Monthly Archives: April 2008

Unbelievable strap lines

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southall Unbelievable strap linesSouthall Travel – redefining the travel experience. Well that’s the unbelievable statement on all the baggage carousels at Terminal 3, Heathrow.

By contrast their website home page title says: Flights to India Cheap Flights to India Holidays to India Cheap flights to Dubai Cheap flights to Nairobi Cheap Flights to Thailand Cheap flights to Singapore.

It is worrying when companies pluck these strap lines out and plaster them all over their businesses. Redefining the travel experience is initially unbelievable and ultimately highly unlikely. Why not stick to proudly being cheap/low price? At least that would be honest.

My other concern, as I waited for an hour for my case (one of the advert adorned baggage carousels had broken down) is that most people seeing the adverts had already made their travel decisions.

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Hertz change from yellow

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hertz Hertz change from yellow

Hertz blue key fob

If I were the guardian of the Hertz brand I’d be shaking my head. Surely the Hertz logo is yellow?

The Hertz Corporation (also known as Hertz Rent A Car or simply Hertz) is the world’s second largest car rental company, with 1,900 locations in the United States and 5,100 worldwide behind Enterprise, but is the largest general use car rental company in the world. Source: Wikipedia

copenhagen1 Hertz change from yellow

Copenhagen

This blue Hertz key fob was with the key of a car rented from Copenhagen airport a few days ago.

Mind you, there are some funny goings on with brands in Copenhagen. Look at all the logos on this building! The building is Industriens Hus.

BA – the world’s favourite joke

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So, we’re all bored with the Terminal 5 stories now. Perhaps we raised an eyebrow when we learned that the case and luggage losses were so bad that some insurers are withdrawing cover for travellers using T5.

I thought they cannot be that bad, I’ve had great service from BA over the years. Thinking I would re-engage with British Airways, I logged onto the BA Executive Club – well I tried to … “Not enough activity…we’ve cancelled your membership and all the points that go with it.”

The BA Executive Club customer service person seemed completely unconcerned when I politely said that I would phone Virgin instead. All that money invested in a loyalty programme and they throw you out. And to think I once spent £1,000,000 on BA flights for one promotion!

Perhaps a BA Exec, still in post, if they read this will correct matters and send me a BA Exec Club gold card. I doubt it though, I imagine the accountants now running the company would not approve it.

For your enjoyment and anagram of ‘The World’s Favourite Airline’: It is another awful ride lover. And more from Anagram Genius.

A more eloquent slating of BA’s market hopes can be read at Reference Geeks.

Cauliflower shock story

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cauliflower Cauliflower shock story

Should we complain about the cauliflower?

Well, it was a shock to Jo, one of my daughters. In one of her rare encounters with the kitchen she was dismayed at how small the head of the cauliflower was in comparison to the leaves surrounding it.

She was so horrified she got me to take a photo of it and weigh the evidence. The pound coin and the baked beans are for scale reference only.

The edible head of the cauli was 288g and the leaves alone weighed in at 548g. I’m not sure who she thinks we should complain to.

Through a very narrow association (supermarkets) this got me pondering on recent supermarket adverts. ASDA were claiming that they had over 2,000 items lower in price than Tesco. At the same time Tesco had just over 200 items cheaper than ASDA. On this basis ASDA were making themselves out to be the best.

This is a very interesting bit of positioning. You can see how the ASDA cauliflower got me here now.

The point firstly is do I want the 2,000 cheap ASDA items? Perhaps it is the 200 Tesco products at a better price that I want.

My second point is, are we after cheap or good value or a good experience. If the ASDA price claim is as powerful as they make out why are people going elsewhere? Why aren’t the queues always out the door?

Tesco were recently not advertising. This was to let word of mouth deliver their message virally. And here I am contributing to it! Good old Tesco.

Single and double-loop learning

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harrington young Single and double loop learningI had to chuckle. I was looking for some information and I dived into Google. Double and triple loop learning was the subject I wanted to read about. The site I landed on was that of my sister, Amanda Harrington.

Mind you, she was always the clever one. Now with a BA, two Masters Degrees and well on her way to her PHD.

And as it happens the information was just the kind of brief summary I like. Thank you, Amanda. Here it is:

Single-loop learning: Feedback within surveys, quality control and performance management all tend to focus on specifics and on asking: “Are we doing things right?”

Double-loop learning: We help you design and use feedback in more challenging ways, questioning underlying assumptions, developing new skills and asking: “Are we doing the right things?”

Triple-loop learning: Working at a deeper level with both self-feedback, and informal and formal feedback from other sources, increases the ability to develop, individually and as an organisation. In this way, our clients learn how to use feedback processes more dynamically and to ask: “How can we make well-informed choices that are right for us?”