Don't Cheapen Your Image

Over a long weekend I came across a pair of leisure retail fails with reminders for the solution seller.

Up top is a section of courtyard from possibly the only tourist-orientated spot in a town slightly off the typical holidaying route.

The cafe incorporates a gift shop. Clearly much money got spent to provide the feel of a touch of everyday luxury.

Yet when the menus arrive, your heart sinks.

Its pages contained within the kind of office supply folder tat that I thought died out well before the new century dawned.

Even worse, the ‘brand’ of said manufacturer remains writ large. Who wants their wares to be associated with a random office products manufacturer? No matter how wonderfully they may produce stationery supplies, this is a major fail.

I instantly railed against the missed chance. If you are going to resort to such underwhelming presentation, then at least spark it up. The offending card is designed to be removed so you may write your own label on the blank reverse and slide back in. What an opportunity for the staff to make their own welcome messages visible, in their own hand.

There were more examples of the actions of premium positioning being undermined by the lack of attention to detail.

Yet my ire rose a notch when in the tasting room of a local wine farm.

The pic below is apparently how it looked a few months ago. Sadly, this boutique look has gone.

Instead, the bottles of desirable farm produce have been replaced on their stand by … kiddies sweets.

Compounded by the now consuming presence in the far corner of an ice cream freezer, Which incidentally, could not keep the product sufficiently frozen. In the other corner was a cool-drink chiller standing tall.

Once the picture of a caring craft driven by product passion, now reduced to the rubble of an inner city corner shop where the servers struggle with the native language.

As one of my fellow tasters at the time remarked – even more worthy as she’d revealed making a living as a digital marketer – this “cheapens” the whole enterprise.

She was bang on.

These two retail examples may well serve as a reminder to check what we send, show and say to our prospects. If we’ve a premium product, service or delivery, then we should back that up with matching collaterals, docs and presentations. Let alone the state of our offices and general correspondence and behaviour. Do we pass this test?