The recent political debates and on-going campaign speeches have similar themes; and each party has taken similar positions.  Yet, both parties stress how different they each are.  Obviously, there are some clear differences, yet, many are subtle - at least as far as what can be understood from the media.  Perhaps that’s why the polls are fairly even (depending on your source).  But, one thing I notice is that all the rhetoric boils down to “sound bites”.

This causes me to think about communications, in general, and about message retention levels.  I’m sure everyone reading this understands that only a fraction of what we read, watch or listen to is retained (and the older I get, the lower the fraction!).  In business, marketing and advertising messages face the same challenge as the candidates face getting their message across.

The latest research claims that we are exposed to between 3000 and 3500 marketing or advertising messages a day!  Currently, many of these messages can be attributed to the current political environment - we can’t get away from them.  Campaigns are spending tens of millions trying to get their message across.  This is an excessive demand for our attention.  Just as with marketing and advertising, we’ll likely respond only to those messages that reach an emotional cord within us.

What can we learn from this?  At a minimum, unless we have a lot of money for advertising our message repeatedly, which is unaffordable for the majority of businesses, it is extremely difficult to get your message to stick.  We can also learn that our communications must resonate with our audience emotionally and be different than our competitors.  This isn’t easy to do.  I believe it’s why most advertising under performs.  Not enough time is devoted to truly developing compelling content for marketing.  Many that advertise are looking for immediate results and do not systematically test their messages like a political campaign would.

I welcome comments or examples of successful attempts at developing compelling, unique messages - and, I’d be just as interested in what other marketing lessons we can learn from the political campaigns.

My wife owns an SUV approaching 80,000 miles.  The other day we heard a not-so-good sound coming from the underneath as well as some out of the ordinary exhaust noise.  We have a small service station nearby that has employees that have done business with my wife’s employers - a veterinarian.  So, I stopped by, introduced myself and set an appointment.  I believe that since they new my wife (I made a point of making the connection to her), they treated me quite well.  They even volunteered to take her to work or bring the SUV to her once it was repaired.  Not your typical offer.

So, the day after we dropped off the car, they called me and said all the issues we taken care of.  Turns out, a shield and an exhaust bolt came loose - both of which caused the noises we heard.  I thanked them and said we’d be by later to pick up the car.  About 20 minutes later, they called back.  They wanted to know if we wanted them to drive the car to my wife’s place of work - no charge.  I was caught off guard by this service.  I thanked them and said we had to go by there anyway, so I declined their offer.

When we picked up the car, we learned their credit systems were down.  Not having a check with us, they said “just mail it to us”.  Then we got the bill (this is the really good part!).  It was a whopping $29.32!  I don’t know about you, but, I cannot recall anytime I had any repair work of any kind done for so little, not to mention the quick service and the volunteered shuttle service.  I was truly WOW’d.  How refreshing.  I know they’ve gained me as a very loyal customer that I will refer often.

So, I guess I share this to illustrate how even a small local service station can WOW its’ customers.  I’m sure they don’t have any written policy on this - it’s just good ‘ol friendly service with a smile.  It seems so easy to me to get to this level of service.  I really struggle with why there’s so many businesses that not only don’t strive to excel at service, but, to tolerate poor service.

If you’ve experienced great service, I’d love to hear about it or any thoughts on service in America today.