made me think: It's More Important to Be Kind than Clever - Bill Taylor - Harvard Business Review

It's More Important to Be Kind than Clever - Bill Taylor - Harvard Business ReviewInteresting story below, and the bottom line: efficiency should never be more important than humanity. But: can marketing on a large scale truly be genuine?

http://blogs.hbr.org/taylor/2012/08/its_more_important_to_be_kind.html?referral=00563&cm_mmc=email-_-newsletter-_-daily_alert-_-alert_date

The story, as told in AdWeek, goes like this: Brandon Cook, from Wilton, New Hampshire, was visiting his grandmother in the hospital. Terribly ill with cancer, she complained to her grandson that she desperately wanted a bowl of soup, and that the hospital’s soup was inedible (she used saltier language). If only she could get a bowl of her favorite clam chowder from Panera Bread! Trouble was, Panera only sells clam chowder on Friday. So Brandon called the nearby Panera and talked to store manager Suzanne Fortier. Not only did Sue make clam chowder specially for Brandon’s grandmother, she included a box of cookies as a gift from the staff.

It was a small act of kindness that would not normally make headlines. Except that Brandon told the story on his Facebook page, and Brandon’s mother, Gail Cook, retold the story on Panera’s fan page. The rest, as they say, is social-media history. Gail’s post generated 500,000 (and counting) “likes” and more than 22,000 comments on Panera’s Facebook page. Panera, meanwhile, got something that no amount of traditional advertising can buy — a genuine sense of affiliation and appreciation from customers around the world.

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