Oscar admires the Ducati
After a massively long and productive 2009 it is time to refresh... It is family time. As the kids are much older now, their first trip to Europe has been in the planning for more than a year. Italy for a month. It is wonderful to watch them delight at ice skating on the banks of the Tiber river in Rome, navigate the cobble stoned alleys, negotiate the purchase of bread each morning and learn about ancient cultures.
There is much of course that is universally the same... Interesting that in a matter of seconds we assess an establishment by the greeting and demeanour of the staff. New years eve and we had planned to listen to the concert at the colosseum, and watch the fire works. But it began to bucket down. We ducked into a tarverna (early by Roman standards – 7.00) and we were warmly welcomed by an enthusiastic waiter, ushering us in, out of the weather... He found us a cosy place in the corner, made sure that we had drinks and something to eat, as they rushed around preparing to open for the evening. A very well worn décor, (dilapidated really) but full of personality... And fun, rather than just dropping in we ended up staying for hours, chatting and laughing. The evening had been set by the way we were greeted.
What a contrast to the Ducati Caffe. My son loves all things with wheels and the fact that he could visit this concept store and have lunch there filled him with excitement. All slick and nice, but cold and lacking personality. The staff could not have cared, they were off hand to the point of rude, not interested in even giving us menu’s, let alone a drink or lunch. They seemed to be very haughty even with each other. The food was bad and took forever to come, we finally gave up on coffees and left. It was cold, void of personality and not what was expected of an iconic Italian brand.
It made me consider two things (can’t help myself even on holidays). The dangers of brand extensions, and also that people are the brand.
Ducati wont miss us, we are travellers so unlikely to be regular customers, but I suspect we are not alone in our experience, so one by one the Ducati brand image is impacted, and over a period of time the overall impression of the brand is changed. No amount of advertising will re-engage me in the brand promise. The promise was broken and once done is very difficult to repair. I’m not the target audience for the original product (motor bikes) so maybe it does not matter at all. But my son will remember that some how Ducati let him down...
A brand is a promise, held in the heart of our customers. It is a fragile relationship determined moment by moment by the people who represent it.
Surprised, delighted - speechless (well not for more than a second), and humbled is what I experienced this week at the AIIA iAwards.
More than two years ago we were discussing amongst the team that many people wanted to use our experiences to do activities themselves ? they were not really looking for a gift. In fact Friday afternoons had become really busy on the phones as people sorted out 'last minute' adventures for the weekend.
I clearly remember driving to the Blue Mountains for an EO conference working out whether there was a business idea in there somewhere. (I was so busy on my thoughts and ended up with a speeding fine.) Would it be possible to build a real time booking engine based on our existing experience suppliers. I invented a name. GoDo (just go and do something).
So imagine how rewarding it is to have shared the vision ? engaged a team of fabulous marketers and developers, who together have created an amazing business. And last night GoDo.com.au was acknowledged not only with the Tourism Innovation Award (which is a wonderful acknowledgment also to our fabulous distribution partners) but also the Local Community Innovation Award. Our wonderful suppliers are spread across the whole nation (and NZ), and we give them access to global markets.
As an aggregator GoDo has brought together - amazing local suppliers, wrapped them in wonderful technology and delivered them to the world via Australia's leading tourism sites. (I love it when a plan comes together - and this is only the beginning.)
The awards are an acknowledgment to all those that believe in ideas, and then follow through with hard work to create something great. It is always all about the people
Thank you to our amazing GoDo team.
As Jemma left the office today I said 14 March 2007 starts the next great chapter in RedBalloon's journey. We are now in our sixth year and we have just launched web site number six!. It is not completed yet, the enhancements are all based on customer feedback and watching how people browse and search the site. So I thought it worth while to continue to document the evolution of a website. I know in five years we will look back and think how archaic! But I am very proud of Jemma, Rob and Steph - plus help from many others. We look back at what we did only a few years ago and think how out dated they are - yet at the time we loved them.
Here is Version Four (launched Oct 2004). And below are links to one, two and three.
From a very serious corporate career in marketing to creating a business based on fun RedBalloon, this is my journey. In this blog I share what it takes to be an entrepreneur and what I have learned - warts and all. I am also the author of I want what she is having which chronicles the first five years of building of a fast growing business.
Very proud to be awarded National Telstra Business Womens Award for 2008 in the Nokia Innovation Catogory
I have a ’stimulus-response’ addiction… you might too
Andrew May poses the question ‘What does the perfect week look like?’. Is it an 8 day week, if you had an extra day what would you do with it? Apparently 63% of Australian workers are sleep deprived... (not me since I got my new sleep cycle app for my iphone). It is much harder to be productive, let alone enjoy what we do if we are perpetually tired.
Running from one thing to the next, never having time to be creative or think - means that we are always being stretched to peak performance. But no one plays at peak 16 hours a day every day.
Apparently the average person working in an office gets interrupted every 4 minutes (80-100 times a day) yet it takes 25 minutes to really focus on a task. Does that mean we are actually going backwards or that we are not giving our undivided attention to the task at hand?
85% of Australians feel that life is getting more and more hectic. All these labor saving gadgets actually just mean we do more.
Andrew had some great thoughts about how to reduce this problem:
Now you might want to read his book ‘Flip the Switch’ to discover what he means by all of these. But I was particularly interested in the notion that I have a stimulus response addiction to email (a bit like people who play the pokies for days/nights on end seeking instant gratification from the push of a button) Alarming to compare it...
Here are his seven email ideas...
He suggests he can save an hour a day (which is a lot of time in a week, month or year). I have taken on 6 of his suggestions.... but I still find myself drawn to go back... Sometimes I'm the initiator of the 'need' to email or I worry that there might be an urgent missive that I must attend to. I do find that I am much quicker at dealing with all the emails at once, you don’t dwell on them so much. The fact that I even feel this means that I know that it is an addiction.
It took me a week to go cold turkey and give up coffee - it might be a bit longer with this one.
Thanks Andrew for your insights last week at the Talent2 conference.