Watch above or read below.

Matthew Burns:
Steve, you’ve been flying around the world as a traveler. I mean, we travel a lot for business as it is, and we pass, “Hey, Asia, have you tried this backpack? What about this carry-on?” We’ve done this for years now, right? You get something new, and I have to know, and I get something new, and you need… But neither one of us owns this one, and I don’t know why we don’t own this one. You saw something. Tell me what you saw and why we should talk about it.

Stephen Semple:
So I’m literally, because you have since educated me that these ads have actually run on television, and I never saw them. So here I am in Florence, Italy, and I’m walking through a square in Florence, Italy, and there’s a Samsonite luggage store. And what caught my eye was that they had an ad running for this piece of luggage. I was like, “That’s a brilliant fricking ad.” And I immediately texted you and said, “Okay, Matt, we have to do something because of course I’ll not remember. So hey, Matt, we’ve got to do this one.” And I sent my little cryptic text where you’re like, “What the hell is he talking about? ”

Matthew Burns:
You didn’t even spell the name of the place right, but anyway, whatever. Let me play the ad because what you’re talking about is a new ad that I actually didn’t find. So we’re talking about Samsonite luggage, and I’m going to play the ad.

Now, they’ve been doing this, and I’m going to go back. I’m going to reach into the archives. They’ve been playing this game of showing you how much of their luggage they can handle. And so I found this one, I think it was a 1971 ad, but I’ll show you this one first. So watch this.

 

Spokesperson:
Dear clumsy bellboys, brutal cab drivers, careless doormen, ruthless porters, savage baggage masters, and all butterfingered luggage handlers all over the world. Have we got a suitcase for you!

Matthew Burns:
I love the ad copy. I know I’m a writer, but visually I love the beating it up, and you got this gorilla, and he’s doing his thing, but the visuals… And the writing of talking about the porters and the-

Stephen Semple:
Baggage handlers.

Matthew Burns:
Cab drivers, the baggage handlers, right? And like saying, you don’t have to worry. And the ad copy was talking directly to them, not the person who buys it, not the person who owns the luggage, but to those people who handle the luggage, “Oh, I got the bag for you. You don’t have to worry about this one.”

Stephen Semple:
You don’t have to worry about breaking anything. It’ll survive.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah. I just want them to understand Samonsite; the baggage handlers don’t really care. But the good news is we do.

Stephen Semple:
But what’s interesting about that is there were a couple of things in that. Three things. Entertaining, because it’s always funny when a gorilla is tearing something apart. Great demonstration of toughness because you saw it happening. And three, the ad copy, yes, it made you feel like you were listening in. It wasn’t, “Hey, buy this product. You were listening in. ” And psychologically, we know from doing that, that’s a really powerful technique that frankly is not used enough. So yeah, it was really great, really, really great.

Matthew Burns:
It feels very Ogilvy. The writing felt very Ogilvy to me.

Stephen Semple:
Yeah, that’s interesting. It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s an Ogilvy ad.

Matthew Burns:
Right. I mean, big brand, but it just felt very Ogilvy because the storytelling was so good that I loved it. But again, I agree with you, and how we can use that or how we would use that, it’s the exact same thing. We’re telling a story in a very specific way, like a very specific angle directing it out, and we’re not saying, “Oh, we make it from thousand ply carbonite steel.” And none of the facts and features benefit, just the “Hey, listen, this is the way it’s used. This is what’s going to happen in the world.” So we just built it better, but they didn’t say that.

They made me feel it, and I think it was brilliantly done. I mean, that was, like I said, 1971, they’ve also got an ad that I found and watched this one with a tractor driving over the gosh darn thing, but again, they lean into some comedy hooks. So watch this of a Samsonite ad.

 

Stephen Semple:
I know. It was so good.

Matthew Burns:
No scream. I mean, there’s nobody there. Who are they testing this for? There was no notepad. I think it was just the guy who really wanted to know. Was the suitcase going to last? If you notice, it started popping back into shape right away, even before he went and pushed it back, but then completely got it into shape. And then quietly walking with a suitcase down the parking lot there.

Stephen Semple:
If I’m going to give Samsonite criticism, however, the ads are great. The ads are super powerful. The ads set an expectation. The ad sets the expectation that airlines cannot damage this luggage.

Matthew Burns:
Correct.

Stephen Semple:
Fair. And their warranty says if your bag is damaged in transit by an airline, you have to file your claim with the airline; that’s not covered. Samsonite only covers manufacturing defects, materials, and workmanship; it does not cover normal wear and tear. That’s what their warranty says.

So they are incongruent in their offer, which is why we’ve probably never raved about it. And it’s why people aren’t going, “Oh my God, Samsonite luggage is the best and indestructible.” Because on one hand, you go, “It’s goddamn indestructible.” And the other is, “Yeah, but we’re not going to cover it on our warranty.” Is it true then or not? They chickened out. They put weasel words into their warranty.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah. I mean, it’s funny, you and I battle this a lot with our clients, where we’re just like, “Try and make your warranty as easy to read as possible, take out the weasel words.

Stephen Semple:
What they need to do is say, “This bag is goddamn indestructible for 10 years.” Go at it.

Matthew Burns:
You’re right. Even if they were just to put a 10-year claim on it, give it a finite claim. That’s fine

Stephen Semple:
Sure.

Matthew Burns:
Because, you know what? Most people don’t want to have a bag that’s 50 years old.

Stephen Semple:
Or even be funny and say you’re not allowed to set off explosives inside the bag. Those aren’t covered.

Matthew Burns:
But we’ve talked about this before, right? Go to the absurd and then you know that it’ll be taken the right way. Listen, we had a roofing client that we talked about, that the roof was protected from reindeer hooves and sleigh scratches, right? I mean, we go to the absurd because that’s the only thing we’re worried about, and it’s not real.

Stephen Semple:
Yes. So the thing that is disappointing, great ad, but sets an expectation that then, as a consumer, if you go, “Oh, do you wonder what the warranty’s like? ” It’s like, “Well, what do you mean it doesn’t cover…” So all the things that you said, don’t worry about the baggage handlers. Well, in fact, you have to worry about the baggage handlers.

Matthew Burns:
Yeah. Damn it.

Stephen Semple:
No, no, but still worth covering. Great ad, fantastic demonstration. But the reason why Samsonite is not killing it in the marketplace is that they screwed it up on the warranty, which made the whole thing incongruent.

Matthew Burns:
If you’ve noticed, though, we’ve done this a couple of times in the last little bit where we’ve said, “Hey, listen, this is really good. You missed the mark. This is really good.” All the thought process at one end of this is great, but this is where the miss is, and this happens to be Samsonite’s miss.

Stephen Semple:
And the other part too is that today it’s easier than ever. Here is one of the things, because we get lots of customers who are asking us about AI, AI, AI, AI, right?

Matthew Burns:
Exactly. Yeah.

Stephen Semple:
Here is one of the things that has changed in the world regarding AI. It is easier than ever to discover the warranty. You don’t have to hunt. You go into your ChatGPT, and you say, “What’s the warranty on this?” It pulls it up. It is easier than ever to go; show me the one-star reviews. It will find them. It is easier than ever to check these things. Don’t think today…

It used to be we could hide a little bit. We could bury it on the website. It was hard to find. It’s like, nope, it’s really goddamn easy to find this stuff today because ChatGPT will find it and pull it out. And in fact, we’ll even say, “How’s this warranty compared to this other one?” And it’ll go, “Yeah, well, this one’s better.”

Matthew Burns:
Yeah, no, exactly. The ad that you saw at the Samsonite store, what I’m curious about, was it a moving ad? Was it a video?

Stephen Semple:
Yeah, it was a video, and what caught my eye was a sports car basically slamming into…

Matthew Burns:
So I’m going to try and find it. I’m sorry I didn’t find it. If I did find it, it’ll be the last thing you see in this video. So you want to see one more version of this? Hold on. No, I will find the ad for you. This was a good one, and I got so excited. I’m glad you do the research better than I do, because knowing that they let the people down is why so many of the luggage companies suffer, because honestly, every other luggage company in the world should be suffering like these guys.

Stephen Semple:
They should be.

Matthew Burns:
As for how awesome the luggage is. So we’ve done it before. We talked about demonstration wins and being able to demonstrate really strongly. So, a good ad for that. Sorry, guys, you let people down with the warranty. Thank you, my man. I appreciate you, and we’ll see everybody in the next episode of Sticky Sales Stories.

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