Zappos.com

It’s so pleasant when you face a brand that walks the walk. And that’s why I’m writing about Zappos.com.

This week, my dear friend and colleague at McCann Brazil, Debora Nitta, sow Zappos’ young CEO on Oprah TV show and was amazed by how he runs his company. Their mission is to provide the best customer service experience through the WOW philosophy.

Debora, then, wanted to know more about it and sent an email to Tony Hsieh, the CEO. I don’t know what was her expectation, but mine wouldn’t be receiving a reply on the same day or the next. But Tony put words into action by answering her inquires just-in-time and offering the 2008 company’s culture book so she could know them better.

We were just amazed with that. But the more we read about them, the more we understood this act. These guys are just crazy about making this WOW thing happens. See:

• Zappos.com is an online retailer (primarily focused on shoes)
• they don’t charge shopping and returns (for 365 days!)
• there are always someone to help you in case of doubt (yes, real people)
• people do have autonomy to solve your problem
• if they don’t have the product you want in stock, they will look for it with competitor’s and then drive you to that site so you can have what you want.
• but, most importantly, they will satisfy you throughout the entire shopping process.

To guarantee this idea Zappos.com creates and feeds an internal culture that involves all employees around it. And it’s based upon 10 core values.

So, when the CEO of the company replies an email from an unknown person from another country and sends a book about their culture and beliefs for free he builds his brand and is truthful to his own ideal.

Tony knows how to generate word-of-mouth around his business. His business vision is all about improve his service and let people do the advertising job. In a natural and spontaneous way, telling their folks how good it was their purchasing experience. I just love a sentence of the book which says: “rather than spend a lot of money on marketing, we can instead put that money towards improving the customer experience”.

In an age of conversation what it seems to me is that Zappos.com has all to do with common sense and simplicity. They are not reinventing the business, but being more sensible on making a good selling, dealing with people and allowing them to interact with you. It’s an human approach, after all.

Also, it’s a great example on how brands should behave to really connect and dialogue with people.

That’s why, in a near future, they can be operating in whatever business their way of doing means to provide a better experience than the competition.

Check it out more about them here and here.

Advertising on the Edge – The Economist

This is interesting.

Some people are posting this presentation, but I want to add some words on.

When you first see it you immediately think it’s a good material about marketing and business investments during recession periods. And, the first slides are really about it.

A clear and well written point (not to mention the beautiful graphics) on why brands need to keep investing – how this leads to market share gains, how you can beat competitors in the long term, the golden opportunity for brand building.

But, then, it kind of reveals the real intent.

You just feel uncomfortable when reading a chart that says: “New media are less effective at brand building” (strange, isn’t it?)

The reason is that this presentation is not a conceptual piece about advertising, but a selling effort from a magazine.

And the thinking reveals a fallacy in order to sell ad spaces.

Anyways, I think it’s a shame.

The Economist could have stand the voice on how deeply they understand about brand building during hard recessive times, positioning as a reference. But, instead, they just tried to push something and lost credibility.

Just feels like a missed opportunity to make a broader connection.