April 2013 - Otis Regrets... or not

Headline hijinks revisited with Bose, Wall Street Journal and Coke Zero

We’re back as promised to that corridor of horrors where tyro copywriters go to die. But this time we’ll focus on the context in which your headline/outer teaser is read and include a couple of positive examples.

First, some badvertising from Bose on the back of a Sunday newspaper insert… about as broad a demographic as you can find. “If you think watching TV is exciting, wait until you really hear it.” There are two things wrong here. First, the copywriter assumes universal agreement that “watching TV is exciting”. If it’s not a head-nodder then the reader is lost. But do we all agree that “watching TV is exciting”? Not likely. Second, there’s an intellectual contortion required to stay with the writer’s train of thought. When you switch from one action mode to another (watching… to listening) that’s some heavy lifting for the reader to do in their mind’s eye. Not likely they will stay around for the body copy, and neither shall we.

wsjwelcomeback — Wall Street Journal “welcome back”

Now look at this envelope from the Wall Street Journal: “Welcome Back”. Apparently I renewed after a lapse but don’t remember doing so; naturally, I’m going to open the envelope to see what I agreed to. And when I get inside it turns out this is their standard “professional courtesy discount” offer; they WANT to say welcome back and maybe I will feel a little guilty about getting an offer that maybe I’m not entitled to so you can guess I’ll jump on that. The two simple words “Welcome Back” do a brilliant job of framing the conversation and getting me involved.

CokeZeroDontRead — Coke Zero “don’t read” banner

Same thing with this Coke Zero banner that ran during the NCAA championship game: “Don’t read this banner. There’s basketball on.” Well, of course I’m going to read it because I can’t not do so. But in this chest-bumping environment I will give you huge points for the apparent cool factor. Yet it actually ties perfectly into their tag line, “enjoy everything”.

The copywriters on the WSJ and Coke Zero projects thought about the environment in which the prospect is viewing the ad, and meet them on their own turf. The Bose copywriter asked readers to switch from what they’re doing to what the writer wants them to think about. Which is better and more effective?

No thank you to Citi “Thank You Points”

I used a Citi “Thank You” card as my main purchasing vehicle for maybe 10 years. Its attraction was that it credited travel points for miles on any airline (at the time, unheard of) and I amassed some 300,000 points and paid the $75 annual fee each of those ten years. Then, about a year ago, I happened to have a question about my account and the telephone rep told me that virtually all my points were expiring in 90 days. I could purchase travel for a future date but if I didn’t buy something before the deadline they were gone.

So, my wife and kid went to visit friends in Germany in high season at a ridiculous price and we used more points on a family vacation. There were still tens of thousands of points left over so I transferred them to a new, no-fee Thank You card and cancelled the paid card. A few months later that card’s points are about to expire so I have been scheming to get some value out of them. It’s an expensive time to book travel so I’m looking to buy gift cards for places where I spend money. Meanwhile, from Citi’s perspective, I’ve transitioned from a presumably profitable customer paying a high annual fee to a fee-free and soon to be ex-customer.

While I’ve been spending way too much time negotiating with the Thank You folks, I have wondered whether there are any useful marketing lessons to be gleaned. Certainly the strangest policy is to let points expire without notifying the customer. It’s not like you get an AAdvantage statement where you can see that you need to book travel before a certain date to keep your old points; the whole procedure is invisible unless you log onto their website. Why in the world don’t they send me notices that warn, “your points are about to expire, here are some great offers from our partners”?

And about that website. You can check your points from your Citi card login which takes you to a rather promotional and unhelpful website, but there is a shadow thankyou.com website that you will never see unless you establish a separate log-in with a username and password that have different rules from your Citi card login. Yet this secret handshake is required for certain privileges, such as redeeming for Amazon purchases which they offered me recently (that’s how I found out about the separate website). And I don’t consider myself a web troglodyte. What happens with people who barely know how to log on, or still do their business by phone?

Thus, when I got an invitation to take a survey and say how happy I was with Thank You Points, you can bet I swooped down on it like a hawk on a chicken. A few days later I got an email from a certain [redacted], inviting me to call her and explain why I would not recommend Thank You to a friend. Apparently she had tried repeatedly to reach me by phone, which is peculiar because my cell is listed in my Citi contact information and there is no record of calls from unidentified callers. I called her back and left a message, also emailed her, and she did not return my call or respond to the email. But I was more than ready to share my opinion, so I am doing it here. [UPDATE: she finally did call me. See the comment for an update, plus why it took so long.]

What can marketers learn from all this? First, the points expiration seems ridiculous, but any expiration must be treated as an opportunity to contact your customer. Not doing that is just crazy. It’s lost revenue and lost good will.

Second, byzantine websites that require the user to decode your intentions are not okay. (If you want to book travel, the main reason I got the card, that link is buried in the bottom menu of the page of “rewards” below bubbly cross-promotions.) If you aren’t willing to meet your customer’s needs with clean and logical navigation, they will go find somebody who will.

Third, don’t play games by telling me you’ve tried to contact me when you haven’t and then not responding to my calls and emails. That’s middle school stuff.

To be fair, I haven’t reported some nice transactions with Citi folks on the phone trying to solve these problems but neither have I described every problem I’ve had with this program; there’s lots more. Also, full disclosure, I bought Citi stock when it was in the toilet and have made enough to pay for the points I lost. But not for the aggravation.

Headline Horrors (outer envelope teasers that don’t)

Fresh Air camp appeal — What buses? Where are we going?

It’s been far too long since we’ve visited the Badvertising Hall of Shame… that corridor of horrors where unfortunate marketers teach us by example what NOT to do. Let’s begin with this outer envelope teaser from Fresh Air Fund.

This is a seasonal appeal I used to struggle with when doing work for Salvation Army… the “send an inner city kid to camp” fund. It seemed less urgent than putting food on the table or rescuing a child from the streets, and it was complicated because you’d have to create a word picture of why this was important before the reader got away. No missteps are permissible.

So look what Fresh Air Fund has chosen as its teaser: The buses are leaving soon… please hurry! What buses? Am I supposed to be on one? Why on earth does this not say instead, “The bus is about to leave for camp without me… please help!” (Singular better than plural because it’s more specific, and let’s mention the reason for the appeal for chrissake.) Also, while camps are universally recognized as a good thing buses are not. Seems like a terrible choice for the opening salvo in this appeal. Next.

Personal and Confidential OE — Do you believe this?

From… I don’t know who because I never opened it… I have a blind outer with nothing but PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL printed above my name. Maybe I notice the “standard postage” indicia that spoils the illusion, but maybe I don’t; they’ve done a good job of designing something that looks like a real meter imprint.

But, look what’s above my name: PREPARED FOR: Okay, that’s too much and it’s also discordant with PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL which suggests a very individualized letter, maybe a collection notice, whereas PREPARED FOR suggests a mechanized process like maybe a refund. Either would have been good on its own, together they cancel each other out. The blind outer has lost its intrigue so out it goes.

Pella 72 hour sale — When did the 72 hour sale begin anyway?

Finally we have this from Pella: OPEN IMMEDIATELY: 72-hour event ends soon. Well, is it 72 hours or isn’t it? If it is, it ends in 72 hours, not “soon”. The contradiction completely bursts the bubble of urgency and anticipation. Also, since this is clearly a piece of advertising mail, there needs to be more reader context, eg “Hurry! You’ve only got 72 hours to save” or “Open for your private invitation to our 72 hour preferred customer sale”.

That’s enough for today. Three examples in which the client or product manager is wondering why their mailing was not more successful, when in each case the fault lies with the copywriter who is probably making mischief on another campaign right now. I’ll have a couple more good ones in my next post.