There are a few ad agencies that really understand relationship marketing and building brands based on emotional ownership over rational decision making processes- Wieden & Kennedy is one of them.
Since 2004 they’ve worked with Starbucks, a brand that’s been known as a poor client. When your agency fires you as a client, it’s time to do some introspection. Especially if you are a marquee type client.
Getting fired means you are doing something wrong, and Starbucks’ senior VP-marketing seems to be the first candidate for the introspection couch:
In a statement, Starbucks’ senior VP-marketing, Terry Davenport, said Wieden’s decision was a response to Starbucks’ recent move to ask a number of agencies it works with, including Wieden, to “provide ideas to move the brand forward. … And, as a result, Wieden has decided to opt out of the process,” he said.
While Wieden is Starbucks’ primary agency, the retailer has worked with a number of other agencies in recent years on co-branded products. Interpublic Group of Cos.’ DraftFCB, New York, is the primary shop on its grocery coffee business. Starbucks has also worked with Omnicom Group’s Goodby Silverstein & Partners on the bottled Frappucino beverages it co-markets with Pepsi and Energy BBDO for the coffee liqueur brand it co-marketed with Beam Global Wine & Spirits.
But Wieden, which also handled media buying and planning for the coffee roaster, as well as much of its in-store graphics work, had been responsible for the first large-scale advertising in Starbucks’ history, including its first TV push last winter.
Starbucks is a brand that’s a love it or hate it brand. Their market penetration is incredible, as I’m constantly reminded when I pop up my “Starbucks finder” on my iPhone and almost always find one nearby when the coffee urge hits my companions.
And here is where the fundamental problem exists: The best marketing and advertising that Starbucks can do- isn’t marketing or advertising in the traditional sense of the words- because it’s just not necessary. The focus should be on refining a voice through the brand touchpoints and building very tight relationships with their customers through Customer Relationship Management tools. This is hard for both a VP of Marketing to understand and hard for an ad agency to caculate a compensation program for.
Modern marketing techniques don’t come with conventional media billings- and for a company like Starbucks, they shouldn’t. But, an open mind of how to build relationships with customers should be the first order of discussion with any agency who is bold enough to take on this “difficult client.”
Our part of Ohio recently got hammered by a windstorm that did billions of dollars in damage, knocking out power for over a week for many people. While the national news has been covering the financial crisis and the effects of Hurricane Ike that wiped out parts of Galveston, for the people in the Midwest their immediate issues were with putting things back to normal.
Some astute companies turned the disaster into opportunity, while others lost respect. These are just some observations about how to turn lemons into lemonade when a disaster strikes.
Home Depot wins points for taking out full page ads offering no-interest for six months on purchases over $299 on their credit card to help repair storm damage. This came across as a sincere attempt to share the burdens of the storm with their customers.
Cincinnati Bell on the other hand, took this as an opportunity to mock Time Warner and digital phone which requires both a connection and electricity to work, while their phone service only requires a connection. Yes, the people who had switched to digital phone service had learned this lesson, however, gloating over the failure came across as crass and opportunistic. Their offer of a free Trimline phone, a $14.95 value was an even greater insult. Phones access in a crisis can be a matter of life and death for some, but, touting a $15 “gift” when people are sitting in the dark with rotting food in powerless refrigerators is just classless. There is also the question of deliver-ability- even if you called to take them up on their phone service- how fast could they hook you up while lines are still down?
Call centers also are an opportunity to make a good impression. Comparing the automated systems of the power company, DP&L with the cable company, Time Warner was a lesson in how to do it wrong from DP&L to how to do it right from Time Warner. The DP&L system never once acknowledged their failure to deliver a critical service or apologize for the outage. No information was available via phone, or online about projected repair time. Time Warner on the other hand, acknowledged their failure, apologized for service outages, explained what was causing the outage and advised that they were working as fast as possible to restore service but the nature of the storm and their dependence on DP&L to provide power was causing delays.
Even with the power out, many people were using laptops, cell phones, wi-fi hot spots to connect online and seek information. Restaurants that were open and serving food, did well to notify their customers via their site and through e-mail blasts. Hotels that had power, had customers. The ability to quickly update a website with the latest status, inventory or answer frequently asked questions online separated the winners from the losers in the midst of the crisis.
A large part of a brands value is measured in “goodwill” and when the chips are down, it is often the best test of how well you understand your brand and it’s position in the consumers psyche. Remember, it’s ok to reach out, but do it with a kind heart, not a greedy hand. Also, always address, acknowledge, apologize for any decrease in service. Pointing fingers usually end up sticking you in your own eye.
It only takes 3x longer than an Apple ad to say absolutely nothing about why you should buy Vista- or believe Microsoft is anything different than the company that has ignored it’s customers for, well, since day one.
Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Gates meet in a mall at “Shoe Circus” and do exactly what Seinfeld is best known for- talk about nothing. As they walk out of the mall, after Bill has flashed his Shoe Circus Clown Club membership card, Seinfeld asks for a sign about the amazing future those geniuses at Microsoft have been dreaming up- just to get Bill to wiggle his ass on camera.
That shot is probably the most honest part of the whole spot: since Microsoft has been showing us their ass for as long as we’ve used their operating system and software. Software that crashes, software that attracts viruses like shit seduces flies, and a user interface that has never been intuitive- making the complex - harder. For the life of me, why does an end user need to know about a “registry?”
The Mojave Experiment was an attempt to do a “Pepsi Challenge” for Vista- only it was Vista in both cups. The website can’t be watched on a Mac- so forget about getting those customers back- and, it showcases one of the key problems Microsoft refuses to face: computing standards make for a better computing experience. From the earliest days of Mac vs PC it’s been the fundamental unique selling proposition that makes Mac’s the brand that can charge a premium and generate loyalty- once you learned how to do something in one program, it worked for all of them. Microsoft keeps thinking that the reasons users don’t like their software is because users are stupid- instead of realizing it was never about the software- it was about what you as a user, could accomplish with the software.
CP+B may have finally met a challenge that great ads can’t solve. This was only the first salvo. However, if Apple decides to release their OS X operating system to run on all Intel based PC’s for $249 (about double what they charge to run it on a Mac) Microsoft’s stock will fall faster than GM’s when gas hits $5 a gallon (as if it could fall much more).
In the end, we still come down to the old adage: “It’s not creative if it doesn’t sell.”
“Hi, I’m a Mac” from Chiat/Day has doubled market share for Apple in the last 2 years, while Apple is still charging a premium on their hardware. Go look at the comments on the YouTube spot above- and repeat after me: “I’m a PC and I’m leaving the building.”
Part II: a 4.5 minute showing Bill and Jerry trying to hang out with the “little people”- now Bill is doing the robot. Smacks of desperation.
There are a few ad agencies that really understand relationship marketing and building brands based on emotional ownership over rational decision making processes- Wieden & Kennedy is one of them.