Karen Rubin's Ramblings

For Christmas, my husband gave me a beautiful crimson cashmere sweater from Ann Taylor, a favorite store of mine. I was thrilled with the gift, but it was a little tight and so I wanted to try on one size bigger and see which one fit better. 

 I checked out the return policy on the back of the receipt, and it said, 

 "Ann Taylor will accept your return or exchange of unworn, unwashed merchandise. We will credit you for returns accompanied by an original receipt either in the original form of payment or as a merchandise exchange. Final Sale items may not be returned or exchanged."

This all sounded fine to me. There wasn't a 60 or 90 day policy so I didn't rush about heading into the store. January & February happened, and the sweater sat on my dresser as Jared and I spent the weekends in New Hampshire and Washington DC with family.  

 Then last weekend, we were home, we had nothing to do, so I grabbed the sweater and receipt and headed to the store. When I got there, I went to the counter to see about the exchange and learned two things. 

 1. Ann Taylor does not except exchanges or returns of items purchased on the website in their actual stores. 

2. If you return an item more than 60 days after purchase, they will only refund you the current selling price. 

 Now, neither of these rules is crazy. The problem is that Ann Taylor wasn't transparent about the rules on the receipt. The return policy that I checked out the day I got the sweater indicated that I could head to the store and made no mention of a time limitation. I even checked it a couple of times over the month of January to make sure I wasn't going to run into a problem.

 Is this the end of the world? No. But, it has ultimately resulted in a waste of my time and loss of money, as the sweater is now selling for 50% less than my husband bought it for. That is NOT a good customer experience, and it's enough to ensure that I don't buy from Ann Taylor any longer.

If Ann Taylor had been completely transparent, put the full details of their return policy on the receipt and made it easy for me to understand what the restrictions were, I would have happily sent the sweater back in December and would still today be a happy Ann Taylor customer.  Instead, I won't be shopping there any longer.  

Make sure you are transparent with your customers. It goes a lot further and things that might seem bad end up not being as big of a deal.  

Remarkable content is simply content that is worth remarking on. One store in New York is certainly being remarked about, with a window display that includes women taking your clothes off.  

I have to say, they have succeeded in making remarkable content. Taking your clothes off is certainly one way to go about it, but it's not the only way. There isn't a formula for remarkable content, but being unique and a little big controversial is a good place to start. 

Brian Halliagn (HubSpot's CEO) recently said that remarkable content is  "kind of like pornography. You know it when you see it." It looks like the folks at XOXO took this to heart, but to be clear it doesn't have to be pornography!

 Side Note: This video was sent to me by a former co-worker. This store is about half a block from my old office in NYC. I haven't wanted to go back this much in awhile!

The staff at the Providence St. Vincent Medical Center in Portland, OR knows what to do when it comes to dancing and to promoting breast cancer awareness. Medline Industries recently came out with a new style of latex-free gloves in pink, and said they would donate a portion of the proceeds to fund mammograms, to help spread awareness. The doctors, nurses, patients, cafeteria crew, janitors, technicians and business folk at St. Vincent took it one step further and created this video to help spread the word. 

 The video has been out for about 2 weeks and has over 1.7 million views on YouTube. Think about giving the folks at your company the opportunity to do something fun for a good cause and who knows what can happen. 

It's true there are things the White House can do that you can't. (Lunching a nuclear weapon, borrowing any painting from the national gallery and demand appearances from the Russian ambassador, to name a few.) But if they can launch unedited, on the fly videos of their people, why shouldn't you be able to?

@RickBurnes brought these videos to my attention and I love them. They are high ranking (well they seem high ranking to me, but it's not like it's the Chief of Staff)  folks from the White House talking about what's going on, sharing information about the President's trip to China, the people they are seeing and what the vibe is. 

 I have said it before and I will say it again, video doesn't have to be hard! It doesn't have to take hours in the editing room! It just takes a video camera (talk to the nearest new mom or dad) and someone who can talk without tripping over themselves. Try it out, you'll be surprised how easy it is. After all, just because the White House can do it, doesn't mean it has to be hard.  

This morning I woke up to a fantastic surprise, I was picked as one of the Wild Web Women's Top Marketing Girl Crushes!!! I have to say, there was much dancing around my place when I saw who else was on the list, 

Arianna Huffington
Miley Cyrus
Ann Handley
Susan Bratton
Mari Smith
Charlene Li
Heather B. Armstrong
Lisa Stone
Susan Boyle

 Can you believe it? I made a list with Arianna Huffington and Miley Cyrus!! I am sure they were both dancing around their homes because they were on a list with, *gasp* Karen Rubin!

 Much thanks to the Wild Web Women and Rebekah Donaldson for making my morning. 

P.S. There is a vote, for the #1 girl crush, and if you wanted to vote for me...I wouldn't mind.  

Parking garages are pretty standard. You drive in, push a button and get a ticket. Then you wind your way up the ramps looking for the perfect parking space. If you are in my family, you don't settle for anything that isn't near a stair case, even if this means driving around for 45 minutes. 

 In any case, you park your car, lock it up and leave it, only to return to the parking garage hours (or days) later and...

I was recently at the airport in Providence, and they have found the solution to this problem!

It's brilliant and simple and you know what, I remembered where my car was 2 days later when I returned. Try to make life easier for your users and you won't leave them wandering in the parking garage with a gold fish and Jerry.   

My husband sent me this video the other day. The video is a little long, but I watched the whole thing and have been thinking about it for a couple days. Two things are clear, passion for what you do helps sell and I have to try the cucumber soda! 

A friend of a friend wrote a great piece in Vanity Fair about getting fired for tweeting. He points out that "tweeting your mind and keeping your job can often be incompatible," and that this might be because "tweets tend to be banged out on a cell phone or BlackBerry in a matter of seconds." Essentially, people don't think before they tweet! 

 Just ask yourself this one question before you send a message out to the Twit-o-sphere. "Would I say this to my boss's face?" If the answer is no, slowly step away from the keyboard. 

I am off to San Francisco for the Marketing Sherpa B2B Marketing Summit. It sounds like it's going to be a pretty exciting event with tons of cool speakers and case studies. I am headed out there with HubSpot.tv to interview all the interesting people who are in attendance. 

If you can't make it out to sunny California, you are in luck because we are going to be live streaming a couple of the presentations on HubSpot.tv! You can watch the following presentations right here on Wednesday September 23rd!

• 8:50 -10 AM PST - More Revenue for Less Money-The Top Five Ways To Increase the Performance of Your Lead Gen Program
• 1:45 - 2:15 PM PST - Using Social Media to Create Lead-Rich Online Communities 
• 2:15 - 3:15 PM PST - Social Media Panel-Focus on Lead Generation
• 4:15 - 4:45 PM PST - Re-engage Inactive Customers, Grow Lead Flow, Win with Sales

Here is another fun ad for your enjoyment. This one comes out of Germany, where we know the ads are more risque.

Being a fan of "Ghost" you know I have to remind you of the scene that inspired this one. 

 I think the ad is brilliant. Not too over the top, but enough to make you remember. 

Thanks to @abdinoor for the clip!