A new poll by the University of Texas shows 76 percent of Americans think we should be doing more on renewable energy—so we’ve made good progress in penetrating consciousness.
Yet only 5 percent see energy or the environment as the top government priorities. Jobs, not surprisingly, topped the list with 37 percent.
I have long said that your brand is the sum of people’s perceptions of you–real or imagined. Customers and prospects weigh more heavily in the construction of a brand than people outside your sphere, but all of it counts.
And that’s why bad customer service can undo all the hard and expensive work you might be doing with traditional branding such as your logo, slogan, appearance of your facility, and so forth.
If you don’t believe me, go read Tracey Ahring’s customer service horror story—and note what she called it: “Marketing Lessons from the Water Company.” Like me, she sees customer service as very much a marketing function, and you might get a kick out of watching tear this clueless company to ribbons. While this particular company is a monopoly, most of the time, our customers have choices of where they bring their purchasing dollars. And when a company behaves like this, it not only loses those dollars forever, but also the money their friends and colleagues and 10,000 social media friends might have spent.
Fascinating article by Marc Stoiber on how Patagonia’s latest environmental initiatives tells customers not to buy what they don’t need, and to make what they do buy last forever. And if it doesn’t last forever, Patagonia will take it back and recycle it for you.
It may be counter to common logic, but Stoiber thinks this will increase sales, and tells why. And I agree, for reasons I cite in my latest book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green—that caring and an envirnmental/soial justice agenda build fans and build the brand.
Patagonia is always a great company to watch and learn from, and this initiative does not surprise me.
In this month’s newsletter, I wrote about the most elaborate press kit I’ve ever received, including a video player, a bottle, and more. To see, please click the link above and then click on “current issue” (that should work until about November 15).
I’d love to know what you think about it. Meanwhile, I got a reader response, and permission to share with you. If you have a response, please share it at the bottom of *this* page.
Wow, I’d wonder how many of THOSE packages the author or his minions had prepared and sent out. I would definitely want to at least scan the book to see where such marketing techniques are discussed, and I’d certainly (based on my own curiosity having been so piqued) be interested in a substantive discussion of such marketing and the strategies and principles that underlie it.
I’d also like to know if such a strategy gets results, or just a momentary interest.
Or if those two are actually the same thing.
And then, how does one translate principles at the heart of something like that — targeted to people interested in the very fact of the marketing campaign (a marketing expert!), who might be expected to look deeper into the marketing itself even if it were not so intricate — to selling, say, hair shampoo or breakfast food, where the motivation to look deeper would be less ever-present?
And finally, for us po’ folk, how do WE do something in any way similar to THAT! (Without being served a cease and desist order from Heinz Ketchup). Pat. PS- You can quote me, if you’ve a mind to and anything I said was not said by ten or twenty other people more concisely or entertainingly.
— Pat Goudey O’Brien PGO Editorial Resource The Tamarac Press 141 A Tamarac St Warren, VT 05674 802.349.7475
And in the last 33 years, that region has saved enough energy to meet Seattle’s energy needs four times over.
That is A LOT of power savings, and totally replicable elsewhere in the country. Makes a lot more sense than building more coal or nuclear plants!
Earlier today, I was inducted into the National Environmental Hall of Fame, recognizing my 40 years of work for the environment (as a writer, speaker, and organizer). Pretty good, considering I’m only 54. Yup, I’ve been doing this work since I was 14.
Among the accomplishments NEHF cited: my work in founding Save the Mountain, an environmental group I founded in my town of Hadley, Massachusetts to protect the Mount Holyoke Range when it was threatened by a large and nasty housing development…my work in the safe energy movement (my first book was on why nuclear power makes no sense, in fact)…initiating the first nonsmokers’ rights regulations in Northampton, MA (and one of the first in the state)…and of course, my award-winning eighth book, Guerrilla Marketing Goes Green.
In my acceptance, I mentioned that I felt this award was really for all of the several thousand people who worked on these campaigns, and the millions who work on these kinds of causes around the world. I was delighted to accept on their behalf.
Sweetly enough, the range was visible from the award location behind (Barstow’s store)
Last night, I opened an e-mail about the Occupy Wall Street protests from one of the people who send me progressive political mail.
To my amazement, it was forwarded from an old boss of mine (1979 and 1980)—someone I’d wanted to stay in touch with and had searched for online. And suddenly, there he was. I wrote to him last night, but he hasn’t written back yet.
I still remember the first time something like this happened: I was still on AOL, so this was 1994 or 1995—and in came an e-mail from an old high school buddy. We’ve been in contact ever since.
We all leave footprints all over Cyberspace. And those of us with somewhat uncommon names can connect again. I’ve done it dozens of times now. Facebook makes it particularly easy for connections like old classmates, because you can actually search the alumni of your school. But Facebook is not the only game in town. Last year, I tracked down two high school friends through their own websites.
Who would you like to have back in your life again? Maybe they’re out there, waiting for you to reach out.
In case you didn’t know, LED lamps are more or less proportionally as efficient compared to CFLs as CLFs are to incandescents. Add in mercury-free, much longer bulb life, and in this case, made in US out of recycled materials.
What can I say…I want one!
I know nothing about this, but I just came across a link to a patented technology that claims to nonpollutingly harness the massive energy from extremely high-pressure, high-temperature undersea volcanoes. they claim any single installation captures several times as much energy as a large nuclear power plant.
Thinking about the problems caused by the BP undersea oil rig, I have questions. But I’d love to see that this actually works. Anyone know more about it?
It’s an interesting juxtaposition: reading Martin Lindstrom’s new book, Brandwashed, which talks heavily about big-ticket marketing—among other techniques, manufacturing celebrity. And then dropping in to Midtown Manhattan a couple of hours early for my event, and spending those hours exploring around Times Square—about as commercial a location as one can find in the US.
First, frugalist that I am, I was pleased to play tourist while keeping my wallet safely inside my pocket, and still feel like I got a good taste of Madame Toussaud’s, Ripley’s, and Planet Hollywood just from the free stuff: the gift shop, the teaser exhibits, and in Planet Hollywood’s case, the restaurant walls lined with movie artifacts.
But second, the whole idea that not only do we love celebrity, we even love the people who emulate celebrity. Replicas of props, concert announcements about a Beatles brunch (at B.B. King’s Lucile’s club) featuring not one of the two surviving Beatles, but cast memb ers of Beatlemania.
As soneone who is not-all-that-tuned into celebrity (I can’t even tell you WHY the Kardashians are famous), I find it fascinating to watch.