Advance Notice of the Next Surprise, Please

Here's an example of management foolishness: a true story contributed to Reader's Digest Canada.

A severe thunderstorm knocked out the power to one of our company’s buildings one night. The following day, after correcting the problems the power outage had created in the computer systems, a computer department manager made a request to our maintenance staff: “In the future, please give us advance notice when such interruptions will occur so we can shut down our system.”
--Bill Hartnett (from All in a Day's Work, 2001)

Pepsi's breathtaking makeover

Gawker.com is reporting that Pepsi has chosen a new logo. Another win for the branding industry, which the cynics at Gawker say "exists for the sole purpose of allowing graphic design majors to soak clueless corporate behemoths out of millions of dollars for what amounts to a few tweaks of a computer design template."

Why don't you decide if Pepsi is getting its money's worth? Above is the old (currrent) logo, below is the alleged new logo.

Adopting a new logo can cost an international brand hundreds of millions, as designers make over the company stationery, merchandise, trucks, billboards, ads, labels and so on. Was it worth it? Or should management have known better?

And is it just me, or does that bulging new swirl seem somehow... familiar?

Singin’ the Jet Blues

Passengers are sitting onboard JetBlue flight 644 in San Francisco waiting to leave the gate when the captain comes on the PA system. "Bad news, folks, there's weather in the New York area today. Practically shut down Kennedy earlier. We're looking at a delay of three or four hours."

The passengers deplane and wait. They're American air travelers. They're used to being treated like cattle. But not by JetBlue, which started life as the low-fare airline with the big heart.

Then came the kicker. Waiting passengers start mumbling, "It's not true. Kennedy was shut down for all of ten minutes, but it is accepting flights now. Just not from JetBlue, because their operations ran late. It's their own fault that we can't fly."

"Delta and Virgin America flights just left for JFK."

"This happens to me every time I fly JetBlue."

Passenger Mark Hurst, who blogs on the customer experience at goodexperience.com, checks New York weather on his iPhone: Sunny and clear.

In the end, the flight was cancelled. 152 passengers were invited to stand in line to rebook their flights with two JetBlue gatereps.

What a way to run an airline. Founder and former CEO David Neeleman (who also helped launch a Canadian upstart called WestJet), originally described JetBlue’s mission as "bringing humanity back to air travel." But Neeleman left earlier this year to start a new airline in Brazil, and JetBlue's new management seems to be following a different flightpath.

The airline that boldly encouraged its passengers to “use the call button” now charges $7 for a pillow and blanket package, and $30 for extended legroom. Oh, the humanity!

Today, America’s low-cost airline hero calls itself a “value” airline, and focuses on a nonsense slogan, “Happy Jetting.” Its branding is muddled, and its service has suffered. And now it’s lying to passengers.

Rule 1: Never try to deceive your customers. It’s a dirty business. And you can't get away with it. (Today’s business travellers, armed with WIFI-equipped laptops and Blackberries and iPhones, have better access to information than the Pentagon. They’ll catch you out, as they did JetBlue. And they won't be happy.)

Mark Hurst, who wrote the Flight 640 story on his blog, says that angry passengers at SFO mobbed the gate desk before the sullen gate reps restored order. There was yelling and cursing and promises never to fly JetBlue again. Such vows are rarely kept, because consumers don't have much choice; but you can bet these angry flyers will avoid travelling JetBlue whenever they can.

They can understand delays and problems. They will cut some slack for a discount airline that saves them money. But they won't forget being lied to.

As recently as June 17, 2008, JetBlue was ranked 'Highest in Customer Satisfaction Among Low Cost Carriers in North America' by J.D. Power and Associates. But Hurst, who finally reached New York two days late, says he believes, “JetBlue is sick.”

As he wrote, “Let this be a reminder to anyone at a customer-focused company: customer experience isn't a one-time thing. It requires constant, constant, constant focus on the basics. A slick ad campaign counts for next to nothing, unless it describes the benefits of the customer experience...

“Meeting the basic, key unmet needs of the customers in your niche is everything. Do it today, do it tomorrow, do it every single day of your operations, and then (and only then) you'll have a good chance to succeed as a customer-focused firm.”

The Keystone Cops

Five dangerous prisoners escaped this week from the Regina Correctional Centre in Saskatchewan. Perhaps it was their way of protesting stupid management.

The Regina Leader-Post reports today that management had just lifted extra security restrictions that had been in place on the “secure remand unit” due to earlier security concerns.
And that's in spite of the fact that management had recently been warned of an imminent escape attempt.

Corrections staff are now saying they weren’t even informed about the possible jailbreak. According to the newspaper’s source, such information is normally passed on to staff, even when there aren't any more details. "It's time to err on the side of safety and security," he said.

Police continue to search for the five inmates, some of whom face a range of serious charges, including murder.

Even the messaging of the jailbreak has been a mess. The PR experts at Toronto-based Veritas Communications note that the first official announcement of the escape came a full 15 hours after it happened: “More than enough time for information to leak and rumours to begin.” Public Safety Minister Darryl Hickie didn’t even learn of the escape until he turned on his PDA the next morning.

Authorities then hastily convened a press conference which caused more problems. The RCC and the Mounties didn’t get their stories straight, so they offered differing takes on the situation. According to Veritas, “The lack of proper preparation led to poor communications and diminished the public’s confidence that the situation was being handled effectively.”

Dangerous crooks on the loose and the Keystone Cops in control.

New Management Welcome.

A Burst of Bland

Have you heard the buzz about Walmart’s new logo?

Out with the mean old military-looking logotype.
In with a friendly, lower case, unhyphenated look – finishing with a flowery starburst! That should get people excited about shopping at Walmart again.

While I find the new look underwhelming, the best part of the story is the way it slipped out. The Memphis, Tennessee municipal planning department got a look at plans for a new Walmart and noticed the new design – and soon it was in the hands of the Wall Street Journal.

Redesigns such as this are usually handled intelligently. Press releases, press kits, and lots of flossy blather about how the new logo reflects the new spirit of the brand, etc. It’s supposed to be a managed launch.

Walmart rushed out a short, bland press release that was even more underwhelming than the logo itself. It noted that “for the past two years, a customer-focused transformation has been taking place in Walmart's U.S. business.”


The new logo reflects Walmart’s “renewed sense of purpose to help people save money so they can live better.”

Surely the world’s largest retailer could have had a more compelling explanation ready than that?
New management welcome.

Why so stupid?

‘The new Batman movie is out, and like the last one (Batman Returns), this is not a movie for the young kids who enjoy the animated Batman on TV. "The Dark Knight" is gloomy, violent and complex, and features an acclaimed performance by the late Heath Ledger as the vicious psychotic killer, The Joker.

Ledger’s Joker “is the sort of character that could give younger kids nightmares,” writes the Washington Post. “This is not a movie for teens younger than high-school age, let alone grade-schoolers.”

So kudos to Nestle and General Mills, for giving away free Joker toys in cereal boxes: General Mills (Lucky Charms, etc.) in the U.S., Nestle in Asia. Psychopathic murderers go so well with cereal and milk and little leprechauns.

Sure, Batman is a comic book character, and comics have always been associated with kids. But it’s been clear for two years that Ledger’s Joker was going to be edgy and frightening and adult. All you had to do was look at Ledger's makeup to realize this was not Jack Nicholson from the 1989 movie – and certainly not Cesar Romero’s fun-loving Joker from the old 1960s TV show.

Parents groups are already up in arms. Yet this debacle could have been avoided if anyone in a position of responsibility, at the companies or their ad agencies, had actually thought through what they were doing.

How could they miss this?

Unless General Mills intends to distribute action figures of Hannibal Lecter next?

Routing Rogers

It’s iPhone day in Canada. And what should have been a coup for Rogers has turned into a disorderly rout.

We don't want to focus too much on Rogers in this blog [(a) it’s such an easy target for customer-service complaints, and b) the other telecoms aren't much better]. But the cable/wireless giant, flying so high over its iPhone monopoly, fell to earth with a thud when the user base revolted against its high prices – and forced Rogers last week to change its tune.

Why didn't Rogers see this coming? The target market for the iPhone is affluent, sophisticated, always-on information junkies: if there’s one thing they know how to do, it’s communicate. More than 50,000 customers and prospects signed an online petition protesting the announced package prices. Perhaps Rogers' vast history of monopoly protection has blinded it to the fact that consumers have choices now.

As the PR experts at Toronto’s Veritas Communications put it this week, Rogers regained some credibility with its new (albeit time-limited) lower price package. But it was too late to undo all the damage already caused:

“Rogers failed to see the backlash coming despite the incredible amount of online chatter on blogs, social marketing sites, you name it – in other words, all over the geekosphere where the iPhone’s bulls-eye target market lives. Responding prior to launch is good, but not letting the wave of discontent get as huge as it did... would have been much, much better. Witness Thursday’s Globe & Mail, which ran a huge piece on the front of the ROB equating Rogers’ iPhone stumble to New Coke, Super-size McDonald’s meals and other legendary PR gaffes.”

Dare we hope Rogers management have learned from this debacle?