Drilling for Diamonds

BIRGing - Basking In Reflected Glory is a delightful acronym coined by Arizona State University professor Robert Cialdini and his colleagues. Cialdini and his colleagues found more students donned the logo apparel of their college football team on Monday, following the big game, if their team had won over the weekend. The pride associated with winning encouraged them to wear their school colors.

Brand advocated similarly like to be associated with the hot brands which they perceive to be “winners”.

By way of contrast, Cialdini & Co. found there was a downside to BIRGing. When their team lost they actively tried to distance themselves from their school team. Cialdini & Co. termed the mirror side of BIRGing, CORFing - Cutting Off Reflected Glory

Popularity: 20% [?]

I never cease to be amazed by the number of inane responses when we ring service centers.

It doesn’t matter whether its Dublin, Atlanta, or Mumbai, but the same prerecorded voice bleats out, “Your call is extremely important to us. Please hold and your call will be answered by the next available agent.”

As a customer, you know your call is not important. If it were there would be enough staff to answer the call.

Why don’t companies limit themselves to a simple sorry? Gratuitous responses simply add to the frustration of hanging on.

Popularity: 15% [?]

Traditionally brands have used advertising to excite demand. The problem is, it is very difficult to communicate your cutting edge features and end-user benefits in a magazine ad or even a 30 second t.v. spot.

More and more brands - especially those who have supreme confidence in their products superiority are allowing customers to try before they buy.

Take Bose, the world leaders in speaker technology. Bose now offers to send its new wave music system to customers and let them try it out for 30 days at no cost. If they truly don’t like the product they can return it to Bose at no cost. Bose now runs Try and Buy retail kiosks in airports - where flyers can trial Bose’s noise canceling headphones.

Tryvertising obviously has its costs, but as brand experts Keith Lincoln and Lars Thomassen point out in their book, How to Succeed at Retail (Kogan Page, 2007):

“Marketers operating a tryvertising mindset will find completely new ‘conversation channels’, if not the most unexpected partners and alliances.”

Popularity: 18% [?]

I have worked with Toyota and Lexus for over 20 years.

Undoubtedly, I’m biased. My wife and I both drive a Lexus. Plus, I’ve been part of numerous Toyota and Lexus product launches, branding and sales plays.

Over the years, I’ve thought deeply about what separates Toyota from its competitors.

Building cars that are relentlessly reliable and offer exceptional value explains much of Toyota’s success. But you can only do that consistently if you have a culture or mindset, that welcomes customer feedback - especially when it’s a negative.

No other company I have ever worked for embraces and faces problems or challenges like Toyota.

When Toyota discovered the average age of a Toyota buyer is about forty-five, compared with about thirty-seven for Honda and thirty-two for Mitsubishi, they set about building a brand that would win the hearts of the next generation of consumers by launching a new brand called Scion in the U.S.A.

The median age for Scion buyers is thirty-five. More importantly, 76% of Scion buyers have never bought a Toyota before.

Compare this to GM who spent years trying to rescusitate Oldsmobile with slogans such as “This is not your father’s automobile” and “A New Generation of Olds.” The campaigns didn’t work. So in 2000, GM killed off Oldsmobile.

Popularity: 80% [?]