You know sometimes when you feel everything is conspiring against you? I was having one of those days just before Christmas. We had been waiting for new suitcases to arrive from a supplier as lots of our customers were keen to get hold of them for Christmas presents. A quirky range of trolley cases aimed at young boys and girls – pink and red suitcases with white hearts on for the girls, blue and black trolley cases with white stars on for the boys.
The stock finally arrived in time for Christmas – great! Quick – rush the orders out! However it wasn’t long before we discovered the blue cases had turned up with hearts on, not stars.
Groan.
Lots of emails to customers, calls to suppliers, apologies all round. Must have been a mix up on the manufacturer’s production line with the wrong design being printed onto the wrong colour case. Most customers don’t want a blue case with hearts on after all.
A couple had slipped through the net. And boy am I glad they did!
Turned out one was for an agency involved in the production of the British Airways Advert for the Olympics – The Race. Have you seen it? They fell in love with the hearts suitcase and used it as the ‘winning suitcase’ used by the little girl in the advert. Maybe the suppliers should look at a new production run to recreate what originally turned out to be an error?
What’s the message here I wonder. Every cloud has a silver lining? Don’t always assume you know what your customers want? Say no to boy / girl stereotyping preferences in suitcase design? Whatever the message, the outcome feels good. Take a look at the advert here.
And here’s another on the team behind the advert
And here are some of the suitcases on our website
Take a look at the British Airways facebook page.
Have you ever had a bad day turned good?