The Man in the Mirror

Now that the dust has settled, I just want to weigh in on the passing of Michael Jackson. And it goes like this: Michael Jackson was a phenomenal pop song writer and artist. Some of my earliest memories of adoring music and performance were based on Michael Jackson’s work. As a kid, it also impacted my reflection on race relations, although I would not have characterized that way then. Simply put, I saw Michael as transcending race. He was a super human being. He was “above” race and when I lost myself in his music, it was anything but race that I was thinking about.

I’m not even going to get into the controversy that surrounded him later in life. Enough people raked him through the coals, as Americans seem wont to do with celebrities (and especially him). He put it best in his song “Leave Me Alone” … a cry for privacy that we Americans so cherish.

Here’s the controversial bit I will add: I’m disappointed in hypocrites who ridiculed Michael Jackson and later rallied around him in adoration. I’m going to generalize here a bit, but I knew people, black and white, who disparaged him while he was alive, then later jumped on the bandwagon to say what a great artist he was. Shame on them.

I always have and will continue to love his work and respect him as a person. If people listen to his music, they’ll hear the sound of a compassionate and soulful human being. I was touched to read what I think is perhaps one of the fairest accounts of Michael in GQ (hence the cover art here). I credit the author, John Jeremiah Sullivan for his fair account of Michael’s life. I encourage you to read it, if only to get to the final beautiful quote, which was from Michael himself:

“Deep inside I feel that this world we live in is really a big, huge, monumental symphonic orchestra. I believe that in its primordial form, all of creation is sound and that it’s not just random sound, that it’s music.”

The Power of Tribes

Marketing guru Seth Godin has this notion of “tribes” whereby he advocates the emergence of people/companies/brands that espouse/embrace a cause. This cause can be seemingly trivial (Ukrainian folk dance is the example he often uses), but it is something that resonates with people. The idea is an extension of viral marketing and has been advocated by others in various forms. Essentially, gaining a deep understanding and integrating with an issue that is a passion for 1,000 people enjoys the phenomenon of “network effects” (word of mouth) and has a greater impact than just mass marketing to 100,000 people.

As I have gone through gyrations with lackluster service from Lenovo, I’ve discovered an interesting and devoted tribe around the “cause” of ThinkPad computers. Despite the fact that the ThinkPad brand has changed ownership (from IBM to Lenovo) and in turn gone through transformation of offerings (i.e. design, service level, support), the true believers in the product have set up camp and continue to offer not only better support, but a charming sense of devotion and community. This is happening through a lively and long-running ThinkPad forum that is decidedly more popular than Lenovo’s corporate-sponsored equivalent. The ThinkPad Forum has no official affiliation with the company, although a simple Google search for “thinkpad support” puts it in the top four search results and a search for “thinkpad forum” puts in in all four of the top search results.

When I introduced my problem (rather, a grievance) to both the official and unofficial ThinkPad forums, I received responses faster and in greater number on the unofficial ThinkPad forum. I did ultimately receive responses on the official forum, but not by Lenovo representatives.

It is said that there is a conversation happening online about all brands. The conversation is often the most active as it resonates from passionate tribes that support those brands. To be fair, Lenovo makes no claim to monitor either the official or unofficial forum. But should they?

The Last ThinkPad I Will Ever Own

This post is inspired by frustration, humiliation, and finally disappointment.  After being a loyal ThinkPad customer for almost 15 years, my relationship with the brand must come to an end.  Mind you, this is no small concern.  Brand loyalty is the holy grail among companies and organizations who understand the power of customer lifetime value (CLTV).  Lenovo, the proud (relatively) new owners of the ThinkPad brand apparently don’t understand CLTV.

Despite their being under contract with rival Dell, I convinced my employer to purchase a ThinkPad for me, citing my excellent run with them in the past.  So, I acquired my first Lenovo brand ThinkPad (all of the previous ones, about 8 of them in total, had been made by IBM).  Upon arrival, my brand new premium priced top-of-the-line X200s had a sound problem.  A loud static-y “pop” at the end of playing back audio files.  Not good for a professor who uses the laptop through a loud PA in an auditorium full of business students.  Lenovo customer service had me send it back in for repair under warranty.  Patiently, I did as I was told.  During the week it was gone, I fell back to using my trusty IBM X31 that I’ve had for almost four years now.  The Lenovo was returned a week later with a signed letter from the technician.  Parts had been replaced and it was their goal to ensure “I was completely satisfied” with the service.   After sending it in, waiting a week, and receiving it back, the “repaired” ThinkPad had the same problem.

I called again and was dumb-founded by Lenovo’s request to return it again to the same place as before, despite the fact that they offer on-site warranty service.  They were quick to remind me that I had not paid for that service, which is true.  But my argument with them was that the second time around should constitute an extra effort on their part to go above and beyond their policy in the interest of customer service.  They refused.  With hat in hand, I must tell my organization that the ThinkPad is not what it once was.  Hence the humiliation.

As a consumer behavior researcher, it is an interesting phenomenon to actually feel so let down by a brand that I’ve been loyal to for so long. Lenovo took a great brand and ran the quality into the ground on two fronts: engineering and customer service. I once extolled the virtues of ThinkPads at every chance.  Now, the relationship is over.  It’s sad, really.  Hence, the disappointment.  Hence, this post.  Hence, the case study I intend to write up on this.  Hence, the passionate negative word-of-mouth I will disseminate using every opportunity I have as a consumer and certainly as a professor in marketing — henceforth and forever until the end of time. 

Goodbye and good luck Lenovo.  Your executive turnover and 27.4% drop in year-on-year profits makes sense to me now.

Yours,

Dr. Rader