Posts Tagged ‘PR’

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Customers aren’t just for Christmas!

December 22, 2014

Marc Jacobs

It was about this time last year when I embraced the “hint” that was given to me by Dee and I found myself in the handbag section of Brown Thomas looking for a leather hand bag, which was stylish but small and tidy.

In the end I settled for a classy navy blue Marc Jacobs bag … that’s a good brand, isn’t it? The price suggested it was a good brand and surely she would be happy with it. Down through the years I’ve bought a few handbags in BT for Dee ..strangely (I know what you are thinking..) I actually like shopping for handbags! I love the leathers and the colours and the different designs and for the most part you can’t go wrong with a bag as a present…I think?

As usual I scored and on Christmas morning Dee was happy with her gift.

Marc Jacobs was born in New York City on April 9, 1963. After graduating from the High School of Art and Design in 1981 he entered Parson’s School of Design. As a design student at Parson’s, Jacobs was the recipient of some of the schools highest honours including Design Student of the Year. In 1984 he met Robert Duffy who is still his business partner today. These two have been really successful at building this huge brand, which as all of us knows doesn’t happen by accident

At the end of this summer (just 7 months on) the leather edges of the bag started to turn white – the piping on the seams of the bag were not leather but some type of narrow plastic and the covering was wearing away – this didn’t seem very Marc Jacobs so we returned it to the store assured that there would be no issue with a repair or a replacement.

After two months the bag was returned repaired. Dee was upset as it smelt musty so it must have been sitting in a damp repair shop for quite a while and the inner lining that had to be opened up to complete the repair was still torn.

She put up with this, de-fumigated the bag with perfume but within a few weeks you could see that the repair was not going to work as the seams were once again stripping away – back to Brown Thomas!

Brown Thomas

Our interaction with the manager of the store this week was interesting. She studied the handbag carefully. “Do you have a receipt?” It was clear from the repair paperwork that BT had already handled the previous repair. “The manufacturer has a 6 month repair policy, so we can’t really guarantee anything” hmmm.. “we never know how people will wear their handbags” ..in other words if you are the type of person who mistreats a bag then we can’t be responsible. Taking one look at Dee you would know this is a bag that would be looked after carefully.

We politely reminded her that we trust Brown Thomas and the expensive brands they are selling and that there is no way we should accept this level of wear and tear after just a few months. Surely a brand such as Marc Jacobs care about their quality? The manager elaborated “They don’t care! You can give out all you want, kick up a fuss but it won’t make any difference. They are so big and so popular they just don’t care”

That is just incredible – we did suggest that maybe Brown Thomas should stop stocking such a brand if that is what their attitude is towards the quality of their products and the customers who put faith in them. Glancing around the store you could see how much space was dedicated to this very popular brand – The Marc Jacobs brand is big business.

We did leave the handbag with the manager and she assured us that she would do everything in her power to get this brand to behave themselves and deal with the issue. I’m pessimistic and my prediction is that this will end up with Dee being handed back a worn out bag, which will never see the light of day.

When you are that popular and selling that much product is it easy to forget about the customer?

When a brand is so powerful do you do everything you can to stock them in your store even if they don’t really care about customers?

When Marc Jacobs and Robert Duffy met 30 years ago and started on their journey I am sure they were passionate about style, quality and their customers? Have they lost control of their brand?

When Hugh Brown and James Thomas started their store in 1848 I am sure the customer come before any of the brands they were stocking?

Maybe something might have changed since then ..

Customer’s aren’t just for Christmas and brands don’t necessarily last forever!

Greg Canty 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion who offer Marketing, PR and Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

 

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Posted in Brand Loyalty, Christmas, Customer Care, Handling Complaints, Marketing | 1 Comment »

Branding or just Storytelling?

December 16, 2014

Storytellers

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon perfectly summarised branding when he declared “your brand is what people say about you when you leave the room”

So..branding isn’t about logos or tag lines? …it is actually what people say about you.

In that case our job as marketeers is to simply help our clients tell the story of their business, organisation, products and services effectively so that when people talk about these things they say exactly what we want them to say.

In effect we need to be great storytellers, creating memorable content that connects with our target audience in a way that they will remember positively.

Telling memorable stories takes great copy, imagery, logos, tag lines, ideas, PR campaigns, events, sponsorships, initiatives and social media activity.

When we talk to clients about the Fuzion process we try to forget about the industry jargon and instead we talk about stories:

Capture your story

It is vital that your story, the essence of the organisation is captured properly – this is an important and necessary first step. It is damaging to promote your business if this part is not right.

Whenever and wherever anyone comes across your products, services, website, promotional material, vehicles, premises and even the individuals in your team your story must be told in a way that properly reflects what you want.

Finding your story

If I look for the products or services that you offer with the help of Mr Google it is vital that you are found easily and prominently. This is the low hanging fruit!

When we build websites for our clients we make sure the platforms they are built on facilitate good search engine performance and that we include the right ‘copy’ (the keywords customers use when they search for your products or services) so they are found prominently by potential customers.

Telling your story

Every business must promote itself so that people know it exists. This is your advertising, PR campaigns, direct marketing, email marketing, events and sponsorships all designed to tell your target audience that you exist and what you do.

This must be done carefully and consistently so that the right story is always told.

Conversations about your story

We often hear that 80% of business comes from referrals or ‘word of mouth‘.

Surprisingly only a portion of these referrals will be from actual customers. Often these referrals will simply come from people who have ‘heard about you‘ somewhere along the way.

Social media when correctly used is a fantastic way to generate these referrals and get the right word of mouth going through online ‘conversations‘ and interactions.

It is also a great way to communicate the personality and beliefs of the organisation in a way that is often impossible through other communications.

Protecting your story

The last part of the process is only ever called into action when something goes wrong. We help organisations when incidents occur that have the potential of ruining the good ‘story‘ of an organisation.

The larger well prepared organisations will have predicted possible negative scenarios and will have a ‘crisis drill‘ in place to deal with these should they occur. Often you just cannot predict every possible scenario and when the wheels do fall off unexpectedly we will get the call to help when it is really needed.

What’s your story?

Every individual, business and organisation has a story to tell and this ‘story’ process works best when it is carefully executed as part of an integrated plan.

Marketing?…nah, just like the guys around the camp fire we are just storytellers!

Greg Canty 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion who offer Marketing, PR and Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork, Ireland

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Posted in Branding, Marketing | 5 Comments »

Hiding your story

November 20, 2014

Sharing your story

We were having this big battle with a client about our approach to generating press coverage for her new business.

She has a fabulous new product, with some really unique features, which she has developed herself.

While the product is really good it will compete in a world of so many other products waiting for people to notice it, trust it, buy it, use it and then having the confidence to recommend it to others.

Something that makes this product really credible and special is our clients’ personal story. Her profession for nearly 20 years and the experiences she had in that time all led her to noticing a huge gap in the market and developing a product that would fill this gap perfectly.

When prospective customers consider the product on the shelf it will be considered on its merits as they see it. If they like what they see and are convinced by the features and benefits as conveyed on the packaging they might buy it.

We believe that when prospective customers hear her story (if we ever get the chance to tell it!) and understand the experience and expertise that went behind developing the product we feel they will trust it more making that purchase decision easier.

Our dilemma with our client is that she is insisting that we don’t talk about her. She feels no one will be interested and the product is good enough to stand on it’s own merits. This personal reluctance issue is one we come up against a lot and to maximise your PR you just have to get over it.

I gave her my ‘support beam‘ speech and went to great lengths to stress that we wanted the campaign to be a maximum success and the best way of achieving this was to put our best foot forward, which did most definitely include her personal story.

It’s a battle we haven’t quite given up on yet..

Will telling your story make a difference to your business?

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Advertising, Branding, Marketing, Personal Marketing | 2 Comments »

Fire the secretary

November 9, 2014

The FiringI used hate dealing with my boss. From the very first minute I worked there we never gelled and I couldn’t stand it.

Every time I drove into the car park and I saw his car there I would get a pain in my stomach.

I was the financial controller of this sizeable operation and while it was a great role for my career CV it was tough going at times.

The culture was very strange as the MD used have moles everywhere running to him with selective tales about what was going on. I’m not sure if he realised it at the time but many of the cute ones used this opportunity to manipulate things for their benefit – it created a really awful atmosphere for everyone.

His secretary was the worst of all as she ran to him with everything, even things that she overheard incorrectly. Before you knew it people were being hauled into his office to answer for things that had never happened. As a result this young girl who was totally manipulated was despised in the place.

I was summoned to his office ..what’s up now??

“I’m no longer happy with my secretary and I want you to get rid of her. My wife will come in and replace her for a while” I was told.

I questioned what she had done that was so wrong as I felt this was a basic piece of information that was needed before we could do anything.

“Just get rid of her” I was told.

The culture at the time was very ‘macho’ – if you were a real manager and had “balls” you should be able to do things like that in your stride.

I was in the horrors. How could I do such a thing without any justification? I just couldn’t.

I never fired her and thankfully some other opportunity popped up in the organisation that she was interested in soon after that – phew!

Thankfully those ‘macho’ management bullying days are a thing of the past ….aren’t they?

Greg Canty 

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion who offer Marketing, PR and Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork

 

 

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Posted in Bullying, Management, Personal development | 6 Comments »

Are you ready for the Upswing?

October 29, 2014

Bursting through the clouds

Our landlord is selling our building on Fitzwilliam Street and all tenants are required to vacate the building before the end of November. I can’t believe this is happening and that we are back in the horrible loop of looking for another office, just months after moving in.

As soon as this news was delivered I immediately took off on foot around the D2 area to take down the phone numbers of the many offices that had ‘To Let’ signs outside them.

My first surprise was that many of these signs now had “Let by” on them and not ‘To Let’. I quickly got on the phone and started chasing the estate agents for the details of the remaining ones that I thought might be suitable.

“I’m sorry, that is actually let now” …”Apologies, that premises is no longer available” … “The premises you are enquiring about is only available for six months as the building is being sold”

There was a trend to my many phone calls and I was starting to panic a little about the future home of Greg and his band of merry men and women!

I pressed one of the friendlier estate agents as to what was going on. “The whole thing is after taking off” he explained. “If you find anything that is half way right in this area just grab it, no messing” he advised.

Thankfully after too many phone calls we have found a gorgeous office space overlooking the canal at 13 Warrington Place but even with this we had to make up our minds immediately as we were competing with someone else who wanted the space.

Judging from this experience, the talk by Aidan Gavin of Sherry Fitzgerald at Dublin Chamber recently, the Cork Chamber event with the Business Post and the recent positive economic indicators it looks like the lights are well and truly back on and we are in a definite ‘upswing’.

The big question is are you ready?

More business will be done, people will want to move quicker than before, decisions will be made faster and you must make sure you are in the mix to grab the opportunities.

I’ve put together some simple Marketing & PR tips to help you on the way, so you and your business can make the most of these opportunities.

Positive Intent – before I go into all of the practical stuff it is vital that you have positive intent on your side. Let your team know what is coming down the track and what you expect of them – they may need to work harder and faster to cope with the extra opportunities that will arrive, This will be good for everyone as long as the business can cope with the extra workload.

Those tips:

  1. Looking the part– Before you start any campaign have a good look in the mirror and decide are you ready. Do your branding, signage, website and other tangible visible elements properly reflect the essence and quality of your business, products and services? Right now take a glance at your business card! It may be time to refresh your branding and put your best foot forward.
  2. Get in the game on-line by being found– Will prospective customers who are already looking for your products or services find their way to your website? Make sure your website is found easily by anyone who may be searching for the services you offer. You may need to optimise your website or start a Google Adwords campaign if this is not the case.
  3. On-line Communication– If you decide to communicate to all your customers, previous prospects and other contacts right now could you do it? Consider adding an email newsletter service to your communications routine and let your database know of changes to the business, new products, new services, awards and other news on a regular basis. This is easily set up and new contacts can be added to your database directly from your website.
  4. Social Media– Even at this advanced stage most businesses have not got to grips with social media. If your business is not using these platforms to drive awareness and promote what you are doing on a daily basis then it is time to get in gear.
  5. Good stories– One of our mottos at Fuzion with our clients is to ‘Never waste a Good Story’. If there is good news happening in your business, if there are interesting developments, if there are new products or changes that should be publicised then drive awareness with a strong PR Plan.
  6. Advertising & Promotions– If you have pulled back on activity in this area then maybe it’s time to reconsider. There is terrific value to be had if you do this in a planned way, securing great prices and also negotiating editorial coverage. There is a strong chance that your competitors have cut back on their activity – is it time to steal a march on them?
  7. Plan– Carefully map out all of your Marketing & PR activity including your budgets for the year and share this with your team. Try to ensure that there is a constant stream of activity throughout the year so that your business is always visible with your target audience.
  8. Measure– Track the success of your activities, giving each of them a proper chance to seed so that you can properly assess their effectiveness. Flex your plan where necessary.
  9. Be Ready – My last tip is to be ready for when those enquiries come in and grab those opportunities as they come along – they will!

If you are in Dublin pop in to say “Hi” to us at our new offices at 13 Warrington Place, Dublin 2, which runs alongside the canal just off Baggot Street.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion who offer Marketing, PR and Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork

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Posted in Business Planning, Irish Economy, Management, Marketing | Leave a Comment »

Time to stop roaming!

September 3, 2014

Train from New 'York to New Jersey

I’m on the train heading from from New York, Penn Station to Metro Park in New Jersey.

I have no online access so what do we do ?? No Twitter, no Facebook, no checking email… I’m twitching , I’ve read the New York guide book and the magazines.

Maybe I’ll relax, look out the window, explore the interesting sights on the route that is new to me … Maybe I’ll chat with Dee or just relax and sit in peace?

The teenage girl we are squeezed next to alongside our bags and baggage is busy on her Mac doing something while munching on a cream cheese and tomato roll. I wonder if she is working or just doodling.

Instead of enjoying the view I decide to write this blog remotely on my iPhone complete with one finger typing.

My brother who lives out here is picking us up at the station and we’ll spend some time with him and his gang, which is really cool.

If I could get online I could tweet something, check if anyone has tweeted me or mentioned me in a post or responded to one of my tweets, I could check my email quickly and delete any of the non-important ones to save me having to do it when we get home. I could even respond to some of the emails.

That roll is lasting her forever … I’m starving !!

Maybe I should just look out the window and enjoy the new sights..

Smartphone, I guess so … Well mostly !

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion who offer Marketing, PR and Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork

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Posted in Family, Holidays, Travel | 3 Comments »

One complaint …two very different replies

June 28, 2014

Handling complaints

Initially I was reluctant to complain but I felt it was necessary. From what I was told I believed we were really hard done by, we received some really bad treatment and if I just let it go the same would happen again and again.

I was raging and I felt I had to do something to address this situation.

I felt it was really important to address what I felt were serious issues so I wrote a strong complaint email outlining all of my concerns to the person involved.

Reply number 1

The person I wrote to handled the situation perfectly (even if he felt like shooting me !)

He called me, assured me that my complaints were not valid but wanted to hear what I had to say because what I had complained about was very serious and he wanted to get to the bottom of it.  We had a rational conversation, he listened to my grievances and I listened to his replies. By the end of the conversation we hadn’t solved everything, all of the issues hadn’t disappeared but he understood why I felt annoyed and aggrieved and I appreciated that I was listened to.

I was raging when I complained but now I had calmed down because I was listened to.

Reply number 2

Because it was a serious issue my man sent a copy of my complaint email to his boss.

While he was busy trying to contact me to try to sort out this issue his boss was busy with a different approach.

Instead of taking my complaint seriously and wanting to listen his boss sent an angry email responding to me.

Effectively it read “How dare you make any such accusations about us and how we do our business. You are unprofessional to have done such a thing and never dare to complain again”

Hmmm..how did I feel now?

I was raging when I complained but now I was even worse.

His boss had zero interest in what I had to say, denied everything, enquired about none of the circumstances that led to me complaining and instead of treating me with some degree of courtesy and respect and wanting to genuinely listen a choice was made to attack.

This situation was really interesting as we had two different individuals taking quite a different approach to dealing with a complaint.

No one likes to receive complaints but we need to treat them like gifts, listen and learn and then deal with them in a way that diffuses the situation instead of making them even worse.

In my scenario this ‘boss’ needs to take a few lessons from the staff member ..

How you handle complaints is a critical part of maintaining the Reputation of both you and your organisation.

Defuse, don’t inflame

Greg Canty

Greg Canty is a Partner of Fuzion who offer Marketing, PR and Graphic Design services from our offices in Dublin and Cork

 

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Posted in Customer Care, Handling Complaints, Management, Staff training, Training | Leave a Comment »

Power up your Profile

May 27, 2014

Stand out in a crowdWho are you?

What are you all about, what are you interested in, what are you passionate about, what is your expertise?

What parts of you do you want to reveal and what are the parts of you that are really special that would propel you to success if only they weren’t such a secret?

Are you holding back on your personal power by staying under the radar and not letting people see the special talent and person that you are?

People Power

Pick up a newspaper or a magazine and do you find yourself reading about people? People are interesting and we want to know about them – we’re often more interested in the owner of the business and their story than the business itself. How did they do it?

Online is exactly the same with everyone from celebrities, sports stars, politicians, business people and Joe public all revealing their stories or at least parts of their stories through their conversations, photos and other revelations. We can access this information easily by following sites that reveal all sorts of news and gossip and by actually following those individuals we are interested in.

One of the great quotes I heard about twitter reveals the new opportunity that is available to all of us right now: “It makes famous people ordinary and ordinary people famous!“.

Coffee shop gal

This is a really simple statement but it gives us a insight to a colossal opportunity that is only possible ij this generation. Online you can often find that the ‘star‘ you are following is boring, just posting about products they are endorsing and you discover that the woman who runs the coffee shop around the corner is hilarious and totally engaging. She is the real star!

You can also be a ‘real’ star if you take that step and reveal the special you and harness the Personal Power that you have within yourself that will only come alive once you start flexing your muscles and make your own noise online.

With a clear vision and consistent effort it is now possible for any of us to carefully build our own powerful personal profile by using the opportunities that the online platforms present us.

There are a few simple steps to make this happen:

Clear Objectives – Decide what you want to achieve through your online activity. Write it down!
Who are You – Consider which “you” do you want to reveal online? Map out clearly all the parts about you, that you wish to portray; your information, life and career experience, interests, passions and beliefs
Choose How – Decide how you want to push this “you'” out there including the online platforms that you choose
Tribe – Decide the audience you want to cultivate a relationship with and start following and interacting with them so you get their attention

You may not want to be a star but you might just be interested in the right people discovering ‘you’ and achieving those bigger objectives of yours.

Go on, Power Up and …..make some noise!

Contact me if you are interested in the Power You online programme which I will be starting soon in Dublin and Cork: greg@fuzion.ie

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion offer Social Media Consultancy and Training in Dublin and Cork

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Posted in Branding, Marketing, Personal Marketing | Leave a Comment »

How’s it going?

May 14, 2014

“How’s it going?” a bright face looked up at me.

I had a busy day yesterday…

Up early for a meeting to help mediate a problem between two parties that I know well that were about to go through a silly court process, gave a social media course to a group of business owners, drove to Dublin for a big pitch to a potential prospect – I feel it went well, fingers crossed!

We headed for an early bird to Chez Max on Baggot Street with our crew and were joined after by friends for a few drinks and some fun.

We ended up in 37, Dawson Street for more fun and then Burger king of course.

There was a beautiful full moon hanging over Dublin on this gorgeous night as we strolled back to our hotel. Our usual haunt was booked out so we ended up trading up to the very fancy, Merrion Hotel. Hotels in Dublin are clearly getting busier, which is a great sign for our economy.

As we made our way back to the hotel I noticed the bodies nestled in their sleeping bags alongside doorways just off Stephen’s Green. At least tonight it was dry and not too cold, which is a small blessing for those unfortunate enough not to have a roof over their heads for the night.

I glanced into one doorway where i noticed there were two people sleeping alongside each other.

To my surprise a bright face was staring up at me. For a brief moment we connected “How’s it going?” he said in a soft friendly voice. “Not bad at all, thanks”

We made our way back to our hotel and put our heads down for the night.

Today it’s off to Dublin Airport as we are taking a flight to Sicily for a well earned rest and some sunshine – it should be great, we’ve never been.

I wonder what my bright faced friend is doing today.

Greg Canty

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion, Marketing & PR with offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Charities, Friendship, Holidays, Hospitality, Irish Economy, Tourism, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Oscar Pistorius and the Paddy Power PR Win

March 4, 2014

Oscar Pistorius Paddy Power advert

One thing is for sure – it has us all talking!

Was this the obvious objective when Paddy Power cobbled together their latest advertising stunt?

Just in case you have missed it, Paddy Power are taking bets on the Oscar Pistorius murder trail against his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. They caused outrage initially by offering odds on the outcome of the premeditated murder trial – 7/4 for a guilty verdict and 2/5 for not guilty.

Not only does this stunt interfere and shape public opinion about the verdict of the court case, there was also an immediate public reaction with many Twitter users branding the gimmick ‘vile’ and ‘disgusting’.

Paddy Power then took things even further, by offering losing bets a refund if the 27-year-old is found not guilty. This “no lose” offer for customers was featured heavily on newspaper adverts adding even further fuel to this controversial fire, demonstrating that Paddy Power didn’t really care about the negative public and media reaction.

Not only has Twitter been on fire about the issue but newspapers and radio have given the “bet” extra momentum through extensive negative coverage.

On national radio, RTE Liveline, Paddy Power defended the move to take bets on the trial: “This is the biggest profile trial that has ever been. It’s the only topic of conversation around the world. It’s to provide customers with the opportunity to bet on something that everyone is talking to.”

It sounds as if they are doing us all a huge favour by allowing us to take bets on such an event – are we that desperate?

The Advertising Standards Authority in the UK have already reacted though their official Twitter account: “We’re fast tracking a formal investigation into the Paddy Power ‘Oscar Pistorius‘ ad. No need to lodge a complaint, we’re looking into it” .

There is also a campaign running on change.co with 117,000 people already (at the time of writing) who have signed a petition to Patrick Kennedy, MD of Paddy Power to “please remove your offensive betting on the outcome of the Oscar Pistorius trial and donate any profits so far to a women’s charity fighting violence against women”

Despite all of this the Paddy Power adverts continue to run and the company defends them under the heading of “customer service”.

Oscar Pistorius

The horrible truth is this is a huge awareness victory for Paddy Power, way beyond the cost of the adverts or any payouts for winning bets. Sadly the bigger a storm we make of the issue the more attention we draw to Paddy Power and the more traffic will be pushed towards their website.

If this negative publicity was deemed to be damaging to the Paddy Power reputation you can be assured it would be retracted immediately but I am guessing that the view from within the company is that the publicity is good because the belief is that the target betting audience isn’t that bothered.

The women’s groups and the general public can be outraged all they want but as long as the campaign helps the company to attract the betting fraternity this is one of those times when any publicity is good publicity.

However, while the campaign appears as a clever win for Paddy Power it does leave a bitter after-taste, which in the long run could undermine the brand alongside the flawed Olympic star who at one point could do no wrong.

Greg Canty is a partner of Fuzion

Fuzion are a Marketing, PR and Graphic Design agency in Ireland with offices in Cork and Dublin

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Posted in Crisis PR, Olympics, PR, Sport | 19 Comments »

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