As promised in a previous blog, I was going to have a look at the Hardware industry and who’s doing what (or who?) and whether I think it’s working. So lets start at the top: with the all-conquering Bunnings. They’ve been number one for a long time and will continue to be number one for a long time into the future. They operate 167 warehouses and 60 smaller format stores across the nation with annual sales of over $5.3 billion. So what can we learn from the Hardware giant?
Explore our historical blog articles for nuggets of wisdom (and random musings) from our crew.
Go on…admit it. As much as you may respect your competitors (and don’t get me wrong, I believe this to be very important!). There’s still no better feeling than getting the upper hand in your own marketplace. So how is your swing? Are you averaging at the top of the league with a 0.360? Or are you simply sitting on the bench?
Well my break was wonderful, relaxing, sunny, warm – all one could expect from a holiday. What I didn’t expect was a myriad of bad experiences – not created by bad service, bad food, low value for money or anything like that – but created by rather vocal complaining customers, which I managed to encounter at every turn. From a marketing perspective, the customer’s complaint is something businesses need to pay very close attention to. But lets look at the impact of vocally dissatisfied customers from a different perspective…
In 2002, Seth Godin wrote a book called “Purple Cow” in which he wrote “If you’re the same, you’re invisible”. To be honest, I couldn’t agree more. It’s an age old argument between client and agency and one that I’m sure will continue for decades, if not centuries, to come. But the landscape is changing. Agencies such as Jack in the box aren’t just presenting radical ideas with little substance. Adland is beginning to realise the importance of results and that key to all this is communication.
I’ve spent years bemused, and sometimes amused at the decisions made by some small businesses. Up until yesterday, possible the greatest mystery has been why clients do not take advantage of an agency’s print management facilities. They commission us to design and conceptualise their brand – arguably a company’s biggest asset – then they take the artwork to a printer, often unknown to them, and think they’ve saved money. Beside their obvious inexperience at finding the RIGHT printer they also lack the technical know how and the inability to know what quality work is – yet they believe they are saving money.
I read an article the other day in an industry magazine which left me in total shock! It was written by a hi-profile strategist in a major Perth agency and was on the subject of women in our industry. For whatever reason, the marketing / advertising world (in most cases) seems to have found itself still revelling in the afterglow of the 80’s and many are still finding it hard to come to terms with the reality of today’s market. It has only been recently that the whole revelation has hit most, that women are not only an important part of the market we should be marketing to, but are an essential element of the fabric of a good agency.
Hugh Mackay once stated “Erosion is more effective than explosion”. It makes so much sense, rarely is any behaviour or attitude converted instantaneously. Changes in behaviours happen gradually, people need time to trust the validity of new occurrences, simply put – they take to adjust.