Do the various behaviours and activities of your brand have a snowball effect?
What I mean is, do they feed into and from each other?
So that their cumulative power.
Magnifies you.
So that the snowballs gets bigger, if you like.
I ask, because The Snowball Effect.
Whether you knew it or not.
Is an opportunity for every brand.
The Snowball Effect.
The Snowball Effect is a big part of branding.
As I say.
Different brand behaviours feeding into and from each other.
So the snowball gets bigger.
Sometime the opportunity is missed.
So the snowball stays the same size.
And sometimes the brand is stupid.
So the snowball melts away.
DHL.
I don’t dislike DHL really.
I just think they’re funny.
I spoke about the way they make business decisions here: https://www.50odd.co.uk/the-best-you-can-do-for-who/.
And now I’m going to talk about how they melt snowballs.
The Wrong Address.
The story I mentioned a sentence or two ago is about what happened when I redirected a parcel with DHL.
Here’s the bit I didn’t mention.
Here’s how DHL melted a snowball.
By having brand behaviours that definitely do not feed into and from each other.
Two Things.
Just after I’d discovered that DHL could redirect a parcel to me.
These two things happened.
First, they politely apologised that I’d have to listen to a 30 seconds(ish) disclaimer.
That they simply had to read to me.
Basically, it said that DHL took little or no responsibility for getting my redirected parcel from them.
To me.
I didn’t listen properly of course.
(Who does?)
I just rolled my eyeballs as they small-printed me to sleep with a tale of about how they’d do their best to get the redirect right.
But that it was not their sole responsibility to do so.
Nice.
I thought.
But as I really couldn’t be arsed listening to the albeit very nice lady any more.
I said,
OK
And that’s when the second thing happened.
The Second Thing.
Just before you go.
The lady said.
Can I ask, do you send parcels?
Can DHL help you?
Would you allow DHL to quote for you and your parcel sending needs?
I smiled.
And politely said.
To the company that had just taken 30 seconds of my time to say that they would take no responsibility for getting a parcel to their customer’s customer.
Ask if I wanted to entrust them to send Always Wear Red’s £1000 jumpers to mine.
No.
Thank you.
I politely replied.
As before my very eyes.
This particular DHL snowball.
Turned quickly.
And permanently.
To water.
