Given the new look newsletter, let’s start with a riff about riffs. The BBC have just had a poll on the greatest ever guitar riffs, which was won by Led Zeppelin’s Whole Lotta Love. Other top riffs included Sweet Child O’ Mine, Back in Black and Smoke On The Water. A great guitar riff is the hook that simultaneously keeps everything together and also drives the song along.
Brands and sub-brands are the commercial equivalent of guitar riffs. Take Amazon Prime, for instance. Signing up to Prime gives you free next-day delivery, but it also provides you with cheaper express delivery services, free access to thousands of movies and TV programmes, and the ability to ‘borrow’ books on Kindle. Amazon doesn’t need to keep repeating this list of benefits and services; it can just repeat the ‘Prime’ riff and customers immediately get it. Little wonder that Amazon is calling its new ‘parcelcopter’ services, Amazon Prime Air.
Are you just listing your products and services and giving your customers too many different pieces of music to listen to, or have you distilled your proposition into a coherent riffs that your customers instantly get?