Lagniappe – a little something extra . . . and Gary Vaynerchuk

by Stan Phelps

in purple goldfish project

Digg Digg

Who doesn’t like a little something extra?

Credit my sister Mary Ann for sharing this classic commercial from ESSO . . .  Can you catch the price of GAS in the spot?

Who is this Gary character?

I went to see Gary Vaynerchuk speak on Friday, January 8th.  Gary spoke at a MENG (Marketing Executives Networking Group) NJ Chapter event in Morristown, NJ. @garyvee was awesome in his typical ‘no holds barred’ fashion.  I came in with high expectations and he exceeded them.

I had the opportunity to ask Gary a question during the Q+A:

“If there is nowhere for a brand to hide given the emergence of social media.  Add the fact that it’s more common for a consumer to tweet or post about a negative experience. How do brands avoid situations where the majority of the comments about them are negative? As a result, when the brands end up engaging online, they inevitably look like they are apologizing a great deal.  How do brands generate positive word of mouth and word of mouse to counteract this?”

Gary essentially said that businesses needed to ‘adopt a small town’ philosophy of service (kind of sounds like the ESSO commercial).
He then relayed a recent example of this philosophy with his company  WineLibrary.com (a purple goldish). He talked about how recently an order was screwed up via FedEx, not WineLibrary’s fault but that didn’t matter to the customer. A Wine Library staffer drove the shipment down south 3 hours to the Jersey Shore and hand delivered it to the customer.

THE RESULT: That customer immediately reached out to his network over 3 or 4 tweets to laud WineLibrary.com and recommend them ‘hands down’ over the competition.

Kudos Gary – that example gets you nominated at #170 in the Purple Goldfish Project.

[Note: Gary eluded that there might be some other ‘branded acts of kindness’ coming down the proverbial (NJ) turnpike. He talked about the next major snow storm for Jersey and the possibility of shoveling the driveways of his best customers. Imagine yourself as  a customer and Gary shows up at your doorstep, shovel in hand.  That’s a purple goldfish I’d like to see]

PRICE OF GAS IN THE ESSO SPOT = 18 cents a gallon

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The Purple Goldfish Project has crossed the halfway mark
July 17, 2010 at 2:01 pm

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1 Stan Phelps January 11, 2010 at 10:21 pm

The folks at Gaspedal had good post today on the importance of going the extra mile:

Word of Mouth Tip #151: Go the extra mile

Companies who consistently go out of their way on behalf of their customers are the ones everyone loves to talk about.

More than stunts, fancy website widgets, the latest social media tools, or sophisticated marketing techniques — a dedication to delivering amazing experiences for your customers is still the best way to earn real word of mouth. Great service will never go out of style.

Click here for the full post: http://gaspedal.com/blog/wom-tips/word-of-mouth-tip-151-go-the-extra-mile/

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