Stand by your brand (not man, Tammy Wynette!)

I recently helped my mom order some holiday cards from Wal-Mart's photo center. We did everything online, and chose to have them shipped to our house. Well, they were supposed to arrive last Thursday, but never did. My anxious mother wanted to get the cards sent to family/friends, so on Tuesday I e-mailed Wal-Mart's customer service to check on the items.

(Normally I wouldn't have done this because it's the holidays and mail can simply take longer than normal. However, the tracking number given in the e-mail confirmation of the order did not work. When I contacted UPS about it, they had no record of that tracking number. I thought perhaps the order didn't go through.)

The cards arrived in the mail Tuesday. They were perfect, just late. However, Wal-Mart is providing a refund to us for the greeting cards because they took so long to arrive. Talk about satisfaction guaranteed!

Way to go, Wal-Mart, for standing by your brand. Your slogan Save Money, Live Better seems to be true. I've never been so impressed and satisified with an online purchase as I am today. Thank you.

Stand by your brand. Make sure everything you're doing (and all the people who work for you are doing) the right things. Customer service is so important, and can make or break future purchases from your customers.

Brandon.

Yesterday was my boyfriend's birthday. My boyfriend, Brandon. He has always wondered why I refer to him only as "my boyfriend" in posts, and not as "Brandon." I honestly don't know why I did that, but I do know I'm lucky to have him by my side. He's a marketing major here at OSU, and he points out some pretty interesting stuff. I love watching TV or riding in the car with him because of the commercials and billboards. He points out some of the most interesting things.

For example, Brandon was watching an infomercial one late Friday night (early Saturday morning). They were selling knives that never dull. However, with the purchase of a set of knives, you received a knife sharpener for free! So he calls the number listed at the bottom of the screen to ask just why they offer a knife sharpener for knives that never dull. Needless to say, they hung up on him. They weren't doing a very good job of branding.

But noticing the little things like knife sharpeners can lead to great success later. As the holiday season is upon us, don't get lazy in your work - homework included! Keep your eyes sharp and your ears open. You never know what might pop up!

Bran: I tried to post yesterday, but every time I tried to visit the home page to log in, my browser closed! So, sorry your birthday post is a day late, Brandon. It is still written with love!

YouTube has everything!

I subscribe to some really interesting blogs about marketing, thanks to my summer internship, and what I just noticed is how often YouTube is used.

My favorite blog to read is Drew McLellan's The Marketing Minute. Posts that stick out in my mind address branding. He give examples of great advertising (or maybe poor advertising) by using YouTube videos. This is so great for me and others my age reading his blog since some of the commercials or brands were before my time, or happened when I was in diapers.

I don't spend a lot of time on YouTube, but I know anything I see on TV can be found there. My mom saw a Budweiser commercial with Hank the horse. I think it first aired during Super Bowl XLII. She liked it and wanted to share it with me. All she knew about it was Hank the horse. She went to YouTube, typed in Hank the horse, and the first thing that popped up was her commercial!

(My mom was pretty excited she could do this all on her own. It is a big deal for her. To put it in perspective, she just switched over to a digital camera in May because I bought her one for Mother's Day and forced her to use it.)

YouTube is more than just a place for fraternity guys to post funny/dumb videos of themselves, like Chad Bro Chill. It is also a resource for people like Drew McLellan who are education people like me about marketing and branding.