Prior to my sophomore year I worked at a 24-hour diner called The Forum.  The Saturday night shift went from 5 pm to 4:30 am.  As you could imagine, the crowd here differed from Bloomingdale’s.  

One cranky guy ordered veal parmigiana every night, asked for 2 glasses of water at once and woe to the server who let those two glasses go empty.  He was infamous for leaving a quarter for tip. I kept refilling the glasses and he must have liked me – he left me 35 cents. 

Then there were customers like Chris.  Chris was a muscular, 38-year-old gentleman with thinning salt and pepper hair who raised and groomed horses.  His patience and optimism made him a pleasure to serve.  He ate light despite his size (sometimes just a half cantaloupe with cottage cheese) and would leave me a $5 tip on his $7 tab.

How did I know so much about my customers?  I talked to them.  

Many of the consumer business owners I work with fear talking with customers.  It’s true.  These savvy business people who have launched companies, some of whom have solicited hundreds of thousands of dollars from investors, turn shy when faced with a customer. 

Why?

Because it’s not part of their routine.   

Typically the business owner needs to know something and designates a specific time to talk to customers.  This now formalized appointment begins to spark anticipation like a first date or a job interview. 

And like a first date or an interview, the anticipation spawns the fear of being judged.  Business owners who are passionate about their business become emotionally invested in it.  Negative comments about the business or its products can feel like a personal attack.

All this build up can make the most outgoing business owner feel awkward, shy, and tongue-tied.

Don’t let this happen to you.

These fears are unfounded.  Most customers don’t bite.  (Most.)

You can keep customer conversation demons at bay and receive great feedback on your products.

How?

Be the bartender of your brand.  And no, I don’t mean serve your customers alcohol before talking to them.

Think about beloved bartending characters that you know.  Sam Malone on Cheers.  Isaac Washington on The Love Boat.  Rosie on M*A*S*H.  Okay, maybe not Rosie.  (All three of them made factoidz’ Ten Best Television Bartenders List.)

How did they get people to talk to them?  By creating a safe, non-judgmental haven.  By listening well and talking little.  By being around often.  And by serving alcohol, but we’re not going there, remember?

These characters got to know their customers over time, with many small interactions instead of one long interrogation. 

Follow their lead and become your brand’s listening post.  Here’s how:

• Be casual.

 o    Be part of the customer’s environment and start by listening. (Think of Sam Malone drying and storing glasses while overhearing conversation.)

 o    Avoid items like clipboards and tables that create a barrier between you and the customer and that lend formality to the interaction.

• Use small talk first.  Avoid very specific or personal questions upfront.

• Listen more than you talk.  Ask a general question about your product and let the customer guide the conversation. 

• Be patient.  Don’t try to get all your questions answered at once.  Learn about your products and brand through many small conversations instead of a few monumental ones.

• Show up often.  Make this part of your routine. 

How will you know when your customer conversations are paying off?  When what you learn from customers starts to give you new ideas – ideas for product improvements or for new products, for example. 

In the end, customer criticism isn’t your biggest risk.  Your biggest risk is being unaware of customer needs and wants, which cripples your ability to improve products and to grow your business.

One more note – some customers will be too kind.  Knowing your business affiliation, they may temper or sugarcoat their feedback to you.  Enough customers will be frank to make your efforts worthwhile, however.

Go often and I bet that you will find that talking to customers is much easier and more fun than you expected.  It was and remains one of my favorite parts of my job.

Who was your favorite TV or movie bartender?  Please comment below!

In September 2010, as my now 11-year-old daughter Fiona was entering the fifth grade, she developed an acute desire for these items.  I wasn’t entirely surprised as my neighbor’s 14-year-old daughter had expressed the same desires a couple of years before.

But I didn’t realize how widespread the girls’ conformity went.

It’s not just Natick schools or Massachusetts schools or secondary schools.  It’s everywhere – nationwide, through the university level and beyond.

The Northface/Uggs pairing is an adolescent girl conformity juggernaut.

It’s so pervasive that the trend has spawned rebellious blog entries and Facebook pages. 

Hannah Orenstein, an NYU freshman, wrote a post in November 2010 on Hercampus.com called “Step Away From the Uggs and North Face!  How to Look Cuter Than Everyone Else”.  In it she called the Northface/Ugg pairing trend an “epidemic.”

Christine Little, a Quinnipiac University student, penned an article around the same time in The Quinnipiac Journal entitled “Please Lose the UGGs and North Face jackets.”  She noted that “These choices are selected for comfort, as well as the conformity that comes with them.”

Let’s just say that the “anti northface/ugg” page on Facebook objected more strenuously and with less tact.

But these objections are the exceptions.  Many, many more girls are happy to conform.

Why?

Joani Geltman, a Child Development and Parenting Expert who specializes in teen-parent relationships, explains that adolescence brings a new awareness, one where teenagers worry incessantly about what other people think of them.  The easiest way to calm these fears and avoid unwanted scrutiny is to blend in.  To be invisible.

And the best way to disappear into the crowd?  Look just like everyone else.

This isn’t a new phenomenon of course.  I remember my own battles with my mother over the price of designer jeans 30 years ago (Jordache, if you have to know).

But while blending in may be the key to surviving human teenage years, it is the death knell for a brand.

Sadly, this is the mistake that many Brands In Adolescence make.  During their launch, they tout their differences to get attention.  After their initial years of growth, however, they become more aware of their competitors.  Now that there is an existing business at stake, it feels riskier to stand out and not match the competitors feature for feature, benefit for benefit. 

Instead of increasing their market appeal though, brands that go this route blend in and look just like their competitors.  By emphasizing their sameness upfront, these brands squander the opportunity to set themselves apart and gain consumers’ attention.

Don’t fall prey to this temptation.  Not only is it bad marketing, but by responding to competitors instead of having a strong point of difference to define your brand, you let the competition frame your market and set the rules of the game.

As the brand champion, you need to trumpet your brand’s meaningful differences, not bury them.

How do you combat the conformist tendency in your adolescent brand?

1. Revisit your original reason for being.  What got your brand into the business in the first place?  A unique calling, story, feature, business strategy?  Remind your team of your start to help them find the original passion and infuse that message into your communications.
2. Find out why customers buy your product now.  Brands evolve.  If you’ve been in business for a while, make sure you check in with your customers to understand the role your brand plays in their lives now.  How do you help them?  Why do they buy your product over your competitors?
3. Lead with what makes you different.  In the adolescent analogy, think of your marketing more as applying to college than joining the in crowd.  What can you say to stand out in a positive way so that they pick your brand?  Lead with what sets you apart and then follow up with the great credentials you have that everyone else seeking admission has too.

To prosper, your brand needs a meaningful difference that it can proclaim proudly and often.  Once you’ve got your prospect’s attention, then you can fill them in on the features and benefits that you have in common with your competitors.  But it’s your difference that will keep them coming back.

Am I worried about Fiona’s fondness for Northface jackets and Ugg boots?  No.  She isn’t defined by what she wears.  And let’s face it, navigating the social life in middle and high school can be tough! 

Got a school trend memory to share?  Please comment!

With family in New Jersey though, I have spent many hours sitting in traffic on this day in the past.  Thanksgiving-volume car travel jams highways on the Massachusetts-New York corridor, particularly around toll plazas.  One year my usual 3 3/4 hour ride to my parents’ house took 8 hours!  Now if I go, I leave on Tuesday.

Traffic jams of these epic proportions often bring consumers’ wrath upon the Department of Transportation (DOT). 

In recent years though, the Massachusetts DOT has engaged some smart, inexpensive, and innovative marketing to proactively combat this problem.

Yes, it’s true.  I’m saying some element of the government is doing something smart.

The Massachusetts DOT has courted companies to sponsor the Allston-Brighton tolls leading out of Boston on the Mass Pike at their busiest hours in exchange for publicity. 

This is a powerful, winning marketing strategy – a marketing triple play.  Consumers get free tolls.  The Massachusetts DOT gains goodwill from announcing this in advance.  And the sponsoring company gains consumers’ goodwill as well as widespread publicity.

This year’s sponsor is Zappos.com, an online shoe and apparel retailer whose brand is known for outstanding customer service and that aims to deliver happiness to their customers – so much so that their founder, Tony Hsieh, wrote a book about his experience building Zappos.com entitled Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose.

What a great opportunity Zappos.com has seized.  This is smart, innovative, and inexpensive marketing for them as well.  Let’s take a look at the numbers.

Zappos.com is paying for all tolls at the Allston-Brighton toll booths from 5pm-7pm today.  According to the Massachusetts DOT, 16,000 cars passed through those toll booths during that time period last year.  The toll normally costs $1.25 per car, and $1 per car using a Fast Lane transponder.

Even if you assume a 25% increase in traffic through the tolls during that time period (20,000 cars, unlikely), and you assume every motorist pays the normal cost, ($1.25 for every car, unlikely given over a million Fast Lane users), the toll sponsorship cost would still be only $25,000 plus the cost of the signs announcing the free tolls.

Even if the signage costs $5,000, $30,000 is small change for a company that grosses over $1 billion in sales annually.  For that small change, Zappos.com is getting:

• A public relations bonanza – The toll sponsorship has been reported in many media outlets including The Boston Globe, The Boston Business Journal, bostoninnovation.com, theconsumerist.com, Fox News, and WWLP, not to mention a slew of local community newspapers and major tweeting in the Twittersphere.  More exposure than $30,000 of ads could ever buy.
• Public relations support from the Massachusetts DOT – they sent out the press release.
• Signage at toll complex – every motorist going through the tolls will see the Zappos.com logo and know that they are the sponsors of this holiday gesture.
• A credit notation and message on Fast Lane payers’ bills, reminding them of the company’s gesture when they see their statements.
• Exquisite timing – all this good will and publicity arises just five days before CyberMonday.

Genius move. 

A move totally consistent with Zappos.com’s brand mission of excellent customer service to deliver happiness. 

What does your company do to generate goodwill with customers and remind them of its role in their lives?  Comment below and let me know!

As for me, I’m going to relish my very short ride home tonight!   Happy Thanksgiving.

Not only is their tea good, but their marketing is smart, innovative and inexpensive to implement.  Two of their marketing efforts grabbed my attention.

The first one probably cost them all of $2.99.

I first saw this marketing tool in action last July 22, when it was 99°F degrees out. Steve, the owner, took a large blue plastic bowl out from a shelf below the counter.  He filled it with water and placed it outside on the sidewalk. 

Upon closer inspection, I saw that the bowl had the words “Dogs Water Bowl” handwritten on it with a marker.  Not long after, two dog walkers stopped at the shop.  They chatted, let their dogs drink from the bowl, and then secured the dogs’ leashes to a post while they went inside to buy iced coffees.

This inexpensive bowl now makes this coffee house an obvious destination for dog walkers.  It conveys a friendly, welcoming attitude and provides a focal point for a walk, knowing that there is a benefit for the dog.  Chances are pretty good that the walker will buy some refreshment there.  The likelihood that dog walkers in the know will tell others?  Even better.

What a great way to increase traffic by the shop, and with it, sales of beverages and food!

CRCH’s second marketing stroke of genius is their sponsorship of the Charles River Coffee House Scarecrow Contest to benefit the Bacon Library across the street.  For the second year in a row, the coffee house is providing stakes and tying supplies for anyone entering the contest. 

Contestants come into the shop to get the supplies.  Registration fees from individuals ($10) and businesses ($25) benefit the library.  CRCH offered employee help on Saturday October 9 to mount entries, but the supplies are available for the entire month of October.  Judging will occur on Halloween.

How smart is this?

Based on my research online, supplies for 100 entries (wood stakes and twine) would cost about $250.  In exchange for that relatively small sum and a few hours of the employees’ time (Steve’s daughters run the place with him), CRCH gets:

• Front page notice of the contest on the Bacon Free Library website.
• Signage outside the library.
• Mention of the event during the month of October in the local papers.
• Good will with the library and the community.
• Contestants coming into the store to get supplies.

For less than the price of one print ad, CRCH gets a ton of publicity and increases the traffic over its threshold.  Contestants who may not have entered the shop before now have a compelling reason to do so.

And of course many community members will come by to view the scarecrow entries during the month of October and on Halloween.  More traffic!

Note:  there is no Groupon, coupon or discounting involved.  Patrons pay full price for the refreshment they purchase.  CRCH probably makes back the cost of the supplies and then some with the extra traffic generated.

Smart, innovative, and inexpensive marketing.  Kudos!

By taking some pictures and posting them in the coffee shop, they could inexpensively extend the good will year round.

What do you do to boost traffic to your store or business?  Comment below to let me know!

Stop selling.
Start listening.

Stop cajoling.
Start sampling.

Stop advertising from afar.
Start showing up locally.

Stop putting on the show of what you think your brand should be.
Start observing what your brand has become.

Brands evolve.
That’s the truth about brands.
Embrace the evolution and make it work for you.

RealAge.com’s analysis says I’m only 41.5!

And yet.

As a voracious reader, I’ve become acutely aware that the words on the page have become fuzzy.  Reading is more comfortable when I hold the book a few inches further away.  Over the past few months, the distance to keep the words clear has increased.

Fortunately, the book isn’t yet a full arm’s length away…and thankfully I have long arms!

Bifocals lurk in my future.

Holding the book further away adds a different perspective though.  I notice the book’s layout more.  I see which authors and editors are good with white space and headings, and which leave you prey to endless text.

Slightly further away, I see the book in a new way.

This exercise works well for your brand’s health too.  Every once in a while, you need to take a step back and look at the big brand picture. 

• Is your brand message clear and coherent?
• Does it resonate with your customers?
• Does it drive sales?
• Do the components of your marketing express that message consistently?

If you haven’t taken time to review and answer these questions recently, a little distance and time investment could yield big results for you.  Like my eyesight, brands evolve and need periodic adjustment.  Ensuring your brand message is on target and crystal clear is the shortest path to increasing sales.

It’s not intuitive, but getting away from your daily work spot – out from behind the desk or counter – gets you closer to the heart of your brand and to ensuring its good health.

There may be no where I can go though to escape those bifocals!

The brand that you knew and loved and that bore the markings of your careful stewardship has suddenly developed a mind of its own and is performing erratically. When did this happen? How could this happen? Why is it happening to me?

It could be that you have a Brand in Adolescence on your hands. If you are wondering if your brand has become the new teenager in your life, ask yourself the following questions to see if your brand is exhibiting the classic symptoms of Brand Adolescence.

1. Has your brand’s growth stalled?  Though you have been feeding the brand (i.e. marketing it) as usual, performance stagnates, falters or becomes inconsistent. Something has changed, and you can’t put your finger on what it is.
2. Is your brand acting rebellious?  Marketing efforts that worked in the past are suddenly ineffective. Every new marketing decision feels riskier than in the past, as you have no idea how the brand and its constituency will react.
3. Is your brand between 13 and 25 years old?  Yes, 25. Adolescence can last far longer than we’d all like to admit!
4. Has your brand rebuffed your attempts to influence it?  In the hope of boosting the brand, you changed the logo or updated the website design. Unfortunately, this effort didn’t affect performance and you knew it was not getting to the core of the problem.
5. Have conversations with your brand become strained?  In marketing communications, you are not sure what to say. You are at a loss for words or fear a less than effective message. Each brand communication is now internally scrutinized and debated excessively. Even once decided, it feels like throwing at a dartboard.
6. Has your brand become moody?  Emotional and performance swings can feel like a rollercoaster ride. One week it seems the brand has regained its mojo. The next week it fizzles or tanks. The brand is winded from the ride, and often so are you.
7. Does your brand balk at you?  You feel like you are walking on eggshells. You hesitate to adjust even those remaining marketing efforts that are working for fear they may turn on you without warning.
8. Has your brand been sidelined from the in-crowd?  Customers who used to buy your brand regularly buy less frequently or have moved on to the new brand on the block. They departed without saying a word to you about anything your brand might have done wrong or anything they wish the brand would do.
9. Is your brand trying to find itself?  Once confident of what it did well, your brand seems to be searching for its identity. If this isn’t working, let’s try something new! You get tempted to try several things at once – offering new products or services, changing those you offer now, or creating a marketing blitz – to see what might work now. You occasionally wonder if your brand needs a shrink.
10. Does your brand oversleep?  In watching competitors or talking to customers, you realize that your brand has been missing out on opportunities. Opportunities to upgrade, to offer something new, to partner with a complementary brand. You feel like you are often trying to help the brand play catch up.

Like the challenge of parenting teenagers, the struggle to get through the day-to-day operations of any business makes it easy to get mired in the details and to forget to step back and take a strategic look at your brand. This is especially true if you’ve been shepherding the brand for a long time. Blips have undoubtedly occurred before, and they’ll occur again.

Sometimes brands have to go beyond blips to get your attention to the bigger stuff. Just like teenagers who suddenly behave in unpredictable ways and experiment with new experiences. Don’t sweat it. But do heed the call now and give your adolescent brand the attention it needs if more than a couple of the symptoms above strike home for you.

Copyright © 2011 Evelyn J. Starr.  All rights reserved.

Click the pdf icon at left to download this article.

Turns out my suspicions were correct.  This was a sales call.  From the BBB.

Given that no one has lodged a complaint against E. Starr Associates in the 11+ years I’ve been in business, and my less-than-10-employee business size, I qualify to join the BBB for only $47.95 per month.  That’s only about $1.60 per day!

Sorry Donna.  That’s $1.60 per day that I don’t need to spend

“Can you not see the benefit of having our logo and how it will help you convey trust?” asked Donna.  No Donna, I cannot.

It’s not the money.  It’s just not how potential clients will come to trust me (and know and like me before that).

I’m a marketing consultant.  I specialize in brand development, particularly Brands in Adolescence.  When clients work with me, they often confide details about their business and themselves.  We work together for an extended period of time (often months) and they invest a substantial sum for my expertise.

Clients are not going to decide to buy from me based on a BBB endorsement. (If the logo can be called an endorsement, now that I know that any 12-month-old business with no record of complaints can buy this for a tidy monthly fee.)

As the purveyor of a professional service, clients, referral sources, and colleagues come to trust me through:

• A personal recommendation

• Reviewing my LinkedIn profile and recommendations

• Checking out my website, including my case studies, testimonials, and bio

• Reading my blog entries to understand my perspective and area of expertise

• Talking to me directly (coffee, anyone?)

Professional services colleagues, beware!  (I suspect you already are.)  Don’t be fooled into forking over marketing money that will not help you gain more business.

So has the BBB lost its mojo?  Is it no longer relevant?

Hardly.  But Donna needs to refocus her efforts where they matter more.

Where is that?  When would a BBB logo help potential customers trust a business more, moving them closer to the decision to buy?

When the customer is…

• Likely to find your business online or from the yellow pages. If your business offers a regularly needed service or product for which a customer may not have a recommendation or other review available, a BBB logo might help reassure them of your good business practices.  Plumbers, electricians, and window washers fall into this category, as well as appliance stores, pet groomers, and car dealerships.

• Sending $$ without personal contact. If your online store is relatively new or a small business that doesn’t have 26,103 reviews spread over 8 different sites from BizRate.com to Yahoo (as drugstore.com does), a BBB logo or similar endorsement may help you gain credibility and traction in the marketplace.  It may also help you mitigate negative ratings if you have a few of those out there, as many reputable online businesses do.

• Trusting you with their valuables. For some people, the more evidence of trustworthiness they have before allowing you to handle their precious items or to enter their home, the better.  Local dry cleaners, house cleaning services, contractors and gold buyers come to mind here.

Don’t get me wrong:  I am not in the business of selling BBB endorsements!  The key point here is this:  Know your target market’s decision-making considerations. When looking at a marketing investment of any size, only spend where you can help the prospect know, like and trust you more.

P.S.  The day after I posted the blog entry above, I received my August 2011 issue of Consumer Reports and opened it to see their article “Can You Trust the BBB?”  (Timing is everything, right?)

Given inconsistent levels of vigilance among the regional BBBs and the tendency for some to up mediocre ratings for businesses who pay for accreditation, Consumer Reports is now advising consumers to put little credence in high grade ratings or accreditation.  In light of this finding, I would advise against investing in BBB accreditation for any business.

Seek other avenues of endorsement or accreditation that your customers value and that your business warrants to help build trust among your target audience.   These could be simply testimonials, which happy customers give for free!

Well, okay, my father once said the golden rule was “those who have the gold make the rules.”

While the former golden rule is the more prominent and accepted one, the latter seems to be the one that newspaper companies follow.

Except that newspaper companies’ gold is long gone.

Though the newspaper industry’s need to change its business model has been painfully obvious for years, the industry has clung to past practices.

One of these practices is to give new customers a better deal than existing ones.

Newspaper companies routinely offer steep discounts to lure new subscribers and then revert to their normal rates after a specified time period, often six months.

Six months is a nice long time to get used to the low price, however, and then feel demoted to second-class-customer status when the price more than doubles on the next invoice. Newspaper companies count on your desire for the paper to outweigh your aversion to paying so much more.

They didn’t count on my father, however.

My father is a savvy business executive who retired with his negotiation skills as sharp as ever, and few places to exercise them.

I’m not talking about junior stuff, like changing the name on the paper from his to my mother’s.  Nope.  I’m talking about extended phone calls that went up the chain of command with The New York Times sales team.  Over time he has wrung discount after discount from them.  Every six months or so, another phone call.  My mother is a loyal reader, and Dad has gotten deal after deal to have that paper delivered wherever they are.

The NYT sales team is no match for his arguments, which in truth they are lucky to hear.  They are lucky that my parents didn’t ditch the paper long ago.  They have not made it easy.

As a result, Dad has not been easy on them.  It’s cost them time and effort.

How much time and effort?  Last fall a manager from the NYT sales team called to inform him that they were granting him a lifetime discount.

No joke.  It’s true.

But few customers have Dad’s tenacity.  And why should they?

Here’s the idiocy of it:  selling more to your current customers is always less expensive than marketing to prospects. So the profitability of these customers’ purchases is higher.

Many business owners and marketers have a tough time resisting the temptation to use discounts to lure new customers. They don’t realize that this method can cost you more when you market to people based on price, instead of value.  You condition customers to value your product or service less.

Remember the first golden rule about treating people (customers) the way you want to be treated?  It still reigns.  Would you want to pay more knowing that new customers get a better deal?

Pet peeve alert here people:  Always give your best deal to your existing customers.  Always.

How do you resist the discount-as-bait temptation?  Here are three options to consider:

• Offer free samples. Not six-month supplies, but a few free samples.  When the sample is free, it is a goodwill gesture that allows the consumer to try the product or service risk-free without diluting its value.

This strategy works well for food and beverages, consumer goods like shampoo, razors or makeup, and services such as lawn care, painting or even construction (think free assessments).

• Create an entry level, lower priced offering. If your product or service is pricey, is there a lesser one that you could provide to let prospects try you out but that could benefit customers as well? This would be different than your full-fledged product or service, so that you allow prospects to know, like and trust your offerings without diminishing their value.

Restaurants do this often with appetizer or happy hour specials.  One Sunday School that begins full-time in first grade created a monthly kindergarten program to introduce the school.  Some interior decorators offer redesign services that help clients redecorate with items they already own.

• Structure your deal to include your customers, and get them to advocate for you. This is the holy grail of promotions.  Word-of-mouth is the strongest endorsement you can get.  Creating a promotion which motivates your customers to become referral sources can bring new customers who are more ready to buy and more likely to buy again.

HYP Studio, a yoga and pilates business, offered a New Year’s day Groupon which allowed anyone to get five classes for $30.  They limited the offer to one for the buyer and one that they could gift.  What a great way to motivate those new year’s resolution makers and get them to bring their friends!

Find ways to include your customers when you make a special offer.  Show them the love.  The goodwill will come back to you exponentially.  And the profits will too.

It makes sense, doesn’t it?  It all goes back to the golden rule – the one about treating others as you’d like to be treated yourself.  And the treatment is the issue as much or more than the money.  Nobody likes to be excluded.

As for my Dad, he’ll have a little more time now that those semi-annual NYT calls are no longer necessary.

I wonder if he’ll ever get the Wall Street Journal to come around!

Last week was school vacation week here.  My children and I took a trip to New Jersey to visit my parents.  In close proximity to Paramus, the original shopping mall mecca, my 10-year-old daughter and I also took the opportunity to shop.

My daughter had been eyeing a sweater at abercrombie (the kids’ division of Abercrombie & Fitch) at the mall near our home in Massachusetts.  She had her heart set on finding it in Paramus.  We spotted the sweater prominently displayed on a couple of mannequins as soon as we entered the store. 

We couldn’t find the sweater on the shelves, however.  Upon inquiry to buy one off of the mannequin, the salesperson informed me that the sweater was from last year’s collection and that they are not allowed to sell the merchandise on the displays. 

A manager confirmed this, saying the corporate headquarters dictates the precise look of each display in each store.  He showed me the laminated card in close proximity to the display, detailing pictorially what the display should look like.

As a marketing consultant, I understand and support the idea of a consistent brand experience, so rather than argue I just asked the manager for the product item number so we could order it online.  I also know that displays can exponentially increase sales, so their out-of-stock situation was not surprising.

Alas, the sweater was nowhere to be found on the website either.  There was no search function to search for the sweater by product number.  There wasn’t even a corporate phone number to call the company about it.  You can only inquire by contact form.

Which I did.  Here is the response I received:

Well Laurianda, if the store experience that abercrombie seeks to create is one of frustration and disappointment, the displays are doing their job incredibly well.

As I said above, displays ramp up demand for the featured items.  It’s easier to imagine buying a clothing item if you can preview how it looks and get suggestions on what coordinating clothes to buy from the display.  Supermarkets have long known displays’ power to drive sales, which is why they assemble a towering display of food items at both ends of every aisle.

Of course the difference is that you can buy the items off of the supermarket displays.

Displaying several unattainable items serves no positive business purpose.  It creates frustration which turns customers off.  It also makes the brand look foolish.

Delving further into the email and the brand’s website, abercrombie seemed to have a preoccupation with models and modeling.  Where Disney calls its employees “cast members,” abercrombie calls their employees “models.”  On a review website glassdoor.com, more than one former employee accused the management of favoring employees based on their looks. 

abercrombie is going through a phase that I call Brand Adolescence.  A brand in adolescence is a relatively new product or service that gets off to a great start, chugs along fine for a while and then stalls.  Growth falters, stops entirely, or becomes very inconsistent. 

The behavior of brands in adolescence mirrors that of many humans in the same phase.  In this case, the abercrombie brand is behaving in a remarkably self-centered manner and does not take the potential effects of its actions into account.

• abercrombie thinks that protecting customers from what it considers less than perfect product is what is best for the customer, without considering the frustration generated by displaying products it refuses to sell. 

• abercrombie calls its employees “models” without addressing the potential message that name conveys (looks are prized above all) and the actions local managers may take based on that message that could reflect unfavorably on the brand.

• abercrombie provides no search function or direct human contact mechanism on its website and thinks that offering free shipping will overcome the disappointment of denying customers a product they’d like to have.

And sure enough, the brand’s performance has been inconsistent and faltering the past couple of years.  Abercrombie & Fitch, the parent company, has yet to get sales back to its 2007 level.  Average transaction value and gross margin have slipped.  The company planned to close 60 stores in 2010 and another 50 in 2011. 

While brand adolescence isn’t pegged to any particular age, the phase often occurs when the company is in its teens.  Abercrombie & Fitch launched the abercrombie kids brand in 1997, making it 14 years old now. 

A 14-year-old behaving in a self-centered manner and overly concerned about appearance.  Does this sound familiar?

Like parents of adolescents, abercrombie management needs to help the brand refocus.  Brand consistency is great when it focuses on the consumer experience, but here it has run amok. 

Management needs to help the brand thrill customers, not turn them off.  To help the brand start to refocus, they should:

• Display only items in stock for sale. Clearly the “models” had fielded questions about buying displayed items from the displays when they were out-of-stock in the stores before.  We weren’t the first customers to be disappointed and walk away.  Disappointment is not a brand association you want to encourage.

• Listen to customers.  Increase access for customers to tell the company what they want or inquire about products.  This goes beyond just having a phone number to call on the website.  One option could be a blog where customers could actually address issues and interact with the company.  The current Abercrombie blog has only 19 posts since it went live over two years ago (January 11, 2009), and only three posts deal with alleged customer questions.   Two of those three are Q&A about how to get hired to work and model for them.   The other 16 posts are all related to the advertising models.

• Figure out what business they are in.  Are you in the retail clothing business or the modeling business?  Does this modeling obsession actually help or hinder clothing sales?

The abercrombie division was no doubt created to extend the Abercrombie & Fitch brand and catch potential A&F customers young.  But the reverse works as well.  Disappoint abercrombie customers young, and they may never see the inside of an A&F store.

My daughter, a prime potential customer for abercrombie, doesn’t think about all this marketing stuff.  All she knows right now is that the experience was disappointing and didn’t make her feel good.  She doesn’t want to feel that way again.

Copyright © 2011 Evelyn J. Starr.  All rights reserved.

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