Wednesday, December 14, 2011

The collapsing distinction between promotion and information

Yesterday, on my favourite radio interview program (CBC Radio's show Q), host Jian Ghomeshi  intreviewed Hayley Phelan, Fashion News Editor at Fashionista.com about her online story, 'Can You Trust the Editorial Integrity of Personal Style Blogs? A Closer Look at How Bloggers Make Money.'

The segment got me thinking about the larger issues of ‘independent thought’ and the blurring of ‘promotion’ and ‘information’ in contemporary culture.


Witness the growing popularity of advertorials in reputable newspapers and magazines, in which corporations or special interest groups pay to have ‘editorially formatted copy’ written about them to surround their advertisements, all bearing such headings as ‘sponsored supplement’ or ‘special information feature.’



Count the number of well-known brands that we are exposed to in a typical Hollywood movie or TV show. Product placement is big business.


The burgeoning field of branded content, accelerated by social media, involves brands creating their own editorial or entertainment-style programming that, to a greater or lesser extent, allows them to focus attention on their own products without the clutter of competing brands.


The prevalence of celebrity endorsements for products ranging from fragrances to fast food suggests that many consumers crave reassurance or status when making purchasing decisions.



For me, the most practical way to cope these days is to carefully choose brands that you identify with and trust, whether it’s a newspaper (in my case, The Globe and Mail), a clothing retailer (L.L. Bean) or a line of haircare products (whatever my stylist at Fiorio on Bayview recommends). 

Just don’t expect that your choices will yield “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

Friday, September 23, 2011

10 ways to strengthen employee engagement

I've just completed a new whitepaper that shares my thoughts on how organizations of all kinds can take action to enhance their workplace environment and boost employee engagement. (You can download the document by visiting my LinkedIn page at Tim Morawetz.)
The 10 ways presented in the whitepaper are:
Give   inspiration
          instruction

          information

          informality

          interaction

          influence

          initiative

          input

          incentive

          intensity
I hope you'll take the time to download it and read it... I welcome your comments!

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

How would your employees handle a 'pop-up show'?

An organization's internal culture is one of its most important and precious assets (or liabilities, as the case may be.) 
Because culture is so intangible, it can be hard to assess – and harder still to first establish or to change. But there's little doubt that culture has an enormous influence on how successfully employees collaborate with one another and how effectively they interact with customers.
Consider the role of corporate culture in the situation recently cited by Globe and Mail columnist John Warrillow in his article about the unexpected appearance of a 'pop-up' piano performance in a retail environment. Would your staff feel right thanking the pianist with the gift card, or would they feel it necessary to quash the fun? 
Virgin's Richard Branson, in a Canadian Business column on customer service excellence, advocates 'first to know, first to handle'; empowering employees who first encounter a problem to make every effort to solve it on the spot.
In these days of greater demand for top talent, be sure to unleash the best instincts of your people by fostering and reinforcing a positive organizational culture.
  

Friday, August 26, 2011

How employees can help put the 'corner store' feeling back in retailing

In the current issue of the American Marketing Association's Marketing News magazine, columnist Don E. Schultz suggests that today's shoppers long for the intimacy and caring service once provided at their local butcher, baker or dairy deliveryman.

He contends that retailers wishing to survive in today's hyper-competitive environment must possess three attributes:
  • Fast: Like Spanish clothing retailer Zara, merchants need to respond quickly to changing consumer tastes.
  • Friendly: Like the Apple store where employees are taught not to sell, retailers need friendly people, friendly products, friendly atmosphere and friendly shopping.
  • Focused: Here, Schultz cites online retailer Zappos as having narrowed its mission to one thing, namely making customer service their true competitive differentiator.
I believe that retail employees – as well as their managers – play a key role in delivering on these priorities:
  • Fast: Employees can listen carefully to customer comments and requests on the floor of the store; pay attention to market trends on their own as consumers; then feed their insights back to the company to accelerate innovation. (For this to be successful, the company needs an easy system for collecting such feedback, and needs to build receptiveness for such employee engagement into its culture.)
  • Friendly: Employees are chiefly responsible for providing customers with helpful and friendly service. Staff need to understand the products they sell, and know the store's policies on returns, exchanges and the like. (This means that management should provide adequate employee training about products and service delivery, and should consider some form of recognition program to motivate employees to deliver the best customer experience.)
  • Focused: Identifying the company's focus – then communicating it to employees in a manner that they can act upon it – is a prime responsibility of management.
AMA members may read the full article by clicking here.

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Why not segment restaurant customers by time?

 A while ago, I was in Trudeau International Airport in Montreal awaiting a flight home to Toronto. I had plenty of time before take-off, so I wasn't in a big hurry to get some dinner before boarding the plane. I could relax and have a relatively leisurely meal.

More recently, when returning from a business event in Victoria, my time was tighter. I asked the host of the White Spot Restaurant in the airport if I could have lunch in under a half-hour. "Of course," she said cheerfully. I wolfed-down a hamburger and salad, and got through Customs in good time.

These contrasting experiences got me thinking about how restaurants (especially those in airports) could respond to these diverse dining scenarios. Why not have two or more designated sections of the restaurant, along with differentiated menus, to effectively serve these customers with differing time parameters?

This approach would enhance the dining experience for those travellers in a hurry, since they'd have fewer but speedier menu options, and they wouldn't impatiently wonder why a server at another table was seemingly not racing to serve them.

As well, it would simplify life for restaurant servers by eliminating the need to repeatedly explain how long various menu options take to serve, and by allowing them to spend a bit more time providing friendlier and more relaxed service to those guests who aren't itching to pay and dash off to their gate.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

A sad day for comedy on Canadian TV

I was saddened to hear of the passing of Roger Abbott, a mainstay in Air Farce on CBC Radio and later on CBC TV. I once went to a taping at the old studio in Cabbagetown... His imitations of Jean Chretien and Peter Mansbridge were spot-on.

Read an appreciation and profile here... Globe & Mail article