Feeding an Ailing Economy

This past Saturday, the New York Times ran an article about how some retailers, such as Supervalu and Domino’s Pizza are launching aggressive campaigns targeting consumers who are about to receive their federal stimulus rebate checks (individuals are getting $600 on the average while, couples are getting $1,200). What is making some raise their brows is that retailers are offering special 10% bonus gift cards and other special inducements provided that consumers spend their entire windfall on their products.

Yet not all retailers are falling in line. Wal-Mart, for instance, feels that stores that are engaging in this type of behavior are being “irresponsible”–certainly indicative of the fact that, at least in the corporate world, “irresponsible” is all in the eye of the beholder.

Is the marketing ploy creative or just plain desperate?  And, is any marketing campaign ever really “responsible” if it aims to convince consumers of something that, in theory, they wouldn’t do without seeing the ad? It’s hard to say, but one thing is for sure: Anyone who spends $600 at Domino’s has even bigger health problems than our economy …

Dell’s Perpetual Purgatory?

Dell has been to Hell and back in recent years for its monumental crisis management missteps, especially in the realm of digital communications. Blogger Jeff Jarvis single-handedly damned the company for its poor customer service record a few years back and, despite moderately successful attempts to rebound its reputation by finally participating in the blogosphere, consumer spite has reared its ugly head again.

On May 2, a U.K. customer posted a rant in a chat room informing fellow Dell users of a glaring error on select models of Vostro laptop keyboards—that is, a much-too-long shift key threw an entire row of keys out of whack, making it nearly impossible to type properly.  The real rub, though, is that the faux pas spawned a diatribe on Flickr, complete with a picture of the faulty keyboard and frequent updates by one user.

This is just one more example of how crisis can spin out of control when angry consumers are at the helm.  Granted, if anyone was trying to post with one of those Dell machines, their message wouldn’t be as easy to decipher. Perhaps that was all part of the plan?

By Courtney Barnes

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