Billboard: “Sorry, our entire budget went to excellent customer service.” That’s the copy with a broken image icon on a billboard in Belgium. Credit to TVH Parts Co. for the creative outdoor execution. For background, TVH is the world’s largest distributor of material handling spare parts and accessories.
Shoutout to Zvi Baida for posting the image on his LinkedIn feed. His comment:
“I love this billboard!
Customer service is the new marketing”
Is this is a smart marketing execution or just plain dumb?
Team Clever: Jay Baer and Daniel Lemin would call this outdoor execution a “Talk Trigger.” The lack of creative and a logo has everyone asking the question, “Who did this?”
Team Stupid: Is there any company who poo poo’s their own customer service? Do you really have to say it? You still bought the billboard. I ascribe to the Margaret Thatcher theory on self-proclamation, “Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren’t.”
At the end of the day, does TVH actually walk the talk? From what I see performance-wise, they have over 750,000+ items in stock and 99.3% on-time delivery rate, they seem to be doing well.
What’s your take? To quote David St. Hubbins in Spinal Tap, “There is such a fine line between stupid and clever.”
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Stan Phelps walks the walk. He stands out in the sea of sameness by modeling his own Differentiated Experience (DX) message: Differentiation isn’t just about what you say, it’s about what you do and, more importantly, how and why you do it. Stan leverages his unique collection of 5,000+ case studies on customer, employee, and brand experience to engage audiences with informative learning-based experiences. He believes purposeful DX wins the hearts of employees and customers, and differentiation ultimately boosts loyalty, retention, referrals, and results.
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