Marketing

It was a girl night out in town and it was coming to an end in a club full of people, loud music and shouting. Two of us were heading home in the same direction and we wanted to call a cab, but it was almost impossible to make a call with that noise around us. Other group of friends tried to text the cab service through Viber, which seemed like a good idea, but I didn’t want to go with that cab service. I have “my” cab service and I like to use it because I want to pay 5% more to drive a nice car with air conditioning and cab driver not smoking (yeah, that’s still an issue in my country believe it or not).

My eyes are all bloody and I fight the sleep though the fact that I am sooooo tired (and also six months pregnant) but I am binging on Stranger Things on Netflix like my life depends on it. I am watching 4th episode in a row and I can’t stop. No, it’s not only that the directors are amazing at cliff hanging me until next episode, it’s my brain that is sparking neurons like mad! Nope, it’s not only great story telling, it’s the 80s! Even though I was just a kid during 80s, seeing all the reference to this era was amazing:

If by any chance you are a fan of Mad Men TV series that features the lives of bad ass marketing and advertising Madison Avenue Gods Don Draper and his agency crew, you probably remember that not always did Draper win a pitch. One of those ones that they lost was with Heinz when Draper proposed them a campaign which shows no product at all. Yes, you heard it all good: NO PRODUCT AT ALL.

So, Super bowl is here. For us who live in Europe and frankly hate sports, this is not less big of a deal. This is the time of the year when all marketers gaze the screens carefully watching what the rich advertisers are preparing for this advertising feast.

“The customer is always right”, you will hear it from all dedicated entrepreneurs who take good care of the three which gives them income: their valuable customers. It doesn’t matter if you work in a coffee shop, a restaurant or you sell mobile phone accessories- you should always agree on customer’s opinion and do your best to serve them good. That’s true. But where should you draw the line? Imagine that one day a customer enters your coffee shop and tells you it’s too sunny and hot inside and you should buy some curtains. And you buy them. Tomorrow, another one comes and tells you your coffee shop should be pet friendly. And tomorrow you buy dog water bowls and prepare free dog snacks with coffee. The third day someone tells you your vanilla latte has too much vanilla, and you change the recipe. On the fourth day you open your guest book and you read the following “I used yo like your place, but it became too dark and full of dogs who bother me with their barking. Also, your vanilla latte sucks, what the hell happened with the great taste you had?”. That’s what can easily happen when you change your ways by accepting everybody’s opinions. And trust me, an opinion is something that everybody has. But is it worth changing your ways just because someone has their opinion?

Yesterday I watched a cooking TV show in which the host was trying really hard to make a pie dough with a food processor. It was crumbing. It was squeaking, it was trembling, I thought it would explode at the end. But noooo, he was so eager to use that stupid machine that it was quite clear: someone paid the show producers big money to make a fool out of the chef. At that moment I was completely sure that I will never ever buy any home appliance produced by that company. However, I am quite sure that marketing department of this brand was so happy because they got 5 minutes of close shot of their branded appliance on national TV. GRPs were jumping, people were watching, but the truth behind the success of this product placement is completely different from ratings.