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Spaghetti sauce and targeted ads

Bare with me here. This will make sense. When I first read the title of Malcolm Gladwell's presentation at TED I thought he was going to talk about Heinz tinned spaghetti sauce. Wrong. He was in fact going to tell a story about 'ragu' sauce. It's a compelling presentation because Malcolm tells a story (Seth G would be impressed).

The story is about Howard Moskowitz, a food consultant who discovered a rather obvious secret that would transform the food industry: embrace human diversity to make people happy i.e. don't try to create the perfect spaghetti sauces, create the perfect spaghetti sauces.

He realised, when asked what would make them most happy, customers generally don't know. They didn't know they wanted an extra chunky tomato sauce but Howard found out through taste tests of 45 varieties that a third of Americans wanted 'extra chunky' and no-one sold it.

Malcolm made this presentation in 2002. I think the lesson is just as valid today and not only in the food industry. Understanding variables as opposed to looking for a universal truth (think about the study of genetics) is something that the advertising industry needs to embrace to reach a point where truly targeted ads can be served online. Ads that are useful to the customer and therefore drive loyalty. Not those annoying pop up ads or those sites that are almost entirely Google ads.

Customer service: a lost art?

Last week I headed south to Byron Bay for a couple of days - the land of VW camper vans and hippies. I decided to go unarmed. No MacBook and no device to receive email. Liberating and definitely manageable for two nights. I still had the trusty SMS to rely on.

We stayed at Azabu. Nice enough but lacked the wow factor. Customer service was definitely lacking. It was what I'd describe as 'fine'. It would definitely not have been 'fine' had I paid the full price.

Then I stumbled upon Jonathon Tisch's post on customer service - more specifically, the 'lost art of customer service'. At Azabu, chocolates didn't even appear on the pillow. I know it has been written before but it was refreshing to read Jonathon's words that customers don't want to be treated as just another 'financial transaction'.

Jonathon shares the following five lessons to learn from exemplary businesses out there:

1. Plan your business around your customers
2. Make the experience as memorable as the product
3. Customise your products and service so your customer feels like an individual
4. Make your customer feel like an insider
5. Give your customers a sense of security and safety

Customers should be treated as guests whether they're staying at hotel or buying a book on Amazon. In the latter case, I'm feel like a guest of when I'm on Amazon. I'm greeted with my name, different books are suggested to me that I might like, it remembers my address etc. I trust Amazon and as a result I use the service time and time again.

Simplicity sells

So I stole a title - 'Simplicity sells'. Why change it when I couldn't think of a simpler way to say it? I just watched David Pogue, New York Times Technology Columnist, talk about this very matter on TED.

A few things I noted...

• David's use of the piano on stage to sing songs about Gates and Jobs. Truly comical. The Jobs song is a take on Evita - 'Don't cry for me Cupertino, the truth is I never left you...'
• Good question - why do you press 'Start' to shut down a Microsoft PC?
• The technology industry is finally embracing simplicity - the break through being the iPod
• New releases need not have more features, they can simply make the technology work better

The 'Sport Utility Principle' is cool. Pogue states people like to surround themselves with lots of features to feel powerful. You know that thing of 'I might need it one day'. Hence Microsoft Write (a straightforward Word Processor) was a flop. This is what happened instead (if you can't make it out it's a zillion toolbars and icons in Microsoft Word):

Finally, simplicity is starting to sell. Undoubtedly, making technology easy is the hard part.

TechnoLatin (gobbledygook)

I've been reading the Cluetrain Manifesto. Fabulous reading. Anyhow, I got to the chapter where Doc Searls talks about 'TechnoLatin'. Whilst I didn't know there was a word that described it, I realised it was all the verbal diarrhoea (gobbledygook) that surrounded me whilst I worked at Microsoft.

Here's an apt description by Doc of what I witnessed at Microsoft;

"TechnoLatin is now so pervasive in the computer industry that clarity is the exception when it should be the rule. Today we no longer make chips, circuit boards, computers, monitors or printers. We don't even make products. Instead we make "solutions," a fatuous noun further bloated by empty modifiers such as "total," fully," "seamlessly," "industry standard" and "state-of-the-art"

The thing is, it extends beyond the IT industry to that of the hospitality industry. I'm frustrated by those menus that describe the dish so superfluously that I feel like I might as well be playing pin the tail on the donkey when I order. I went to a fabulous restaurant last night, but really, what on earth is 'sauce soubise' to the average guest?

Sometimes it's hard to even recognise I was writing BS when I was surrounded by people doing 'the talk'. In fact I used to act as a jargon buster in client presentations to kill the TechnoLatin. Unless you get out there, (yes outside the campus and into the real world) and meet the customer and try 'the gobbledygook' out on them and see the perplexed face, a marketer really doesn't stand a chance. It scared me how few of the marketing team that I worked with actually got out and met the people they were marketing to. To me, I couldn't do my marketing job without meeting my customer. It was like walking without tying my laces - eventually I'd trip up.

Make an effort. It can be tiresome but it's worthwhile and in my experience quite energising. TechnoLatin is not necessary.

The Board of Customers

I was reading John Moore's manifesto born on April 4th 2007. He asks the Starbucks Board of Customers to respond to Howard Schultz's worried memo that the Starbucks brand has been watered down and the observation that what some might call 'the commoditisation of our brand' is happening. I found out today here that 44 million people go to Starbucks a week and a new shop opens every six hours. Yikes.

I'd agree. To me Starbucks is losing touch with it's values and the essence of Howard's soul which made that first Starbucks shop what it was. Using Porter's Generic Strategy Model (I'd hate to think my degree wasn't of some use), Starbucks is getting 'stuck in the middle'. Are you proud to walk down the street carrying a cup with this logo?

The focus on revenue, profit, numbers of new stores opened, sales of merchandise, required to satisfy Wall Street have taken the focus away from the customer.

The Board of Customers (mere mortals like me) suggest:

• Getting back to being a coffee company
• Free wireless (I have walked out of Starbucks to a coffee shop opposite to get free wireless)
• Employ baristas who are passionate, as opposed to those that see it as better than McDonalds
• Get rid of merchandise and poor quality 'freshly baked' cakes

I liked John's approach, to open the conversation, via his blog to the customers.

What it made me think about was that the three person company I work for with limited resources to compete against the bigger 'Starbucks' type players, who doesn't have Wall Street to satisfy, is in as much danger of forgetting the customer in the pursuit of revenue as Starbucks. Cash is king in for our company.  We are a content company that struggles to invest in creating content and trust that the customers that we want to be talking to will come.

I think there's a huge leap of faith into the unknown that needs to happen to focus on being a company who's mission is to be an idea amplifier. To forget revenue and focus on what matters to the customer. Hugh MacLeod puts it succinctly in here, 'Merit can be bought, passion can't'. For me it's about unleashing the passion. Being confident and trusting that the pursuit of passion is the only road to drive down and never look back. And if I start to doubt, well quite frankly the only thing to do is 'fake it to make it'. That has saved me many times.