Category: Brand Experience

Brand Experience, brand values, branding

Why reviews matter – don’t trust a brand without them

Goldcar are part of the whole DoYouSpain.com rip off strategy
An Express Queue with Goldcar, where you can expect to wait over two hours and then get royally fleeced

I’m not going to hide the fact that I am involved with Feefo who manage customer reviews. It’s obviously made me more aware of why reviews matter. But when I went overseas a few weeks ago, I broke my own golden rule and made an online purchase from a supplier I had used many times before even though they had no real reviews on their site. So I thought it was worth writing down my experience and learnings from it.

The company is Do You Spain. I must have booked cars through them ten times in the past. This time, on our way to ski with family in Andorra, I was lured by an amazingly low price of €42 for the week for a Ford Focus. Wow. It was with Goldcar as Do You Spain are a broker for lots of different car hire companies.

I read the small print that went with it and found a few little treats. Firstly €62 to take it out of the country and into Andorra. and then a full to empty policy on the fuel. So I figured say 55 litres at €1.40 per litre. By this stage we are up to a figure of €181 with no real chance to burn a whole tank of fuel on a 350km round trip to Soldeu and back. But still cheaper than five of us paying for transfers at €75 per person.

I read on and then found a hidden extra which was an €850 excess, in case I crashed it. Sensibly I thought, I can insure that with http://www.carhireexcess.com/ at £1.99 per day, that has to be £14 well spent.

So when I landed at Barcelona El Prat Airport, and after a staggering two hour wait in the Express queue I was offered the following option. An upgrade to a slightly bigger car. Okay, don’t mind if I do. Fuel at €108, which works out at €1.80 per litre, surely the most expensive fuel in the whole of Europe?

But then the real shocker. Take out our additional insurance to protect the Excess at another €14 per day, or hand over the €850 excess and we will give it back to you if the car is undamaged. Who would trust them not to find some damage after their track record so far. Anyway, the final bill was €258 against the listed price of €42. Not terribly accurate pricing in my opinion. In fact none of the costs related in any way to the quote of €42.

So, on return home, I tried to speak to DoYouSpain and guess what?

Despite many, many positive reviews, they wouldn’t reply to my concerns or answer any of my queries. When I searched around, it appears that lots of people have expressed similar concerns on Money Saving Expert and other forums.

So the simple moral of this story?

Trust brands that display honest and open reviews. Distrust those that don’t. In fact avoid them like the plague. They are hiding reviews for a reason. And sadly, for Spain to recover, it needs to begin to behave itself, treat customers with respect and offer good fair prices we can rely on. Sadly I won’t be using these companies again and when I go back in a few weeks, i’m just paying for the transfer.

Brand Experience, brand values, branding

Brilliant Brand Experience by Hot Wheels

One of the biggest areas of work for me at present is delivering a brand experience for different brands. It’s about living your values through what you do, how you do it and who you do it for.

Hot Wheels is a brand to admire as they are so clear and consistent in what they do. We all had the orange track in our bedrooms as kids and made our toy cars do all sorts of impossible things. Well, now they have taken it one stage further, by bringing their brand to life. Literally.

Enough said.

Brand Experience, brand values, branding

The Tonsorial Artist – Holt – A brilliant barber and a brilliant brand

I was lucky enough to be staying in Holt last night at Byfords Posh B&B (which is fabulous) and had a bit of time to kill, so took myself off to find a haircut. Looking quite unassuming in the centre of the brilliant little town was the Tonsorial Artist. And I have to say it is the best barbers experience I have ever had.

Firstly the music. Laid back and cool music by the Skatalites and two guys working there with luxuriant facial hair and a total focus on doing a great job.

The Tonsorial Artist - Holt, Norfolk
The Tonsorial Artist – Holt, Norfolk

I had my meagre barnet tidied up by the slightly scary looking Doug, who was great, incredibly knowledgable and he gave me a great cut.

Doug from The Tonsorial Artist - Holt, Norfolk
Doug from The Tonsorial Artist – Holt, Norfolk

All this and it was only £11.50 – admittedly more than I pay at my local barbers, but it felt like a real treat.

I love places like this and I would love to get my hands on their brand to do some work with – It would franchise out beautifully and would have people queuing out the door if it was done as well as they have delivered their outlet.. People who are doing great work and clearly differentiating themselves in what must be a quite crowded market.

If you’re ever in Holt, stay at Byfords Posh B&B and get a hair cut by the Tonsorial Artists.

Brand Experience, branding

Admiral Insurance – Brilliant again

Admiral_insurance_logo
Admiral Insurance – Looking out for their customers

It’s going to sound like i’m in the pocket of these insurance types as I am again impressed with the customer service from Admiral Insurance. I wrote about their brilliant call centres here.

My mate Tim Garratt has had nothing but trouble with his.

But my experience is totally different.

I have just put my personalised plates on my new car. That should be simple. But I had to take them off my old car and drive a different car in the meantime and also happened to change my wife’s car at around the same time too. So that was six calls in less than three months.

So on Saturday, I knew what to expect. The lady who answered in the UK call centre called Victoria didn’t dissapoint. I knew the script. “You do know Mr Lyle that there will be a £17.50 admin fee to cover the cost of the change?”

I said I did as I had paid it five times in three months.

“Well I don’t think you should pay it again then”, said our hero Victoria. “I’ll just speak to my Manager”.

A few moments later, she comes back on and confirmed that I had more than covered my admin fees and they would waive any fee this time.

They did the change for free, but in the meantime got a very happy customer who was clearly smiling down the phone.

I have said many, many times before that if you want to create brand loyalty you need to surprise and delight your customers. Give them things they’re not expecting and generally try and stand in their shoes.

Admiral are doing this incredibly well for such a big company. As long as the renewal cost is there or thereabouts, will get my multi-car policy business next year again.

Brand Experience, branding

Bye Bye JJB Sports

JJB sports are as good an example as any that changing a logo changes nothing. All the papers were this week reporting that they were closing a further 45 stores that weren’t viable.

For me, you may as well close all of them as they are all pretty unpleasant in terms of a shopping experience and i’m now never quite sure if I’m in a JD, a new JJB, and old JJB or even a sports retailer above a DW?

JJB Sports - Sporting an old logo Rushmere_(05),_August_2009
JJB Sports – Sporting an old logo Rushmere August_2009

You can see below a lovely example of their bold new rebrand with a jaunty high tech logo that made no difference at all.

JJB Sports - Sporting a new logo Belfast, June 2010
JJB Sports – Sporting a new logo Belfast, June 2010
Brand Experience, brand values, branding

Writing for brands – creating connections

One Day by David Nicholls - Err, wow.
One Day by David Nicholls – Err, wow.

I’ve read two books in the last few weeks and both have been absolutely amazing, phenomenal, beautiful pieces of writing – But only one of them actually made me truly upset – and it wasn’t the one I was expecting.

So I set about thinking why this could be?

And I believe it’s all about the connections you make with your audience.

The book ‘One Day’ by David Nicholls is an everyday sort of tale about a couple who never quite get it together and it revisits their life over 20 years on the same day. A unique concept, beautifully described, starting off as they met on their last day of college. It’s ‘what could/should have been’ throughout the book.

The second Book is a far weightier subject matter and is ‘The Book Thief’ by Markus Zusak. A story narrated by the character who is ‘Death himself’ and telling the tale of a young girl struggling with life and literature through the war torn German city of Molching during the Second World War.

Both are beautifully written. Both paint great big expansive pictures in the way they describe the scenes and both are worth every moment you will invest in reading them.

But I only connected with ‘One Day’. maybe I’m shallow and divorced from the realities of Nazi Germany, but I never quite connected with the characters, despite being captivated by the story.

So, when I write for brands now I’m trying to think about it from their viewpoint. How can I create connections, get inside their minds and think what they’re thinking. If we can do that, we can create amazing brands.

Updated

I thought a lot about ‘The Book Thief’ last night and another layer of the writing drifted into my thoughts. I guess it is the first time I have seen or read a story like this from the victims point of view. We are taught a lot about The War in school and standard British history and my visit to the Holocaust Museum in LA was still one of the most traumatic experiences of my life, but this book paints the picture of deprivation and fear for the everyday german souls. Those that would normally get forgotten for being on the ‘losing’ side. It makes me wonder whether we are actually winning any form of war on terror, or just beating the normal people to death, when we should be waging war on their governments.

Brand Experience, brand values, branding

Spain is beautiful – but bust

Spain at it's best - sun, sea, sand, empty beaches and back to it's old laid back self
Spain at it’s best – sun, sea, sand, empty beaches and back to it’s old laid back self

I wrote a piece last year after I came back from a Spanish holiday, saying that Spain had sold it’s soul and gone against its own brand values of sun, sea and fun in favour of profit.

But my experience this year gave me a vague glimmer of hope.

Most of the prices seem to have dropped in the restaurants, the cabs and the beach bars. A meal for a family of four has fallen from €100 to nearer €80. Lunch in a beach bar can be easily taken for less than €40 and the people seem to have got friendlier again. Less in search of profit and far more able to smile. Perhaps they’re resigned to the fact that their business is on the verge of bust. There are hundreds upon hundreds either gone or clearly about to go.

New build apartments are still all empty, although the prices have fallen from €220k Euro last year to a little over €120k this year.

Local figures being quoted are that of the 4.5 million properties on the Costa del Sol, only around 20% are occupied at any time – and you can tell by how deathly quiet it is. The traffic is lighter, the beaches are quieter, even the shops are quieter.

But where they win is in the places that aren’t built up. Those that haven’t been built all over still have real charm and the most fantastic food. Yes, Puerto Banus is vile, showy, ludicrously expensive and not for me – it’s not a coincidence that it has the word anus in the middle of it you know –  but drive ten miles down the coast beyond Estepona and you are back into places where the Brits and Irish haven’t yet built all over and destroyed.

I genuinely think that Spain will do a ‘Greece’ and go bust, for the rest of Europe to bail out. But if you rent somewhere on the beach, buy the local food and wine and enjoy the sun and laid back atmosphere, there are still fewer places in the world I’d rather be.

This year, for the first time in many, many years, I didn’t want to come home – and that’s what Spain should be – and always used to be about.

Brand Experience, branding

Putting my money where my mouth is

It may be slightly more expensive, but at least I feel (vaguely) human

I booked a flight this morning to go an join my family in Spain in the Summer and as it’s just me on my own, I thought I’ll just go for the cheapest available. It’s not for long anyway. It’s only a 2.30 hr flight.

But when I went onto Skyscanner and saw the prices of both Ryanair and BMI Baby were almost identical, guess which one I booked? BMI baby was £93 and Ryanair £88.

Yes, it’s BMI Baby for me. And whilst they tried to sell me a seat selection so I could stay with my group (at £7.99 per seat and £10.99 for extra legroom seats) that I’m not in, it was a far more open experience.

I hate the Ryanair brand. It makes me feel grubby and they attempt to catch you out with every single policy they introduce from online check in to the choice of cards you choose. When I booked the flight for our ski holiday, I used Easyjet and the card payment cost me an additional £3.50. With Ryanair for the four of us that would have been £30 as I don’t have one of their prepaid chav cards to hand, which is the only way you can get out of paying a stinging credit card fee. Hmmmm.

Brands that treat their customers that badly always fail in the end. The only good thing about Ryanair is that they are keeping the others keen with their pricing.

Brand Experience, brand values, branding

A product isn’t a brand but it is one element of a brand promise

A product itself, is just one element of the overall brand experience. Like a burger in McDonalds to the Petrol in a Shell station, the product is the product is the product. It is not the brand. If it has a logo on it, it’s a logo’d product. It’s still not a brand.

McDonalds Burger – All part of the branded experience

But any product, whilst not a brand in its own right, is the start of a brand ‘promise’. If people have an expectation about a branded product being able to deliver them some ‘effect’, some feeling or some performance benefits and the product fails in that, they will start to have serious doubts about the overall efficacy of the brand itself. In effect, they will start to believe that everything else the brand owner says, must be questionable too.

There is a lesson in here for any brand owner that is well worth thinking about.

Is the quality of anything and everything you do adding to the reputation of your brand, or is it slowly undermining it for it to become average at best, or potentially collapse around your ears at worst?

In what way is it enhancing its differences?
In what way is it making itself one of one to its potential audience?

Is it honestly the best it can possibly be for the money or is it made as cheaply as you can get away with? – if it’s the latter, your brand is in trouble.

Those running brands for big plc’s may well be tempted by the short term gain and leave the longer term problems that they invariably create, to those following in their footsteps. Guinness used to say that brands were far too important to be run by mere brand managers.

For some time, there was a difference in the UK to the US with the way brands were run. In the UK, if your brand did well, you were moved on to others and left your baby behind. This hardly encouraged long term planning. In the US, the opposite applied and if your brand got bigger, so did your job. But it still remained your responsibility and you treated it with far more reverence.

In building a brand, you create layer upon layer of brand expectation and brand experience.

Using the onion analogy, a brand has many layers and a core of values. Every contact or touch point builds another layer. A good one obviously adds in a positive sense and a bad one if you’re lucky, may just peel back one layer, but still leave lots of good stuff in place.

The fear for any owner is however if your layers are thin or if there are doubts already beginning in a consumers mind, it could almost certainly undermine all the hard work you have gone into building it in the first place.

So, a product isn’t a brand, but if you get it wrong you can guarantee that consumers will make a negative connection between the two very quickly indeed.

Thanks to ‘The Food Pornographer’ for the use of her image. She’s from Perth and you can see more of her work on Flickr here and her website here.