Our Agency

Last week while on vacation I visited the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. On the plaque next to the panda exhibit read something like this, “Pandas must spend over 50% of their time eating bamboo because they have difficulty digesting it and it has very little nutritional value.”

The panda spends so much time trying to survive on what he’s used to that he doesn’t have time to try something new.

What if the panda stopped eating bamboo and started eating energy bars? What would he do with all his spare time? What could he accomplish with a larger family and a larger network of pandas? Would he still need to spend the other 50% of his time sleeping? Would he still be restricted to living in the jungle or could he get the beach front home he’s always dreamed about?

What are you doing in your business that eats up a lot of your time and produces little results? Make the change now or tell your friends and co-workers they can find your exhibit next to the panda.

Well just two days after my GM bad marketing prediction I saw two new commercials.  One was a nationwide commercial where GM talked about GM for 60 seconds.  Not about how they are going to help their customers, they talked about THEIR new vision, THEIR new cars, THEIR new company.  Not once did they mention a single benefit to their customers.

The second commercial was for a local dealership challenging the viewer to be patriotic and buy GM.

I must be a sorcerer……….some call me Tim?

GM has problems. Lots of them to be exact.

Their biggest problem will probably be winning back the trust of the consumer and the taxpayer who is footing their bill.

If I were them I would take every dollar set aside for advertising and instead use it to help their current customers.  I would hold town forums and not only invite GM automobile owners to give their feedback, but actually take note of it and make the desired changes.  If they actually listen and take care of their existing customers, the genuine word of mouth it would create may be just what they need to actually survive this mess.

GM probably won’t do this though.  They’ll probably run TV commercials and print ads encouraging us to be patriotic and buy American.  Or worse, they’ll go the ex-girlfriend route and try to make us remember the good times while pretending the bad never happened.  Marketers, business owners, and ex-boyfriends take note.