What Clothes are You Wearing?

Ever since the Creative Revolution, marketers have insisted brands have character.

A brand, they say, can be friendly, playful, rebellious, sexy, wise or generous—or possess any of a score of other human- or animal-like attributes.

Marketers can feel vindicated in this belief by the Supreme Court's ruling in Citizens United that corporations are people.

They can also feel vindicated by the lending practices of banks, which define "character" as a business' willingness to pay back a loan.

Character, according to the National Association of Credit Management, "imputes a level of ethics, integrity, trustworthiness and quality of management that is provided or available to the business."

So what's your brand's character?

Is it admired, adorable, confident, dynamic, efficient, fair, honorable, innovative, kind-hearted, likable, painstaking, plucky, proud, romantic, self-assured, silly, sincere, thoughtful, upbeat, warm, willing, witty or wonderful? Or is it something else?

Well, here's a hint: Despite all your words, your brand's character is not what you say it is, but what your customers perceive it to be.

As Priceline's co-founder Jeff Hoffman says, a brand's character is a lot like clothing: what you choose to wear every day forms others' opinions of you.
As the old saying goes, clothes make the man—or the brand.

The company Hoffman co-founded, Priceline, says it's admired and innovative.

But Priceline's recent refusal to refund me the price of tickets that it admits in writing it cancelled tells me the brand's character—the company's words notwithstanding—is altogether different. Try abusive, arrogant, callous, creepy, deceitful, evasive, greedy, malicious, materialistic, mean, nasty, obnoxious, pesky, ruthless, savage, self-serving, sneaky, tacky, tiresome, venomous, vile, wicked, and wolflike.

What clothes are you wearing?

UPDATE: I received a phone call late today from Priceline's PR department. The individual who called informed me the company had decided to refund the cost of my tickets in full, and would process the refund to my credit card within one day.

An Open Letter to Jeffery Boyd

Jeffery Boyd
The Priceline Group
800 Connecticut Avenue
Norwalk, CT 06854                

Dear Sir:

I am writing to you in your capacity as Executive Chairman of the Board of Priceline Group. I would like you to arrange a refund of $1,206.22.

On March 31, I arrived with my spouse at Dulles International Airport, outside Washington, DC, expecting to board a flight to Heathrow with tickets I purchased last August on Priceline.com (Priceline Trip Number: 203-791-090-42).

When we presented the airline the receipt emailed by Priceline, we were informed the tickets had been cancelled in September.

I phoned your customer service number and was informed by two different agents that the tickets had indeed been cancelled. They offered no explanation for why the tickets were cancelled (or by whom) and refused to refund the $1,206.22 I paid for the tickets.

My spouse and I purchased tickets with a different airline at the airport, so we could complete our trip, at a cost of six times the amount I paid Priceline.

The only previous communications I received from Priceline regarding the airline tickets were a purchase receipt and an itinerary, both emailed August 29, 2016. I'd be happy to supply copies of these, as well as the two customer service agents' ID numbers, should you need them.

I was brought up to believe a business that fails to render a service purchased in advance by a customer refunds the purchase amount, in full, and often with an apology. I trust you were brought up in comparable circumstances, and will refund my $1,206.22 immediately.

Sincerely,

Bob James

Event-Goer: Won't You be My Neighbor?

Are you an adventurous event-goer?

Airbnb wants you.

Room-sharing represents the ultimate way for event-goers to personalize business travel, says company exec Chip Conley.

While she once aspired to stay in a predictably clean and conveniently located hotel, today's event-goer seeks “discovery”—a craving Airbnb satisfies by providing rooms in every sort of neighborhood.

The company fills a need that's not without precedent, Conley says:

• Home-swapping dates to the 1950s, when the Dutch teachers' union suggested members could swap houses to save on vacation rentals.

• VRBO web-ified peer-to-peer vacation rentals in 1995.

• Boutique hotels surged about the same time, proving “there was a growing number of customers for whom predictability and ubiquity were not the right model."

Airbnb targets “customers who are a little adventurous, especially in locations that they know already,” Conley says.

To accommodate event planners, Airbnb is hawking widgets planners can embed in their websites. The widgets link attendees to blocks of Airbnb listings available during the event's dates and in proximity to the event's venue. 

Following in the footsteps of Amazon and Netflix, the company plans to use algorithms to become a global hospitality giant, according to Conley.