Except that, call me old-fashioned, I cringe every time someone steps on them. It's like stepping on someone.

I understand visibility, but is that all a brand seeks, so blatantly? What about people featured on these stickers? What about the written word that many still hold sacrosanct? And the sanctity of our brands?

A few random thoughts, based on recent events and conversations:

1. Managing negative feedback by brands, on 3rd party blogs, shouldn't be about whether to comment on these posts or not. It should first be about 'resolution' of issues being faced by the consumer and THEN comes the issue of commenting
2. Similarly engaging brand supporters shouldn't be asking them to write about the brand, it should be about INVOLVING them in the brand - learning from their inputs and insights. After all, they are the ones who love the brand, right?
3. 'Consistency' is one of the 8 'Cs' of communication - I noticed last week on the flight to Bangalore (Have been there 3 times in 40 days, the last time being yesterday. Love it, despite the traffic.). They are forgiven, for the merger is too new, but even then... the booking counter reads 'Air India', aircraft reads 'Indian', the staff announces 'Indian Airlines'. India's official carrier needs help.
4. Talking about that, consistency of message delivery, by spokespeople, was possible and natural in traditional media, but messages needs different tackling on social media. Following a message house to the tee make the 'conversations' artificial - natural with your words but staying with the thoughts and philosophy?
5. This one puzzled me for a week: a young entrepreneur in an eCommerce web business writes a transparent blog - put up all that comes from customers, no comment deletion, acknowledge mistakes, issue resolutions also I had seen - all the stuff that textbooks say.

   
   Then one afternoon, I ventured to make a purchase. The site in question was offering a great price but my hand wouldn't click the 'buy' button.

   I couldn't persuade myself to buy from them finally. Why? Why wasn't I being able to trust this company? They write a blog that follows the book and a blog builds trust, that's what I have been going around telling people myself!!

   Anyone else wouldn't perhaps waste another moment, but for obvious reasons I couldn't do that - it took me a week to crack it.

   Maybe at an intuitive level I knew the answer, and that may have had a role to play in my decision to 'not buy', but I spent some more time on the site and pinned it finally to what I thought could be the reason. "It's the tone idiot!" I said to myself. The gentleman had a different tone when addressing the customer - mild, warm but professional - but the tone changed when talking about other subjects/ peers/ other businesses/ even replying to emails (I don't know him but have exchanged a couple of emails) - from a pedestal, kinda arrogant and cold. I wasn't being able to tell who he 'really' was. Could it be that? What do you think? We all do that sometimes - treat different stakeholders differently, don't we?

   I did put that behind me though and made a purchase from the site recently. Are all customers forgiving? Or am I too fussy to begin with? Lol

I haven't written in a bit. Two reasons: was busy with some work and second, didn't really have much to say :).

Cheers.

I have been meaning to create a category where I could just write a one-two sentence post to share a thought. Here goes:

Toll Free Number - Ads/ press releases/collateral...ubiquitous the mention has become.

Lifted straight from American jargon, understanding (and therefore impact) of the word 'Toll' is limited in my opinion(You may say "but now highways have toll gates", still :) ). I suggested changing this to Free to Caller and Muft Call on two occasions in the past. I think it works...

Try?