by Chuck McKay | May 28, 2007 | Uncategorized
Over lunch with the manager of a craft store, I learned of a customer who regularly brings her ill behaved children to the store. They deliberately break things, tear signage, and in general leave a mess wherever they go. The employees cringe every time this customer...
by Chuck McKay | May 24, 2007 | Uncategorized
Have you ever had it happen, that you’re discussing something obvious with another person who refuses to admit the current circumstances, and insists that things SHOULD be different? Every now and then marketing consultants run into this delusion, usually held by the...
by Chuck McKay | May 9, 2007 | Customer Education, Expectations, and Motivation, Media, Social Media, and Word-of-Mouth (WOM)
Your friend is raving about a movie his wife has dragged him to. He says he’s glad she insisted, because it turned out to be the best crime drama he’s seen in years. He’s so enthusiastic that you decide to see it, too. But you find the film is only so-so. The plot is...
by Chuck McKay | Apr 29, 2007 | Uncategorized
I attended my first Amway recruitment meeting in 1978. A successful looking young man, and an equally successful looking middle aged woman each did a 20 minute monolog on how much money each of us “up-line” would make from each person we recruited, from the people...
by Chuck McKay | Apr 21, 2007 | Uncategorized
Empowerment. It’s what’s shifting the balance of information from sellers to buyers.Just a few years ago the conventional selling wisdom was to brag about the good word-of-mouth, and try to hush the bad. Since the only thing customers tended to have in...
by Chuck McKay | Apr 17, 2007 | Uncategorized
In 1993 I watched from behind the glass as a focus group of young women unanimously agreed about the most useful thing to their morning routine. It was a morning radio disc jockey’s “Color of the Day” feature. All they had to do was to listen for the color of the day,...
by Chuck McKay | Apr 8, 2007 | Uncategorized
I was recently having lunch with an old friend for the first time in years, catching up on mutual friends, and jobs, and families, when he mentioned how much he and his elder daughter enjoyed a particular cellular phone ad. He was able to recite a substantial portion...
by Chuck McKay | Mar 30, 2007 | Uncategorized
The nice young man from the television station has patiently presented his ratings, shown you the qualitative studies on his viewers, and presented the package pricing. You’ve decided to run a television ad. . Whazzat? He needs to know what you want your ad to say?...
by Chuck McKay | Mar 27, 2007 | Uncategorized
Have you ever seen a poster from across the room that has the word “SEX” at the top in 72 point type? You walk across the room to read the smaller print, which says “Now that I have your attention, let me tell you about the advantages of….“The first time this happens...
by Chuck McKay | Mar 9, 2007 | Uncategorized
In Sperry, Hutchinson, and the Hotel Part I and Part II we looked at the history and common pitfalls of customer loyalty programs. So far, I’ve been less than enthusiastic. Not about the concept, you understand, but about most of the programs in use as we commonly see...
