Names are important. We like to hear our name. “Hey + name” sounds friendlier than “Hey you”. For premium brands it is even more important. As a matter of fact it is vital. “I bought a car” is not really helpful for the brand you bought it from.

A premium brand like Hermès should know that. Hermès was founded by Thierry Hermès back in 1837 – the brand name is therefore not just a pseudoword, it is a ‘real’ name – and is about as premium as it gets.

They have a store in Munich and I’ve been a customer for several years. I happen to like their ties, even though they are insanely expensive. Every January they invite me to a sale (if you can call it that at Hermès), which is nice.

What annoys me however is that they seem to be unable to get my last name right (see photo: no ‘Umlaut’, no ’s’ at the end).

All the fancy brochures and expensive advertising campaigns will ultimately fail, if you don’t know your customers and that includes their names.

If you define your customer as a consumer and treat her like one, that’s exactly what she’ll be. At the most, she’ll consume your brand.

Opportunity missed!

Why don’t you define and treat your customer like an afficionado? Consider the potential endorsement “I enjoy this brand” as opposed to “I consume this brand”.

Words can make all the difference in the world and attitudes most certainly do. It’s worth the extra marketing effort.

Achtung! Google Analytics is illegal, say German government officials

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The Next Generation of Leadership.

The Game Changers | Chris Anderson | Big Think.

Wir könnten genau so gut ‘Sie sind mir doch egal’ sagen!

Haben Sie in letzter Zeit auch immer häufiger das Gefühl, dass immer mehr Menschen nicht nur so denken, sondern auch so handeln?

Beim Einkauf, wenn Sie auf schlecht gelaunte Mitarbeiter treffen! Bei der Behörde, für die Sie oft nur eine Nummer sind! Bei sogenannten Freunden, die immer abwägen, ob Sie noch einen Mehrwert bieten! Bei Politikern, für die nur Ihre Stimme zählt! Bei Wählern, die nicht mehr zur Wahl gehen! Bei Unternehmen, die nur an pflegeleichten Kunden interessiert sind! Rücksichtlose Verkehrsteilnehmer im Strassenverkehr! Wir könnten diese Liste beliebig erweitern.

Alle Beispiele haben eines gemeinsam: Wie wir mit anderen umgehen, unterliegt zunehmend einer extrem kurzfristigen Kosten-Nutzen Betrachtung. ‘Was bringt es mir’ wird zu ‘Was muss ich dafür tun’ in Relation gesetzt.

Eine Gesellschaft, die sich so verhält, ist keine Gesellschaft mehr. Gesellschaft bedeutet zusammenleben und impliziert somit ein soziales Verhalten.

Was ist Ihnen egal?

Die alten Medien lieben diesen Song:

As this picture clearly demonstrates, agricultural methods and marketing have a lot in common.

Over the years, monocultures have become very popular. It is all about planting crops with genetic similarity. These have uniform growing habits and requirements, which result in greater yields on less land. Planting, maintenance and harvesting are standardized. Sound familiar? Isn’t that exactly what marketers try to achieve with traditional advertising in mass media?

Next time you look in the mirror, just imagine seeing a head of lettuce. After all, you’re being treated like one.

How do you feel being manured?

I just read Seth Godin’s great post Dunbar’s Number isn’t just a number, it’s the law and I hope that brands will do the same. The British anthropologist Robin Dunbar proposed that, due to the size of our neocortex, the number of people with whom we can have social relationships is limited. As Seth Godin put it “One hundred fifty people in the tribe”.

There are 2 very valuable lessons for brands in this:

Empower your organisation. There is no way that 1 social media manager alone (which is the wrong job title anyway) can have social relationships with hundreds of thousands, may be even millions, of customers, let alone potential customers.

Make sure to do your research well. Find your most fervent 150 brand advocates out there and empower them.