The big news this week was the departure (do we still say firing?) of BP's CEO Tony Hayward.  Several headlines I read called him the "fall guy".  I guess I thought he was actually responsible.  A fall guy/scapegoat is punished for the errors of others...and wasn't it Hayward himself who actually blew it in nearly every public forum held about the oil spill?

 I'm not feeling any sympathy for CEO expectations.  In my own experience, these are the same expectations we all have of each other.  Tell the truth.  Don't be an arrogant jerk.  Take responsibility for your actions.  Say you're sorry when you screw up. 

Sure it's worse when the media covers it, and customers and investors get to watch the whole thing.  But really it's all about integrity, and I'm pretty sure that was written into Hayward's job description.  But if you don't have it when you get the job, the PR experts aren't going to be able to help you develop it on the fly.

In smaller news, A&P replaced their CEO for the fourth time in less than a year.  I thought the comments from WSJ readers were quite amusing and also quite interesting.

Amusing:

Their stores are Food Museums and Christian Haub knows absolutely nothing about how to run a Company. No one can fix this. Cut your losses if you own the stock, avoid the stores unless you are starving on an island and there are no alternatives.

 Interesting:

It's rather disturbing that Mr. Martin will receive a $1million salary on top of 1.5 million shares and stock options along with a possible $276,000 payment if he stays until February. A&P is crying hard times but is willing to waste such massive amounts of money on one man while cutting much needed help from the bottom.

There are many good workers who work in A&P stores that make the company it's money and these people don't see even a modest increase in salary or full-time positions. As for myself, I was told that I was going to receive full-time within my department a few months ago. The VP approved it to my Produce Merchandiser and I was told it was a go. Then after about 2 or 3 months it came down in an email that the policy of a full-time hiring freeze was still in effect and somehow the VP was overridden.

If A&P refuses to replace full-timers when they retire and only fill the gaps with $8.00 an hour part time help, as in mine and many other cases, the company will be facing some major pains down the road. When product doesn't get to the shelf and the departments look messy, customers will be pushed away. People who only look at numbers all day won't understand that and you can't expect to cut corners in areas where the money is made. Paying someone $1 million at the top while your backbone rides on those making $8.00 an hour is not smart business.

I don't shop A&P, but I do shop WalMart and Copp's - a regional grocer.  At least in my shopping area, it seems the strategies of these two retailers are converging.  Increase the emphasis on private label, and reduce the selection of branded items to streamline inventory.  It's an unexpected turn of events for me to watch these very different businesses compete on the same strategy.  Makes shopping a whole lot more challenging, as my favorite brands and products get harder and harder to find.  Not to mention how it just plain ticks me off. 

Well maybe this new CEO at A&P will find a growth strategy.  That would be news worth reporting.

Your 1-year-old Merrell Radius shoes

I got an email today that was impressive in its simplicity.  The subject line read: "Your 1-year-old Merrell Radius shoes".  The body of the message read:

           Dear Alison Heiser,
           One year ago, you ordered the following product from Zappos.com:
           Merrell Radius - Dark Taupe/Rust Nubuck - 15/D - Medium
          We wanted to let you know that right now, your size is still available from Zappos.com

It was from the Zappos.com Customer Loyalty Team.

It's hard to overstate the importance of customer loyalty - vast bodies of research, thousands of business strategies, and common sense all tell us that the smart money is on keeping your current customers.  Yet so few organizations execute well against this concept - it continues to provide an enormous opportunity for competitive advantage.

I think most organizations envision complicated programs, rewards, incentives.  So they get started, falter, reinvented, abandoned.

Sometimes the obvious answers are so simple that they are often overlooked.  What if we took the time to tell our customers that we know they bought something specific from us in the past, and we have an idea for something specific they might be interested in buying from us now?  This type of data mining hardly even seems like data mining...it's too simple to carry that description.

Do something simple - write a personal note to your customers and offer them a suggestion that tells them you know who they are.  See if you can follow the Zappos.com model and make it 35 words or less.  I think the results will surprise you.

By the way, I do not wear a 15D.  I bought those for my big-footed husband.

I'm having a strong reaction to the news from GM this morning.  Yes, after firing Campbell-Ewald after 91 years, they are now putting a fourth US marketing leader at the helm in 12 months time.  GM's spokesperson reports that Ed Whitacre's thinking "is that we need to grow as vigorously and aggressively as possible, and he expects the company will grow market share."

There are so many problems with this leadership move and GM's situation...but I will limit my thoughts to a few points.

1. GM cannot "grow share" until they "hold share".  US market share fell again to 18.7% from last year's 19.1% - it just keeps falling.  Stopping the bleeding from the customers that are defecting from GM is problem number one.  I am completely amazed that customer loyalty is not the highest priority.  And since GM has nearly perfect information about who their customers are and where they live (thank you, VINs), it seems that 1:1 marketing is the most important path forward.  High profile ad campaigns?  I hardly think so.

2. The marketing profile at GM is baffling.  Let's start with the fact that they are all automotive insiders.  Mark LaNeve, Bob Lutz, Susan Docherty, and now Joel Ewanick from Hyundai.  I think Joel did a fantastic job at Hyundai, along with a product line-up that has steadily won over consumers and impressed competitors over the last decade.  However, Hyundai is all about new customers - the missing skill set is loyalty and retention.  If GM ever gets serious about customer loyalty, they will need to look outside their own industry to find the best models.

3. Do I really need to say that 4 marketing leaders in 12 months is ridiculous?

4. Finally, I have the distinct impression that the marketing leadership issues at GM are fundamentally linked to a misguided understanding of what marketing is all about.  "Clever campaigns" may be important, but this misses the larger point. Marketing's role is about guiding the company to develop a compelling value proposition for each of their brands and the company.  Brand experience - in all of its complexity - is incredibly hard work, and touches every area of the company.  More importantly, it touches every customer.  GM needs to be careful about looking for a Midas touch solution from the hands of a single new marketing hire.

The word shim is driving me crazy.  I know what shims are, and I know who uses them.  They're for propping up or wedging something that doesn't fit properly or work as it should.  At least that's what the people I know use shims for.  Wobbly tables.  Things that aren't level.  A rudimentary solution to something that wasn't built right.

So of course I looked online and there are some other more sophisticated definitions of the word shim, but you would have to be an engineer to know those.  Which is at the root of Toyota's fiasco.  A product recall for an engineering company is an engineering problem.  Using a word like shim is probably no big deal for them...but of course it's a big deal for Toyota owners.

I don't want a new shim, I want a new car.  Or at least a new accelerator.  This may be an expedient solution, but I don't want any part of it, and now - worst of all - I don't want any part of Toyota.  They are no longer the company they were.  Dare we say it?  Did they outpace GM's sales to become like GM???

I read their news release and the official word is that they are fixing the accelerator with a "precision-cut steel reinforcement bar".  I like that better.  Sounds stronger...sounds permanent.

But unfortunately I heard the word shim first.  No going back now, is there?

My husband uses Zyrtec on a regular basis for allergies. There's an interesting statement on the package that I haven't seen before. Maybe it's been there - maybe it's on other packages as well - but I have never noticed until now.

"The makers of ZYRTEC® do not make store brand products."

That's interesting to me. When I started my career at P&G, we could have made the same statement. But we didn't. Private label was another world at that time.

Today, private label products are pervasive. The trend is definitely up. When McNeil Consumer Healthcare makes that statement, there's a lot to think about, because that statement is intended for consumer information. And since they don't make store brand products, they're making a point that most likely is in direct opposition to the store brand alternative: it's not "exactly the same thing". All the innovation that McNeil can muster is devoted to their branded products. Clean and simple. Just like P&G.

As I have worked in several other businesses where we actually did make both branded and private label products, the issue there is much more complex. Serving two masters requires a much more thoughtful strategic and operational approach to customers and consumers. It's difficult to get it right. I have found that the key - as in most things - is understanding the consumer. It's essential to forge a partnership with a retailer that is working to meet consumer needs. If it's a pure profitability play things can get dicey.

When consumers shop private label they're normally looking for a more economical alternative to branded products. (Although it's true that in some situations they actually begin to prefer private label offerings - but that's a topic for another day.) For the manufacturer, getting beyond the price differential to figure out what the value proposition is can be difficult. How do you make the products different? What do you do when you launch new innovations? How do the manufacturer and retailer respect each other as competitors?

Probably a branded package won't carry a label about store brands when the manufacturer makes both. But it's worth thinking about what that label would say. Your organization needs everyone on the same page.