In a recent post I wrote about a few of Register.com’s marketing strategies. The problem was that in my case the innovation didn’t work – they led me to register a domain name and only at the last second did they tell me it wasn’t available. This result was an irritated and resentful customer (me).
I was lucky enough to experience a similar innovation error with USAirways. (Yes, I realize the airline industry is often a target of my posts, but they’re creating this material – I’m not …

At first it was (sometimes) amusing when the airlines started instituting their new fees.  They smelled of desperation, but at least a few made logical sense.  Premium pricing for exit row seats?  Okay, I get it.  Early checkin fee on Southwest?  Not a problem.
You see, every day consumers are faced with basic cost-value decisions.  I can buy a $20 pair of jeans, or a $120 pair – they will both keep my legs warm.  

Sometimes the easiest way to be innovative is to let your competitors make mistakes.  Here are three examples of companies that took advantage of their competitors, with embedded videos of the advertisements they created.

A great marketing activity is one that doesn’t feel like marketing at all. That doesn’t happen very often, so when it does it feels noteworthy.
Southwest Airlines (revenues: $11 billion) sent me a birthday card this week. Seriously. A birthday card. Not a promotion disguised as a birthday card, it was just a birthday card. It didn’t even have drink coupon enclosed. And guess what – I appreciated it a lot more without any coupons. It made it much more memorable (obviously since I’m …

I recently took a business trip and identified four “everyday” innovations that benefited both the innovative businesses and their customers.
1. Southwest Airlines’ seating. Until recently I was the most anti-Southwest person you could find; I felt like cattle on my first flight a few years ago – people were lining up an hour ahead of the flight to get a good seat.  I cursed this “new age” airline from my center seat the entire flight, vowing never to fly them again.  But when they instituted their new policy of assigning …