Starbucks seeks to annoy its customers

At coffee shops in Vancouver, customers have a choice of sweeteners. Sugar is the most popular choice, with many shops providing a choice of artificial sweeteners and honey.

In most shops honey is provided in either a pump bottle or a squeeze bottle. And up until last week that is how one of my local Starbucks provided honey for customers.

Now, if you want honey you must ask at the counter. If you knew in advance that Starbucks had made this change then you could ask for honey when you place your order. But I stood in line again to get honey and was offered two of these small packages.

As far as I can see, the only rationale behind this change is to reduce costs. And how much will the cost saving move annoy Starbucks' customers and drive them away?

Customer loyalty is a hard-won commodity. And it doesn't take much to drive customers away. Petty actions like rationing the honey will do nothing to encourage loyalty. And without customer loyalty, a business like Starbucks becomes a lot less valuable.

As the English expression describes it, "Penny wise and pound foolish".

How much is your firm's name worth? All of a sudden it is worth a lot less.

When this firm was founded in 2007, Kony was a pretty good choice of name. The domain was available, and that is a pretty key element in the choice of names for any company.

"Kony was founded in 2007 by successful entrepreneur Raj Koneru, who recognized that mobile devices and their capabilities would continue to grow exponentially and be a key driver in the next customer interaction revolution. Kony’s mission is to develop the technologies and applications that facilitate and accelerate customer engagement over any mobile operating system, device and channel."

Source: http://kony.com/about-us

Up until March 5, 2012 this firm's name; Kony Solutions, was still fine, but now Kony brings up a whole raft of negative connotations.

And that is the first thing that I thought of when I saw an email about a webinar presented by Kony and Gartner. I saw "Kony" as the sender and thought of Joseph Kony of the Lord's Resistance Army and the Kony 2012/Stop Kony campaign by Innocent Children, Inc.

Will Kony, the mobile device firm, have to change its name? I think that probability depends on how long Joseph Kony remains at large and what he does. But in this increasingly international world it does raise the issue that a name that seems safe and innocuous in one country can be a very risky branding proposition in another. You just hope that your brand name does not match an accused war criminal.

If you can't measure it, you can't manage it

I was intrigued to see "Providing Measurable results to Canadian businesses for over 30 years." on an envelope in my mailbox.

Normally I just throw these envelopes straight into the recycling bin, but this one got me thinking, "Measurable results", that's great. But then I wondered, what if all of the measuring has yet to show that any of the results are profit.

I guess it just goes to show that you need to be sure to answer all of the questions. Just because you can measure the results does not mean that using this firm's services will be a worthwhile investment.

Does safety matter?

I almost feel guilty about taking another poke at children's books, but there is more going on here. I found this photo, taken by the author, Jerry Boucher, in the book Fire Truck in the nuts and bolts series.

The books takes the reader on a journey from start to finish in the design and construction of a fire truck at a small mid-west manufacturer (http://www.customfire.com).

A fire truck is a piece of safety equipment, so I was a bit surprised to see that hardly anyone working in the factory wears any eye protection. (The welders are the obvious exception.)

If this an issue? Well as an example for children yes. And what if I am holding the insurance policy for this factory. I read the book and see that the workers are not required to wear eye protection. My reaction might be to either cancel the policy, or jack up the premium. And I'd certainly take a second look at any claims for eye injuries.

While this is only a children's book, and a 19-year old one at that, the issue about how much information you share about your firm's practices are critical. In the days of facebook etc, information about your firm's internal practices is likely to come out when you least expect it. Every piece of information about how your firm does business can and will be used by the people you do business with. Whether it is from your website, or in a children's book, your firm's lapses in safety practices may come back to haunt you.

In the 1990s New Yorker cartoon famously stated that, "On the Internet no one knows you're a dog"; now you need to be aware that the person looking at a photo of your factory may not have your firm's best interests in mind. The information you provide, or allow to be provided, may harm your business, and you have an obligation to be both accurate and prudent.

Who says it is the best?

I was out for a ride this afternoon and saw this sign. Whenever I see a business that proclaims that it is the "best" I wonder who was the authority that conferred the honour.

But of course, there may be no external party at all, it may merely be a statement of intent. The shipyard wants to be the best, and a public proclamation is the business's way of hold itself accountable.

And the "established since" is also a bit puzzling. perhaps they mean "established in 1963", or "in business since 1963". Perhaps there are other shipyards that were founded earlier, but closed, and then re-opened, and Tom-Mac wants to indicate that the yard has been in business continuously since 1963.

But, alas, I have no boat, and so I'll probably never step foot inside the yard. So my observations are mere idle conjecture. (But then isn't that what blogs are for?)

Why don't they understand physics?

A rainbow is a fairly simple physical concept. As light passes through water droplets it is refracted and reflected and emerges split into the band of colours we recognize as a rainbow.

The rainbow has red on one edge and violet on the other. This is not a new discover. So, why do the artists who work on Dora the Explorer and Go Diego Go find it so hard to be accurate?

Red and Blue are not adjacent. The colours on the edges of the rainbow are not yellow and green.

Why is this important? Dora and Diego are for children. There is supposed to be some educational aspect to the content. And if the content is factually incorrect what does that say about science education. It doesn't matter? We shouldn't care?

If you are producing an entertainment for children you have an obligation. You can create a fantasy world, but it must be internally logical. We can suspend disbelief, but there must be a logic that we can use to support this new world.

The worlds of Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings are incredible imaginative and detached from our world, but they have a strong internal logic and things and people in those worlds obey a set of rules that are unique to those worlds.

Dora and Diego have broken that cardinal rule, and I don't know if that is forgivable.

Why bother?

Yesterday I ran into my local letter carrier. He was bemoaning the fact that he had over 1,000 of these course catalogues to deliver. Letter size, 8.5" by 11", and 128 pages, and for most recipients completely useless.

These 10 books were in the recycling bin underneath the mail boxes by 6:00 pm the day they wewre delivered. (And another 5 were in the bin the next day.)

Given the fact that most people in my building don't even look at the catalogue why does Langara College even bother?

When your register for a course you provide your postal code. The post office can tell Langara how many books are delivered to each postal code. So, crunching these two numbers the marketers can determine the number of catalogues sent out to secure each registration. So, if those numbers make financial sense to the marketers, then I'll continue to see Langara's catalogues in the recycling bin.

Engine oil with added sand?

I saw this billboard this afternoon and it got me thinking. Quartz (silicon dioxide) is the second most common compound on earth. It also forms the bulk of what we commonly refer to as sand.

I'm certainly not a car guy and don't know my way around and engine. (However, I am a proud bike geek.) If you'll pardon me for being a bit pedantic, isn't sand in your engine a bad thing? And if that is the case, isn't this a rather poor name for a motor oil. Yes, quartz does have an enviable hardness, 7 on the Mohs scale. But is hardness really a desirable characteristic in a motor oil.

This type of branding, and the accompanying advertising, will only work if the average consumer has a shockingly low level of scientific literacy. And that is a pretty shocking indictment of the education system.

Source for packaging photo: http://shop.citroenclassics.co.uk/index.asp?function=PRODUCTIMAGEWINDOW&closedelay=20000&SRC=http://shop.citroenclassics.co.uk/ekmps/shops/citroenclassics/images/total-quartz-5000-15w-40-petrol-engine-oil-5-litres-347-p[ekm]277x300[ekm].jpg

What does red mean?

What does the colour red "mean"?

We've just past St. Valentine's Day, and the unavoidable connection to love. Red is also associated with other emotions including anger and rage.

In branding the colour is associated with Coke, Ferrrari, and HSBC, among hundreds of others.

But since when has it been associated with down? I saw this light on the elevator at the library and wondered why the down arrow was red. (By the way, the up arrow was green.)

There are hundreds of associations with the colour red. Stop signs, a whole host of brands, warning etc., and now the down elevator. I wonder how much this confuses people? And if it does confuse people, why is red still such an appealing colour for brand identity?

Maybe it's not a trademark any more?

For many companies, the most valuable asset is the firm's intellectual property. (Competitors paid billions for the patent library from a bankrupt Nortel.)

If companies are not seen to be protecting their intellectual property they can often lose it. This happened with Saltines and the word is now a generic term for a a square salted cracker. In the United Kingdom two brand names, Hoover and Tannoy, have become generic terms to describe their categories, vacuums and loudspeakers.

Is this happening to Rollerblade? (Rollerblade is a registered trademark of Tecnica Group S.p.A. - P.IVA 00195810262 ) The alternative, in-line skate, is a bit more awkward. In addition, Rollerblade is so closely associated with the category that virtually all consumer will know what you mean when you use the terms "rollerblade" or "roller blading".

I notice that the Vancouver Public Library (VPL) uses "roller blading" as two words, while the company uses "rollerblade" as one word when referring to the company and the products and uses the term "skating" to define the activity. Is this use of the brand name actionable, as the lawyers might say? Perhaps. If I was Rollerblade I would be contacting the VPL to at least make a show of protecting the brand name.

Have you protected your trademark?

My daughter like me to buy this cheese, but for some reason once it is open she really does not like to eat it. (A triumph of packaging over flavour.)

I noticed that the packaging shows two trademarked names; one in English and one in French.

While unusual, this is a remarkably sensible move. Most firms in Canada just make do with an English-language trademark. But in a bilingual country it makes sense to trademark your brand name in both languages.

Of course, the next question is why not trademark it in other languages as well? Chinese would make sense, and some other languages might also be advisable.

When is quality important?

Some people would say that quality is always important, and that the prescribed standards needs to be adhered to 100% to the time. Others say that context is everything. The quality level of, for example, the wooden stick used to stir your coffee, is not the same as the quality level of the bolts holding the engines onto Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner.

I think that I might be tempted to agree with the latter position. And to support my arguments I present three small, flat pieces of wood that I picked up at Blenz. The one of the left is perfectly fine, the one on the right is correct shape, but the the wrong colour, and the one on the middle is the right colour, but it is bent. Will they all work to stir my coffee, or tea? Yes indeed.

So what is the problem? None really. I don't think that anyone else except for pedantic folks like me pay attention the little details like this.

Of course, there is always the other side of the argument. If the quality standards for the stir sticks is slipping, where else has Blenz let its quality decline? The answer is probably nowhere else.

The little things can be a sign of overall quality, but most customers never notice the consistency of small, free, disposable items like the stir sticks. That is lucky, because if they did lots of companies would be in big trouble.

Keeping Calm and Saving Money

This poster was created in 1939 in Great Britain and never publicly displayed and it only resurfaced by chance in 2000. Today we see the now iconic poster design and typeface used in all sorts of parodies and advertisements.

I saw the design used in an ING mailing at RSP time. (RSPs are the Canadian personal Retirement Savings Plans.) Quite a clever use of the both the concept and the original wording, particularly in relation to income tax time, when hardly anyone can "keep calm".

As has been observed by a few people, the hand-drawn font used owes a debt to both the London Underground font, and Gill Sans (One of my favourite fonts.)

A UK-based type house, K-Type, has created a full font from the meagre examples available on the three posters that were part of the series. If can be downloaded for free for individual use. (http://www.k-type.com/?p=2199)

For a history of the rediscover of the poster this video is quite informative. (http://devour.com/video/keep-calm-and-carry-on/) Or you could have a look at the website of the bookstore where the poster was rediscovered. (http://www.barterbooks.co.uk)

Source for poster image: http://con.ca/news/5919

A simple way to improve service

It is not a big thing, but adding colour to the ends of the paper rolls used in cash registers and other point-of-sale (POS) printers was a great innovation.

It may not seem like a really significant change, but if you've ever worked as a cashier getting advance notice before the paper runs out is a pretty neat trick.

Paying attention to the little things like this can result in huge improvements in customer service, which leads to happier customers, which should lead to higher sales and increased profits.

The same theory is applied to printer cartridges where you get a warning light that lets you know the ink/toner is low. And then there is the low gas light in the car that causes my wife to go into panic mode. (Despite the fact that the light indicates that there is at least 10 litres left which is good for another 100 kilometres or so.)

The are a number of criteria for this sort of warning to be useful.

1. The warning must apply to something consumable and replaceable
2. The quantity remaining must be invisible in the course of normal operations
3. The downside to running out must be significant, or at least an inconvenience

A less useful example is the low battery warning on my mobile telephone which just uses up more power beeping and flashing.

I'm sure that there are thousands of people who work on applying this principle to every conceivable industry, but most people would never think about it. And that is a problem. We should think about and try to understand and find other applications for everything we see, even the pink and blue strips on our receipts.

What was the most significant PC innovation?

In 1983 IBM rolled out the IBM PC (Personal Computer). Of course there had been other personal computers before. Firms like Apple and Osborne had sold lots of them. Osborne even made a portable computer.

But IBM made the personal computer a safe buy for corporations. "No one ever got fired for buying IBM". (Of course in later years the same safety could be found if you bought Microsoft products.)

But, while IBM made the PC market safe for business consumers, it also precluded competition. If you wanted a PC that could run the software writing for the IBM PCs, it had to come from IBM.

Not surprisingly other companies wanted in on the market. (Compaq was one of the early ones that still sort of survives, if only at the whim of HP's CEO.) The problem was that the software required the IBM BIOS (Basic Input/Output System).

In order to sell a PC that was compatible with software written for IBM PC, the software had to be compatible with the IBM BIOS. But the IBM BIOS was protected by copyright.

Phoenix came up with a cunning plan to reverse engineer an IBM-compatible BIOS that did not infringe on the IBM copyright. The method was actually very clever and completely lawyer proof.

The Phoenix BIOS passed the most popular compatibility tests of the day; running Lotus 123 and Microsoft's Flight Simulator.

So, a seemingly insignificant piece of computer code, developed by a firm that most people knew little or nothing about, changed the face of competition in the PC marketplace.

Of course IBM's abandonment of the PC market, the rise of Google, and Apple's current market value tell a more complete story of today's personal computer market.

We spent $87.85 million on the facility. Sorry there is no space for you

The City of Vancouver recently opened a new 7,000 square foot library branch. It is located in a community centre that is a legacy from the 2010 Winter Olympics. (The facility was the site of the curling and wheelchair curling events.)

The community centre has a full gymnasium, ice rink, indoor and outdoor pools, exercise and weight rooms, and a number of rooms that are available to rent.

So, why is it that the library is now having to limit the number of people that can come to story time? The one room for events at the library is only a couple of hundred square feet. It is not uncommon to have 50 people or more at a storytime.

Very quickly the library reached capacity for its storytimes and had to respond.

When a performing arts organization reaches a capacity problem there are two options.

1. Increase capacity by adding more "performances"
2. Increase capacity by moving to a larger "performance" space

Both options lead to more satisfied audience members, for an organization that charges admission, both can lead to more revenue. A good storytime is a performance. Puppets, music, singing, and of course stories.

Adding more storytimes would increase labour costs, a tough sell when the municipal budget is under pressure.

I'm a bit dismayed that the response to increased demand for storytime is to limit the audience size. Given the number of other spaces that are available in the community centre, a bigger room and more happy kids and parents would seem to be the logical decision.

Does "X" mean it's fast?

There must be something pretty magical about the letter X. We all know about Microsoft's Xbox, but this blog entry was triggered by Shaw Cable and its new EXO Network.

The use of the letter X is quite common for marketers who wants to attach characteristics of speed to its offerings. The top level of Shimano's mountain bike components is XTR while the next level down is merely XT, and XCR is used to identify the firm's range of non-moving components. (Handle bars, seat posts etc.)

The use of X is only successful if consumers make the same connection as the marketers. If I don't connect X with speed and performance, then the whole exercise is wasted.

But luckily, I think that anything with and X in its name much be fast, or I wouldn't have spent a fortune on XT and XTR components.

Will Shaw's new EXO service live up to the promises that the X in its name would seem to imply? I have no idea. I now deal with Shaw's main competitor and I don't think I'll be going back to Shaw any time soon. If only they'd renamed the service sooner.

I've got some good news (And some bad news)

I have a small line of credit with the TD Bank. I recently received this letter advising me that the interest rate was being reduced.

When the interest rate goes up I wonder if I will receive a letter headed, "Bad news about your unsecured Line of Credit Account".

But that is one of the realities of marketing. When communicating with customers the news is always good, and if there bad news it is hidden down in the footnotes.

But either way, my current interest rate is not too oppressive. I can remember back when you could not get a mortgage for under 20%. Now there is no way that you can make any that sort of rate look like good news.

High standards of cleanliness (Once a week)

Anyone with a young child gets used to making frequent trips to washrooms. If the choice is an embarrassing accident, then any washroom will do.

Well, almost any washroom. Obviously size is important. You need to be able to get two people and a stroller into the room, and preferably into a stall. And a clean washroom is also desirable. On more than one occasion my daughter has refused to use a washroom because it was "smelly".

So retailers who attract people likely to have young children in tow are well advised to have well-signed washrooms that are well maintained.

The management at Toys "R" Us prints up Washroom Audit form each week. According to this form, "Your satisfaction is our priority". According to this form the washrooms are to be inspected every hour. For the week of February 26 to March 03, 2012 the washroom was inspected at 8:00 am on the first day. If this form was correct that was the only time the washroom was inspected all week.

If you are only going to inspect the washroom once each week, then why advertise the fact. You just embarrass yourself.

An artificial gourmet

"Gourmet". The word conjures up wonderful visions of well-stocked kitchens staffed by European-trained staff. Creations lovingly attended to, simmering in copper pots over a massive stove. Hands flying while chopping, dicing, and stirring all manner of ingredients.

But these images are not really compatible with "Artificially Flavored". And yet this package of Cobblestone Kitchens Chocolate Caramel Hot Cocoa Mix contains both terms.

This sort of logical inconsistency drives consumer crazy, and rightly so. You can't claim to be both "gourmet" and "artificial", at least you shouldn't be able to say it with a straight face.

Searching for an icon

Radio Canada, the French language service of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), recently released a 5 CD box set, 75ans 75chansons (75 years 75 songs) to celebrate the 75th Anniversary of the CBC.

Each disc represents a specific period and is identified with an icon.

• 1936-1960 with a wind-up gramophone
• 1960-1970 with what looks like a 12" LP
• 1970-1980 with a compact cassette
• 1980-2000 with a CD
• 2000-2011 with what looks like an iPod

I find it interesting that for the first and last CDs the icon chosen is a playback device, not a storage medium. (Although I think that you could argue that the iPod is both a playback device and a storage medium.)

But this raises the question, is there a better icon for a digital music file than an iPod? I'm sure Apple will not complain, but consumers are increasingly listening to music on smartphones and Apple sells more iPhones than iPods.

I talked about this before with Adobe's use of a a drawing of a 3.5" diskette as the icon for saving a file. If consumers don't understand your icon, they will have no idea how to use your product. Will all of the icons on the Radio Canada box set mean something to the average consumer under 30? Probably not.