The Buffalo Blog

Take the shears away from Spears

A lock of Britney Spears hair could be yours today for as little as $250,000. Bargain.

The former pop princess yesterday shaved off all her hair in a stunt that was as widely believed to be a call for help as a call for more publicity. Whatever Britney’s motives in shaving off her oft-commented upon locks, this was a stunt that can only increase interest in her character. Rock stars love to be seen as ‘complicated’ and this would have done the perception of Miss Spears no harm at all.

So what of the old adage that all publicity is good publicity? Britney seems to want to get away from the media spotlight and evidently this was not the best way to do this. The publicity has been a mix between astonishment, hilarity and genuine care for a soul that does not need the world’s eyes shining on her. For Britney, no publicity would be the best publicity as she attempts to deal with life as a single mother of two in the midst of a messy divorce.

Customer service wins the day

An unnamed member of the

Buffalo staff (we don’t want lobbyists protesting outside our doors) marched in this morning pledging her lifelong allegiance to Starbucks. Some dislike Starbucks huge multinational unfriendliness, but it seems their superior customer service wooed this particular Buffalette.

Having tried an independent chain who failed to recognise her despite her ordering the same thing at the same time every morning for three months (every day they pointed to where the sugar was, and every day she told them that she does not take sugar), she has returned to Starbucks. Why? Because they see her coming and get her coffee ready for her.

The reason that huge companies are so successful is that many of them pride themselves on their customer relationships. People who feel that they are being treated well are more likely to buy a product, pick a service etc. It is common sense and should be common business sense.  Why is this particular coffee shop empty every morning? Because they can’t even remember someone’s face, let alone their order…

Buzz creating a buzz

Buzz marketing, as described in last week’s Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,2001647,00.html) is causing quite a buzz itself. Creating a buzz amongst consumers, by getting people to talk to their mates about a particular product or service, is now considered a prime way to target key audience.

But is it ethical? There is nothing wrong with word of mouth, but if people read a positive review of a product on a ‘prosumer’ website (e.g. epinions.com) they expect that review to be written by a genuine consumer – not a marketing PR agency. When Sony’s ‘all I want for Christmas is a PSP’ website was found to be written solely by Sony’s marketing team, this caused serious damage to the company’s reputation. People realised that the ethical code was breeched.

The word ‘stealth’ can’t be written without the word ‘steal’. By using stealth techniques you are stealing the decision making away from the consumer. There is a fine line between doing this subtly and cleverly and doing this in a way that deceives people – when orchestrating a buzz campaign, every consequence must be thought through.