- Why are you penalizing your customers? Jackie Huba has an interesting post on rampant fees in the airline industry. The airlines are probably the worst offenders of this type of pricing, but others do it as well. I think the guiding philosophy is that, in a price-sensitive market, you can lure the customer in with an initial low price and then whack them with many, many hidden added fees. You know, like the Bag Check Fee, the Gate Check-in Fee, the Breathing Our Cabin Air Fee, etc. This might make sense if you only wanted to maximize your customers in the short term; but aren’t you destroying their experience? What will make them want to come back? This is gotcha marketing at its worst. [Church of the Customer]
- Promising signs for Windows 7 launch. Full disclosure: Microsoft is a client, and AMG has worked on the Windows 7 product launch. That said, the surprising pre-sales results bode well for one of the more closely-watched launches of the year. The core reason why I believe Windows 7 will help Microsoft get past the Vista hangover is that it is a great product, but also because the company is taking a vastly different approach to marketing and positioning the product this time around. Does anyone remember Vista’s "the Wow starts Now" positioning (if you don’t, the company helpfully still has it up on this site)? Microsoft has wisely chosen to dial down the message this time and let the product speak for itself. [Mashable]
- Yahoo! tries to explain. We remain fascinated by Yahoo!’s $100M ad campaign. Why do this, and why do it now? Is the problem really that you need to redefine your brand through marketing – or that you need to redefine it through, you know, your products and services? What’s with the "it’s your Internet" idea that smacks of AOL circa 1999? Was this really the best use of the money? So when I saw this video interview with CMO Elisa Steele, I was hoping for some good answers. The short of it: the campaign is their way of reminding customers of all the good stuff they have. Really? [Yahoo! corporate blog]
