*Photo by Alyssa via her Flickr.

Whenever I hear  people talk about how to view and treat customers, a memory comes to mind that was burned into my head: In my first few weeks at Brains on Fire, I remember Robbin leaning back from her desk, looking at me, and almost yelling, “Eric, I’m going to scream if I hear the words ‘Cost Per Acquisition’ one more time - these are REAL PEOPLE, not just numbers!”

I was reminded of that story the other night I went out to hear local band Andy Lehman and the Night Moves. Andy didn’t say much during the show, but the one thing he did say really caught me off-guard - and made Robbin’s words echo in my ears.

“I think a lot of bands have it backwards these days - somehow they get to a place where they think that the audience should thank them for playing. Well, it’s the other way around. I want you to know that it’s a privilege for me to be here - for you to take time out of your night to come and hear us play a few songs, and we’d be honored if you joined us on our journey.”

Andy didn’t look at the crowd and calculate his estimated takeaway in CD sales - he looked at the crowd and saw real people who were there to hear good music - people he could inspire. And he thanked them for giving him that opportunity.

No matter how great or unique you think your agency, company or product is, it is still a privilege to serve the customer who has chosen you out of a sea of unlimited choices and given you the opportunity to rock their world. And the opportunity to rock your customer’s world should never go to waste.

Because if you’re not, you’re going to get called out for it.

And thanks to our friends at Full Circle PR, this is the part where I’m gonna talk about the recent Advertising Age piece where Taco Bell and their agency - DraftFCB - launched a new campaign to paint Taco Bell as a place where you can eat and lose weight. Yep, you read that right.

The spots center around “Christine Dougherty, a ‘real-life Taco Bell customer’ who lost 54 pounds over a two-year period by replacing her usual fast-food lunch or dinner with an item from Taco Bell’s Fresco menu.

To make a long story short, according to the article:

Prior to launch, posts were 73% positive, putting it ahead of beloved chains like Subway, Wendy’s and Domino’s. Words associated with the brand online were “love,” “delicious,” and “favorite.” Postings are now 67% positive, putting Taco Bell behind White Castle, Blimpie and Arby’s, which rank among the category’s lower tier. Now three of the words most closely associated with Taco Bell and its campaign have been “fat,” “stop,” and “joke.” BrandIndex shows the chain’s buzz and quality ratings falling among women aged 18-34 since the beginning of December, and particularly since Christmas.

So basically Taco Bell is trying to jump on the “healthy eating” bandwagon and it’s backfiring. Big time. Why? Because they aren’t being true to who they are. It’s Mexican fast food, people. Taco Bell and healthy aren’t two words that I ever use together, and I’m willing to bet I’m not the only one. Why do companies have a need to try and be everything to everyone? Do they get bored? I dunno. But when we embrace who we are and what we stand for at a deep level, then you’re drawing lines in the sand. Then you’re speaking to a specific group of kindred spirits. But when you try to be everything to everyone, you’re actually hurting yourself because now you’re really nothing to nobody.

And that’s never a good place to be.

“You really should work on your personal brand. You need to be paying close attention to your personal twitter and you need to have a slick blog where you post regularly. You need to align all of the social media outlets you operate in for clear, consistent representation of you.”

Actually, though, you don’t.

Not that any of those are bad things to do. In fact, they are really smart things to do. But if you work for a company and clients through that company, the best development of your personal brand is devoting yourself to the success of those clients (and in turn, the success of the company). Their increased profitability will speak much, much more about you than your blog or twitter account.

So, I’m not too sorry that I don’t update my website, twitter account, or Facebook page very often. My personal brand is to be the absolute best employee possible to Brains on Fire and the clients I work with through them.

Sidenote: from experience, personal brand has played a very small role in potential employers’ consideration of me in the hiring process. Having a website and a twitter account increased my visibility, but in the end interviewers wanted to know how the work I performed impacted the bottom line for clients. Even if I had the best personal brand in the world, my ability to actually contribute to the success of a company or a client would eventually be what determined my value.

Spike said in his last blog post that “technology can be a trap.” We rant all of the time around here about how ’social media is a tool’ and how ‘it might not be best for your business’ and on and on. But it reminded me of a real story about technology as a trap. Do you remember way back, well, actually, a short time ago when Twitter first started to grab headlines and brands began to view it as a business tool? Companies everywhere started to question whether they should ‘be on Twitter.’

Some time after that initial uproar I was out to dinner with my parents and our conversation turned to recent technological happenings. My mother, a real estate agent, surprised me when she said: “You know, I joined Twitter a while ago - lots of people are trying it and there’s lots of news about how it’s going to be a huge asset.” Impressed with her adoption of the new-ish service, I asked her how she liked it and how she was using it to help her. “You know, the thing that I don’t get is that it seems like a great connection tool, but the time I would spend on it generating leads, etc. is time I could be using to actually find houses, meet with clients, and sell property.”

This idea is reiterated in a recent article titled ‘Social Media Can be a Sink Hole for Real Estate.’ I’m sure there are differing opinions on social media in real estate (from people who know more about it than me) and I’m sure there are a few people out there making a living in the business by pouring their time into social media. But the interesting thing about the write-up is that it seems many real estate agents are feeling pressure to participate in a ‘business practice’ that isn’t making them any money. And the author isn’t anti-internet; they actually point to the fact that having an online presence can be an indispensable tool.

We’ve said it a million times, but these thoughts from the real estate industry are a great illustration: technology is changing the way we do business, but no matter the popularity of the service, if it isn’t making you more successful at what you do then it is not worth your time. It’s a trap.

Remember back in May all the hoopla around Oprah and KFC teaming up to promote the new grilled chicken offering? All you had to do is print out a coupon and wa-lah: free grilled chicken. So many people cashed in on the deal that most of the KFCs ran out of chicken. Oops.

A couple of months later, they did it AGAIN.

Third time’s a charm, right? Because today is - you guessed it - free grilled chicken day at your local KFC. And this time you don’t even have to bring in a coupon. Just walk in and ask for a piece of grilled chicken and it’s yours. Apparently there will be extra staff and, of course, a lot of extra chicken on hand.

So why is KFC giving away chicken for the third time? I know I didn’t go the first two times, so why would I change my mind and go this time?

Look, I can see why you would do the promotion once. And since they ran out of chicken the first time and had a bunch of angry “free lunch” customers on their hands, I can see why they would do it a second time to make up for it. But a third time? Come on. Now you’re just telling the rest of us that you don’t value your new offering, so why should we? There’s a KFC about a mile from the Brains on Fire world headquarters, but even though it’s free, KFC is still not going to make its way into my realm of consideration.

Free is a trap. (And we’ve talked about it before.) Sure, it generates attention. But what next? From a previous post: Because just like the donkey, if you dangle that free carrot, it will do the minimal amount of work it has to do to get its prize. And then it’s done. At least until you dangle another carrot.

The kids at Chick-fil-A gave away chicken strips a while back, but at least you had to work for it in that you couldn’t get the freebie unless you were wearing the logo of your favorite sports team. That creates some community support. That enforces some fandom. And it’s so Chick-fil-A.

If nothing else, KFC will be making a buch of college kids happy (for the third time), but folks like that will always go where the freebie is. So KFC, good luck with that. I’m headed down the street to spend my dollars with the local guys anyway.