The power of CEOspeak

The Hindustan Times reports:

“We have not and will not lay off no matter how bad it gets, even if recessionary trends get worse,” said Vineet Nayar, CEO, HCL Technologies.

CEOs have this power. A single statement from the CEO can impact the company’s image in a manner that thousands of marketing dollars may not achieve.

At a time when the corporate world is leaving no stone unturned to cut costs, a statement like this requires courage, conviction and confidence. It sends out positive signals not only to employees, but also to customers and shareholders.

Incidentally, Vineet is one of the few Indian CEOs who blog regularly. Vineet’s blog is a great grazing place for unconventional fodder.

Insurance, get a life

I was appalled to see this HDFC Standard Life Insurance ad on television last night.

Agreed, to sell insurance you sometimes need to take the fear route, but to instill the fear of losing their daddies in children (agar aapke papa ghum ho gaye toh?), and then feeding on that fear to sell life insurance to the parent is insensitive, cheesy, even reckless.

And the timing! Releasing this offensive ad at a time when the country is recovering from a terror strike is as insensitive as it gets. Business mercenaries would of course argue that there's nothing wrong in striking the iron when it's hot.

By comparison, I find the Pepsi "suicide ads" far less offensive.

Testing times for Arjuna

This animation video has been floating around on the web.



Apparently, this is a TV ad made by JWT for Sulekha.com and it has been soft-launched on the Internet "to check people’s reactions to it before releasing it on television,” reports afaqs!

Online Reputation Management or Customer Satisfaction?

Last Sunday, I watched on bemused as three executives from Club Mahindra (a holiday timeshare brand) staged a funny pitch (they call it "presentation"). Will spare you the details, but in case you're interested, it was quite similar to this.

Curious about what people felt about Club Mahindra, I turned to Google and was hit with scores of pages that painted Club Mahindra in the brightest shades (examples here, here & here). However, most of these sites/blogs seemed to have been created by the company/employees.

I scratched the surface and came across a lot of outbursts against Club Mahindra: tales of anger, disgruntlement, disenchantment and frustration, to name a few.

I scratched some more and discovered that Club Mahindra has been sponsoring blogger meets at their resorts. It looks like the initiative has paid off. The invited bloggers have sung praises in Club Mahindra's favour (examples here, here & here).

It looks like Club Mahindra has focussed heavily on acquiring a clean online reputation, especially since their IPO is due. The favourable blogs have actually managed to push down the complaints, as far as search engine pageranks are concerned. However, I still maintain (as I had written in an earlier post) that in today's connected world, people will eventually find out the what other customers feel about your brand. It would help to dedicate time and energy to become more customer-centric than trying to manufacture online reputation. Perhaps it could have saved Club Mahindra this unenviable distinction.

Thoughts are welcome in the Comments section.

"Brand is shorthand for...

the collection of experiences and memories and expectations that people have for what it's going to be like to deal with you the next time."

Two business thought leaders I hold in very high esteem--Seth Godin and Tom Peters--express their views on what a brand is in today's networked world in this video.

Remote sensing

Picture this. An ad that you find terribly irritating appears on TV. You pick up the remote and switch channels immediately. The 'click' on your remote is captured and fed into a feedback system for the advertiser.

This is already happening in the US--albeit in a limited manner--thanks to Google's deal with EchoStar's Dish Network. Google's plans obviously go beyond just a feedback system. The Internet giant's foray into television advertising is a step towards changing the way TV ad inventories are bought and sold.

"Can Google Crack the TV Ad Market?", asks Brian Morrissey in a piece on Adweek.
[Pic credit: Michael König]

(Customer) Happiness is a state of being

"It's interesting to note that marketers trying to maintain market share have a lot of work to do in reminding us that we're happy," writes Seth Godin in a blogpost titled Destroying Happiness.

While this seems obvious, in reality there are very few companies who take the job of 'keeping existing customers happy' seriously. Take a look around you. New customers are getting better deals on home loans than the old, loyal ones. "Sales desks" and "Service desks" often present pictures of stark contrast. Many credit card companies promise lifetime free cards to new customers while happily billing annual fee to existing customers.

Companies often rely on ugly "pain of switching" tactics to keep their existing customers from straying, while they go on a wooing spree to get in new customers. For instance, loan providers do it by imposing a steep balance transfer foreclosure fee.

In today's connected world, there's no bigger advertising than referral by a happy customer. No amount of Marcom spin can match that. Keeping customers happy goes much beyond sending them mail-merged birthday greetings. It includes taking a hard look at your business processes to ensure that the existing customer gets more than she expects.

Do you want bad word-of-mouth to negate your advertising? Or positive word-of-mouth to take your advertising to the realm of believability? Take your pick. This or this.