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Last week, my good friend John Makin-Shaw sent me something that was too good not to share – and should act as a reminder that nobody cares about your business as much as you do.
You all know DryRobe, right? Those big, fleece-lined dressing gowns designed for people going cold water swimming, or frankly any sport that involves being in, and then getting out of, cold water? Well, they’ve started appearing everywhere and as is the way of the modern world, have become the focal point for some mickey taking.
Of course, in 2024 this manifests as TikTok videos, Insta posts, and Facebook groups, with people sharing photos of Dryrobes being spotted in places where they’re not meant to be seen. Do you really need to wear an all-body fleece-lined towel when popping to the shops? When dropping the kids at school? When ordering a choco-mocca-latte at Costa?
(I should say at this point I really don’t care what people wear where).
One Facebook group in particular has taken off, getting nearly 100,000 members, all sharing (faceless) photos of DryRobe disciples. It’s 2024’s version of the Red Trouser brigade.
Now, putting aside the rights and wrongs of such a group, this clearly bothered DryRobe, who sent the following message to the Group Admin:
What do we think? A fair message to send, or a naïve understanding of how internet culture works?
Either way, it was the final line that interested me.
‘People may not know that… it could have long-term consequences for us as a brand’
I think, in reality, people probably do not care if it has long-term consequences for the brand. Because nobody cares about your brand as much as you do.
This is the unfortunate, harsh reality of working in a business, particularly one you’re passionate about, that you care about, that you want others to care about, too. Quite simply, we’ve all got a lot else going on in our lives that matters more to us than any one particular brand – or perhaps, any brands at all.
I thought of this a few months ago as I got to zig-zag across the country trying out different pubs, all in the name of customer immersion. I was at Milton Keynes, needing to get to Nottingham, a route that looks fairly straightforward by road. Not so, it turns out, on a train.
Still, I found a simple route from Milton Keynes, changing at Derby, then back to Nottingham. It was slightly longer than other routes offered, but that was ok by me, as it has fewer changes, and I had work to do.
This was not ok with the guy in the ticket office.
‘You can’t buy that ticket’
‘Why not?’
‘It’s not a valid route?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘It’s not a valid route, it takes too long’
‘Ok… but I can get on a train to Derby, and then a train from there to Nottingham, can’t I?’
‘Well yes, if you really want to’
‘OK… and can you sell me those tickets?’
‘Well yes, if I have to, but really I shouldn’t be doing it, it’s not how we work’
After a fair amount of remonstrating, he caved and let me take the route I wanted to take. Ninety minutes later, I was sat in a pub in Nottingham, ‘researching’, with my inbox clear.
This isn’t to say we don’t care about businesses and brands, of course we do. They help us make our way through life, act as a shortcut to save us time and money, and many are enjoyable to be a customer of, representing who we are and how we think life should be lived.
But they’re all replaceable. And they exist to serve us. Not us – as customers – to serve them.
That’s why we (I think I can say ‘we’) get frustrated by relentless requests for feedback. I don’t mind doing them from time to time. But if I don’t, don’t expect me to get FOMO about it.
Similarly, if you’re going to send a newsletter, maybe make it about me and how you can be useful. With all due respect, Thames Water, there are bigger things I’m worrying about now than your new ‘communications platform’, and what cute creature you’ve decided to use for your new advert. Important to you, not so much to me.
I’m all for organisations wanting to build deep relationships with customers, and for me, this is built on being genuinely useful: truly understanding what matters to your customers, and then finding new and better ways to be genuinely useful to them. To do this well relies on a certain humbleness, putting aside the natural inside-out, self-interested approach, and instead revolving your organisation around what your customers care about.
If you do that, you can use whatever cute animal you like in your adverts.
Thanks for reading this article, I really hope you enjoyed it. You can subscribe to my monthly newsletter below, and find me in tweet form @johnjsills, in picture form on Instagram @johnjsills, or in work mode at The Foundation or on LinkedIn.
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