You may be familiar with the Italian clothing brand Diesel. Trendy, cool, hip stuff. And generally very creative campaigns highlighting their edgy brand. (For example, their logo is a guy with a Mohawk and their slogan is “Only the Brave”).

I recently visited the Diesel website and sent them this email via their customer service page:

“Hi. About 10 years ago I purchased a pair of silver Diesel glasses. I have worn them ever since. They are not only the best glasses I have ever owned but probably the best value of anything I have ever bought. They have endured despite the arrival of my two kids, who grabbed and flung them around more times than I can remember. I also love the look. You can see a picture of me wearing them if you search my name – JOHN SOBOL on Facebook. (I’m the guy with the flower on his head!
But I am not just writing to praise your glasses but to ask whether or not you still have any pairs like mine kicking around anywhere in storage. Mine are on their last legs and I haven’t found anything like them in any of the many stores I’ve been to. I would be very happy to buy a pair, or a few pairs from you, if you can locate any. Thanks.”

The next day I got this response:

John,

Carlotta
Diesel Customer Care

It is not possible to reply directly to this message.

Now I know Carlotta was just doing her job as she’s been told to do it (assuming Carlotta is not simply an automated reply function, which I suspect she may be) but considering the unusual (for me, anyway) degree of loyalty I expressed to Diesel in my email, this response amounts to a complete kiss-off. How disappointing. I mean, if you are going to bother having a “Customer Care Centre” you should at least show that in some small way you do actually care about your customers. Unfortunately for me, Diesel apparently doesn’t.

We recently redesigned the Portrait Gallery of Canada’s website, including a flash exhibition of fascinating collection highlights. Happily, our work was mentioned in an article about the Portrait Gallery in today’s Globe and Mail. The Portrait Gallery doesn’t yet have a new physical home, but we’re pleased that people are noticing its new virtual home.

You can find the Globe and Mail article here. And you can find the Portrait Gallery of Canada website here.

A beautiful way to discover what the world of travel has to offer!

P.S. It’s a 76design site!

I saw an amazing public awareness campaign yesterday.

I came across it first in the bus on the way to work. One of the few overhead ad-panels I’ve ever really cackled at; a cartoonish illustration of a guy wearing a hardhat and a confused expression, with a bloody length of rebar stuck through his head.

“Win an MP3 player and other cool stuff” was written in big letters, along with “Workplace Safety” and “Join the contest and win!”. Highly incongruous and ironic copy given the image. The people next to me were cackling at it too.

I memorized the url on the ad and checked the website as soon as I got to work. And hey – it’s fantastic. Full of craziness and craftiness, and also lessons about workplace safety. It’s really excellent work and I salute whomever made it.

It turns out – as i was informed by my knowledgeable colleagues – that the client,
the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board of Ontario has done this sort of thing before, in a freaky tv campaign called Prevent It, which can be seen on YouTube, here and here.

And what struck me is, “Here, at last, is a client that takes risks!” Hallelujah!
Possibly this is because risk is their stock and trade, and because lives are at stake, but they deserve credit anyway, because intelligent and effective risk-taking in advertising is all too rare in Canada, though in other places, like the UK, it is common. (I mean, who can forget this risque classic?)

Very few clients are willing to take risks, for all kinds of reasons, none of them good, and collectively we suffer for it. And individually those organizations that do not take risks suffer too, losing their edge and their energy, and failing to translate their strategic visions into reality.

Of course risk inevitably involves an element of, well, risk. Whereas when you go for the same-old same-old you can be sure that whatever else happens, you won’t fail. At least not by standing out. But from an organizational perspective that’s risky too, because in the end campaigns fail by not standing out. Everyone has seen that kind of familiar failure, mediocrity tacitly approved, simply because it’s less risky to ignore than to critique.

I think part of the problem is that organizations tend to diffuse risk-taking, and when individuals do go out on a limb and advocate a ‘risky’ strategy, they become vulnerable to scapegoating if – for whatever reason – the execution does not match the original vision. Maybe organizations should have designated ‘risk takers’ who are expected to take risks and aren’t so vulnerable to scapegoating.

Another reason organizations fail to take useful risks is that employees often seem to feel they need to shield their bosses from seeing ‘wacky’ ideas. Whereas, in my experience, the higher up the ladder you go the more open decision-makers are to taking risks, and the greater their ability to see the potential benefits of trying something new. So I guess what I’m saying is that organizations that want to succeed by standing out rather than fail by staying in line need to create a culture of risk-taking that reaches from top to bottom and back up again.

Innovation always includes a measure of risk. But creative, intelligent and targeted risk-taking can produce results that really do the job, that really succeed, and that really matter.

Anything else, as Ontario’s Worker Safety Insurance Board evidently knows, is asking for trouble.

When it comes to Porter, I’m all about the love. I’ve flown the trendy carrier over a dozen times now. I’ve blogged about what a great job they’ve done on the entire Porter package. I’ve gushed to all my friends. So, is it wrong of me to want to feel a little Porter love in return?

On a flight back home to Ottawa on Friday night it struck me that although Porter does a lot of things very well, what they don’t do well is customer loyalty programs. And I’m not talking about a run of the mill points program either. I mean a smart, creative loyalty program that fits with their brand, and more importantly, their audience.

Porter has the luxury of a fairly tightly defined target audience: urban jet set business people. This audience doesn’t work the 9 to 5, they in fact never really “leave” the office thanks to cell phones and BlackBerrys, etc. They work hard but they’re also demanding. They like efficiency and they appreciate the details. They’re also fairly aesthetically astute and I suspect quite a bit of the attraction to Porter extends beyond the convenience factor to the fact that the airline’s aesthetics are, well, slick.

So, what could the Porter loyalty program look like? Well lets start with building a relationship with their travelers online. Currently, although one can sign in, there isn’t much benefit to it other than forms that autofill. But what if I had my own Porter page where I can set my travel preferences (window seat at the front, please!) and make suggestions (time to change that music track and a great song would be…) or even opt in to a “find a seat mate” for some potential networking opportunities (NOTE: Airtroductions.com matches singles to other singles traveling on the same flight – change the context and imagine this concept for potential new business introductions.)

As a next step, what about giving the kids some swag and using this as a marketing opportunity for Porter outside of the airport. I’m thinking Porter branded:

• BlackBerry cases
• passport covers
• luggage tags
• a receipt holder/tracker (for business expenses)
• a cell phone charm for the fashionistas amongst us

Top it off with an invitation only annual event for the more frequent travelers amongst us done in Porter style with mega networking potential and well, I do believe Porter would have themselves a pretty nifty loyalty program befitting of the airline and its passengers. I know it might just give me some incentive to choose Porter particularly as they begin to expand their destinations and therefore their competitive environment.