No, that is not spy speak or code to my sleepers! Mark and Sara Schiller who run Electric Artists the strategic branding and marketing shop in NY, have opened a cool new meeting place in NY called “Meet At The Apartment”.
With workplaces becoming more casual and in some cases disappearing in favor of remote home and virtual options, Conference rooms are at a premium. Enter Meet At the Apartment.
Hat tip to MediaBistro’s Agency Spy.
MarketingProfs Get to the Point: Invest 60 seconds in your SMALL BUSINESS newsletter refers to Seth Godin’s post “Breakage” to discuss “The Price-Hike Gamble”. The post discusses the how small successive increases lead to a breaking point at which you the customer bolts. As Seth points out:
My car insurance bill has been steadily rising, year after year, despite the fact that I have a clean record. The logic, I’m sure, was, “well, let’s raise it a little and see who quits…”
If revenue increases enough to make up for the few who quit, you come out ahead. So, quarter after quarter, year after year, repeat the same process. Raise it a little, check to see if revenue rises in aggregate, and repeat.
Mitch Joel writes an interesting post Does A Social Media Vigilante Mean Equal Customer Service Justice For All? where he talks about social media vigilantes who name names in trying to build their own brand and obtain some form of resolution, retribution and/or compensation for poor service.
Mitch takes a different path and chooses to use his base to educate through highlighting issues, not companies and the fact patterns, responses and implications of the responses as opportunities for learning. By not creating sensationalist headlines that leverage brand names, Mitch highlights issues which becomes a positive force for change in an engaged way. Screaming at companies “Hey look at me and my crowd” while demanding things is not an easy way to win friends and influence results at a company. Most companies see the result as setting a precedent for others to follow and feel they are “damned if they do and damned if they don’t.”
People on a check-in line and passengers on a plane are part of short lived communities. Shared experiences, common goals and a whole host of other things regardless of whether they are good or bad. One of our Social Media brethren has been off on a “Delta Skelter”. Based on my recent experience where Delta caused me to miss my flight to South Africa, I have thought a lot about the meaning of the power of community, partnership and dialogue.
So I took my kids to the McDonalds drive-through the other day and as I pulled up to the register window, this sign was facing me covering most of the window:
We are talking about one of the highest margin products and we are being nickled and dimed. Really - If I ask for 32 ounces and pay for the 32 ounce - I EXPECT 32 OUNCES! Not 21 ounces at a 32 ounce price! Instead of filling the 32 ounce cup with ice and displacing half of the drink or more, why not give what you are advertising - a 32 ounce drink! And don’t shove it in my face - train your staff to nicely say what the message is. Whatever happened to hold the ice?? Now we know.
An old adage says if you want something to be good fast and cheap, keep dreaming. You can have 2 out of 3. If you want it:
Yeah – you get what you pay for! In Is Free Good? by Matthew Hurst, he makes two points – free does not necessarily equate to good or consistent, and that free often means no or limited service. Could not agree more.
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