Carpe Diem
An interesting post on Whooah.biz recounts the story of Glenmorangie, a Whiskey maker in Scotland who managed to seize the day and make turn an unfortunate situation around. Here’s the story:
Scotland Glenmorangie distilleries found that they had accidentally mixed the wrong sort of whisky. Faced with a dilemma they come up with a clever campaign; they used a direct mail marketing to ask for an official pardon and sold the whisky as a collectors item. The campaign generated a 23 percent response. 8 percent above what you would normally expect.
The best bit is still to come; their direct mail marketing grew. When they launched a special whisky called Arigh Nam Beist (shelter of the beast) for Halloween in 2007 their response rate was 69 percent. Virtually unheard of.
It’s a great story and a valuable anecdote that demonstrates that bad situations *can* be turned around. The whisky producer here decided to come clean with their customers, include them in the process .. and customers say this as a valuable behaviour which they were ready to reward.
Do you know of other great stories like this?