Stopwatch Marketing Blog

On New York’s east side, there’s a store with exceptional customer awareness.  It’s not on Madison Avenue. It’s not on 5th Avenue. It starts with a “B” but it’s not Bloomingdale’s, Bendel’s, or Barneys.  It’s Bed Bath and Beyond.  And it’s impressive.

 What do they do right?  Bed Bath and Beyond (or as I call it, “BB&B”) understands how to balance customers’ impatient need to quickly check in and out while rewarding us with a pleasant shopping experience. 

Remember the days when retailers would promise to open up a register when there were more than 3 people waiting in line?  BB&B doesn’t promise this but they definitely have it in their DNA.  You’ll rarely wait on a line more than 1-2 people deep.  And if you are waiting, a friendly store employee will look out for you and politely inform you of any just-freed-up registers. 

Remember the days when Wal-mart wasn’t the only retailer to greet you upon entering their store?  Unlike many high-end or big box retailers, BB&B has a doorman who holds the door for you, hails a taxi, and helps you load your purchases into your car.  Unlike most of these stores, BB&B provides plastic bags for your wet umbrellas on rainy days so you don’t further soak your clothing, belongings, purchases (and the store itself of course!). 

Remember when employees actually helped you in-store?  BB&B’s store personnel remind me of Whole Foods’ employees as they too walk around and proactively ask if you need help… and practically lead you by the hand to your desired product.

Remember when a store was designed to accommodate how you shop vs. how they can easily replenish their inventory?  The merchandise is always well-stocked (except for seasonal blow-outs on Menorahs and Christmas trees) and well-located.  Most importantly, travel-sized items and an impressive display of HBA products are conveniently on the 1st floor for those who need to literally fly in and out quickly.   And an increasingly chic line-up of designer merchandise is showing up in their home goods departments.

Friendly?  Fast?  Understanding this intersection of customers’ needs seems to be the essence of BB&B’s success on the east side.    This past November, BB&B opened up a 4th location in New York City - a milestone that is probably”beyond” most retailers’ dreams.

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In John Moore’s Brand Autopsy blog, he presents an annual list of “Best Business books of the Year.” What great fortune: He couldn’t find a single marketing book to suggest as the winner in the “Best Marketing Advice” category for 2007. Here’s hoping that he’ll find ours worthy of at least an honorable mention next year.

Nevertheless, I did recommend David Meerman Scott’s The New Rules of Marketing and PR. For 2007, of course.

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On the Marketing Profs blog, Paul Williams expresses his frustration at the apparent dishonesty (”scam” was his word) of hotels that as us to reuse sheets and towels to “help the environment.” Paul rightly points out that the hotel is saving thousands of dollars in electricity, water, and detergent and – this is the critical point – any idiot can figure that out…it’s a money-saving effort on the part of a profit-seeking enterprise, otherwise known as a hotel corporation.

My own response was that I remembered a series of Exxon ads in the Seventies wherein the company (generally the most reviled, after tobacco companies) demonstrated that their offshore platforms provided new and exciting places for fish to feed and breed. Exxon, however, had the common decency to proclaim that they also made money on the platforms.

The point here is that consumers and, most certainly, investors, can and do understand the difference between hypocrisy (the hotel company) and forthrightness (Exxon). Even Wal-Mart forthrightly states that they save money as well as trees when they cut out unnecessary packaging on, say, deodorant or toothpaste containers.

Once more, with feeling: Consumers are not stupid.

By the way, in an earlier post, we paid tribute to the efforts of one of our clients, Targus, for their introduction of a line of environmentally-friendly laptop bags and cases. (Currently available only in Canada, we believe). Targus has continued to receive good press on green sites and blogs. Targus is also, of course, honestly charging a price for their product – openly profiting, rather than attempting to hide that (perfectly honorable) motive behind a request that we all use dirty towels.

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Whether the much-anticipated U.S. economic slowdown (dare we say, “RECESSION?”) will be a short-term or a long-term phenomenon is unclear. For senior brand and marketing executives, though, the slowing economy only heightens the need for smarter plans and for tighter execution. As Henry Ford said around the time of the last REALLY BIG ’slow down’:

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.”

This is critical: The best time, as we’ll show below, to bury your competition is when THEY are cutting back. When the competition is afraid of increasing advertising budgets or adding sales staff…that is the moment when you, armed with complete confidence in YOUR strategy, move in for the kill. Confidently. Decisively. Remorselessly.

Getting prepared to address the impending slowdown is neither easy nor painless. In the first place, it has simply been a long time since U. S. marketers had to face such a situation. Indeed, in doing research for a much longer magazine article on this topic, we found precisely one book that addresses the issue specifically – it is out of print, published in 1980. However, thinking back to – and researching – the era of double-digit unemployment, long gas lines, etc., (otherwise known as “the Seventies”) reveals a long list of marketing exemplars – real examples of companies building their businesses and brands. These would include Federal Express, Apple Computer, American Express Gold Cards, Dannon Yogurt, the whole category of Japanese cars, Stouffer frozen / convenience foods, generic products, Levi’s, Wal-Mart, Saturday Night Live, Owens Corning Pink Panther insulation, and Lite Beer. The entire beer category, in fact, underwent huge changes during the ’70’s: Budweiser finally won the decisive victory over Schlitz by focusing on the needs and purchase drivers of heavy beer drinkers, Lite invented and exploited a huge new segment, and super-premium & imported beers such as Heineken and Lowenbrau successfully built rapid, profitable growth in a previously under-leveraged super-premium market.

A quick glance at the list of “Slowdown Exemplars” from the ’70’s, above, reveals some common themes, such as “Offer new, compelling value propositions, exploit untapped segments / needs, and continue to invest heavily in brand-building among core constituencies.” This would be the case with Wal-Mart, Stouffer, Japanese cars, Federal Express, and Saturday Night Live, among others. It should be noted, as well, that these “Slowdown Exemplars” are not entirely composed of reduced price / value priced offerings. Federal Express, Apple, Levi’s, and Heineken were certainly not “value priced” versus competition. This was also the period when prestige brands such as designer jeans and the American Express Gold Card took off.

Finally, there are numerous examples of firms that “blew it” the last time around: Xerox had a well-documented inability to get its innovations out of PARC and into the marketplace, Farah pants (then the largest manufacturer in the world) essentially went under by pursuing too much value-pricing and mass distribution while Levi’s avoided mass merchant distribution, Atari Videogames so rapidly lowered prices and offered so many rebates that the product ended up with, literally, no value. As noted, Schlitz Beer, after decades of head to head competition with Budweiser for the number one slot, went into free fall when their loyal consumers found out that the formula had been changed. To a heavy beer drinker in 1978, “changed” meant “cheapened.”
 

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According to an interview with Mike Boylson, CMO of J.C. Penney in today’s WSJ, J.C. Penney sees the value of marketing in both the offline and online worlds.  But do they also understand how customers value their limited shopping time in both worlds? 

On the one hand, the retailer gets it.  J.C. Penney understands that not every one of their customers wants to spend hours trawling thru the store’s various departments, picking out a gift, and waiting in line to purchase.  Their special gift sitelet (www.jpcgifts.com) is perfectly targeted to these Impatient shoppers with recommended gifts (based on recipient, price point, and category) cleanly conveyed.  To boot, they also have an eye-catching countdown as to how many shipping days (vs. shopping days) are left until Christmas. 

On the other hand, they don’t get it.  Their heartfelt TV ads convey the intersection of time and product - the perfect gift at the perfect moment.  What about the joy the gift giver can experience from saving time shopping whether in line or online?  Would it be over-the-top to include an ad in their Christmas rotation (perhaps to be shown during sports programs which probably attract a good number of Impatient shoppers) which communicates that perfect moments can result during the gift-giving as well as the gift-shopping?  The perfect gift might just be the resulting gift of time spent with loved ones.

Here’s a link to the WSJ interview:  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119682377174414049.html?mod=todays_us_marketplace

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