Cool and sexy

Yesterday the Times of Israel published my long oped about Better Place. Last night Better Place invited a group of around 150 customers to their visitor centre in Glilot to meet the senior management.

I’ve written a long, detailed account over at my blog, Israellycool, but I wanted to highlight a small part which relates to what I wrote here yesterday.

Peter Economides speaks to Better Place customers – photo: Brian of London

My biggest criticism yesterday was over the incoherent and insufficient marketing in Israel so I was most excited to meet Better Place’s new Cheif Marketing Officer, Peter Economides. He comes to Better Place with a glowing resumé.

He gave a brief presentation in which he highlighted two key points: when Steve Jobs returned to Apple it was almost bankrupt. Jobs brought in Peter and together they came up with one of the greatest marketing campaigns ever: Think Different.

But from that point Peter ascribed much of Apple’s snowballing success to a band of dedicated, early adopting pioneers who evangelised the company’s products. It was these pioneers that spread knowledge of the products and drove uptake.

In the same way Better Place has a band of dedicated customers. We have our niggles, we speak about them, but we are passionate we’ve found a better way to drive around Israel and we want more people to join us. This is an amazing, largely untapped resource.

It was great to hear that Peter understands this.

He gave us two great quotes. He explained that after driving a Better Place Renault Fluence ZE for only 10 minutes he flew back to Greece. As soon as he drove his Porsche he realised it was now a second class vehicle compared to the electric Renault. Better Place has destroyed the residual value of his Porsche in his mind.

And his final statement: “Better Place around the world is the coolest and sexiest brand out there!”.

That’s a great way to fire up already enthusiastic early adopters.