A few days ago I was having dinner with a friend. She pulled out some lip gloss out of her purse. And the conversation went as follows.
friend one: Is that the stuff that was on America's next top model?
friend two: Covergirl Wetslicks? Yeah, I saw that and I thought I'd try it. It's got colgate in it or something so it feels like toothpaste.
friend one: Hmm, I'll have to look at that...
I found this fascinating. I like to think if your advertising is so transparant that anyone can tell exactly how you are trying to get thier money, not one person is going to give it you.
I mean, really. Sponsoring America's Next Top Model so that you are mentioned in every single episode for eleven seasons, now that is so transparant it's shameless. No one is going to buy into that, right?
Apparently not.
Not only will they buy into it, they'll tell their friends and create some good word-of-mouth for you.
This is all marketing 101. But that is what I find so interesting about it. I've purposely stayed away from studying tried-and-true methods, as it is clear that they aren't working as well as they used to. But evidently some of them still do.
Hmm...
Monday, November 24, 2008
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1 comments:
I think that traditional marketing techniques themselves are working still, and perhaps better; but there is generally more competition and less spending power, plus problems with distribution and feature accentuation.
Distribution.... "putting up a website" doesn't mean you automatically have global distribution; sometimes websites actually reduce distribution because people run screaming from a bad website to competitors or a brick and mortar store which is more expensive (at least in terms of time) but more accessible.
Features... I didn't know until recently that Levi jeans were actually custom-fit, normally. Like, you could have a tailor measure you and they'd custom-fit a pair of jeans to your particular shape. I thought they were just over-priced jeans with a nice logo and tasteful TV ads. I guess people who know fashion would know that they're custom, but then, wouldn't people who know fashion already know the brand as well?
Bombarding people with thinks keeps it in the forefront of their mind... so that mark in their heads automagically leads to money leaving their hands. "Mastery is mastering the basics." (my chi kung instructor said I could quote him on that), and Coca Cola (and Pepsi) would have long stopped blatant ads if they weren't necessary... in this world of constant distractions, it's a mass market necessity to remind people to buy a particular brand. Or else, the generic stuff that just happen to look better on the shelf will get the sale, instead.
btw, this is Dhyvd from LJ, but openID doesn't seem to like me right now so I chose anonymous.
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