It looks like Circuit City is officially going out of business. Another case of the blues: Lowes, Best Buy, outperforming the reds: Home Depot, Circuit City. The service, prices, layout and lighting of Circuit City are just the beginning of their problems.
Here is the current site messaging:
I understand the potential loss of competitive pricing at Best Buy with this loss. But even if I have to pay $5-10 more without the competition adjusting prices—I still say good riddance.
Honesty and uniqueness used to be for the very special organizations with tremendous ad budgets and dynamic leaders. But the dollars behind those campaigns aren’t what made the difference, it was the commitment to finding the right message. While other companies seemed to be happy telling the same story: We’re open—neon OPEN signs, We have a sale—poorly designed flyers stuck beneath windshield wipers and Free Shipping—flaming gif banner ads, the truly great companies looked for what was unique about their business and told that story.
Today even the smallest companies need to differentiate. (And no, being cheaper doesn’t cut the mustard.) It all starts with finding the perfect messaging (arrangement of words) that aligns with your organization’s personality and objectives. Give your customers a smoke job and they will see through it—they are smarter than you think. Special Offers.
Here’s a quote from a well-worn book that has been with me for 20 years. It applies to fiction writing, ad copy, web copy and custom content.
“Whatever you want to say, there is only one right word that will express it, one verb to make it move, one adjective to qualify it. You must seek that word, that verb, and that adjective, and never be satisfied with approximations, never resort to tricks, even clever ones, or to verbal pirouettes to escape the difficulty.”
[Flaubert writing to Maupassant]
Hallie & Whit Burnett
Fiction Writer’s Handbook
1975
—Ian
January 19th, 2009 at 7:20 am
Normally I would not care, however a family member who worked for them for 30 years has just been laid off. It’s scary! She was an accountant for them, she had nothing to do with the bad service of the 12 year olds they used to employ.
Dr. Wright
The Wright Place TV Show
http://www.wrightplacetv.com
http://www.twitter.com/drwright1
January 21st, 2009 at 11:23 am
Maupassant, “Conversation. What is it? A Mystery! It’s the art of never seeming bored, of touching everything with interest, of pleasing with trifles, of being fascinating with nothing at all. How do we define this lively darting about with words, of hitting them back and forth, this sort of brief smile of ideas which should be conversation?”
Messaging/content must be an AUTHENTIC conversation — if, at times, rhetorical (how many of us have been overheard talking to our laptop screens? Oh. Wait. No? That’s just me? Nevermind.)