ANA Marketing Maestros

Excuse Me Ma’am, It’s $65 Extra For Oxygen….

By Cara Brooke Schultz

Recently two airlines have been in the hot seat with passengers—Spirit Airlines and Ryanair—for charging what most people deem ridiculous extra fees. Spirit Airlines announced on Tuesday that it will now be charging customers for carry-on baggage. According to a CNN.com article, “The charge for carry-on bags varies from $30 to $45 depending on whether passengers are members of Spirit’s ultra-low fare club and whether they ‘pre-reserve’ their carry-on bag in advance.” Airline officials hope this will spiral into a bring less; pay less policy. They also said, “it will improve inflight safety and efficiency by speeding up the boarding and deplaning process.”

The question is: will other airlines start charging for carry-on bags? Which in all likelihood could be the case—Spirit Airlines originally started charging customers for checked bags, and other airlines followed soon thereafter.

Ryanair, based in Dublin, Ireland is thinking about enacting a fee for the use of the bathroom on flights shorter than one hour. The fee would be minimal, one Euro—about $1.33. They said the idea stemmed from trying to encourage people to use restrooms in airport terminals before boarding. Another part of the plan, suggested eliminating one of the bathrooms to free up space for extra seats.

Personally I rather just spend more money on my ticket, rather than pay all of these extra fees for checked and carry-on baggage. How do you feel about all of the additional fees?

I also find myself wondering how other modes of transportation are faring with the airlines tacking on so many additional fees—is the rail system benefiting from this?

 

A NYC McDonald’s Receives More Than Your Average Facelift

By Cara Brooke Schultz

Do you have an upcoming informal business meeting? Perhaps you might consider having the rendezvous at your local McDonald’s accompanied by flat-screen TVs and free Wi-Fi. This isn’t the first time McDonald’s has performed a facelift on one of their locations; all throughout the UK and France numerous McDonald’s have gone under the knife. The changes to the NYC location: multiple outlets for plugging in laptops, upholstered vinyl chairs, subdued lighting, modern painted walls, and employees in trendy all-black uniforms.

 

So why did the Chelsea-location feel the need to get work done? According to an article written by MSNBC, McDonald’s spokeswoman Danya Proud said, “People are using our restaurants differently today than they did five, 10, 20 years ago. People are multi-tasking, doing more on a given day […] you want to be able to open your laptop, log on and get some work done while you’re eating.”

Proud said the redesign of several locations in the UK and France was an attributing factor to McDonald’s growth in Europe. It seems as though the Chelsea-location won’t be alone for long. So, what will be next—a McDonald’s conference room that can be rented out at an hourly rate?

Magazine Bleed Charges - Why Do They STILL Exist?

By Bill Duggan

I’d like to share a letter I wrote to the editor of Ad Age, printed in the September 28th issue:

 

Publishers should cut ‘bleed’ fees

Regarding "Condé Nast Execs to make Big Cuts, Insiders Say" (AdAge.com, Sept. 14): It would be terrific if McKinsey's analysis went beyond cost controls and also included a review of Condé Nast's pricing policies to ensure those policies are in alignment with marketplace realities. One such policy under scrutiny from   advertisers is charging an incremental fee for bleed ads. Once upon a time, publishers may have had real costs associated with the production of bleed ads. But today's printing and production technologies no longer require the press stoppages and plate changes that resulted int hose real costs. Condé Nast is one of the few remaining major publishers (Hearst is another) that has not eliminated these obsolete bleed charges, and ANA strongly suggests that the time has come to do so (end of letter to the editor).

 

More on bleed charges in the one page white paper – Are Magazine Bleed Charges Legitimate? ANA and 4A’s have reached out to Condé Nast on this issue numerous times since we published this white paper in January and all those requests have been completely ignored. Not even the courtesy of any response or acknowledgment. Meanwhile, Hearst’s response has been, “At the advice of our counsel, we will not discuss pricing policies in a group setting. So, we will take a pass on this.” 

 

We encourage advertisers and their agencies to discuss bleed charges with these respective publishers (and any others that have such fees). Not only are bleed charges no longer justified, but they actually cost advertisers additional money as sometimes two versions of creative are prepared (bleed and non-bleed) and the agency time and resources spent developing that extra creative and negotiating reduction/elimination of the bleed fees leads to higher agency compensation costs to advertisers. Finally, if publishers have a legitimate reason to charge for bleed, let’s hear it—after all this is a blog and the dialogue would be appreciated.

Recession: Glimmer of Hope?

As a follow-up to my blog, "Is an economic recovery near?" I would like to share with you are new video snippets from the 2009 ANA Building in Tough Times Brand Conference where heavy-weight executives from Dunkin' Donuts, MillerCoors and Wal-Mart shared their insights and best practices in regards to overcoming tough economic times.

Thank you to AdAge for these valuable video highlights. If you have any best practices on coping with the recession, please share in our comments section on this blog, YouTube page, or email me at [email protected]. I'd love to hear from you!

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“Thank you, It is my pleasure”

By Barry Garbarino

On a recent vacation trip to Mexico, I encountered a new response from members of the hospitality team at the resort. Instead of the usual (and almost always expected) “Your Welcome” after saying “Thank you”, we now heard, “It is my pleasure!”  This response was uniformly used by all the staff members that we encountered during our stay.  To the untrained consumer this may have slipped by, but when I heard it, I knew that smart marketing was in play.  This is an instance where marketing and customer service are intertwined. 

I think the reason that it really stuck out in my mind (as my customer service training took place with The Walt Disney Company) was that the response wasn’t the standard, Your Welcome.  Now-a-days, smart consumers are realizing that as a customer or guest of an establishment or business, we need to be thanked.  Not only thanked for our patronage but for choosing them over the competition.  This new, well trained response (also known as institutional knowledge) made me feel special and it also acknowledged the fact that I was a respected guest of the establishment (it was also their way of thanking me!)

So when I returned home after a great vacation and had a day to try and settle back into the real-world, I was pleasantly surprised to see an email from the resort.  It was a thank you email.  A very well written thank you note, which the following contained:

“Everyday we make it a point to ensure that every aspect of our guests’ vacation is nothing but magnificent.  And having you stay with us again would be the ultimate compliment toward our efforts of providing you with the best!  We look forward to seeing you again.”

As this was my second stay at the Cancun Palace Resort, I couldn’t have agreed more with their thank you note.  I am strong believer that customer service IS the new Marketing and to read more about this topic, please check out the article:  Is Customer Service the New Marketing?

Have you encountered marketing driven customer service?  If so, we would love to hear about it!