Marketing Begins At Home

Apple built brand values by building people

This weekend I met up with two old friends who I hadn't seen for years. In fact, it had been so long there were two teenage children who hadn't even been born the last time we met up. Ooops. 

What we all agreed was that very quickly we picked up where we had left off many years ago and carried on the conversation, almost as though it was a week ago. Lots of things had changed but the personalities hadn't, nor the buzz and excitement of exploring new things.

As you can imagine there was lots of talk about mutual friends, where they were now, who we had kept in touch with. Between us, we were still in touch between us with a broad number of people who had worked at Apple in the UK or Europe while we were there. The people were literally spread all over the globe and ranged from previous bosses and senior managers to people who had been just starting their careers at the time. Many have taken their skills, learning and values to a range of different companies, but there did seem to be a thread that for many, their time at Apple was extremely special, and they tended to stay in touch with a broad range of colleagues.

When we worked there, Apple was in constant turmoil and struggling to find a sustainable market for its products. Lots of change, both people and strategies, tons of uncertainty and reorganisation, just as many companies are experiencing today in the aftermath of the credit crisis. But although we understood the challenges, we approached them with tons of positive energy and enthusiasm and felt able to generate solutions, get them implemented and make a difference.

What our old friends and I agreed was that Apple, in addition to building great products, also built great people and that their values and beliefs were a great foundation for the rest of our working lives. The question is, what are you doing to make sure that your company has the strength of values, shared passion, and skills and are passing it on to everyone in your business? Are your people making a difference to help your organisation cope with the turmoil in the market?

Blurb 2.0 is a good step forward

I first found Blurb about a year ago. They publish books. Your books. I have used it to do a photo souvenir album of my trip to Australia. Recently I decided to do another photo book and discovered that some of the frustrations I had with Blurb have gone away. They now allow you to create your own layouts, mixing text, pictures, etc in your own format. 

This sounds like a simple change, and it probably was a nightmare for them to implement, but it makes a huge difference to the experience. Even if all I want to do is tweak the amount of copy space on one of their layouts or move it to a different part of a page, I can now do it quickly and easily.

I was a huge fan of their ability to make creating the book very easy. Now they just made the whole experience a lot better. They deserve more loyal customers who want to make more books than I will ever create, so go on, give them a try. If you have a recipe book, photo book, souvenir book, or a graphic novel just bursting to get out there, give them a try. Not vanity publishing in the normal way, because you pay for what you order, and they make it easy to publicize your book to other people as well. Blurb - slightly strange name, but they do what they say on the tin. Real books, made by you, order just one copy if you want.

Beken of Cowes - do you know this brand?

Beken are an extremely famous name to a relatively small group of people. If you own a boat and have raced your yacht in the Solent, you may well have a picture in their archive.

A few weekends ago we were sailing off the Isle of Wight and their boat was nearby. The  photographer took a number of photos.

To cut a long story short, we ended up buying an electronic image for an astounding sum of money. But do you know how difficult it is to take a picture of your own boat with you sailing it? How much is that worth? Well for us, quite a lot and Beken have priced their keepsake beautifully. A great example of how to serve a niche market very well. They have been based on the Isle of Wight for years and have a fabulous collection of boat photos in action. Check them out.

Visitors are second class at Port Solent Marina

As a keen sailor I have had occasion to go to Port Solent Marina twice this season. It is a huge marina with a lock that you go through, a number of restaurants, a cinema and housing all surrounding the floating "boat park".

There are some good things that Port Solent do. They charge for fuel at cost, having correctly decided it is a service that they make relatively little money out of. So better to have some goodwill from customers. As a yachtsman I use relatively little fuel, but I am sure the power boat customers appreciate the gesture and understand that Port Solent's pricing power means they won't get the same prices as the supermarkets.

I also was very glad on the second visit to be told that we were going to be moored away from the restaurants. On a nice sunny Saturday evening the noise makes it difficult to concentrate or sleep if you aren't actively in one of the bars or restaurants.

Sadly we then got to experience what it is like to be second class citizens. When we went to use the toilets, berthholders are directed to one way where they get...

"very high quality unisex wet-room style 'bathrooms' being constructed with individual facilities for berth-holders."

Being visitors we were directed to...

 "separate facilities for visitors and those crews involved in large events."

The quotes come from the proud marketing folk at Premier Marinas who trumpet the new facilities for berth holders.

These turned out to be portacabins parked in the parking lot. They were tired facilities with poor lighting, inadequate space in the unisex showers to get changed, and an air of neglect. I know where I am going to spend my money in future, and it isn't likely to be at Port Solent until they have upgraded the facilities for visiting yachtsman. There are too many other options in Portsmouth. Sadly, this marina's loos are anything but premier. And that's not good for their brand or reputation.