Polle de Maagt 
Polle de Maagt
In 2010 we were at Schiphol, surprising passengers for KLM Surprise. People who had shared online that they were flying KLM got a small, personal gift at the airport. It worked: people loved it and talked about it. And then this tweet came in.
@KLM wow, I just love your new #KLMSurprise campaign … but where is my suitcase?!?
I never forgot it. It was fair, and it was funny, and it said in one line what a whole campaign had missed.
The principle.
No surprise makes up for a missing suitcase.
basics first
Customers remember the basics that go wrong: the bag that does not arrive, the question nobody answers, the bill that is not right. A campaign on top of that is not charming. It is a reminder.
So stop doing what mainly generates likes and awareness. Make a list of the ten things that annoy your customers most, and put your best people on them: product, service, digital, innovation. Then do something remarkable, on a base that works.
Try it.
In 2012 I ended the original post with: next time you do your social thingy, remember the suitcase principle. Replace social with AI and it still holds.
Before your next campaign, write down the three things customers are most annoyed about. Ask whether the campaign fixes any of them. If not, start there.
The bigger story this principle comes from: Acts, not ads.
