Email this morning from Sofitel. Looks like they are trying to clean their database and to start a loyalty programme. I couldn’t help noticing a particularly masculine bias to the image (the men standing in suits, the women looking up in glamorous adoration). Then I look at the data capture form, and it’s formatted for French addresses, without any validation on the input. It’s been pre-filled, just to emphasise how ill-suited it is for the UK. And just in case I’m left in any doubt, the title used to address me is ‘M’ for Monsieur.
I get a very clear message from this: we’re French, we might be sexist, we don’t understand how name and address data work outside our country, and we don’t really mind what you put in our data capture form.
Just because you’ve translated the copy, doesn’t mean you’ve got a cross-border campaign.
There’s been plenty of study of the way the mind works after it’s made a purchase decision (see wikipedia here on ‘post-purchase rationalisation’, and here for a really interesting finding on the positive difference that branding can make). We tend to filter out any evidence that we made a bad choice, and to seek those things that tell us we chose well.
The people in Procurement are just as prone to this, but probably more aware of it than most. They are going to want something a little more objective to measure the impact of their decisions.
There’s an interesting opportunity here to provide external measurement and validation of the effects of long-term decisions such as placing or renewing outsourcing contracts. Such a validation would also benefit the service provider, since it would be independent verification that they had delivered on the promise.
So I’m setting up something to do just that in the marketing services space. It’s called an Independent Assurance Review. It’s a really simple idea – and it’s not even a new one, it’s already quite common in the public sector. There’s a bit more about it on my website – or you can call me to talk it over.
Email this morning from Sofitel. Looks like they are trying to clean their database and to start a loyalty programme. I couldn’t help noticing a particularly masculine bias to the image (the men standing in suits, the women looking up in glamorous adoration). Then I look at the data capture form, and it’s formatted for French addresses, without any validation on the input. It’s been pre-filled, just to emphasise how ill-suited it is for the UK. And just in case I’m left in any doubt, the title used to address me is ‘M’ for Monsieur.