October 2009

What businesses can learn from cats

22 Oct, 2009  No Comment

The other morning my cat came and sat on me and started to purr. I started to think about the whole cat-owner relationship as if it were a business-customer relationship. In marketing terms why am I such a satisfied customer of the cat?

1. The cat delivers a unique service – it shows clear differentiation: it purrs – it doesn’t bark; it lounges – it doesn’t require walks.

2. The cat manages expectations – I get affection for providing food, accommodation, entertainment and free health cover!

3. It is consistent – I get the same product/service every day – a few purrs and a bit of affection.

4. The cat has clear communications – it purrs when it is happy and meows when it wants something – easy to understand.

5. It constantly reminds me that it’s there – persistent advertising ensures it gets fed and therefore survives.

6. But best of all if it makes a mess it covers it up (that’s not marketing, thats PR!).

Carbuncle a gem of a word

15 Oct, 2009  1 Comment

I struggled with the word puzzle in the Sydney Morning Herald a few days ago to find, after rather too much time, the anagram’s solution was CARBUNCLE. I was disappointed for not recognizing this delightful word which, twenty-five years ago, spearheaded Prince Charles’ attack on the designs of modern British architects and in particular the design for the extension to the National Gallery, when he used it to say:

What is proposed is like a monstrous carbuncle on the face of a much loved and elegant friend.

It caused much controversy and promoted lively debate about architectural design and planning. His views were not accepted by most architects but carbuncle became a popular and mainstream descriptor for ugly buildings. I was living in London several years later and I heard it used often.

The carbuncle to which Prince Charles was comparing the extension of the National Gallery is a red and swollen, bacterial infection of the skin and subcutaneous tissue that usually has several openings through which pus is discharged (making it different to a boil that has only one).

But carbuncle has another much more attractive use; my old Shorter Oxford English Dictionary defines it as the name of various precious stones of red or fiery colour; anciently of sapphires, spinels or rubies, and garnets; and more recently in lapidary work for garnets that have been cut and polished a certain way.

So how did these two, so very different, things come to have the same name? The Latin scholars will know straight away: carbuncle comes from carbunculus, which literally translates as a little coal. Hence the red gemstones and red, swollen sores both appear as burning little coals.