Adweek reported a while back that Volkswagen dismissed its Chief Marketing Officer. While I’m generally loathe to offer advice to CMOs in industries I don’t usually work with, in this case, the urge is too tempting:
Give all the money earmarked for advertising to manufacturing.
Why? Steve Johnson at Pragmatic Marketing wrote:
“…and then there’s my son’s Volkswagen GTI. The windows fell off when he was driving. The windows… fell… off. The dealer said, “Yeh, that happens sometimes.” That happens sometimes?!?!? Good grief. While they fixed the VW they loaned us a Toyota; we liked it so much that we bought a Camry.”
Just one more proof point that a poor customer experience will ruin a branding effort faster than you can say Fahrvernugen.
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