Marketing Mojo With Stephanie Fierman

The concept of fulfilling the wishes of poor children who write to Santa Claus is a century-old initiative first started by postal workers who were moved by such letters. In the 1940s, the post office began making such letters available to the public, and eventually “Operation Santa” was born.

New York was the first, but programs exist in NJ, Washington, Dallas and other cities. New York alone gets around 500,000 letters each year.

One year, my mom and I decided to participate. We made the trek to the 33rd Street Farley Post Office on the West Side, and sat on the floor reading letters. Some were goofy, with kids asking for cars and video games. Some made us cry, with children asking for a warm coat for a sibling, or shoes, or a job for a parent. You take as many letters as you can, purchase goods and then mail them to the family on your own.

This week, the program was suspended when a registered sex offender was spotted taking one of the letters. Apparently the guy meant no harm, but - when the program came back days later - it was materially changed.

From now on, personal information on all the letters will be masked and you will have to return to the post office and give your package to a post office employee, who will then address and send your gift to the child whose letter you chose.

I predict that this will suppress participation, as some of the warmth of the process is drained away, and it’s going to put a horrendous level of stress and responsibility on the Post Office at the busiest time of year. Philadelphia mysteriously ended its program yesterday, saying its decision to halt the initiative 4 days earlier than planned had nothing to do with the breach. Unless they ran out of needy families, I doubt that.

As I said, folks, I got nothin’ on this one. No pithy observations. This is just bad bad bad at a time when the poor need more help than ever. I’m really sad about this.

Give to a foodbank, or go to a homeless shelter and offer gifts for children. Donate supplies to schools that cannot afford them. Resolve in 2009 to work with NY Cares or other organization to “adopt” a child in a school in need. Children do not deserve to suffer at this or any other time of year.

Operation Santa

As we all gear up for a lack of holiday shopping, here’s the latest from Tom Fishburne’s ingenious Brand Camp series offering a not-often-heard POV…

Tom Fishburne  

In August, I wrote a post titled “Stephanie Fierman On Beer And Blahniks.” (or, Why Do Businesses Not Understand Women, Part 1).  The upshot of the post is that Guinness planned to launch a beer “for women” that was essentially a watered-down version of their existing product.   The head of marketing at Guinness said that he wanted women to love this new watery beer as much as they love high heels.

I felt sorry for him.  Sort of.  But no one else seemed to.

I added the post to Blogher, where it received praise from one of the site’s founders, Lisa Stone (thank you, Lisa!) and this from Liz Rizzo (aka Beer Lover): “I love beer WAY WAY WAY WAY WAY more than I love shoes.  And watered down Guinness?  For my sanity, I’m going to pretend that I never ever ever read those words.  They hurt me.” 

It’s frustrating.  There appears to be two prevailing views of women in most marketing efforts: (1) the good-time girl who weighs 90 pounds and lives only at night, goes out with lots of friends in great clothes, does not appear to have a job and loves your car/bodyspray/lipstick/ deodorant/liquor (Guinness), and (2) the mom (Best Buy).

But back to Best Buy in a minute.  First, an anecdote.

I was on a plane last night and watched Baby Mama.  Loved it.  Silly, and a bit like one SNL skit after another, but 98% fun overall.  It’s the story of an attractive, totally put-together non-spinster woman, played by Tina Fey, who has a nice life and great career.  She’d be happy to be in a relationship but is ok being alone at the moment.  She does, however, understand that her eggs can’t wait so she wants a baby.  Now.

Flash forward to Fey, her sister and their mother (played brilliantly by Two And A Half Men’s Holland Taylor) having dinner while discussing Fey’s intention to adopt or otherwise secure a baby.   While her sister is going along, Holland Taylor despairs, “not everyone is so supportive of your ‘alternative lifestyle.’” 

To which Fey responds: “Mother, being single is not an ‘alternative lifestyle.”

Mother:  ”It is when you are 37 years old!”

Holy mackerel.  How and when did being fine and single become AN ALTERNATIVE LIFESTYLE??

So back to Best Buy.  Best Buy has gone for Door #2 as described above while exclaiming that they have created new stores “with women in mind.”  “Gone are the chain’s typical warehouse-like blue interiors… replaced instead by wood paneling.” A store for women apparently also needs family-friendly restrooms and race car-shaped shopping carts - because the only way a woman would ever venture into a Best Buy (sans male decision-maker) would be with her male children in tow?   If you click on the photo in this post, you will see shots of the interior of one of these stores. Note the cozy throw pillows and kitchen set-up.

I store things in my oven.

Ginger Sorvari Bucklin, Best Buy’s director of Winning With Women, explains that the chain has created these stores based on its appreciation of the fact that 45% of all electronics purchases are made by women.  The chain is paying attention.  They are spending the time. The new stores were more expensive to build than their standard model.  So why such a horrible blind spot?  Where is the understanding that women are a diverse crowd?  Some of us are single, some are married.  Some love babies, some don’t.  Some live in the city.  Some even live in the suburbs… alone (the horror).

I decided to google Best Buy’s endeavor and saw some seemingly positive reviews.  A site with the impressive URL GlobalMarketer.com praised Best Buy as being “best in class” based on its new stores targeting women.  I opened the article.  It starts with “My husband and I (Strike 1) walked into a Best Buy store in Richfield, Minnesota (Strike 2) at 1pm on a Sunday afternoon (Strike 3).” You can’t make this stuff up.  I have nothing against husbands, Minnesota or Sundays on their own but, seriously: this vision would actually drive me away from such a store. Especially on a Sunday when my friends and I are in Tribeca nursing Bloody Marys. Next!

It’s not only silly and frustrating to be seen exclusively as either a party girl or a candidate for Jon and Kate Plus Eight… it’s offensive and disrespectful - to all women.  I do not believe that most companies deliberately disrespect women.  Best Buy does not consciously disrespect women.  It’s worse:  companies so smugly assume that they know what women are and what women want - or what they need women to be - they simply disregard the possibility of anything to the contrary.

How Best Buy traveled from learning that ”female customers wanted more help seeing how products could work together and fit into their lives” all the way to diaper changing tables and race car shopping cards is beyond me.  Sadly, the result will be beyond Best Buy when these stores fail to reach their full potential.

Best Buy   Best Buy women  

Readers know that the Mojo is devoted to two special cartoonists whose work we like to share now and then.  On www.stephaniefiermanmarketingdaily.com, it’s David Jones‘Adland and here, it’s Tom Fishburne’s Brand Camp. 

Welcome to the recession…

This One Time At Brand Camp    Tom Fishburne

More than 25 years ago, Tylenol changed the “crisis management” business forever by taking decisive action to compromise profitability based on something that was not its fault.

In the fall of 1982, seven people in Chicago died after taking Extra Strength Tylenol capsules laced with potassium cyanide.  A 12-year old girl was reportedly the first to die.  Panic ensued.  Police cars roved the streets in and around the Chicago area blasting warnings from PA systems.  When it was determined that the poisoned bottles had come from different factories, the possibility that Johnson & Johnson (Tylenol’s ultimate parent) was somehow to blame was decisively ruled out.  Officials came to believe that one or multiple criminals had instead removed bottles from stores, tampered with the contents and then surreptitiously returned the bottles to store shelves.

And yet, responsibility never entered into the decision-making process underway at J&J:  only public safety did.  The company stopped all Tylenol production and promotion.  It issued a national recall not after the episode was over, but while it was still very much underway.  The bottles returned to J&J as a result of the recall had a retail value of more than $100 million.  I shouldn’t say that J&J stopped all Tylenol promotion:  it paid for and issued new national advertising instructing individuals to avoid taking any products that contained Tylenol, and offering to reimburse anyone who sent in an existing bottle of Tylenol capsules.

Once both the crisis and J&J’s action plan were in full force, Tylenol’s market share dropped like a rock from 35% to 8%.  To be expected.  What was not expected was that share rebounded in less than one year:  a return widely credited to J&J’s immediate and decisive action to sacrifice its own well being for the health of - really - the entire country.   Since then, J&J’s response is widely considered to be the gold standard in crisis management.  Act now.  Ask later.

I cannot overemphasize how I feel today about J&J’s behavior that long-ago autumn when I was still a kid.  It made an impression that has lasted my entire career:  one that influences how I measure companies and my own conduct as a business executive to this very day. 

So when I see a company disregard such a lesson for no other reason than financial gain, I am not just nonplussed - I’m disgusted.

SFCA Inc. purchased the assets of Simplicity Inc., a baby bassinet manufacturer, earlier this year after Simplicity went out of business.  SFCA is an affiliate of the private equity firm, Blackstreet Capital.  Two weeks ago, fifteen retailers - including Target, Wal-Mart, Toys R Us, Amazon and Kmart - halted the sale of certain Simplicity bassinets that the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission said could be hazardous to babies after two baby girls died (from strangulation in their bassinets).  The Wall Street Journal reported that Toys R Us were selling eight of the 66 models affected by the warning; the chain pulled the products anyway.  And all the retailers affected agreed to permit consumers to return the bassinets for a refund or store credit, regardless of how long ago the product had been purchased.  These retailers heeded the lessons learned from the shining example set by Johnson & Johnson.  Act now. 

SFCA, on the other hand, is doing nothing, holding fast to its claim that it bears no legal responsibility for the hazardous bassinets.  The USCPC couldn’t even issue a product recall, because SFCA would not cooperate.  Rick Locker, a lawyer representing SFCA has declared the company unwilling to recall  ”a product that it did not make and sell.”  The blog Daddy Types reports that - while SFCA may have hired Locker to assist with this matter - Locker is also paid as counsel for the Juvenile Product Manufacturers Association:  the lobbying organization that helps protect the makers of children’s products.  

Ironically, the JPMA’s website is currently heralding September as “Baby Safety Month.” In July, the association tooted its own horn for “reaffirm[ing] its commitment of safety.”  The communications contact on the July press release isn’t someone at a real PR or crisis management firm:  it’s a woman at Association Headquarters, Inc., an organization whose lone means of support is selling services to organizations such as… JPMA.  You can’t make this stuff up.

Henceforth, SFCA has taken a “Who, me?” approach to its products killing children.  The company claims that it might go out of business if it took all the offending bassinets back.  I find this particularly ironic and outdated in our Web 2.o world.  If SFCA came out on the Web and announced a recall (even though they were not legally responsible), the company’s future would be far more secure.  The company would be a hero.  Parents would rave and remember the company when they went shopping the next time.  They would tell one another, at a time in history when spreading the word is easier than ever.  Their marketing folks would get college and business school cases written. 

Isn’t this exactly what Tylenol did and exactly what happened as a result (in a decidedly Web 0.0 world)?  But then again, it’s not hard to imagine those meetings in 1982 where well-meaning lawyers warned that a recall could take down the company and J&J’s top management said, So be it.  We’re not going to stand by and let people die.  Short-sighted greed and bad lawyering are in full control at SFCA.  The drawbridge is up.  SFCA is not legally required to take back the affected bassinets, there are no mandatory standards for safety in the category and the USCPSC cannot bring legal charges against SFCA.

No matter.  There is a higher standard for working and living on this planet that J&J set and by which all corporations should live.  As an aside, I’ll say once again that it’s just good business: (a) the positive halo effect for J&J post-crisis was and still is phenomenal, and (b) not doing the right thing will get you in the end.  You can expect boycotts and bad press at minimum: perhaps a crazed parent manufacturing a terrible happening to take you down if you’re really unlucky.  Permanently disastrous online search results.  But aside from it being good business, it’s about acting human, like someone whose own child or grandchild was killed by your product.

There is no exception - and if there is, I haven’t heard about it and SFCA most definitely does not qualify.  This is capitalism run right into the ground, taking humanity and business ethics down with it.

SFCA  Simplicity bassinets   Blackstreet Capital  JPMA 
Johnson & Johnson 1982 Tylenol   Rick Locker  

The teenage jury is in: Abercrombie & Fitch’s cross-channel marketing/ hype machine leaves just about everyone else in the dust.  Launched in 1892, I suspect that former shoppers Teddy Roosevelt, Ernest Hemingway, Amelia Earhart and Clark Gable would scarcely recognize the clothier whose soft-core porn advertising/experience that has turned the chain into a cultural icon (well, maybe Gable would feel at home…).

Since rebooting the brand in 1988, A&F has broken from the teen pack by courting controversy everywhere it goes.  Let us count the ways…

Because just about every retailer has a catalog and everyone’s catalog is free (ho-hum), A&F created a separate lifestyle magazine full of black-and-white photographs taken by Bruce Weber, the photographer best known for highlighting ”the beauty of youth in male nude photography” (as taken verbatim from his own website).   There were so many protests over A&F Quarterly (which the company sells - further stoking desire among teens)  that the company suspended publication for awhile; it’s hard to say whether it was the magalog’s porn star interviews or the b&w shots of Santa and Mrs. Santa Claus in flagrante that pushed thousands of parents and a few governors and attorneys general over the edge… who’s to say?

Such outrage, of course, only pushed the Quarterly to greater, more mythical heights, stoking the company’s good-but-bad-boy (emphasis on ”boy”) reputation.  Go online right now to witness the hysteria it generated in 2003. Totally un-cool Bill O’Reilly, a series of religious organizations and others called for boycotts, and articles concerned with “cultural decay” screamed out with headlines like “Abercrombie & Fitch Stops Selling Porn.“  Parental boycotts? Porn?  Thongs for pre-teens, according to Bill O’Reilly? [Don’t think too much about that one.]  All like catnip to your underage kitty.  Meee-ow!

A&F Quarterly has recently been reintroduced (in Europe, not the US) with a promise from the company that it would no longer be sold to individuals under the age of 18 and that there would be less of everything that made it hot in the first place.  Nevertheless, I wouldn’t expect any A&F articles on the virtues of abstinence anytime soon.

On the ground, it appears that the company used the Quarterly’s hiatus period to begin focusing on customer service and the stores.  A new CEO was brought in from Gucci which - at 46,000 feet - now boasts the largest luxury store in the world right here on New York’s Fifth Avenue.  Gucci knows how to push the rags.  The CEO beefed up store staffing and there are now greeters at the front of every store, in addition to at least one employee inside covering each sales section.  But what is A&F’s spin?  A&F hires male models as greeters, who may literally be standing out on the sideway, stirring up - whatever.  The company further inflates the aspiration by “casting” for such greeters on its website, where the pages pulsate with club music accompanying a video of store events where the models are decidedly half-naked and the customers are clearly under 18.  If you are interested in becoming a model for A&F, you’re asked for a photo, your height, your weight… and the name of the mall nearest you.   ‘Cuz you may be pretty, but don’t ever forget why you’re here.

A&F’s been knocking around in my head for some time, but the impetus for this post was an experience this past Labor Day weekend.  Marketing Mojo was merrily cruising down NYC’s Fifth Avenue until running headlong into a case of gridlock at 57th Street.  What could it be?  Celebrities (pretty typical in these here parts…)?  No, it was a huge mass of people standing in front of A&F’s flagship store, waiting to get in and taking pictures of what definitely seemed to be a highlight of their day.  There were two beautiful young male models standing at the door controlling entry, and a line of people behind a velvet rope that snaked around the corner.  A velvet rope.  2008’s version of Studio 54/Limelight/China Club (all of which the Mojo’s under-18 friends snuck into) is… Abercrombie & Fitch. 

There is no question that A&F has made some wrong moves, particularly in the area of diversity.  Several years ago, the company made t-shirts that it considered fun and tongue-in-cheek.  Just about everyone else, including many college student organizations, considered them racist.  And in 2004, the company settled a $50 million class action lawsuit brought by former employees who claimed that the company was happy to hire African-Americans, Asians, Filipinos and other minorities… as long as they worked in the stores’ stockrooms and not out on the selling floor.   

Ergo, the stupid, screwed up (and illegal) side of presenting the ”Caucasian, football-looking, blonde-hair, blue-eyed, skinny, tall male” as everyone’s ideal.  

Fast forward to 2008, and the company is making progress.  Today, the company claims that minorities make up 32% of its sales staff.  It also has a  huge “Diversity” section on its website.  Of course this is A&F, so the section plays a video loop that features Asians, Latinos and African-Americans - all of whom are gorgeous and (most of whom are) in some state of undress.  The company can’t give up everything!

[Nota bene: An employee recently claimed that A&F has simply shifted its discriminatory ways toward not hiring ”ugly” people, with the company’s ”hierarchy of hotness” dictating just about everything.  And not hiring unattractive people (across all ethnic groups) is very hard to outlaw, according to a lawyer who represented the plaintiffs in the original 2004 case.] 

Based on 20 years of business experience, the Mojo has absolutely no doubt that A&F’s lawyers and senior management are fully cognizant of what they’re doing, and believe that a nuisance lawsuit or two is worth preserving the highly profitable fantasy world they’ve created.  And by doing so, A&F taps into its target consumer’s impressionable zeitgeist like few others do - or have the nerve to do.
Abercrombie & Fitch  back to school shopping  clothing retail

Rising gas prices, baggage fees and the like are causing a lot of folks to plan summer vacations close to home… or at home.  UrbanDictionary defines staycation as “a vacation that is spent at one’s home enjoying all that home and one’s home environs have to offer.”  That sounds fun and relaxing - right up until you all decide you’d like to wring each other’s necks.  “Mom, there’s nothing to dooooooo!”

Over and above the normal picnic/game/pool promotions, this is a great opportunity for lots of local and national consumer-focused entities to promote themselves in this new context.

Some retailers are already getting into the act.  Wal-Mart has launched an “American Summer” campaign, cutting prices on everything from hot dogs to mosquito netting.  Their tag:  a summer getaway is “as close as your own backyard.”

Toy stores should get together recommendation lists based on budget, location (weather), age of children and so on.  Create promotions around toys and products best used at home.  And any smart local business trying to drive traffic should consider throwing a kid-friendly party:  growing up in a small town in New Jersey, I remember the parties thrown by the local Midas Muffler shop and one of the new bank branches in the community.  Hot dogs, face painting, balloons - families came out in droves.  Local, inexpensive happenings like these can create loyalty opportunities. 

Local newspapers (print and online) could feature daily and weekly ideas for great things to do around town - even borrow the concept of “3 Days In…” (see here and here for examples) and print entire itineraries for families to consider.  The web is great for this kind of editorial because it would enable a visitor to sort on the variables most important to him or her, such as distance from home, number of kids, indoor/outdoor activities, etc.  Sell incremental advertising around these features.

Local TV stations and affiliates should look at their programming schedules in the coming months and see what might be “repackaged” as stay-at-home, family fare.  Ad time could be sold to local supermarkets and other shops offering “specials” for fun nights at home.

There are also plenty of ideas being pitched for a very adult type of staycation, which usually revolve around a 2 or 3-night hotel or resort package of some sort.  Here’s one from Fodors.

Some creativity could really help businesses and families make the most of a challenging situation this summer.

NOTE:  And while you’re at home, you’ll have time to check out my second blog at http://www.stephaniefiermanmarketingdaily.com.

The year is 1978. Disco, clubs, those long sparkly gold and silver scarves a bunch of us wore around our necks trying to look/be cool. Christie Brinkley was the model of the day and Billy Joel’s 52nd Street was the #1 album of the year - Big Shot was the anthem of the wild New York coked-up beauty queen. My contemporary, Brooke Shields, played a 12-year-old prostitute in Pretty Baby. Star Wars had come out the year before and the idea that Times Square would someday look like Disneyworld would have been preposterous.

I was young, but just old enough to realize boys existed and that there might something remotely interesting going on there. Rod Stewart’s cheesy disco song Da Ya Think I’m Sexy? moved me. I had absolutely no clue why, but it did. Big time. I suspect that you have a few embarrassing yet sacred songs like this one, even though you’d never admit it.

So last night I hear the song coming from my TV and look up from the newspaper to see a huge claymation Chips Ahoy cookie singing “If ya want my body, and ya think I’m sexy, come on sugar let me know/If you really need me just reach out and touch me…” to a blonde female claymation figure sitting on (the bachelor cookie’s) couch looking - uh - hungry. Here’s the ad:



I was - plundered. Horrified. I mean, I’d seen Bob Dylan shilling for Victoria’s Secret and heard the resulting cries of angst but it hadn’t affected me: wrong coming-of-age decade. But now, Nabisco had taken my delicate young girl memories and, and, turned them into a chocolate chip cookie! Have they no shame? Will marketing people stop at nothing??

And the commercial most certainly did not make me want a cookie!

My friends and I sometimes get a good laugh out of trying to picture the client/agency meeting that spawned an idea. Picture it: you are the cookie brand/category manager at Nabisco and someone suggests Da Ya Think I’m Sexy for Chips Ahoy. What. Goes. Through. Your. Mind?

Oh well. I’ll be ok. But if anyone uses Yvonne Elliman’s If I Can’t Have You to sell a candy bar, I’m a goner.

P.S. Oh. My. G-d. At this very moment, Meatleaf is singing a version of Paradise by the Dashboard Light (1977) in a TV ad for the AT&T GoPhone. Except this time, it’s Paradise By the GoPhone Light. I have to go lay down.

Rod StewartChips Ahoy”Do you think I’m sexy””Do you think I’m sexy””Paradise by the Dashboard Light””Paradise by the GoPhone Light”

            

I love McDonald’s.  I do.  Or to be more specific, I love the fries… and the Extra Value Meal #2.Now I know what you’re thinking.  You’re thinking “Eegads!  A woman of your refined upbringing and delicate palate, how could you?”  Yeah, well, back off haters.  I also ate at Jean Georges in NYC this past Monday (egg caviar and the lobster) and believe that a renaissance person such as myself can burn the fat candle at both ends.

And now I have a business-related reason to love them, as well.

This month’s Fortune is the Fortune 500 issue, and it rocks - especially the article about how McDonald’s has transformed itself from an arrogant ”ugly American” company into a true corporate citizen of the world.  It’s exciting to read.Complete with photos, the lengthy article details McDonald’s “glocal” strategy.  We all remember “think global, act local.”  Now, complete with its new-agey description, the company is doing precisely that.   How’d they do it?  They changed the culture from one that considered Oak Brook, Illinois to be ground zero, to one that is entirely focused on innovation, on the new idea:  wherever that idea may come from.  And cultural change is great, blah, blah, but talk is cheap.  The distinction here is that McDonald’s rebuilt its operations in order to follow through and to ensure future progress.While McDonald’s has never been a completely hierarchical organization, the company started with the US at the top of the food chain (pardon the pun).  But as the global economy became real, the company discovered that the old ways of doing things simply weren’t working.  Not atypically (think Coke and Pepsi in India), the wake-up call came in the form of a repeated public relations gaffes in European companies where US-style menu choices were not only failing, but reinforcing McDonald’s reputation among activists as the very symbol of American imperialism.  The fact that it changed is a credit to the company.McD’s changed its operating policies and adopted a business plan based on ”freedom within a framework.”  This approach gives regional and national managers considerable leeway to make their own decisions in their own markets.  And it was non-egotistical in another way:  it took a hard look at the brand and decided what was truly holy and what was not.  This is tough stuff for a company with such a rich history (I can hear CMOs everywhere throwing their bodies over their marks right now…).  The corporate logo cannot be changed, but local markets run their own advertising campaigns.  Furnishings are also customized by market.  The company fosters constant communications not only between the US and global markets, but between the non-US markets themselves.  America is not the center of  the McDonald’s universe.  The concept of delivering good food fast is:  and “good” is something that differs greatly from one place to another.

It’s tempting to wonder how is it that we thought it could be any other way, when over one billion people in the world’s second most populated country (India) doesn’t eat beef??  You adapt or you die.  Is beef what makes McDonald’s McDonald’s?  No.  But as a long-time corporate executive, I can say with 100% certainty that, at some point, smart people in that company thought that the Big Mac was McDonald’s.

Today, Europe is McDonald’s largest money maker, producing $8.9 billion in revenue, or 39% of the company’s total top line.  The US produced 36%.  And while the US produced a 2007 increase in operating income of 7%, Europe grew by 32% and Asia-Pacific shot up by 69%. 

Things have not always been so great.  Mad cow, activist demonstrations, protests in France.  But the company is now on track, and has opened communications, innovation and product pipelines that travel around the world - and frequently start far outside Illinois.  Here are a few lessons I draw from McDonald’s experience:

* Create the formal and informal pathways by which far-flung operations can communicate what their markets need and want, without fear or hesitation. 

* Tie performance appraisals and compensation to the behavior you seek.  Calculate bonuses, in part, based on the identification and adaptation of good ideas from other markets.  A Board could formally make this a factor in the CEO’s compensation, as well.

* Become a citizen of your community.  This is not unlike the advice I give when speaking on the topic of online reputation management: become a respectful member of the marketplace you care about.  After a French militant group become disgusted at the prospect of American mystery meat and ransacked a new store in 1999, the company’s European president opened the entire operation for inspection.  Staff now shows the public around kitchens, fields all questions (not just the one’s the company likes) and freely discussed the food and its ingredients.

And, as a citizen of your community, be certain that those marketplaces are run by locals.  For many years, senior managers outside the US were American expats. No more.  Delegate authority to people in and of the market you want to grow.

* Be open with your detractors.  When Greenpeace targeted McDonald’s for its use of soybeans from illegally deforested areas of the Amazon rainforest, McDonald’s agreed and asked for the organization’s help in solving the problem.  That kind of behavior wins respect - even friends - fast.

I’d like to mention that the Wall Street Journal recently ran a story about Kraft that reflects many of the same lessons McDonald’s has learned and acted upon.  You can read that article here.  In the meantime, I’m going to surf the web to see if I can buy a box of Chinese Oreos: four wafer sticks filled with vanilla and chocolate cream, coated in chocolate.

When in Rome (or France or Spain or China)…
McDonald’sKraftoreosoreo

Friends:  have you seen my new daily blog yet?  Subscribers include all the living Presidents.  Not really - but they could use some advice. 

Many retailers and other merchants still use the old “Green Stamps” method to deliver their loyalty programs: they give you a card and punch it (only 8 more slushies to go ’til you get one free!). You are then supposed to keep track of it, and put it somewhere so it’s handy the next time you show up. All of this assumes you remember you have it in the first place.

As with gift card breakage, this is why these programs have such low redemptions rates and - for most consumers - become so unsatisfying: they’re just too hard to use. And if you’ve ever handed an over-worked counter clerk a paper card and asked for a stamp or a punch during the lunch rush, you know that that’s not a happy face he’s giving you. I’m not missing the fact that having a program that no one uses creates a certain amount of practically-free good will for the issuing company, but that’s a tremendous amount of work for an effort that does not ultimately generate the loyalty these merchants desire.

Now comes a loyalty technology company called Chockstone, which is introducing the newest generation of “single swipe,” a functionality that allows POS-based retail loyalty programs (QSR, department stores, gas stations, etc.) to be administered on the same major credit cards we all use today. For a single issuer, such as Subway, this makes the program easier to use and more likely to bring the customer back. It seems to me, though, that the overall potential of this technology could far more significant.

The average U.S. household is signed up for 12 loyalty programs. If multiple programs are administered on a single credit card, then “presence of” (information) and my usage of all of those programs will reside at a single source. Imagine the benefit to the credit card issuer, the administering retailers and other non-participating retailers and merchants:

* Mastercard, Visa and the issuing banks could all tinker with their loyalty efforts based on an assessment of the programs you have loaded on the program and your usage patterns. The issuers could also create an incremental revenue stream by selling various levels of data to participating and non-participating retailers via the creation of a loyalty database co-op.

The early movers could also create their own added loyalty by providing information and custom incentives delivered as a message printed on your monthly card statement.

* The owner of each loyalty program could adjust the levels, incentives and form of its program based not only on their own results, but potentially, your use of competitors’ (or complementary retailers’) programs as well. And customized reward programs could be administered at a cost close to zero. Subway, for example, may want to increase your rewards if it knows that you also have Quiznos’ loyalty program loaded on your credit card.

* Paneros (which, let’s say, may not have a program or might want to be smarter about the one it has) could purchase blind transaction data from the co-op showing your activity with Subway and Quiznos. It could then be quite surgical about testing and defining the value it would take to get you to shift to their program - not too much, not too little. It could creat one mass program, a “best customer” initiative or both.

Most functionality that would be required for all of the above to happen does not yet exist, but the potential for everyone involved is huge. At a macro level, every party in the value chain could achieve higher loyalty, with the right customers, at a reduced cost.  And I could throw away that paper Burritoville punch card I never have with me, anyway.

And, friends: I’ve started a new daily blog at www.stephaniefiermanmarketingdaily.com, offering shorter takes on news and trends of the day. I’d be delighted if you’d take a look.

loyalty marketingmarketingcredit cardsubway restaurantchockstonemarketingloyalty marketingloyalty program