Thursday, June 14, 2007

Free marketing advice for Dualit

I was looking to buy a Dualit toaster earlier this week. Seems simple enough, once you have made up your mind on the number of slots, right?

On their website (which is not well referenced by Google: advice #1, spend some time on Google Sitemaps) they list the four slots at £152.95 in colours and £177.13 in polished steel. As this is a tad steep, I checked on eBay and found a good range of of new specimens under £130 and used under £50. Unfortunately they have only the hideous glacier blue and none of the eBay shops carries the metallic blue.

Not being selfish, I remembered by better half wanted a new kettle. So I wrote to Dualit to know whether they also did kettles in either Lavender or Metallic hues. Nope. So, you'll find advice #2 below: why on Earth don't they make it easy to buy two of their products in matching colours?

And you'll see advice #3: team up with other iconic brands, because frankly Marmite isn't going to cut it...

Finally, here's advice #4: the Dualit web site doesn't work well with Firefox: that's advice #2, ensure wide browser compatibility. Maybe hire specialist consultants or use open source software.


Hi,

Take this as a suggestion for improvement then: it's always nice to be able to match coloured items in one's kitchen.

Another suggestion: why don't you team up with Kitchen Aid to sell a set in metallic blue of your products and their famous mixer? You could announce it on July the 4th?

Or do the toaster in the same coulours as the Francis Francis X1 -it is equally iconic and a yellow dualit would look really nice besides mine.
http://www.coffeegeek.com/proreviews/firstlook/francisfrancisx1

Seems to me a better commercial idea than corkscrews....

Regards,


Ludovic.


Dualit Enquiry Response wrote:
Dear Ludovic,
Thank you for your email enquiry. Unfortunately, we do not manufacture a Kettle is Metallic or Lavender Blue. However, we do have the Jug Kettle available in Glacier Blue.
Best Regards

Dualit Limited
County Oak Way
Crawley
West Sussex
RH11 7ST
info@dualit.com
Tel: +(44) (0) 1293 652500
Fax: +(44) (0) 1293 652555

This email and any attachments are confidential. They may contain privileged information and are intended for the named addressee(s) only. They must not be distributed without our consent. If you are not the intended recipient, please notify us immediately and do not disclose, distribute, or retain this email or any part of it. Unless expressly stated, opinions in this email are those of the individual sender and not of Dualit Ltd. We believe but do not warrant that this e-mail and any attachments are virus free. You must therefore take full responsibility for virus checking. Dualit Ltd reserve the right to monitor all email communications through their networks.



From: Ludovic
Sent: 12 June 2007 13:37
To: Dualit Enquiry Response
Subject: Matching kettle for blue toaster

Hi,

Do you make kettles in metallic blue or lavender blue to match your toasters?

Regards,

Ludovic

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Tuesday, June 05, 2007

Friday, June 01, 2007

PubsCafs -Good or bad?

A pub chain has announced a tiee-up with a coffee-chain:
BBC NEWS | Business | Coffee Republic expands into pubs

This little island is changing fast: less than 10 years ago few could spell basalmic or name another grape varietal than chardonnay. Like it or loathe it, we can now get some proper coffee in pubs!

The times where caffè translated into English meant Nescafe are long gone -and for a foodie it's a good thing. Unfortunately it also seems to go along with the decline in popularity of real ales, even though we now see talented local brewers, some like Meantime even sold by Sainsbury's as their own label. Richmond has some local supply of its own thanks to Twickenham Fine Ales (but I am not sure if you can get it in a pub near you?). Tony ought to know this...


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