Last week Microsoft opened a retail store. Saw this video of what Ed Cotton calls “faked euphoria” as customers are let in to the blue-screen-of-death-colored wonderland.
Of all the differences between an Apple Store and a Microsoft Store, there is one difference that matters most. One that cannot be ignored—that I believe will prevent Microsoft Stores from succeeding.
The critical difference is that we all work at the Microsoft Store already.
In cubicles all over the globe, Microsoft’s customers and potential customers are already experiencing what the brand has to offer (if you have recent statistics on what percentage of office computers are Dells running Windows, please share). Experiences include:
A few months back I wrote a post about a local coffee (?) joint near my house. The problem with DeSpyro Coffee, from my point of view, was that they were claiming expertise in too many categories at once (coffee, burgers, breakfast, mexican food, gelato, subs, and “grill”), which gives the impression that they’re a jack of all trades, master of none. Maybe that’s fine if you’re a diner or a Jewish deli, but for a place with “coffee” in the name, it would be nice if they’d at least mastered a good cup a’ joe.
The other day I noticed that DeSpyro is now Dukes Burgers. I called, and apparently it is just a name change, with little change to the menu or anything else. The lady I spoke with wouldn’t give me a real reason for the name change.
Instead of blue mountains on a cold beer can, why hasn’t anyone come up with a lid or sleeve for a coffee cup that tells you when it’s no longer so hot that it’ll burn your tongue?
You’ve probably heard by now that Starbucks is abandoning its own brand name at an existing Seattle location, replacing it with the descriptive “15th Ave E Coffee & Tea.” This is part of what may become a nationwide “un-branding campaign,” in the words of the Huffington Post’s Marc Gunther. Starbucks made the announcement weeks ago, and so far, consumer reactions are mixed.
The driving forces behind this decision seem clear: declining sales, due in large part to the global recession (trading in expensive espresso for cheap home-brewed coffee is an easy budget cut for most), and growing resentment due to perceived monopolization—”those unique [local coffeehouses]…being beaten out of business by big nasty Starbucks,” as Kit Eaton put it in Fast Company. These two challenges are in no way specific to Starbucks, and are in fact hurdles frequently faced by many successful brands in a range of industries (Microsoft and Google—including their business-to-business efforts—are two easy examples).
I just read through yet another brilliant post on BrandCultureTalk, one of my favorite industry blogs. First off, I like that the post makes use of the words “shenanigans,” “confiscatory,” and “sophistry” (which I admit I had to look up). But beyond a perfect score on the verbal SATs, the author of this post clearly has a knack for dissecting a complex issue (in this case, the ailments of the credit card industry), doing research to support his/her points of view, and stringing together an engaging article that manages to be relevant without being trite (a bit of a rarity in articles about branding/marketing).
The post is essentially a diatribe on the frustrating attributes of the First PREMIER Bank Platinum MasterCard and the credit card industry as a whole. Which brings me to the title of this post: some industries just suck.
Sorry, Nordstrom. I just canceled my subscription to your free email newsletter after receiving yet another “Not Your Daughter’s Jeans” edition. Last I checked, Nordstrom sells men’s clothes, too, but their email subscription doesn’t ask you to input your gender, what type of clothing you’re interested in, or any information whatsoever. This is a massive missed opportunity for targeted marketing, and in my opinion completely fails to take advantage of the point of email subscription lists.
We have been working on a project for a while now that we are very excited about. It is called OpenIDEO and it is launching today. We are hoping that we can create a platform for you to work with us on some i...
Dave Hakkens has created Breaksoap, a new soap concept that removes hand pumps from the equation.
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