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Archive for May, 2009

Free KFC Chicken: Desperate Giveaway or Smart Marketing

kfc-giveawayKFC got a boost on Oprah yesterday when she told people about the Free chicken offer from KFC. I went to the site to try it out but, like just about everyone else on Twitter, after installing the coupon printing program, couldn’t get it to print.

You can try to  dowload the coupon at http://www.unthinkfc.com/ only until midnight tonight EST.

Frustration is showing up, just like last month’s Popeye’s chicken deal which was a special price, not “free.” kfc-twitter

Have these company’s CMOs run out of new ideas?  And what is it with chicken driving people crazy for a product readily available? We’re not talking Pinkberry folks.

As a former CMO, you have a choice of 3 things to focus on.  You  want to either drive frequency, trial of product or number of items in an order.

How do giveaways that snarl traffic, add long lines to restaurants and potential violence – yes I said that, we’ll see it in the news sometime between now and the promotion’s end May 19, mark my words- add to the lustre of the brand?

But I can hear frustrated owners, we have to do SOMETHING to get them in.  Maybe it will work, I hope so but do you want your brand out there with problems or success? There has to be a better way.

Card Check Recruitment For Unions Is Wrong For Retail

unionlaborOK, I have to tell you at the outset I come from the working class of America. My mom was a card-carrying teachers’ union member for nearly fifty years; still is. My brother has been a card-carrying union member for probably thirty years. At the risk of angering them, I have to tell you I oppose the new legislation being considered in congress to allow unions to do away with secret ballots and simply “sign up.”

The Employee Free Choice Act (HR 1409, S560) is legislation currently pending in Congress that would require the certification of a union if at least 50% of the persons in the bargaining unit sign authorization cards supporting a union.

I’ve heard many retailers and retail workers don’t think this legislation affects them because their stores aren’t unionized. But this card check is a shortcut to forming unions where they haven’t existed before, and this bill is a top priority for organized labor as they try to boost sagging membership.

As I understand it, a person could come into a retail business, promise free education benefits, health care and other things from the union if they just “sign up.”  What employee wouldn’t sign up? If a majority did, the retailer large or small would be forced to demands by the union.

Yeah, we saw how well that worked in the long run for GM and Chrysler, now they want to do to Main Street what they did to Detroit.retail-union-button

Under current law, an employer can request a secret ballot election even if a majority signs authorization cards, commonly referred to as “card check.”   Other changes would be to require civil fines of up to $20,000 per violation against employers who knowingly discriminate against workers, and require the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) to seek a Federal court injunction against such employers.  Current law has no civil fines, and requires NLRB injunctions only against unions. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has come out strongly against this legislation. My understanding is that the Obama administration supports this which is a mistake for retailers.  For the first time in my life, I agree with FOX.

This is just bad legislation and needs to be voted down.  Read the facts and tell your congressperson before it’s too late.  Sorry mom.

Sloppy Seconds Won't Bring Customers Back

Why it so hard to receive consistently exceptional service? Because many retailers and restaurant owners use the “buddy system” for training.

You know the drill, “I’m going to assign you a buddy who will show you all you need to know.”  The problem is you end up with only what the “buddy” thinks is important.  dairyqueen-004

Case in point, I visited a DQ for one of my favorite decadent treats, the peanut buster parfait. It should look like this one.

But when it was served to me at the location in Albany, it was a train wreck with ice cream and chocolate not dripping but spilled over the edges and not cleaned up; see at right. dq-sloppy

The server casually wiped off the side with a used rag missing most of the mess and instead wiping it around the sides of the plastic cup. It looked like sloppy seconds or an example of what NOT to do.  The server set it down on the counter and walked away with ice cream on his hand from the pass-off.

Would you pay nearly $4 to have something as unappetizing as this?I know I won’t go back.

Contrast that experience to the one I had yesterday at California Tortilla‎ at Dulles airport.  The server Editha got my drink and then carefully, with a clean paper napkin, wiped off the edge where a bit of soda had spilled.  tortilla-drink

She delivered it with a smile as if that was standard procedure.  Which I bet for this franchisee it is.

An easy way to train this type of care? Tell the employee, “Before you pass any of our drinks or desserts off, double-check and ask yourself, ‘Would I serve this to my mom?’ If the answer is ‘No,’ fix it.

Training is the biggest opportunity we have to ensure an exceptional experience for our customers.  It requires thought, systems that are easy, trainers who enjoy training and standards of presentation.

No “buddy” will ever do the job of a comprehensive training program.  For more tips on how to train your employees, consider my book, You Can Compete: Double Sales Without Discounting.

The Swine Flu Sneeze Heard 'Round The World

20080825-baconcandyI opened last week’s New York magazine to an ad for chocolate dipped bacon.  That’s when I first started noticing pork.

Next, I kept seeing tweets containing the words “swine flu” on Twitter, then the major news sites, and finally TV. This deadly killer was engulfing Mexico – spreading like wildfire – the mother of all killers – like the great flu pandemic.  A London paper lead with a headline that it could kill up to 120m people. The hysteria seemed to grow by the minute.

Just before I got on a plane last Wednesday, I witnessed four young women exiting the previous flight from Washington wearing  face masks.  We were yet again being yanked by the media.

Hysteria. Panic. Fear.

I understand those topics cause people to tune in, click or chat. But I’m mad. Mad that our mindsets are being so susceptible to this crap. Retailers putting up sanitizing solution at all counters, people hawking surgical masks, entire school districts closing.

Ever since 9/11, the news media has engorged on “what if” and “worse since” descriptions. First it was terrorists, then Wall St, credit markets, home sales, jobs, now public health.

What bothers me so much about this may be personal. I grew up the son of a white civil rights leader; a lone voice for justice.  My dad marched with King, organized marches and helped draw up integration laws.

It felt during the 60′s that my white dad cared more for blacks than he did for his own sons. “The cause” was a fourth brother in the room. And the favorite at that.

The future was dark for him but for very real reasons.  He had aroused the ire of the John Birch society and others trying to block equality for all.

One day, I picked up the mail to find a postcard written in red ink to “take your nigger-lover family back south or die.”

I’m working on a biography of those days called, “I Have A Scream” sharing my journey to understanding, but the overriding thing I learned from my dad was fear. Someone truly could kill us; it wasn’t a “what if.” We had the threats on the phone, in person, in the mail.

As a result, I grew up fearing the world. I walked with my head down towards the sidewalk. I was quiet. Strangers wanted to harm us. Possibilities and hope were something foreign to me.

And while an event happened in my life where I realized the future was indeed bright, it took many years to try and undo the damage of all that fear.  I cover the event in the book but that’s not the point of this post.

Every time I see the “well-meaning” coverage saying, “there’s something even worse, still to come,” it brings me back to my childhood. And I get mad.

How many kids, teenagers and adults are feeding on this news and fearing the future like I did?  Not from a real threat or evidence it is personally affecting them, but it is from people hypothesizing death that is making them afraid.  Afraid of the future.  Afraid of possibilities. Afraid of life.

It doesn’t have to be that way. Sure your grandmother can have alzheimer’s, your sister can be a drug addict, your daughter can be in a messy divorce. But you are counting on you to keep it together. You can’t afford the luxury of staying trapped like some sheep in a pen.

Recently we discovered that swine flu is really just the flu.  Oh and Mexico isn’t as bad as they hyped this past week. Read the Saturday NYT article by Liz Robbins entitled, Outbreak in Mexico May Be Smaller Than Feared.

We cannot give power over our future to fear.  Otherwise, we end up looking to our feet instead of the stars.

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