February 16, 2005
So, interactive experts. What is the truth?
So we all think that interactive is the future. Because we're all spending more time there. Many people now claim they spend twice as long online as they do watching TV. Or, um, thinking.
However, if you talk to those who are involved in the supposed art of interactive advertising every day, you'll get some interesting responses.
None more interesting than my very good friend and former partner (in crime, amongst other things) Marek Grabowski. Marek is one of the principals of London's The Hub.
Here are some of his words. Which he despatched to me ineractively:
" Funny how little is known about interactivity, particularly in a commercial context. but no self-respecting, self-styled online guru is going to admit it, are they? So we constantly abuse the term. Discuss interactivity for more than two minutes and it will deconstruct before your very ears....
Can't really see the call for interacting with people in Realworld shops, unless you happen to be queuing up behind Jenna Jameson....
Shedloads of Americans love Cyberland because it saves them the embarrassment of waddling into a changing room with a triple extra large, mastodon-sized frock...Add the fact that many Americans wouldn't be able to get off the sofa to go to the mall in the first place and it's not surprising that the world and his wife have embraced online shopping.
An aversion to violence also keeps folk indoors.
Best of all, in a chat room, everyone has a perfect arse, a cracking personality,and a luxuriant head of hair.
Brands sort of like the idea of two-way interactions with their customers because it smacks of relationships. But the fact that they currently view customer service as a cost centre will seriously inhibit the development of mutually profitable relationships.
When they finally migrate all their budgets to online, it will be because that is where most people will be. They're excited by the prospect of sticking TV commercials on their sites, for Chrissakes. Now there's interactive, look you.
(" Look you" is very much Welsh vernacular. And Marek, despite his name, is very Welsh.- Ed.)
It's a shame because customer service is going to be new the battleground of the brands, but I'm not sure how many people will address it. The real test of a brand relationship, or any relationship, come to that, is inevitably when things go wrong. People want fabulous service online, not bleeding eye candy.
Who gives a toss about image when they're being shafted? Yet image continues to soak up the dollars. Most brands will continue to kiss the customer off as soon as the sale is made."
Which reminds me of my experience only last week at FlowerOnly. There I was, on their site, ordering flowers. FlowerOnly have a promise that reads " We deliver quality florist gifts everywhere." So I ordered some flowers to be sent to Poland. In fact, to the capital, Warsaw. In fact, to the very center of the capital. The order went through. A day later I got an email from these people telling me they couldn't deliver to "that area."
So I wrote to them suggesting that perhaps their promise, which was, without irony, planted on the bottom of their email, smacked of fraud.
I received a splendidly customer-oriented email from the owner of this wonderful company, a Mr. Doug Steigerwald.
It read:
" In over 99% of all delivery requests we are able to effect delivery worldwide.
If you feel that 1% is false advertising, I am sorry you think that way.
In most cases, the 1% we cannot effect delivery is due to a very remote area or an affiliate that has dropped from the network. We are in the business of delivering as many times as possible and work just as hard as you do.
Thank you for your input."
Leaving aside Mr. Steigerwald's clear and difficult battle with the English language, one can only deduce that, yes, for those who think everywhere means, well, everywhere, then his company is perpetrating something of a fraud. (for which Mr. Steigerwald is very sorry.)
Perhaps if my order had been intended for somewhere remote, one would have been able to forgive him. However, given that the flowers were to be delivered to the center of the capital of the largest country in what Donald Rumsfeld calls New Europe, and given that Mr. Steigerwald's site trumpets their ability to deliver in Poland, his service is not one I would be prepared to recommend.
FlowerOnly is an excellent advertisement for FTD.com.
Who could possibly argue with Marek Grabowski now?
Posted by Chris at 04:33 PM
