Ten years ago, my friend John would willingly wait in coffee shop lines behind seven people. Today, if more than two people are in front of him and the Starbucks clerk dallies for even a few seconds, he starts tapping his feet. But I top that with even more bizarre behavior, as evidenced during a recent trip to New York.
Walked into the Starbucks on Lexington Avenue at around 65th Street. Got in line, then realized it was seven people long. Did I wait?
No. I walked a block and a half to Starbucks up the street, to get into a shorter line -- I hoped. In the time it took to walk there, I could have gotten my coffee at the first Starbucks.
It didn't matter. I wanted to go fast. It's not that I was in a hurry; I just don't like to be kept waiting.
Increasingly, everyone acts like this. We covet time: time is the new money.
This phenomenon became apparent while I worked on two projects last week, one involving the PGA and the other involving Stanford University athletics. Each organization had done considerable research to discover how to attract more interest.
Each group's research suggested that cost wasn't an issue. Golf may be expensive, but it's not too expensive for most golfers. And football tickets aren't too expensive for Stanford fans either, nor was there evidence that lowering prices would attract even one more fan.
In each case, you find the real issue in the verbatims. "Golf takes so long." "Saturday football is a full-day commitment."
Where did our time go? It died the death of a hundred pin pricks, swallowed up a few minutes at a time, hundreds of times, all this leading to our growing demand for faster, faster. (These days, this trait can make an American's visit to Caracas, the apparent new epicenter of "maņana," agonizing.)
This matters. It represents an opportunity for every organization. For years, I have spoken about what speed of service means to a client -- and it's that meaning of speed, as much as the time it saves, that matters. When a service responds quickly to you, they communicate "you are important to us" -- and we crave that feeling.
As my coffee line example suggests, we are not tolerating the alternative -- as I firmly but politely let Park Nicollet Pharmacy know last night, when they decided, in a way far too characteristic of healthcare services, that a 20-minute wait for such a valuable, health-assuring prescription was well-worth my time. But of course, it wasn't. I walked out empty-handed.
Your clients will, too; they'll go elsewhere, without ever telling you why.
What can you do to make everything faster? Can you get to real time? Forget Total Quality Programs, and try a Total Speed Program instead. Realize that in serving people today, Target CEO Robert Ulrich got it dead right over a decade ago:
Speed is life.
The Lighter Side
A favorite story
Stories about virtuosity and what it inspires are personal favorites, and I am almost certain this one involves Pete Townshend (or some guitarist equally well-regarded and similar in appearance, which leaves only Mark Knopfler.) Decades ago Townshend, destined to become one of world's great guitarists himself, went to hear a new guitar player playing in London that night. After the concert, Townshend staggered back to his flat and to his girlfriend, ashen-faced.
"Time to pack," Townshend told her as he entered the door. "Just heard this guy named Jimi Hendrix. I've got to find another line of work."
A favorite song
Speaking of Mark Knopfler, the remastering of the original recording of Brothers in Arms seems to have produced a richer version of "Money For Nothing," one that lets you appreciate the music and mix and much as Knopfler's inventive lyrics.
Trivia bit. You may think of the song as "I Want My MTV," because of its memorable falsetto rendering of that line. Who sang those words?
Sting. Really.
A favorite expression, and idea
Lamed-Vavniks. According to Talamudic lore, these are the 36 righteous men born in any generation. A nice thought, but a sobering one, too...might there really only be 36?
Find out how to get a newsletter for your own company.
Despite their capacity for high speeds, cars seem easy targets lately. Last month, we criticized General Motors for diluting the Hummer brand by introducing "affordable Hummers," a contradiction that misses the entire point of a Hummer ("I can afford this," a Hummer owner boldly proclaims, "and you can't").
Now it's Mazda's turn.
When Mazda began losing its footholds to Honda and Nissan in the late 1990s, their executives began an intense effort to differentiate themselves.
In deciding on their point of difference, they chose "spirited, insightful and stylish." This is not one point of difference, but at least three, and two do not distinguish Mazda. "Insightful," assuming that really matters to a car buyer, is a claim owned by Lexus. "Stylish" is entirely subjective, but Mazda certainly does not and cannot own "style" in a prospective buyer's mind.
The marketers wisely chose to focus on "spirited," reflecting cars designed for a younger driver who loves the rush of the wind in her hair. Mazdas are the ultimate driving machines for people who don't have $575 for a monthly lease payment.
The result was "Zoom, Zoom," but the result of Zoom Zoom almost certainly is not what Mazda intended. "Zoom Zoom" is not a youthful expression; it's a child's one, used in comic strips when a car races off and by young boys playing with their toy cars. "Zoom Zoom" is toy -- something inexpensive, perhaps breakable, and in any case designed to please someone for about two weeks after Christmas or a birthday.
"Zoom Zoom" trivializes Mazda's innovativeness, and, as many former RX7 convertible owners will attest (there are two in our family), the sheer adult fun and inspired throat of the car. Zoom Zoom fails the ultimate test of a brand: it is not aspirational.
Mazda employees seem enthusiastic about for the campaign as it rolls the phrase out, including a national Zoom Zoom tour. But their enthusiasm may come from their overlooking a couple of key influences on an uptick in Mazda sales.
In the spring of 1999, Mazda was nowhere. It had a sporty RX-7 and a lingering reputation for introducing the first rotary engine for automobiles, the badly named Wankel. Remarkably, Kia -- which few people had heard of -- actually scored higher for brand recognition. So any Mazda campaign that stayed on message was certain to raise awareness of Mazda.
But it wasn't the Zoom Zoom campaign that changed Mazda and its life. It started with what happened six months later: the introduction of the Miata, which quickly became a cult and today ranks as the best-selling two-seat convertible ever made. Miata put the spotlight back on Mazda, and associated it with cars that were very fun to drive.
It was almost a year later before "Zoom Zoom" was introduced, while Mazda introduced a series of excellent and interesting cars that were well-received, especially by the automotive press. The Mazda 6 has won over 100 awards for automotive excellence; the Speed 6 is what its name suggests; and the RX-8 is a Viper-like upgrade of the wonderful RX-7.
The quality of the cars and their good press assured Mazda of increased sales, even with relatively weak advertising -- which is what they got. Mazda's comeback has blinded its people to the widespread dislike for the campaign. For proof, Google "zoom zoom" and read the blogs. If Mazda execs read them, Zoom Zoom could be gone, zoom zoom.
What if these new cars had been featured in ads that, rather than making them sound like kids' toys, made them sound like real -- and incredibly fun to drive -- automobiles?
How good might life -- yours and Mazda's -- be without "Zoom Zoom"? Make your brand aspirational.
 | ||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
Harry Beckwith is the Director of Beckwith Partners, an internationally regarded branding
and marketing firm. His classic trilogy on marketing a service -- Selling the Invisible,
The Invisible Touch, and What Clients Love, has sold over 900,000 copies
in 22 translations, and the first book has been named one of the ten best business and
management books of all time. He has been a keynote speaker for 14 Fortune 200 annual sales meetings and the National Speakers' Association convention, and has made presentations in Europe, South America and Asia. He is cited regularly in |
|
national media including CNN,
The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Entrepreneur,
Crain's New York Business and numerous
American, European and Asian newspapers. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University, Harry resides in Minneapolis with his wife Christine Clifford Beckwith. He is the father of six children. Beckwith Partners' clients include Wells Fargo, Fidelity Investments, Microsoft and Target as well as many venture-capitalized startups worldwide. |
|
| ||||
| ||||
Logos Success Stories Project Gallery Request an Evaluation Contact Us
E-mail questions and comments for Harry Beckwith to invisble@bitstream.net.