A customer came to Pablo Picasso and asked for him to paint her a portrait.
He did so in 10 minutes. And then asked for $20,000 dollars.
The customer was perplexed and said – “But it only took you 10 minutes?”
His response: “It took me 40 years to be able to do that!”
Startups: The price needs to be a function of value created, not the time taken.
Many including startup blog predicted the death of Mother Energy Drink before it was launched. By the way this was Coca Cola Australia’s 4th attempt to get a share of the energy soft drink market. Other attempts included Lift Plus, Burn and Sprite recharge. All of which bombed.
As predicted ‘Mother’ should have been called ‘Dog’. So they’ve burried the old stock on hand and Coke have re-launched Mother with an all new fix all flavour. Which has lead to the following badvertising:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvgIopzPflI]
Memo to Coke Marketing team: Taste has nothing to do with it. Half of Red Bull’s consumers even admit they don’t like the taste. Consumers know the same people developed the flavour profile of this launch too, and yes they know it’s made by Coke.
The energy space is already occupied in the minds of consumers. The market is already dominated by two powerful brands with strong identities & distribution depth. Save your money on advertising and put it towards buying Red Bull gloablly or V for the Asia Pacific market – because this category is already game set match. The two horse race which all categories become has been run and won.
One more thing – this spot is so contrived, your target market would be laughing at you.
Kind regards – Startup Blog.
Note to start ups – if you’re launching a me too, without a price, distribution or technology advantage – best to re-think the launch plans. If Coke can’t do it – why can you?
The latest trick of many airlines is to segregate elements of their product cost
– Introducing the “Fuel Surcharge”
Apparently this provides pricing transparency. Thanks Mr Airline, but we know the price of oil is rising.
Isn’t fuel a fundamental input cost for airlines? (30%)
Do they think we care what their input costs are?
Do they realize that we’d rather the total price – no tricks?
Do they know it reduces ‘trust’ in their brand and industry?
And just to show my total disdain for fragmented and aggregated pricing here’s a few questions I’d like to propose to the airline Industry:
Does Nike have a shoe lace surcharge?
Does Ford charge extra for the steering wheel?
Does Coke have an aluminum can surcharge?
Does Nokia charge extra for the buttons on the cell phone?
Fuel is not an ‘optional extra’. So work it out, include it and charge us a price. That’s what business is…. Businesses are meant to be working this stuff out to reduce the complexity in our lives. That’s what business does.
No wonder airlines have the highest business failure rate of any industry, and the worst profitability of any Industry in history. (which by the way is a net negative over the past 100 years)
Start up blog says: Consumers hate ‘Oh, by the way’ charges. Avoid them at all costs.