Resonating with Consumers
The cover of the October issue of Fortune Small
Business reads "Energize Your Brand." The article talks about marketing
firm Character which specializes in creating new mascots for companies and
reinvigorating existing ones such as the Pillsbury Doughboy and the
Honey-Nut Cheerios bee, with impressive results. One of the most important
elements in their approach to developing mascots was articulated by
co-founder David Altschul, so says that people "connect
emotionally with characters whose struggles are familiar to them,
not with characters who superficially look or act like them."
I believe that this point holds true not just for
mascots, but for marketing in general: people respond to marketing that
addresses unresolved issues that are important to them. Consider some
famous examples: the U.S. Army's "Be All That You Can Be," Federal Express'
"Absolutely, Positively Overnight," and DeBeers' "A Diamond is Forever" all
tapped into important issues on their prospects' minds.
How can you find the
issues that are important to your prospects? Of course, one way
is to conduct focus groups. But also consider following Character's example
and conduct workshops with company management - there's a great deal of
insight that can be mined from within the company. (And yes, Bureau West is
available to conduct both focus groups and company workshops!)
Sources: "How
the Pillsbury doughboy explains what you buy," Fortune Small Business,
October, 2006; Bureau West research
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Marketing to Men
The cover story of a recent issue of BusinessWeek was
entitled "Secrets of the Male Shopper." Their main point: marketers have
been focusing either on the "metrosexual" - hip men who are happy to shop
and spend money to look good, or on the other extreme, the "retrosexual" -
men who hate to shop and embody the traditional unrefined male stereotype.
Unsurprisingly, research has found that most men are
somewhere in between those two extremes. They're willing to shop and to
spend money on looking good... but most won't admit to that in public! And
while they're not as allergic to the shopping experience as their fathers
were, don't expect them to call a friend and say "hey buddy, what are you
doing tomorrow? Wanna go shopping?
Companies that have been able to tap into the
subtleties of men's approach to shopping have seen strong sales increases –
for example, Dyson's sales of vacuum cleaners and Philips Norelco's
Bodygroom. See the full article
here.
Source: "Secrets
of the Male Shopper," BusinessWeek, 9/4/06
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