The BIG Kahuna

Suddenly Doctors are upset that consumers are going online and giving them negative reviews about long waiting room waits. Some docs are even having patients sign waiver forms stating that they will not write any type of review online. Here’s an idea…don’t overbook and people won’t complain! Here’s one I wrote: http://www.brandidentityguru.com/wordpress/2008/08/dr-aubrey-lieberman-an-open-letter

Doctors are complaining that the negative reviews are hurting their image and apparently they think that there are only a small percentage of people that complain. They are now learning what we have known for 20 years. And here it is, provide great service and someone might tell 10 people, screw up and they tell 100.

Welcome to the real world Docs!

Here’s what I know about advertising….when you have to feature a competitor in your own spot you’ve been beaten. End of game. Imagine spending valuable budget dollars on TV spots that just slam your competition? This spot is a great example:

That entire spot is one huge advertisement for Fios. Does anyone really think that Fios is like that? We know Comcast is like that:

Comcast, instead of wasting time and money on Fios why not spend that time and money making yourself better? Providing great service? Not making customers wait 40 minutes on hold? Things like that? Just sayin’.

I wrote an article a while back about the American Auto Industry and how they are all “going green”, you can check it out here: http://www.brandidentityguru.com/wordpress/2009/06/the-american-auto-industry-still-doesnt-understand-branding/.

GM is coming out with their Volt EREV soon. You’ve all seen the horrible advertising over and over again:

I was reminded by this when my friend Mr. Baskin blogged about it here. He brings up some really great points. But here’s my beef with “going green”…

It’s unaffordable and makes no financial sense. Period.

The cost of this car is $40,000. The car is rumored to get 230 miles a gallon. So what’s the payback period for this car?

Let’s say my current car (a Mini Cooper) gets 30mpg. If I drive 20,000 miles a year at a rate of $2.60/gallon my cost would be $1733 a year in gas.

The same math for the Volt gets me spending only $226 per year for a yearly savings of $1507.

The Volt is $20,000 more than my really sporty, fun, hip Mini. The Volt contains none of those adjectives.

The payback period to ride in this bland car will be 13 years. Please someone correct my math, I really suck at math.

And there’s the rub with all “green” cars. They jack the price up so much that it’s just not worth it. Sure you’ll have your really earthy crunchy people who will buy it but these are the same people that bought the Yugo!

Americans have proven time and time again that small cars that get great gas mileage is a small niche. Ever wonder why there are so many SUV’s?

What say you kahunas? Are you racing out to drop $40K?

RadioShack has been out of touch with consumers for about 15 years. I just recently visited a store, one of their flagships in Braintree Massachusetts. They’ve remolded but nothing has changed. Except their name…sort of.

In an obvious effort to become more relevant they’ve dropped the “Radio” from their advertising and communications but left the name “RadioShack“. I can already see the board meeting that took place.

Some smooth talking, wanna be hip CMO says hey, we need to get rid of radio in our name because no one uses radios anymore. Then the President says, but what about all the brand equity we have in the name? The CMO wobbles and says how about we keep the name but call ourselves something hip, like The Shack. Presto, case solved. Brilliant.

No guts no glory folks. First off I’m pretty sure any brand equity RadioShack had is long gone now. So changing the name to The Shack would have been a better move. But just changing a name really doesn’t mean anything. What is RadioShack’s brand identity? What makes them better and different than say Best Buy? How does RadioShack stand out? The answer is they don’t.

So the half assed attempt to look cool really isn’t going to work. Soon they will fade off into oblivion, like Circuit City.

Test

I don’t know if Felony Franks makes a good hot dog or not but I do know that this is a great example of how to build a brand.

Why do I like the branding? They’re different and they have a purpose. They give jobs to felons. A lot of folks won’t like that idea and choose not to visit Felony Franks. Great! They’ve just eliminated the people they don’t want. The customers that do come in will probably be repeat, dedicated customers….as long as the food is good

It takes guts to stand out in the crowd but when you do you win. That’s why developing a brand identity is the most important thing any company can do.