I had the distinct pleasure of being the keynote speaker at Frito Lay’s “Innovation Symposium” recently.  They have embarked on a very aggressive innovation initiative and set the stage by holding a week-long symposium.  In attendance were folks from research and development, marketing, operations, culinary, and their advertising agency.  My program kicked off the week-long agenda and it did so with a BANG!  My presentation was a high-energy lesson on Creating a Cult Community around your brand.  And this can only be done by creating emotional connections with the consumers through very relevant, yet innovative packaging, marketing and eating experiences. 

To learn more about my “Cult Branding” and “Innovation” programs, please contact our offices.  If you are going to compete in today’s tough economy laced with commodity products and services, you better figure out a way to differentiate - I can help!

I just came back from a trip to Colorado. I had to go to several cities throughout the state, therefore I rented a car. I used to be a Hertz Club Gold member when I owned my advertising agency, because most of our client meeting trips required several agency representatives, and we needed a vehicle to accommodate us. However, now that I travel alone for my speaking business, 99% of the time my client either picks me up at the airport, or they have a driver pick me up. That is why I allowed my gold membership to run out.

Back to the trip. Since I was familiar with Hertz, I decided to rent with them again. I flew into Denver and took the shuttle bus to the Hertz center. When I arrived, I was sixth in line. I remained in line for over an hour, watching the people in front of me go through great pains to rent a vehicle and listening to everyone in line complain loudly about the wait and the horrible service. There were four extremely slow, casual and uncaring “customer service” representatives behind the counter. I overheard two representatives complaining about how busy it was. One of them even joked about getting out of there. “I’m done. I’m outta’ here!” is what she said. When I finally made it to the counter, I told the rep that people have literally left the line to go to another rental company. She said - “Nobody else has cars. It’s not our fault. We don’t have enough people and we’re short on cars.” I was left speechless. “It’s not our fault?” Whose fault is it? Mine? When I gave her my reservation, she told me they didn’t have that car available. I waited another twenty minutes for them to find a car for me.

This person did apologize when I left, but she did so without looking at me and making it very clear that she didn’t feel she needed to.

I have a few trips coming up where I’ll need to rent a car. I was going to renew my Club Gold membership, but not anymore.  I will most definitely make this experience part of my keynote presentations, seminars and training programs. You can bet on that!