Malena's Brands with Purpose vs Purposeless Brands

If I pay $1000 extra for a first-class seat, odds are the flight attendant will be nice to me.

If I pay $2000 extra for the presidential suite at the hotel, odds are the front desk clerk will be nice to me.

If I give the valet $50 to park my car, odds are he’ll be nice to me as well.

So, here’s the question: if all I want, the only extra, is for someone to be nice to me when I visit your business, how much extra does that cost? How much extra to talk to a nice person when I call tech support? How much extra to find a nice receptionist at the doctor’s office? Would you pay $9 extra for a smile when you dealt with the Swiss Cantonal Commune and were filing a form?

I know you’re rushed and stressed and stretched. I know your team deals with hundreds or thousands of customers, and a lot of them aren’t very friendly or warm. And I know that some of your customers (maybe a lot) would happily pay a little extra to get that one thing they want most of all…

I think there’s a huge gap between what people are willing to pay for nice (a lot) and what it would cost businesses to deliver it (almost nothing). Smells like an opportunity.

What is it about fridge magnets? Is there a fridge door in the world that is blank? I doubt it. The kitchen may be the heart of every home, but the fridge door is an intimate reflection of what’s important to a family. Kids’ drawings, take-out menus, holiday snaps, school reports, shopping lists…this is where it happens.  I even have a friend  who has a fridge magnet from every place she’s been. Let’s take this frozen passion a step further and check out a site that opens the fridge door wide and explores what’s inside. And yes, it’s called fridgewatcher.  I put it out as a good example of how smart people in business can use the Web in a far more exciting way than Googling demographics. Anyone with true empathy can learn a lot from the contents of these fridges. And, having learnt, they can start to create experiences that attract people from the fridge out. Cool products that not only taste good, but also give a fridge some class.

Don’t miss the chocolate obsessed fridge from Alexandra, New Zealand. Here’s some real wisdom to think about:

“I do have pictures of the chocolate stage [of my fridge]! In the pictures you see my daughters reaction the first time she saw that particular phase of my fridges life 🙂 One good thing about growing up and getting a job is that you find you have the money to do whacky things that you would have wanted to do as a child. Unfortunately we tend to get caught up in adult problems and forget the dreams and idea’s we used to have in our younger years. So, every now and again I like to do something different to remind myself that there’s more to life… and also just because I can :-)”

My response? Let’s all aspire to fridges that nourish our dreams!