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.

Trade Show Organizer: Is Your Agency Giving You a Bum Steer?

March's edition of Trade Show Executive includes an article by a marketing agency head who claims direct mail, the perennial attendance-acquisition "workhorse," is dying.

"Direct mail isn't dead," she writes. "Yet. Savvy event marketers are, however, anticipating and preparing for the moment the direct mail death knell finally rings."

In the same edition of the magazine, another writer claims, "Telemarketing as a marketing tool appears to be on its way to the 'outdated' bin."

Direct mail dying? Telemarketing outdated?

Rubbish.

In terms of marketing spend, in fact, both channels have held steady during the past four years, according to the latest survey of organizers by the Center for Exhibition Industry Research.

During the same period, the survey shows, email's effectiveness as an attendance-acquisition tool has declined.

Wrong-headed pronouncements like these―regardless of the intentions behind them―pose a real danger to any show organizer who buys into them.

They amount to what our grandfathers and great grandfathers would have called a "bum steer."

That expression―meaning bad advice intentionally given―came into fashion during World War I, when American troops fought alongside Australian ones on the Western Front.

Australians would call defective advice (which "steered" you) "bum," an Old English word referring to the buttocks.

Trade show organizer: Beware the bum steer.

Marketers Have Always Been Liars

Part 3 of a 3-part series on business strategy.

An old business saying, Mercator told readers of the May 1893 edition of Saddlery and Harness, goes, “Get money honestly if you can, but get money.”

It's an adage that can lead businessmen to lie.

But is it okay to tell customers a lie?

Mercator says, yes, in two instances.

First, it's okay to use "elastic terms of quality."

"In strict truth, only the best that can be made should be styled best," he writes, "yet we find in the bridle trade several qualities better, bearing such distinctions as best best, super, extra super, and so on. Here, though there is a departure from the truth, it is so well understood by the buyer that there is no deception, and therefore no dishonesty."

Second, it's okay to display “pretenses as to home manufacture.”

“Nowadays," Mercator writes, "the still so-called boot and shoe maker is only a seller or distributor, and in most cases sends even his repairs out, not needing to employ any workmen on his own premises. The same remarks apply to the soi distant watch and clock makers, whose only occupation is cleaning, not one in a thousand being able to make a watch or clock is it were to save his life.”

So it's okay to imply that you make what you sell, Mercator says—provided customers aren't deceived.

“There certainly are degrees of deviation from the strict truth which commercial customs almost compel everyone to conform to, and so long as the buyer well understands these things, and is in no sense deceived thereby, there is no dishonesty in practice.”

But stray afield of these claims, and you run the risk of discovery.

"The false pretense, although so common in so many trades, is always to be deplored, since it sometimes leads to false representation and untruth," Mercator writes.

"Where, as in the case of the so-called bootmaker, everyone knows the truth, no harm is done, but whenever a buyer is deliberately deceived and hoodwinked, then it amounts to dishonorable dealing. In all these matters the old Latin proverb should be borne in mind—Magna est veritas et praevalebit—the truth is great and will prevail."

Sound a tad quaint?

On his blog, Seth Godin writes, "When you are busy telling stories to people who want to hear them, you’ll be tempted to tell stories that just don’t hold up. Lies. Deceptions.

"This sort of storytelling used to work pretty well. Joe McCarthy became famous while lying about the 'Communist threat.' Bottled water companies made billions while lying about the purity of their product compared to tap water in the developed world.

"The thing is, lying doesn’t pay off any more. That’s because when you fabricate a story that just doesn’t hold up to scrutiny, you get caught. Fast."

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

Create a Sensation

Part 2 of a 3-part series on business strategy.

"Sensation must be the keynote of all advertising," Mercator told his readers in the November 1892 edition of Saddlery and Harness.

In other words, go big or go home.

Tiny, timid ads don't pay off.

“A small everyday poster is not worth the cost of fixing," Mercator says. "Exactly the same may be said of advertisements in newspapers. A small one amongst hundreds of other small ones is not seen at all; only the large and showy ones draw any attention."

But why gamble on outdoor and print, Mercator asks, when you can use direct mail?

"The best and only sure and safe system of advertising is by addressing circulars from a directory of the town to every inhabitant at all likely to be a customer, and sending them through the post," he says.

"Advertisements on walls, and in newspapers, periodicals, and directories are what we may term promiscuous or indiscriminate. They are issued in thousands with the lottery chance of reaching or being seen by the hundreds or possibly only the tens; whereas the directly addressed missive goes like a faithful messenger at once and without fail to the person intended, and every message is seen if be not read, whilst the carriage of it by post does not cost a tenth part of the amount wasted by the indiscriminate method."

Sound too quaint?

According to Demand Gen Report, "Traditional direct mail is still an important means of communication among B2B marketers, and industry experts are seeing signs of its resurgence as a lead gen tool. This is due to marketers seeing better response rates to mail pieces, and leveraging it with other channels and disciplines such as account-based marketing for a targeted and integrated approach."