food outlets in South Central L.A. Never in my life have I heard of something so counterproductive, elitist, and insensitive, as a ban on fast food restaurants in an area where full service restaurants and organic food grocery stores will not go.
I live in the South Bronx in New York City. An area that is one of the poorest in the country and was once considered among the most dangerous. It is severely under-severed in all respects, retail, jobs, housing, and yes, full-service restaurants. It is, however, very well served by fast food restaurants, Popeyes, McDonalds, KFC, Burger King, Taco Bell, and the like. I enjoy the occasional fries from McDonalds or red beans and rice from Popeyes as much as anyone else, but I also would like more choice close to home. Fortunately for me, I have the means to go elsewhere if I choose. Many of those who live here do not have that same luxury. In fact, many here live below poverty in a city full of some of the richest people in the world. They, I’m sure, enjoy the prices, quick service, and decent taste of the fast food joints. I know because I haven’t always been so fortunate, and grew up on McDonalds and other fast food outlets. Both of my parents worked full-time and didn’t always have the time to cook full meals or the money to go to a nice restaurant. Where else can you get a quick full meal for a few dollars? If you live in the South Bronx, hardly anywhere.
But this is about more than just supplying underserved neighborhoods with full-service restaurants and organic markets. Access is one thing, affordability and desire are another. The L.A. City Council should be providing incentives to lure full-service restaurants and fresh produce stores into the area, and improving the education on the matter of eating healthy to those who need it most. That’s what government is for. It is not for limiting choice and people’s personal responsibility. Punishing the businesses that opened restaurants and provided jobs in a place that wasn’t popular with the latte-sipping types isn’t constructive. Assuming that everyone wants to be a latte-sipping type is also missing the point. This isn’t a simple access issue. It’s a behavioral shift that I don’t think will be easily fixed by opening a Starbucks, Trader Joes, or Whole Foods.
I am an ardent supporter of Barack Obama, but at times I have to ask myself, "What the...was he thinking?" In a season where politically correct has taken on a whole new and expanded meaning, the Obama campaign invited Bernie Mac to perform at a fundraiser in Chicago on Friday night. Yes, Guess Who?, Bernie Mac. The Bernie Mac Show, Bernie Mac. And most importantly, Kings of Comedy, Bernie Mac. Well, Bernie Mac apparently delivered a few politically incorrect jokes to the audience who had paid over $2,000 each to hear Barack speak. Must we remind Barack of Rev. Wright, Donnie McClurkin, and others who have bogged down his campaign by uttering politically sensitive words? While we're at it, let's invite Michael Jackson to perform and O.J. Simpson to speak at the next rally.
I've always said that the more America gets to know Barack, the more they will realize that, despite his and their efforts to ignore it, he really is Black. Thus he identifies with many of the cultural aspects of the Black community. A lot of us still love Michael Jackson and his music. A lot of us at least understand where Rev. Wright was coming from. A lot of us like Donnie McClurkin and his music. And some of us (not all and not necessarily me) still believe that O.J Simpson is not guilty. (I realize that the Black community encompasses a lot of individuals who have their own opinions and may not necessarily agree with mine, but we can all admit that commonalities in the community exists.)
A lot of us were also falling on the floor laughing as we watched Bernie Mac joke about his "family" in Kings of Comedy, including his threats to beat his nieces and nephews. Now how would that performance go over with mainstream America? I'm thinking not well. So Barack, if you're listening (which you're probably not), don't assume that everyone will like everything you do. You are running fro the highest office in the land. You are also running to represent all of America, and thus voters will judge you based on whether or not they see themselves in you.
Don't repeat the political disaster that is Bernie Mac.
A new wordmark and logo weren’t the only changes that Walmart (now without the star/hyphen) rolled out a few weeks ago. They’ve also recently added advertisements to their website, walmart.com. This is a growing trend as companies, beyond dot com's, try to capitalize on the heavy traffic coming to their website. I applaud the smart business move, as it shows that traditional bricks and mortar businesses are finally realizing that their websites are equal business units onto themselves and should be invested in as such. But the move by Walmart was executed poorly, apparently by someone who is obviously too money driven to realize the larger implications of their actions.
Home Depot started this trend among large companies a few years back. Back then many were skeptical about advertisements appearing on retail sites, whose main purpose was to sell things for themselves. Space was better used to promote its own offerings rather than someone else’s, right? Wrong. Companies realized that the ROI was far greater for selling advertising space on their website than for promoting themselves – to a limit, of course. Well, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. missed the “to a limit” part. They’ve plastered 728x90 leader boards and 300x250 banners right smack in your face on the Homepage! They obviously don’t have any restrictions on what creative runs there either. I’ve seen the clashing orange from Vonage competing (and winning by the way) against the burnt orange in Walmart’s new logo. In fact, when you come to the site, you’re so disoriented by the huge banner at the top of the page you don’t know where you are. I’ve also seen some of the same ads that run on msn.com, yahoo.com, etc.
The difference here is that Walmart is also trying to sell consumers something. Users have come to walmart.com to purchase something from Walmart, not anyone else. Those users should still be their focus, but they’ve dedicated so much of their site to ads. Ads on retail sites shouldn’t get in the way of the core business, they should enhance it. Instead of selling ad space to anyone that is willing to buy, they should be selling “premium marketing space” to their suppliers with a mandate that the advertising compliment the site and enhance the browsing experience. What the money driven person failed to realize is that, if you loose the population coming to your site because it feels like a flea market, you no longer have any impressions to sell to advertisers. Now that’s a marketing disaster.
Sorry for the downtime in the last 24 hours. Moveable Type was giving me a lot of trouble and I had to republish my entire site. Then after a couple of margaritas....well you know the drill. I welcome you back with a new post that was supposed to go up yesterday. Happy reading!
rb
My name is Robert Brown and I've worked on marketing for some of the world's biggest brands including, American Express, Trident Gum, Listerine, and Sprint. I'll be the first to admit that I don't know much, but I've created this blog as an avenue to express my opinions and thoughts on a wide range of topics, mostly focused around marketing. I'll post entries on marketing, advertising, online marketing, politics, business, and whatever else is on my mind. I'd love to hear your thoughts on my posts, so feel free to leave a comment.
The only ground rule for me is that I won't blog about companies that I've worked on in the past or ones that I currently work on. I've got to keep my day job. Happy reading!
Email me at contact@marketingdisaster.com