{"id":1929,"date":"2014-04-30T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-30T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.leonorapolonsky.com\/food-for-thought\/Counterintuitive-Brand-Differentiators"},"modified":"2014-04-30T04:00:00","modified_gmt":"2014-04-30T04:00:00","slug":"counterintuitive-brand-differentiators-terminix-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/csmhosted.com\/lpa_archive\/?p=1929","title":{"rendered":"Counterintuitive Brand Differentiators (Terminix story)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I recently returned from a 2-week trip late Friday night. Exhausted, I slept-in on Saturday, forgetting a routine Terminix&reg; Pest Control visit I had scheduled. When I awoke, after the appointment time, I wondered if I&rsquo;d missed the doorbell? Or was this service was an outdoor only visit? I&rsquo;d need to find out.<\/p>\n<p> But the very thought of &ldquo;finding out&rdquo; was daunting: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Dial 800 number<\/li>\n<li>Find\/enter account number<\/li>\n<li>Listen to option lists<\/li>\n<li>And more option lists!<\/li>\n<li>Press buttons to identify myself and my problem<\/li>\n<li>Wait on hold<\/li>\n<li>Say &ldquo;no&rdquo; &ndash; to &ldquo;do you want to take a survey?&rdquo; <\/li>\n<li>Finally, talking to someone in a call center who may or may not know the story&hellip;&nbsp;&nbsp; <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> And so, I procrastinated. A few days later, I found on my front door a note from Keith who worked for Terminix&reg;, and had been at my house. The note read as follows:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Terminix note\" src=\"\/lpa_archive\/blog_images\/terminixnote.JPG\" style=\"border: 0px; width: 100%;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>WOW! As a consumer, I could call a real person &ndash; who was at my house and would know what was what. I would talk to him or get a call back &#8212; within 24 hours! Nirvana.<\/p>\n<p> As a Marketer, these thoughts crossed my mind:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Clever marketers, even in mature industries where there is little functional differentiation to be had, can create entirely new points-of-difference.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>A Brand Point-of-Difference that has nothing to do with why I am in the Category can create fierce loyalty and advocacy.&nbsp; <\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Consider personal service PODs as &ldquo;back to the future&rdquo; opportunities to seize in today&rsquo;s impersonal world. <\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The lesson: <strong>Look for potential Brand differentiators that may have little direct connection to why consumers are in your Category<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently returned from a 2-week trip late Friday night. Exhausted, I slept-in on Saturday, forgetting a routine Terminix&reg; Pest Control visit I had scheduled. When I awoke, after the appointment time, I wondered if I&rsquo;d missed the doorbell? Or was this service was an outdoor only visit? I&rsquo;d need to find out. But the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/csmhosted.com\/lpa_archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/csmhosted.com\/lpa_archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/csmhosted.com\/lpa_archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csmhosted.com\/lpa_archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csmhosted.com\/lpa_archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/csmhosted.com\/lpa_archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1929\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/csmhosted.com\/lpa_archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csmhosted.com\/lpa_archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/csmhosted.com\/lpa_archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}