Tag: marketing

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KFC Great Marketing Gone Bad!

kfc-logoYesterday I tweeted (that’s Twitter talk) this statement, “Whether you like the food or not. KFC has had a pretty effective marketing campaign for their new grilled chicken.” Now I take it all back! The effectiveness that KFC was going to have with their marketing strategy (Free Piece of Chicken, Free 2 Piece Meal, Internet marketing, Oprah, Etc.) will be ruined by the incompetence of their local managers and store employees.

There have been several negative stories in the first full day of the promotion. The biggest story was a rumor of a riot in New York at a KFC, another story reported on problems like chains running out of chicken, while some people have been totally turned away for having the coupon Oprah provided from her website. Still others have just been turned away. I thought that these stories were being generated by PETA or just disgruntled patrons, until Today…

I have two KFC’s within about 5 minutes of my office. I printed my coupons just like everyone else and decided to use one at lunch today. I arrrived at the closest location and to my surprise it seemed as if they had a long line at the drive-thru. Typically this location has no one in the drive-thru. The line went all the way to the entrance of the parking lot, coming from the right side of the property it appeared there was enough room to pull into the parking lot to find a parking space between this truck, who was waiting for the drive-thru; fortunately it was just enough room! The only issue was, the line was not moving and the cars were packed in tight, like sardines in a can. I couldn’t get to a parking spot, but then I noticed, there were no cars parked. I looked at the front door of the building and saw a sign that announced the closing of the dining room for the day, of course there was an apology for the inconvenience. I pulled through the half circle in front of the building to go to the exit, but was met with a traffic jam. Cars in the suicide lane, cars trying to turn into the property from the right side of the road, and now cars trying to get in at the side of the property. It was lunch time, so it literally took 45 seconds for traffic to back up.

Fortunately for me, there is a second location close, so I decided to go there (as soon as I could get out of the parking lot). After all it is my lunch break, I want to enjoy a little time out of the office. I arrive at KFC location #2 and this time I see a few cars in the parking spaces, so I’m getting a little excited that I get to go in, grab my free meal, and sit and enjoy it. As I neared the driveway, I saw it. A line to the entrance. I couldn’t get in. There were cars lined up in the suicide lane, left turn signal blinking, cars parked in the flow of traffic with their right turn signal blinking, so I turned down a side road right beside the parking lot. As I looked at the door, I saw the exact same sign that the other location had on their door. Their dining room was closed as well. People were walking back to their cars from the front door, very disgruntled. I would have been a little more upset at this point, but I looked to the business to the right of the KFC, its their competition, Churches Chicken. What did I see? A KFC employee walking back to KFC with a bag from Churches of their famous Fried Chicken. Wow, I wish I had a video camera!

Both of these locations were obviously trying to limit the number of free meals they had to distribute today. Why would a company offer free meals and then shut their patrons out. Personally, I was upset at their reckless actions of pushing traffic to a halt in front of their stores. Unless you are turning into the restaurant from the suicide lane, you are moving. It is difficult to see some of the lines at the driveway until you are in motion moving into the line of parked traffic. To make things worst, people that cannot wait in moving traffic make things worst as they attempt at lunch time to re-enter the flow of traffic. I am sure both of these locations are under the same management. They are fully aware that most people do not have time to wait 30-45 minutes in line through a Drive-thru only to take their lunch back to the office with no time to eat on a typical 1 hour lunch break. They are pretty arrogant to think that their chicken is worth an hour wait. As I posted here, I’ve tried the chicken and its good, but its not that good. So, most people are going to have to leave, therefore limiting the number of free meals they distribute.

I believe the positive buzz that KFC had going for them will turn into negative buzz if this happens over the next 11 days! Negative buzz works if you are a movie star and your new movie is about to release, however negative buzz for a restaurant chain is not good. I think the actions or neglegence of these local managers/owners was reckless.

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Master Pontiac, Buick, GMC and Archie Hixon

I don’t know about you, but I hate going to car dealerships! I used to sell cars for a short stint of my life while I was in-between jobs. I’ve been in the meetings where the salespeople are trained how to be dishonest and how to lie to gain a sale, so when it comes time to buy a vehicle, I hate it and get serious headaches as well, I get in a bad mood.

On top of having to go purchase a vehicle, this is a horrible time to have an SUV that you are trying to trade-in. It is a great time to be in the market for a SUV. My family and I were in both predicaments. We had a 2005 Nissan X-Terra that we needed to trade-in as our family just grew to the place where we could no longer legally and safely fit in it, but we needed a larger SUV or van to solve our problem. We were siding with the SUV…just because we are not the van kind of people.

Saturday morning we went to our normal breakfast place (Sunrise Grill) before we went to Master Pontiac, Buick, GMC of Augusta. I said a little prayer to myself that God would give us a salesman that would do us right and not play games with us. We pulled into the lot and there he was, the salesman that was going to be our headache for the next several hours or the man that God was going to answer my prayers with. Fortunately, Archie Hixon, was the answer to my earlier prayer. He was a great salesman and a very great guy overall. My wife and I left the lot feeling like we knew a great deal about his family. It turned out that Archie goes to a local church and is very involved in their small groups. When he found out I used to be a full time youth pastor and was praying about God opening a door for me to get back full time, he urged me to check into the opening at his church as their youth pastor just left to start a church. As serious as Archie was, I knew this guy was not about to pull a fast one on us, when he was wanting to see us every weekend.

My wife and I were very pleased with the deal they gave us on our trade and the price that we got our new/used Chevrolet Trailblazer for. We asked for them to lower the price on the Trailblazer but they said it had already been discounted and they were firm on their price, but they easily gave us a new set of tires without any hassle. We were never put under pressure to add anything, Archie wanted to make sure we were offered the extended warranties and the other extras, but once we declined we faced no rebuttals. The bottom line is, we left the dealership $2,000 under what we were expecting to pay, we feel the price for the vehicle we purchased was fair and right, and Archie was a great salesperson. We did not purchase from him because he was a Christian, but a good salesman (trust me I have not bought from people because they were horrible salespeople), however I am glad I found out we were helping provide for a fellow believer with our purchase, as I know the car market is a tough business period, but especially with a tough economy.

If you are in the CSRA or the Augusta area and you are looking for a vehicle, go talk with Archie Hixon at Master Pontiac, Buick, GMC in Augusta on Washington Rd. You’ll be glad you did!

Join the Conversation: Have you had a great experience or a poor experience with a recent purchase? Tell me about it!

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Aerie by American Eagle – Smart Marketing?

I have an American Eagle All-Access Pass, so their new underwear & lounge wear company, “Aerie” sent me a post card for a free pair of panties. If you are not familiar with Aerie they are a company for ladies, kind of like an American Eagle style Victoria Secret for 14-30 year olds (I may be off on my demographics) minus the lingerie.

Since I do not wear panties I let my wife redeem the card for the free pair. Something like an early birthday or anniversary gift, you know just in case I fortget when those special events come around! We walked into the new store at our local Mall, I loved the outside, it was cladded in brick, just like it was located at an outdoor Promenade. When you walk into the store everything is laid out nicely, the store was lit up brightly, and everything looked fresh. My wife browsed through the tables of the underwear that they were giving away as a part of their grand opening special. I was surprised that they had about 4 tables of free underwear, usually a store gives you one small section of free stuff and it usually looks like the items come from the lower quality products that they sell. Aeries was giving away their everyday $7.50 or 5 for $25 pair of underwear for their promotion.

We took my wife’s selection up to the table, and the store representative hit my wife with the BIG question, “Are you a member of the A-List?” – The store rep did not care if my wife said no, as she did, because as soon as my wife said no, the representative said, “If you would like to sign up for the A-List tonight, you will get another free pair of panties now and every Thursday you will be eligible to receive a free in store gift, just bring this card in and they will give you your free gift and punch your card.” “If you want to go pick out another pair of underwear, I will get you a registration form ready.” My wife’s response, “Ok!”

My wife brings her selection back to the counter and as the representative is ringing them up, my wife fills out the simple form to be an “A-Lister,” and waits for the representative to finish her technical stuff at the register for the free underwear and to wrap up the free gifts. The next question from the rep was, “What color ribbon woul you like?” My wife quickly responded, “Pink is fine!” – The store representative wraps both items in a nice box and tops it off with a ribbon. Here’s a few things I noticed while all of this is taking place:

  1. Aerie got my wife into the store with an offer for a free product, something she would like but also with something she has to have.
  2. Aerie will retain customers with the quality of their product and by gaining the trust of their customers, even if the customer is in the store for a free product. The customer leaves realizing the company is not trying to scam them with a less superior product than what they typically sell, they want you to walk away owning something you can buy everyday.
  3. With a lot of people coming in Aerie for a free product, they are going to sell them more than what they came in for, because the group of people they are attracting will see something they like and want to buy it, and most will if they have the money (we are just too poor for anything other than the free stuff!) 🙂
  4. By earning the trust of customers like my wife, when they offer them a customer email program like the “A-List” they are going to have a great rate of participants because they trust that the other free gifts (every Thursday) are going to be at the same high level of quality. – By the way, my wife went into the store for a free pair of underwear, so they know they are attracting people who will come in for something free.
  5. It was easy to get someone like my wife to sign up for the “A-List” because she was already in there for something free and they were offering her another free product on-site.
  6. Finally, this is what I see as genius! This may not have been their intention, but I thought about it as I was standing there observing it all…what would have been a 3-5 minute visit to this new store turned into about a 10 minute visit. They kept us in the store longer, which forced us to look and observe what they had to offer during that extra time. I don’t think it is a mistake that all around the sides behind their cash register was full of product on their walls. As we were standing at the counter filling the card out and waiting for the lady to finish all that she was doing, it provided an opportunity to see more of their products. – As we completed our transaction which cost us $0.00, the store representative walked around the counter and placed the gift box in our hands and told us to have a great evening. We were never pressured to buy anything, it was a great experience. In my mind, it was great marketing of a new company and great customer service. I am sure my wife will return…and if I am with her, so will I!

Join the Conversation: What’s your thoughts?

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Blog Pirates

A Blog Pirate: Someone who tries to steal the spotlight from a more successful blog in order to make their blog noticed and to increase their traffic stats.

This is usually done by pointlessly criticizing posts in order to drive traffic to their blog. Most blog pirates surf the “What’s Hot” on the front page of blog hosts (I.E. WordPress.com) hunting their next victim. They also search through the tags pages to see what blogs have the most comments (thus a high level of traffic) and rips into the author of the blog and/or their content. If you have ever crossed a Blog Pirate you will see why they have to steal the spotlight, its usually because their content is not good enough to draw their own crowd and keep them.

Blog Pirates know that most authors will defend their content thus linking to the pirate and driving their readers (traffic) to the pirate’s site, they also know that when people search for key words pertaining to the victim’s blog in Google the searcher will be driven to the pirate’s blog as well, thus attracting extra traffic. Blog Pirates are interested in one thing, signing on to WordPress and immediately going to their daily stats and seeing how many hits they had that day…nothing more, nothing less.

Watch it! You may be hijacked by a Blog Pirate today 🙂

Join the Conversation! Have you ever been attacked by a Blog Pirate? Know anyone else that has? I’ve been attacked and I know others that have been attacked as well.

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Nickcarnes.com Car Magnets

This is what my car magnets are going to look like!
What do you think of the final product?

This will be 17.3″ x 11.25″ – About the size of a Ledger Piece of Paper.

My wife had a coupon where I can get the large car magnets for only $7.99 or a small one for free through Vista Print. I’m going with the large ones, so people can see my advertisement easier! I will never live down being a self promoter now 😆

Before you ask…Sure you can order some and advertise my blog. Thank you!