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pretty green packaging

Published January 23, 2011 internet , marketing Leave a Comment
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Once in awhile I check out clothes online from this English based company, Pretty Green. It is founded by Liam Gallagher, former front man of Oasis, so I’ve been naturally interested in them from the beginning. Yes I am the ultimate fan boy. Anyways what I want to focus on is their packaging.

Now before I begin my analysis,  I caught something on twitter by Joe Stump :  “bubble wrap is a $3.5bn a year industry. Oh, and it can’t be single stream recycled”.  Dear bubble wrap industry, please get on that. Another way to deal with this is simply to eliminate. Use less packaging from the get go. With a name like Pretty Green, lets hope so.

So this is how it arrived:

Now I ordered once before and I received my purchase in a nifty black box.

So they need some consistency here. I wanna feel like I’m buying quality material here from a cool shop, not Ebay.

They included a cool reusable laundry bag. Nice touch. Much better than usual fluffy material squeezed into your package for no reason.

Wrapped in see through plastic with the back featuring the brand name again.

That’s it. Nothing over the top.  And that’s great! See the main concern for me is the item itself. I don’t care so much about packaging too much, as long as nothing is ruined! But someone else’s worldview about packaging may be influenced by getting that fancy bag one receives from a physical boutique shop.  I feel its great when a company puts some effort in building up that anticipation in the packaging.

The fine line is using as little as possible, yet remain aesthetically pleasing. Right?

super fantastic, very enthusiastic

Published January 20, 2011 marketing , sales Leave a Comment
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This post is more about sales, then say marketing, if you’re into categorizing concepts. But basically all the marketing in the world can’t save a bad product. Quality is always important. Marketing has to be built into it, to give people what they need. Most people when you say marketing automatically think advertising. But really marketing is when it changes the product to steal a line from Seth Godins Purple Cow. When that happens you’re not scared of delivering the best. All this discounting and stretching ourselves to sell isn’t needed then, because you know you’re delivering value to the person.

You have to feel what you’re giving away is worth more than than price.  This makes the sale so much easier, because people want the best for themselves and you’re delivering that best. And that’s where enthusiasm comes in. If you love what you’re selling, then that comes through despite being bad at formal sales techniques. People can pick up on that enthusiasm from your body language.

It’s great when you have this feeling, because many don’t have this trait. Lots of people don’t believe in what they’re selling  and you can feel it from the other side. So selling doesn’t have to be a chore. You enjoy it when your actually giving people what they want.

good surprises

Published December 20, 2010 life , marketing 2 Comments

Surprising your customers is powerful, but not when the surprise is additional costs, such as in time and money! A nice surprise this Christmas holidays is to reward those critical few by giving them a gift they didn’t expect. Like if you really have the bucks,  I definitely feel it would be worth giving an Ipad away to your best sales people that produce majority of your revenues. This is the famous 80/20 principle in action.  This would completely shock them (in a good way!)  I read recently in Chris Guillebeau’s book, Art of Non Conformity, that he once received a similar awesome gift from a printing company he did a lot of business with. Tony Hsieh of Zappos mentions this as “wowing” your people.

You can do this in other ways as well.  For example  whenever I ask for feedback from clients, as a thank you for them replying and taking the time to write back, I usually send them a thank you card. I mean its proper etiquette. But you know how I’d feel if I suddenly got an Ipad? Holy mother of god! My life is awesome! ” You would remember it.  You would appreciate it, and thats what you do for people who kicked ass for you.

why this restaurant works

Published December 12, 2010 marketing Leave a Comment

Because it doesn’t cater to everyone. It  serves all day breakfast and people dig this restaurant because of that reason. Thats what makes Reds Diner here in Calgary unique. If you want something generic go to Olive Garden. But if you want to give a different experience, then guess what?  You do it different!! That and actually serving better food and service is the way to stand out from the competition. I’d rather go to Melissas’ Breakfast place in Banff than most chain restaurants, cos its known to make good breakfast and has a genuine mountain lodge atmosphere.  And oh here’s another one:

A friend recently posted this wicked spot called Insomnia Cookies in NYC on my fb feed. What makes it so special? It delivers fresh baked cookies at your home until 2.30 at night. Now that is just amazing.  I am getting hungry thinking about it.

free music less valuable?

Published November 17, 2010 economics , marketing , Music 3 Comments
yellow submarine

yeah yeah yeah

Okay, as you may know I really dig music. I want all my favourite bands to become huge and conquer the hearts of millions.  And one of the big ways to do that is by using free. A concept that the music industry ignored in the beginning of the past decade

What happened was they continued with its rigid thinking, which led to traditional revenue sources evaporating, disappearing. They weren’t thinking of new sources. There wasn’t a fluidity in there thinking.  Basically they wanted fight with free, instead working with it. The prevailing attitude was that free is less valuable. Not so in the case of music.

There are kids now listening to the Beatles, all the glorious albums downloaded for free, and guess what? They love the Beatles. Some of them are viewing all the demo takes from the Anthology albums and leaving reviews, questioning why didn’t McCartney use take 1 of Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da instead of the studio version on the White Album? (click here to check for yourself).   A Liverpool band from 40 years ago has their complete time and attention. The original human currency. So the fact that these viewers can get something for free  doesn’t mean they’re less “valuable”, far from it.

See I fit into the demographic that many studies have shown to be true: the biggest downloaders are also the most loyal fans. I sometimes get the pricey, limited edition specials with all the extras from my favourite bands. I go to the major music festivals yearly.  I have stopped buying all the t-shirts though, trying to class up the look.

tame impala's debut album- innerspeaker - one of my favourites of 2010

This is why I feel the business model we use to calculate success of a band  is completely outdated and has been for awhile. There is limitless choice of music nowadays online and from all that choice I choose music from all that is blasting at me. I mean the rise of free streaming music by companies like Pandora Radio and news that Apple buying Lala show were living in a attention economy.

At the same time I like to still “own” my music. So I do have problem overcompensating record companies that put encoded music on plastic, mass-production in cd format, but I have no problem paying top dollar for bands that I love. See the conflict?

A better model for today’s band is for their album creations be rewarded 100% by the fans. Meaning the band receives close to 100% of the proceeds from sale of the album or single.  They create their own label, they do there own promotion – by using free, and outsource some responsibility to a manager. I say this because new technology is making this easier. And its great that its happening, because basically bands should be mostly  rewarded, instead of the hierarchy being rewarded.  They are the creators,  that turn nothing into magic. Everything hinges on the artist and they aren’t being compensated enough for it. I mean I find it disgusting that Michael Jackson was only making 12 million in royalties per year from his recordings. The biggest pop star ever only making that from his recordings? That means the rest of the money was making his label super rich, that used those funds to promote shit like Britney, Nicki Minaj, etc.  I mean he was an 1 billion empire. Think how nonsensical that is.

This again refers to my post on making less, selling less. Lots of exposure,  less customers, but monetizing on that less. Imagine if its 90 cents of that 99 cent itune  goes toward the artist?  How about a private gig to hardcore fans that bought limited edition albums? Allowing fans to remix the tunes? Hardcore fans would love that.   All through the power of free music.

thick value

Published October 21, 2010 marketing 1 Comment
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Man,  another reason to love Apple.

I don’t know if it just coincidence, but I recently just bought a new macbook pro and was left  wondering…  what the hell to do with my ol’ imac desktop from 2005?!  Well seconds later Apple emails me this genius. RECYCLE AND GET A GIFT CARD.

This make so much sense for electronics, you use them nicely for 3-4 years and then you want the new thing. That’s how I roll anyways. But then nobody wants it! I could get something out of it through ebay. But this is such a nice alternative.  The recycling makes me feel good, and the gift card brings me back to Apple to buy stuff I’d want.

Is there a way to recycle your old products? Instead of it becoming junk, creating a more sustainable business. Cos that my friends is THICK value.  Apple gives you a solution every step of the process.  That creates loyalty.

I mean they recycle their competitors, the PCs as well, who else does that?!

imagine a free gym

Published October 20, 2010 Book review , economics , marketing , psychology 2 Comments

It’s funny after reading a book on a topic, you then seem to focus on that aspect on  everything else you see in the world. Recently, for me, its been the free concept.

Free by Chris Anderson gives an awesome explanation of economics and marketing in 19th and 20th century and then about how companies can make money from things that are free.

One of the cool ideas he mentions in passing is a free gym chain in Denmark. Imagine if a gym charged you for not showing up? Otherwise was free as long as you went every day. Punishes you for not being healthy, and basically rewards by not paying at all! Sounds like something from realm of behavioural economics (well guess what? it is!). Chris Anderson explains the psychology behind it:

When you go every week, you feel great about yourself and the gym. But eventually you’ll get busy and miss a week, you’ll pay, but you’ll blame yourself alone. Unlike the usual situation where you pay for a gym you’re not going to, your instinct is not to cancel your membership; instead it’s to redouble your commitment.

What else can you do?  You charge  for the strength training classes,  since the kind of people who go everyday love being healthy, so probably be willing to pay to make stronger muscles! Put a juice bar in there to also monetize on the freemium you used to market to these gym loving fanatics.

If they fail to make the 2 times a week schedule (got busy) you ding them 60 dollars for that month. So in reality if say you missed just 2-3 times a year, you would still be paying less than a full year membership! Why? Because  most gyms today actually make money on you NOT using it. The pricing depends on the particular costs of setting up the gym, etc, but this is the gist of this radical idea.

less is more!!

Published October 16, 2010 Book review , economics , marketing Leave a Comment
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be like water

Less is more. Less is More.

Its getting quite scary how this philosophy rings true in so many facets of life. I was flipping through the awesome Paradox of Choice recently, which basically explains we feel worse when given too many choices.

For example, when given free samples of jams in a store, 30% of people exposed to 6 jams bought a jar.  Only 3% of people exposed to 24 jams bought a jar.

Sounds totally count intuitive doesn’t it?  The fact that some choice is good doesn’t mean that more choice is better. More options you entertain makes every new option seem less and less attractive. There is beauty in good enough, instead of only seeking the best!  (people who constantly change tv channels are really annoying).

So why not make it easier for the customer and reduce the choices? This would make a better shopping experience for the customer, because the decisions would require less effort, it would lessen making mistakes, and reduce this massive regret after buying it!

Making less, also allows you to change fast, market to the consumer again, show them you want to change, then change it and present to them again. Faster. Its about creating customers who want to pay for their solutions. And wow them with an amazing product that they want. Of course how to convey why its so special is important, but a part of that relates to exclusivity. That feeling that there isn’t anywhere else you can find that product or service is very powerful.

This is also why small has the advantage in creating amazing niche products. Big Companies are too bureaucratic to act fast and just give the most choice (generic products).  Apple is the prime example of a small company that can make profits that dwarf the 20th century ‘factory business.

how good of a listener are you?

Published October 1, 2010 marketing , psychology 2 Comments
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Do your friends compliment you on how awesome you are at knowing what they want?  Cos you know exactly your friends taste, her preferences, what would make her so happy that she starts saying thank you! thank you! over and over again? When your hip hop club loving friends enter your car, do you start playing Kasabian?? (cos they’re really awesome) Hell no! You play them Jay Z, Kanye, Notorious, cos these artists fits their mood. You have to know your audience. It pays to know your audience.  You adjust to their tunings.

Obviously this isn’t so easy. Most people are self-interested, including me. People think everything is glorious in their world and don’t understand how life is for someone else. And it can’t be what you think they want either, but what they actually desire.

Instead what happens is companies shove all this crap down our throats that no one cares about.  What they don’t get is it just makes them look great to themselves only!  And that annoying theme song actually makes me want to destroy your business with a bazooka. Cos if it doesn’t address our concerns, why should we care about it?  We only care until it caters to us. Start listening.

no competition

Published September 24, 2010 marketing Leave a Comment
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I was at the auto shop the other day and they were arguing with a customer about a quote for a job. The auto shop was refusing to give him a quote,  worried he would then compare it somewhere else and get a better deal. They said to him that that you might find another place cheaper for 10 dollars, but it won’t be the same quality!

Why not let the customer be the judge of this? The auto shop was worried that by their prices being compared that they would definitely lose out. Perhaps because they’re insecure? Yes.  If there is nothing unique, nothing interesting about your business that sets you apart from any other auto parts company,  such as by having godlike service, then why would someone pay you 10, 20 or 100 bucks more? You wouldn’t feel insecure about giving quotes if that was the case!

If your product isn’t  personal or designed by you, then there definitely will be someone who will slash the price.  Eventually shooting their and your business to the ground. A race to the bottom.

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