To be effective, Marketing of Service needs to a genuine commitment versus a one-off stunt. While few marketers will have the perseverance to make it 108 years like Michelin with its peripatetic guides, I suspect they can make it longer than a weekend like the recent painfully misguided “free taxi” effort by Tylenol.
Thanks to Jason Wurtzel for spotting these when they first arrived in the city on November 3rd. Not knowing anything about the program at that moment, I neglected to post Jason’s shots (see below) or to feel any sense of flattery since these were another attempt to copy the HSBC BankCab, which I might add is in its sixth year of driving loyalty to The World’s Local Bank.
Still on the case, Jason then forwarded this snippet about the cabs on The Gothamist:
The Tylenol (global?) “Warming Taxis” will take you anywhere in Manhattan, today through Sunday, from noon to 8 p.m. Your best shot of catching one is heading to a CVS at 630 Lexington, 540 Amsterdam, 272 8th or 307 6th Avenues and waiting for a stranger in a white car to offer you a lift and some Tylenol.
One weekend? Is that really supposed to heat up our feelings about Tylenol? As the Renegade behind the BankCab, that just plain hurts. It wasn’t even a cold weekend by November standards so the warming part fell flat. J&J, a usually savvy marketer, should know better than to treat Marketing as Service as a Band-Aid or perhaps they got ripped off by an unlicensed guerrilla practitioner.