Birthday wishes from my retailers

A few years ago I was the marketing chair for a private club in Boston. During my tenure I tried repeatedly to get a birthday program started. The design was simple; keep track of members' birthdays and send each member a card on their birthday with a special gift, such as a complimentary glass of champagne during any club dinner service. The initiative was designed to serve two purposes - reiterate how appreciated each member was by the club and remind members that the main dining room provided the perfect atmosphere for special occasions. Every time I proposed the idea it was met with resistance, primarily because there was no centralized location to store the data and an unwillingness to make funds available to create one. I still think it's a great idea, but I'm no longer as heavily invested in the club as I once was and so I let the idea die long ago. It's only the past two weeks that have brought the idea back into consciousness. And that's thanks to the retailers that appreciate my business enough (and want more of it) to wish me a happy birthday. So in recognition of smart birthday marketing programs I'd like to thank: Sephora for the free body butter, Sel de la Terre (one of my top three favorite restaurants) for the 20% off certificate and Banana Republic for the $15 gift card.

The Mac Persona

I love my Mac, and I’m not ashamed to admit that yes, I often exemplify the often cited lemming like and/or cult like behavior that personifies long time Mac devotees. This past year and a half has represented my first professional encounter with the PC, an experience that makes me want to run home everyday and kiss my Macbook for being so simple, so intuitive and yes, so good looking. That’s why I enjoyed Ad Age’s recent article: Mac Owners are Just Like, Well, The Mac Guy. The article discusses the Mac user “mind-set-profile” as gathered by Mindset Media, there’s a photo of actor Justin Long and personality traits that emerged among Mac users in the study, namely: superior, open, perfectionists, music mavens, not dogmatic, eco-minded greenies and satisfied with their purchase. Not that satisfied with their purchase is really a personality trait, but it was a nice way of pointing out that 79% of Mac purchasers are “very satisfied” with their computer purchase vs. 59% for Dell and 58% for HP. After reading my personality traits as depicted by my astrology chart (I’m an Aquarius) I felt cheated – it was a stretch to say anything rang particularly true. But after reading the profile put together for the typical Mac user I kept shaking my head saying yes, that sounds a little more like me (except the music maven part, I admittedly have terrible taste in music). So instead of looking to the stars I guess I’ll just keep looking to my Mac.

Image from Ad Age, visit http://adage.com/article?article_id=123350 for an enlarged version.

Save Toscanini's, an amazing statement of customer loyalty

There's an amazing coffee and ice cream shop in Cambridge's Central Square called Toscanini's. The New York Times named Toscanini's ice cream the "best in the world" and my personal favorite, the vanilla latte, is to die for. It's loaded with specs of real vanilla delivered in a tantalizingly smooth, creamy, espresso packed package. But the most amazing thing about Toscanini's is its customers.

Two weeks ago the shop was seized by the state of Massachusetts for the owner's failure to pay over $150,000 in back taxes. Upon the news, some staff members decided to put up the Save Tosci Website, a website with a mission of raising $25,000, the amount the State was requiring as a down payment in order for Toscanini's to open its doors again.

Thinking about Brand Autopsy's "Would you miss" posts I couldn't help but wonder if Toscanini's customers would miss it enough to both forgive its owner for an oversight of this caliber and help the owner come up with the down payment to begin to pay off his back taxes. Surprisingly, the answer was a resounding yes. In as little as 6 days Toscanini's raked in over $31,000 in donations. My first thought was - this is crazy. There are so many deserving (and struggling) organizations out there that desperately need funding and here is a guy who failed to pay his taxes, more so failed to pay the meals tax he was collecting from his customers and those same customers just bailed him out.

Then I started to realize - Toscanini's and its owner are a valued presence in Cambridge. The owner has spent years developing a great rapport with the city, its schools and students, residents and businesses. While the service can be slow, you know the quality of the ice cream and coffee will be worth the wait. The staff is friendly if not a bit eccentric. And the owner has a way of making each customer feel as if they're the only one that counts. It's truly a neighborhood institution, but one that knows how to open its arms to any stranger walking through the door. That is what the people who donated understood and that is truly what saved Toscanini's.

photo credit: http://flickr.com/photos/mrjoro/39446301/

Starbucks Dollar Coffee

McDonalds is trying to emulate the Starbucks experience with its new latte and cappuccino offerings and barista delivered experience and now Starbucks is on the road to emulating the McDonalds dollar menu. Starbucks is testing out $1 short cups of coffee at some Seattle locations, it's not known if the $1 cups will hit any other locations but the blogosphere is alight with commentary.

Starbucks sells great tasting coffee and offers its patrons a reasonably comfortable seating area to relax with friends (provided you can get a seat), get some work done (provided you want to pay for internet connection) or just have some down time. The service (at least at the locations I frequent) is no better than its competitors and the food is terrible. But again the coffee is great.

Dollar coffees are not going to be the force that takes Starbucks' growth to the next level, but it may help stave off some deflectors who are currently thinking their daily cup of Starbucks coffee is not recession proof. Price reductions are never a great strategy, but it's important to differentiate - this is not a price reduction. Essentially it's a line extension. Now instead of three sizes, Starbucks offers four, one size just happens to cost a mere dollar.

Bliss' well placed sample with Sephora

My last post ended up being a critique about Sephora's Beauty Insider loyalty program. However, I did leave out the one thing they got right. Because Sephora has my some of my personal information, including my birthday, they knew I was right around the corner from the yearly celebration. Everybody loves birthday gifts so to get in on the action Sephora partnered with bliss to give out samples of bliss' naked body butter. What makes the sample special is the printed ribbon at the top of the bottle (see image above) that says "a gift for your 'birthday suit'!" This is a smart way for a company (in this case bliss) to capture the attention of shoppers with a 'special gift' in celebration of themselves. Though it's mass produced, the birthday notation makes the sample seem personal. It makes the recipient think twice about it, feel a certain affinity toward bliss and I bet it increases the trial rate of the product, which is likely to increase the purchase rate. Way to go bliss for some well placed product samples.