Metzger Associates' Blog

Who Banned the Phrase "We're Sorry?"

There's no denying that Apple has been on a roll for the last few years. Great computer products, and nothing short of a complete revolution in how we buy and listen to music.

So when something doesn't go as planned, why not just say "we're sorry," communicate your plan to make things right with your customers and move on?

Apple recently shipped some iPods with a PC virus. "Well," the company said (and we're paraphrasing here), "if the Windows OS weren't so prone to viruses, this wouldn't have happened."

What?!

Apple is clearly run by some very smart people, but sometimes smart people do stupid things (as reality TV has proved time and again). That was stupid. Sony blaming various manufacturers for the recent exploding battery debacle. Stupid. Ford and Firestone blaming one another for the tire issues a few years back. Hall of Fame Stupid.

In the end, only tort lawyers care about who's fault the problem is (actually, even they don't care... they just want to know who's standing close enough to blame that has a deep pocket!). If something goes wrong, consumers want to hear "we're sorry" followed by "here's what we're going to do to fix it."

It's a big, crazy, fast-moving world out there. Mistakes are going to happen. It's how a company deals with them that counts, and blaming the next guy in line is never the right answer.

Online worlds: a whole new marketing adventure

If you’re looking for some as-yet-under-exploited real estate for your marketing messages, you’ll have to jump into the new bohemias of online gaming. Massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) are the next frontier for new media marketing, and a few bold companies are staking out their territories.

With more than 800,000 avatars and a steady stream of new “births” every day, the most exciting of the lot is Second Life, a virtual world whose economy has effects on the real world. “Linden dollars” can actually be exchanged for American currency, and have generated a multi-million dollar economy.

Many Second World citizens have quit their day jobs in the meat world to live off the fat of the land. And even the gamers who aren’t so hardcore about their experience are spending 40 hours or more each month building a fantasy life online, and taking the social networking idea to a whole new level.

There’s also an online newspaper, where anyone can get the scoop on the latest events in the world.

With so many hearts and minds invested into a new world whose current 83 square-mile area is growing rapidly, smart marketers couldn’t be far behind. Rather than create passive advertising messages, which would just annoy users, advertisers are finding creative ways to allow users to interact  with their brands.

 Of course, you don’t have to be pretty to be a fun online experience.

To paraphrase our friend Nate Warren, the most powerful billboard is the human imagination.