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On
Making a Big Deal Over Nothing
The
12 July 2005 edition of the Zeitgeist e-Zine
I’ve
talked about chocolate chip cookies a couple times now in the Zeitgeist
e-zine. In fact, I talked about it in my last
post.
Obviously, chocolate chip cookies must be a big motivator for me.
Uhhh. But, they’re not. In all actuality, I’m not a chocolate
person. I’m a salt person. Put brownies and chips out...I go fer
the chips. So, why am I waxing eloquent about Midwest
Airlines’ chocolate chip service?
Because it’s different!
So, when I see Doubletree
Hotel’s Independence Day Chocolate Chip Cookie promotion,
one might think I’d get all excited. Instead, I about wet my pants
laughing.
To set this up...let’s be real. I’ve gotten chocolate chip
(even macadamia chip) cookies at Hilton, Quality, Hampton, Holiday,
Sheraton...and a bunch more that I can’t even remember. So, sorry,
the chocolate chip thing isn’t different anymore...in hotels.
And yet, as we approached the 4th, Doubletree launched a press
blitz saying that, “on a day of tradition,”
they would break from tradition and offer TWO cookies to anyone wearing
red, white and blue or who carries an American flag into any of their
160 American properties on the 4th.
Whoa-ho-ho. Stop the presses. TWO cookies? Omigod! Not just
one? TWO? Oh, Francine...I think it’s the big one. Call the ambulance!
OK...call me a hypocrite. But, I think there is a huge difference between
providing a level of service that is unexpected in one industry and
thinking that you can get away with it in another. Until the other airlines
get a clue, chocolate chip cookies are a novelty on airlines. It’s
not in hotels.
Put another way, Doubletree’s promotion would play out this way
on airlines:
Hey, in honor of America’s Independence, XYZ Airline is gonna
give you TWO little baggies of pretzels, if you fly on the
4th!
Think that’s gonna make me change my mind on my flight when the
real motivation is price? Hardly...
Here’s the point of this rant...if you’re gonna try to differentiate
yourself, differentiate yourself. Cookies mean nothing
in hotels. Everyone does it. And a second cookie if I’m wearing
my country’s colors? Puleeze. This will do nothing but annoy the
customers you already have.
Imagine a tired, regular Doubletree customer checking in at 4:45 in
his regular clothes. He never heard the message that he needs to be
“dressed up” to get double cookies. He and his family get
the obligatory cookie...and a guy in an Uncle Sam shirt gets two.
I know it’s a little thing...but it’s the kind of thing
that really torques habitual customers that don’t get the memo.
The point: Don’t position an offer as something that is a big
deal unless it is. Extra cookies at Doubletree? Is that the best you
could do for the 4th? If you looked at your customer base (because no
one outside your customer base is listening or will be compelled to
buy by the offer of an extra cookie), they don’t care about the
cookies...because they already have them.
Bill
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