· meng chao · annie · wang

I can still recall my consumer behavior prof going on and on again about the importance of customer service and product experience, because through WOM anything can go viral. Just check out the video below:

This is a protest song wrote by Dave Carroll after his disastrous experience with United Airlines in 2008. Dave’s expensive guitar was damaged due to the improper transportation handled by the baggage carrier personnel. After he filed his complain and claim for compensation, the airline blamed the fault onto him and was indifferent towards his situation.  Emotionally exhausted by the useless effort, Dave wrote ” United Breaks Guitar” as a way of expressing his complains. The video went online in 2009 and had a massive hit of 150,000 views within one day.  The viral effect of the video immediate caught public’s attention and resulted as an embarrassment for the airline.   United was then forced to act promptly to mitigate the situation.

The airline did not foresee the consequences of neglecting customer complains and overlooked the power of an individual voice. Dave did not expect to have such enormous impact in the public and the fame he gained from speaking up for himself. It is doubtful that United’s apology is sincere and would be appreciated by the public. Maintaining a good customer relationship is not only about luring your customers into buying/using your product by emphasizing on the gains, but also act consistently before/after the purchase (aka good customer service!) After the incident, United’s stock price fell drastically , maybe firms should learn from this mishandled incident. Once a problem is encountered,  firms should act promptly to find the cause within first (rather than blaming the outsiders), apologize if the blame is internal, or clarify if the problem is caused by a third party; alleviate the intensity by either providing a compensation or merely give a gesture of offering something will be fully appreciated by the costumers!

As the partner of the UEFA Champions League,, Adidas has been demonstrating their passion for football. As they stand at the forefront of integrated marketing communications. Adidas has pulled together campaigns that spans across multiple marketing channels( ads, social, digital , experiential etc) in hopes of delivering a consistent brand messaging. So far my favorite would be the campaign for 2012 UCL final in Munich.

“Go all in for your team. Make your choice.” Once again the slogan speaks for itself and clarifies the purpose of the campaign.  The week prior to the game, adidas transformed many Munich’s pedestrian traffic zones into many decision points where passers-by can easily make color choices to showcase their support for their favorite team.

“Red for FC Bayern.” “Blue for Chelsea fc.” Either its the choice of coffee sleeves, or staircases or scoop of ice cream or even the “sit-stone” are decision choices that accounts for the team support. With the help of innovative technologies, these “ choices were counted and recorded in real time on the campaign website. Football enthusiasts were able to be fully engaged in the path of “choices” and consistently monitor the cumulated scores online.

Every evening from Wednesday to Friday, people gathered to witness the announcement of the results that were showed in 3D mapping projection. The consistency with the game had accounted for the ongoing hype among the football fans and has definitely rooted the brand image into public’s awareness.

let alone the trend of social media, engaging with your fans in multiples ways is definitely going to increase awareness and perhaps through WOM your clientele will grow like the virality of your campaigns.

Ad reference: http://ca.adforum.com/award/showcase/6650176/2013/ad/34486226

Have you ever used a product for over a period time and suddenly, one day you realized there were functions that you didn’t know that existed? It happens to me all the time. I still remember myself complaining about the new UBC SSC interface, how it was so confusing since all the tabs were relocated and the layout was completely different. I was basically being forced to meticulously navigate through the page to figure out where everything was. It was until then, I learned the various functionality of the page.  The key takeaway ? People are so used to the current offerings and consumption patterns it takes effort to adapt to new innovations.

You often hear people in the sales industry complaining about how idiotic the consumers are, how they don’t appreciate the benefits of the products etc. Why? Because Firms often over-weight the benefits and consumers often under weight due to skepticism and the preference of status quo. What do the consumers value? Why would they switch to a different product when they are satisfied with the current one? Its due to resource slack where people tend to discount the effort or the benefit in the future and emphasizes the current gain and status quo. Thus the trade off occurs, switching cost! So how could you increase the incentive to adapt?  Check out this ad campaign by Volkswagen.

If you observe carefully, you’ll find the first lady hesitated before her usual course of action- taking the escalator. She observed other people taking the musical stairs and was intrigued by the sound. Then she abandoned the thought of taking escalator and went for the stairs instead. Around 66% of people preferred stairs than escalators after the installation of the piano stairs.  Volkswagen called this the fun theory, indeed the subtle hint of fun acted as a catalyst , but theoretically it was more of the immediate gain that has fueled the urge to switch. So if you are worried about the adaptation of your newly innovated product/service, perhaps you could also fuel the incentive by  creating a perception of an immediate gain 🙂