Archive for the 'Products' CategoryPage 2 of 2

The Right Thing

Published
by
Matt
on Jun 22, 2007
in Advertising, Entrepreneurship and Products
. Comments

It looks as though Bob Phillips and California Tortilla found the answer to the questions in my last post - the right people.

In response to me, Bob writes “In our experience the vast majority of customers and employees want to do the right thing.”
(check out the rest of his comments here)

And that’s something to be proud of.

WOW! 50% Off This Post!

Published
by
Matt
on Jun 21, 2007
in Advertising, Bad Marketing, Marketers and Products
. Comments

I was in a leather shop in Florence a little over a week ago. Soon after one of the salespeople discovered that I was a recent graduate (and therefore didn’t have much money) he leaned in, and as if sharing a little secret between us said, “Well, I’ll tell you what, I can give you anything in here for half off…”

Knowing the store was still making a healthy profit after that “deep” discount, I got to thinking about how marked up everything must be. Not just in this leather store in Italy, but everywhere.

I recently saw a coupon for $50 off a membership at a local pool club. If they can offer that much money off and still make money on the membership, then just how much profit are they making without the sale? Seems like a little much to me.

The knee-jerk reaction to a great sale is “Wow! What a good deal…” but the more you think about it, the more the reaction turns to “Wow! I’m really getting ripped off normally..”

Is that the kind of message you want to send?

Predicting Predictions

Published
by
Matt
on May 1, 2007
in Marketers and Products
. Comments

Seth Godin has issued his “iPhone Challenge” to see who can predict the future of the iPhone.

Everyone has an opinion on the iPhone, from crash and burn to blockbuster debut. And that’s the thing about predictions: they’re all right until they get proven wrong.

Seth says we’ll check back on this post in a year to see how everyone did, but I’m not sure. Before a big-hype product launches everyone sounds off, and then when things start happening there’s a quick round of “I told ya so” followed by the pundits moving on to the next big thing.

That being said, my prediction: The iPhone makes a big splash initially due to the Apple hype machine. However, because of a few problems, it never makes the predicted impact….until version 2.0 comes out within a year and a half, correcting most of the major flaws.