MV newsletter - October 2005

Link to Mud Valley™ brand marketing community membership page and special offers

Rocket scientists………..

One of our least favourite phrases is “it is not rocket science”.

As British Aerospace once retorted, “that is a shame, we are rather good at that!”

Well, here come a bunch of people who claim that they are scientists in making your business rocket:

Rapid Business Growth

Quote: “I took 3 co's from zero to millions. I can do it for your company too”. Unquote.

We love this stuff – the classic endorsement spiel. We are absolutely fantastic, here are lots of people who say we are absolutely fantastic, you may just qualify to find out how fantastic we are, but only if you apply immediately and are worthy of us.

All accompanied by a photograph of the guy that would frighten sharks.

It is almost irresistible, and if you cannot resist it, please go to The Quantum Organization website.

We hope to see you on the Forbes world’s richest list shortly.

(And if you cannot resist it, it might work for you too).

They have a word for it in Swahili……………..

Every culture has its fixations. You may have seen the HSBC advertisements stressing their glocal credentials in understanding local words and symbolism.

Well, Adam Jacot de Boinod has been collecting up words unique to specific languages (and we think that his name is unique to French).

For instance, in Russian there is a word for someone who kidnaps cats, and Albanians, apparently, have 27 words for a moustache (please confirm)

Our favourite is dhurna, which describes the act of doorstepping someone until they pay you to go away. We have just added it to our sales policy.

The article should at least fuel some new HSBC ads at Heathrow airport.

When a shop bars its doors

Go into most furniture shops, and you do not find much going on. There is a reasonable likelihood that the sales people outnumber the customers, and that there are fewer than five people looking round.

Furniture shops are just not happening places.

On the other hand, IKEA opened its new store in Montpellier, France, last month. They did it on a Wednesday, as this is a day when children do not go to school in France. This gave them, in effect, two grand openings: the Wednesday and the Saturday.

On the Wednesday, they opened at 10:00 a.m.. By 10:30 the car park was full. Naturally, the store was also crowded out with people. Customers spent nearly an hour in the queue at the checkout.

On the Saturday, not only was the car park full, but they actually had to bar the entrance to the shop. The number of customers inside the shop was threatening to exceed safety quotas.

What do IKEA do right that is so different from other furniture outlets?

They are not perfect. Having customers queuing for an hour to pay at the checkout would be a nightmare for any supermarket on the planet. A high proportion of the bar codes do not work. From experience, there is a real danger that they will be out of stock of the product you have driven for an hour to buy.

On the other hand, the products themselves are stylish and well made (very few defects, and invariably the right number of screws). They appear cheap compared to the rest of the market. The store is more of an experience than a shopping trip. And, perhaps, above all, it is laid out in a series of show rooms set up as if they were in your own home. You get a real present sense of what your IKEA-adorned sitting room could look like (and it will look better).

Who would have said 20 years ago that Swedish design would be a plus to the French and the Italians, and that Swedish food would be worth queuing up for? Probably not even the Swedes if it came from IKEA. Twenty years ago, if a Swede bought a product that did not work, they would joke that it must have come from IKEA.

In the early days, IKEA had such a cost focus that executives travelling on business would be reimbursed only for the cost of the bus fare.

The only example we have heard of where the IKEA formula did not work was in Japan. According to the story, IKEA got very excited when they discovered that people bought very little furniture in Japan, representing a huge new market opportunity. Two years after launch, IKEA realised that people really did not buy much furniture. Maybe that story is an urban myth.

IKEA also have an interesting approach to succession management. The owner and founder of IKEA Ingvar Kamprad (who still travels by bus in Switzerland, where he lives), has split his empire into three, and shared it between his three sons. The one who gains the most money will inherit the whole business.

If you need some technology

One of the companies IKEA has invested in is Generics.

Generics is a materials science technology development company, based near Cambridge, UK. It is chock full of scientists identifying technological opportunities in the market place, and ready to help you find complementary additions to your product portfolio. Some technologies they develop and commercialise themselves.

So, if you feel that your NPD is a bit light, or you are looking round for new technologies to complete your range, here is a great place to ask (and we are not paid to say this).

© 2005, the Mud Valley™ brand marketing community.

Link to Mud Valley™ brand marketing community membership page and special offers

For further information, please contact enquiries@mudvalley.co.uk

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