Case Study: Winning Friends and Influencing Customers and Prospects

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This week the Boston Globe ran a piece on a local restaurant that had been essentially charged with defrauding the public because the prices on its website had not been updated to match the prices actually being charged for takeout food. The complaint, over $4, was made by a very established consultant, Ben Edelman,who is known for his advocacy in "cleaning up" the Internet (actually, to put a fine point on it, the Web).

The article is long and not the point, but here it is if you care to read it.

As seems to happen more and more, this blew up and became one of the trending topics of the day in Boston (and apparently elsewhere, as we shall see). One of the more interesting articles about it suggests that "The irony here, of course, is that Edelman’s work is all about protecting online consumers — the little guy — from big businesses. He’s taken Google to task for continuing to track users who have disabled the search behemoth’s browser toolbar; he’s fought against spyware; he’s battled Facebook’s efforts to reveal user data to advertisers. In some ways, his e-mail battle with Duan is of a piece with his other work: 'Your restaurant overcharged all customers who viewed the website and placed a telephone order — the standard way to order takeout,' he wrote at one point. Replace 'restaurant' with another type of business — or, heck, even an online food-delivery service like Foodler or Seamless — and this exchange could be straight out of his professional e-mail archives. He’s the consumer; he’s, in a sense, the little guy. But because of cultural attitudes about his credentials, on top of the meticulously detailed ways he pointed out Duan and Sichuan Garden’s wrongdoing because of what was ultimately a small sum, Edelman comes off as anything but."

Edelman, who also happens to be a Harvard professor, has apologized.

In the meantime the restaurant has, by management's report, received messages of support from as far away as Australia. They have also issued a statement. Notice how the writer extends thanks for all the support, and how he writes that he has been trying to respond personally to everyone (nice). Notice how he has declined all the offers of website and legal support, because the restaurant can afford these things if needed (very nice). Notice how the writer apologizes to Harvard for their having been inadvertently dragged into the fray (extremely thoughtful). And notice how he exhorts the public to continue to support not just him, but all small businesses trying to serve customers and make a living (extremely gracious).

There is much to be learned here (for example, NEVER assume that your emails are private), but one of the things that stands out, and may not be addressed elsewhere, is that the small business owner empowered himself by presenting not a victim, not a company that takes advantage (at least to this point), but a truly classy establishment that cares about its customers, acknowledges mistakes, and wants and expects to do the right thing. A likely outcome, of course, is that the restaurant will attract plenty of new customers.

And that is a fine beginning on the way to winning friends and influencing customers and prospects.

Dark Days for Corporate Partnership

Trending today is an altered image of the ad promoting the “official team makeup looks” created by CoverGirl, the National Football League’s “official beauty partner.”

Poor CoverGirl. No doubt ecstatic over its creatively fashioned opportunity to reach female football fans, and female partners of male football fans, the company has been all over social media, exhorting us to rock our favorite team colors. As we might be, if we weren’t spending this week contemplating the culture of violence against women and children (and, one might argue, against opposing players) that the NFL has tolerated by its lack of serious action against clearly criminal behavior.

Here’s the altered photo:

 

How deeply embarrassing.

CoverGirl has responded to the controversy with the following statement: “As a brand that has always supported women and stood for female empowerment, COVERGIRL believes domestic violence is completely unacceptable. We developed our NFL program to celebrate the more than 80 million female football fans. In light of recent events, we have encouraged the NFL to take swift action on their path forward to address the issue of domestic violence.”

But was that enough?

Well, CoverGirl got more than 2,000 “likes” on Facebook within 24 hours. But they also got tremendous blowback, in the form of hundreds of angry comments about this rather mild-mannered statement. What does “encouraged” mean, anyway?

But, more to the point, what role does a corporate partner have to play in this situation?

We could obviously argue that the “right” thing to do is to immediately withdraw from the partnership. The Radisson Hotel chain suspended its sponsorship of the Minnesota Vikings upon learning that Adrian Peterson will continue to play despite serious (and undisputed) allegations of child abuse. But notice: other sponsors have not been so quick to act. Many or most are expected to express their “concern,” but they will likely let the situation play out—on the field, and in the courts. Most of these other sponsors, of course, cater directly to men. They are big sponsorships, and they represent millions of dollars in investment, plus the opportunity cost of lack of exposure to football fans over the course of the season if and when ads are pulled.

These are moments when it makes me sad to be a marketer.

But there are other possible responses. For example, what if the ads were changed? What if the sponsors used their big media dollars to sponsor anti-violence ads that aired during the NFL games? The message would have tremendous reach. And would you care if the ad said, “Brought to you by [nonprofit] and [major corporation]”? I would guess that most of us would respect the companies that had the guts to do it. Even for a single week.

The world is full of compromises. Let’s use this moment to make those compromises work for the welfare of everyone.