Bait & Switch…maybe

I travel back and forth from LA to New York on a regular basis and have had many friends on both coasts complain about the $47. massage.

My experience is that the going rate for a massage is around $60. or more for an hour. I think the American standard is set by those one-hundred thousand plus skin and nail care salons that are scattered across our great nation. When I go to mine, I am encouraged to run up the bill one minute at a time. An extra ten-minute foot, hand or shoulder massage is always tracked by the little egg timer… a dollar per minute.

Several months back, I was taken by a sign outside “The Massage Place” that read $47. massage.  “The Massage Place” is a west coast company offering this proposition. I’m no fool. I know a bargain when I see it. I called, confirmed the $47. one-hour massage and booked it.

When I arrived, the place was busy and I was asked to wait for a few minutes. While doing so, I did not notice a very small sign in a frame on the front desk. That little sign became relevant an hour later.

I was called soon, introduced to my massage therapist and received a very good massage. Upon completion, the massage therapist thanked me then left the room. I dressed and as I did, I noticed a large sign on the wall next to the door that recommended I tip the massage therapist $20. I got the impression that I had just rented the room from the “The Massage Place” and now needed to compensate the massage therapist separately. I did the math. Forty-seven and twenty are sixty-seven which is no bargain. I felt duped. And yes, this is what the little sign in the lobby was all about.

This is not the old Bait and Switch. That is where they simply trade you up to something more expensive. This was close. This is a clever twist on it to be sure and is what my friends were complaining about.

So, ask yourself. Is this cheating? Is it an unfair trade practice? Should something be done?

I say no. It’s really smart marketing and I love it. These people have stimulated the massage category with a simple change to the Selling Proposition. I do it all the time.

As a consumer, I am an incurable early adaptor and I always go for the deal. Even knowing I had encountered the age old “if it’s too good to be true” pitch, I still went for it. I love watching Locked Up Abroad on TV and am always blown away with the total disregard for a little scrutiny even when faced with a prison term in a foreign country.

My hat is off to the folks at “The Massage Place” for rejuvenating the massage category…our economy needs the boost.

The learning here is to take a good look at your sales message to see where you can rework it to make it appear Remarkable to your target consumer.

Cheers,

Keith Chambers

Keynote Marketing Speaker
Creative Marketing Consultant
(310) 473-0010
www.chambersgroup.com

follow my blog by clicking one of the links below

PRECIOUS MEMORIES…MARKETING?

I got an email last week from Ricky Farmer telling me his sales have increased 250% since I repositioned his business about a year ago. He expressed his gratitude very eloquently, which put a big smile on my face. At the same time, I realized I had completed this project without sharing it with friends and clients. I have always assumed that those who read my blog are only interested in what I do for the big well-known brands. As it turns out, my staff says, “not so.” So here you go. The smallest client I have ever worked with and yet this project was no less of a job than repositioning the Miss America beauty pageant.

It started last year when I created America’s Marketing Makeover and agreed to do it on the Big Biz TV show. The idea was to select a small business and reposition it based on all my BIG business marketing experiences with America’s most famous brands. The producers loved the idea and broke it into eight staged out segments on the show.

I selected a small pet crematorium located in Cleveland, Georgia and have since been asked many times why pick that? It’s simple. I interviewed many business owners and one stood miles above all others. I’m referring to “salt of the earth” Ricky Farmer. One phone conversation and he had me. I had to help this guy. You can meet Ricky for yourself by viewing the recap below from the Big Biz Show. You will soon see what I mean.

Ricky’s business fate pretty much hangs on a small brochure that he places in veterinary offices and hospitals within a thirty-mile radius of Cleveland, which is about sixty miles south of Atlanta.

Unlike the big brand Positioning I routinely work on, there was no budget for anything on this project. On this one, I draw on my years of learning from watching consumers react to the positioning stimulus I have developed across tons of assignments. Over time, I have become deadly accurate at organizing a powerful and compelling Selling Proposition, even without the advantage of research. The key changes were as follows:

FRONT PAGE:

-We designed it to be light in nature knowing that the consumer is most likely pretty stressed out.

-We created the benefit to strike at the heart of this emotional event.  The line, “Peace of Mind at a Sensitive Time” speaks directly to the experience we knew the consumer wants.

-We added three statements (drivers) that support the benefit.

-We added a photo that we knew would exude confidence needed to trust the Benefit statement.

BACK PAGE:

-Knowing Ricky already had client references, I looked for an endorser that would qualify as a celebrity. I found it. His quote, “The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated” hit the mark perfectly. Gandhi said it, we lifted it and Ricky’s clients loved it. Frankly, I think Gandhi would be very proud to represent Ricky’s business and even if he were alive, he wouldn’t send Ricky a bill for doing so.

INSIDE PAGES:

The inside pages are important, of course but in this case, the purchase decision is made based on the words and graphics used on the front and back.

Nothing else about Ricky’s business circumstance changed during this period. The radical increase in his business is simply based upon the Marketing Triggers we used to restructure his Selling Proposition.

Working with Ricky was great fun and as rewarding as any project I have ever taken on. Along my career path, I have learned something new about becoming a great marketer on every assignment. On this one, I learned more of what it’s like to be human.

Cheers, 

Keith Chambers

Keynote Marketing Speaker
Creative Marketing Consultant
(310) 473-0010
www.chambersgroup.com

follow my blog by clicking one of the links below

Something For Nothing...Yes!

Do you remember the Beatles' song “Love, Love Me Do?” Well, you can use it, its title, its lyrics or melody free of charge because yesterday it became fifty years old and is now considered public domain property. This is true in Europe, whereas it takes ninety-five years in the US.

Disney has known this from the time they produced Cinderella and all those old fairy tails that followed. No royalty needed. Did you notice the blatant use of the title Hansel & Gretel? It matters not that it bares almost no relationship to the original story. They have a well-known, highly memorable movie title and do not have to pay for its use. Very smart.

You can go further with this concept and take it to a product endorsement, or have it seem so.

Early last year, I did America’s Marketing Makeover on The Big Biz Show where I took a tiny business in Cleveland, Georgia and transformed its Selling Proposition into a powerful message. The result is that Precious Memories, a Private Pet Crematorium experienced a 250% increase in sales in less than a year. An important piece of this message was an endorsement that its owner, Ricky Farmer, paid nothing for.

If you were to read Ricky’s brochure, you would see the following quote. “The greatness of a nation can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” Gandhi.  The inference is that there is a relationship between Ricky Farmer and Gandhi.

So, how can you take advantage of this in your Selling Proposition?

Cheers, 

Keith Chambers

Keynote Marketing Speaker
Creative Marketing Consultant
(310) 473-0010
www.chambersgroup.com

follow my blog by clicking one of the links below

“Made To Be Broken”

“Rules Were Made to Be Broken”. The funny thing about clichés is the definition and the reality. The dictionary says “an overused expression. I say it is a time tested and proven truth. This is a cliché that I have never subscribed to until recently.

In the world of marketing, I have created my own set of rules and rarely break them. The reason is simple. Just about every time I see someone else break one of them, failure follows. Why these failures occur so often is simple. All of my rules are based on observation. That means they are real and in turn reliable. You see, I monitor them on a regular basis and if one changes, I change the rule. Endemic to the process is reality. You see they are not based on my judgment, my opinion or my brilliance; they are simply based on my observations.

Given that, I rarely break them myself or see my own rules broken by others with success. I however will share a rare one with you today. In doing so, I will further invite you to break this rule because I have recently done so myself.

The rule I am referring to is this. The perfect pathway to a favorable purchase decision has three steps.

1)   Get the target consumers attention to your Selling Proposition.

2)   Immediately communicate your Brand accompanied by your generic Descriptor.

3)   Move them next to your Benefit, accompanied by your strongest Attribute Drivers.

Those three steps need a great deal of explanation that I have detailed in my book “Pull” and in several other blogs but will skip here today.

Notice two things about these three steps. First, the leading communication is the Brand name, which I say should have lots of character and be short, poetic and memorable. Secondly, the Benefit is third on my list of steps and is accompanied by its Attribute Drivers. This scenario is almost always an integral part of all marketing recommendations I make to my clients.

Here is a break in that scenario that can work. It is creating a brand name that is in itself a Benefit. This sounds easy but is so easy to screw up that I recommend you not try it because it will backfire on you far more often than it will work.

Way back in my early days, I was working with Bill Gross, the genius behind Knowledge Adventure, children’s educational software. At that time, a brand called Reader Rabbit was dominating the category. The assumption was that a rabbit would make it fun for kids to learn. It worked, until we launched Bills product entry in that category, Jump Start Kindergarten. Jump Start simply trumped the Reader Rabbit positioning by communicating that it will give your kid an advantage over the other kids. The rabbit died a sudden and just death at the hands of Jump Start and the Jump Start line continues to flourish to this date.

In all honesty, I did not realize it at the time but Jump Start was a benefit incorporated into the Brand name. Even if you think real hard, you are unlikely to identify many others. I can think only of four. One I have been familiar with for over ten years is “Move Free”. Move Free is a nutritional supplement that simply has Glucosamine and MSM to help relieve the symptoms associated with worn out joints and is a very unremarkable product. It is a formula that has been around for many years. It is however a very successful product and I think its naming has been a significant factor. As I look back at it, knowing who named it, I am reasonably sure it was done without the benefit of this observation…in other words, probably lucky.

Another is the newly introduced “Skinny Girl Margarita’s” line of cocktail mixes. An absolute “killer” Benefit if you are a modern lady”

There is one more. I am very proud to share that I was instrumental in the launch of two very successful Arm & Hammer laundry detergent products a few months back and one of them belongs in this blog. They are targeted to two very different and unique users. One, “Crystal Burst”, is targeted to sophisticated users and the other, “Toss N’ Done”, is targeted to people like me who just want to get it over with. Toss N’ Done is the benefit. It’s about me, not the product.

 Of these four examples, I created two and I love that I did. By the way, KUDOS to all those who helped me do it. I’m a very lucky dude who gets to work with great people.

Having said all that, here is why you may not want to try this. If you screw this up it will backfire on you. Benefits are very sensitive for target consumers. Without the accompanying Attribute Driver, they are often considered fluff and dismissed by target consumers. Dismissed means NO SALE. If you have the luxury of research, go for it. If not, this is a trap and it will nail you. Remember, humans are looking for what is wrong and fluff will feed into that characteristic. Without research you will never know until you launch it. Asking all your employees and friends is not research, in case you were headed in that direction.

So, do what you will, but watch out for the traps.

Good Luck and let me know if you do.

Cheers, 

Keith Chambers

Keynote Marketing Speaker
Creative Marketing Consultant
(310) 473-0010
www.chambersgroup.com

follow my blog by clicking one of the links below

Mayor Bloomberg vs. Trojan Vibrators

Sometimes marketing is a lot of work and sometimes marketing is just plain fun…last week it was amazing fun. Trojan vibrators took on the Mayor of New York and the Mayor backed down.

Many months ago, I got the assignment to work on positioning Trojan vibrators. The challenge was straightforward. Vibrators have been fully accepted by the American public for wide use for a long time, but we Americans have not yet admitted to ourselves that they even exist. When is the last time you had vibrators casually enter a discussion in mixed company. Probably never.

For years, I have observed vibrators are identical to Twinkies in many respects and they are:  Consumers purchase millions of each on a daily basis but as soon as we need to recruit purchasers for Focus Groups, they are hard to find. People just don’t want to admit to using vibrators or eating Twinkies. My two sons are the exception. They would never question my purchase or use of a vibrator. On the other hand, I am clear, they would nail me for eating a Twinkie. By the way, two Twinkies covered with fresh strawberries and whipped cream are to die for.

So the assignment was to develop a Selling Proposition (sales message) that accurately defines these products and at the same time characterizes them as efficacious. Why efficacious? Because they are and they need to be characterized that way so they will be accepted by Walgreens, CVS and other retail stores for easy access. Americans should be able to purchase vibrators without going into an adult bookstore and thanks to Walgreens and CVS they now can.

On Monday, the kind folks at Trojan began giving vibrators away in Manhattan to promote their arrival in local drug stores and pharmacies. The reaction was, in my mind, bizarre. It was as if they were handing out guns. The NYPD simply did not know what to do. The Mayor, in a knee jerk reaction, decided to ban Trojan from doing so. Hello mayor…what were you thinking?

After a "social media" uproar from the public, the good mayor reversed himself and the people of Manhattan are happily back to normal again.  

What I would like to know is: Where are Barack and Mitt on this issue? Can we pass out free vibrators in Salt Lake City? It’s on the schedule…so stay tuned.

What do you think? Is it ok to hand out free vibrators?

Cheers, 

Keith Chambers

Keynote Marketing Speaker
Creative Marketing Consultant
(310) 473-0010
www.chambersgroup.com

follow my blog by clicking one of the links below

“IF IT WORKS, DON’T FIX IT”

I have been in a series of discussions with a U.S. based company who is currently marketing a well-known consumer service. They are particularly excited that they are doing well in this lousy economy. I would be too. My natural reaction was to ask what they plan to do next to move the business forward to which they responded; “we’re going to ride this baby for a while”.

Stop here and ask yourself what you think of that reaction and let’s see if it aligns with mine. What they are saying is that they are going to do nothing until their business turns down. In my world that is a losing strategy.

Many of the assignments I get are simply the result of a client sitting on success. There is an old saying, if it works, don’t fix it”. That sounds correct and a very “cool” saying on the surface but read this carefully, “NOTHING, THAT’S NOTHING, COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH.” Do not fall into that trap. Thirty-five percent of my assignments are due to a business in trouble because of that philosophy.

This is really simple. Every category of product or service I have ever been in has operated as a dynamic. The only thing you can absolutely count on is that nothing will remain as it is. What’s next is coming. Your choice is to be the cause of it or you will surely be at the effect of it. Being at the effect of what’s next is usually very painful.

If you are on top and waiting, you are guaranteed to fall. The easiest and most effective area of marketing for you to create what’s next is in your sales message. If you are making a series of simple yet effective changes to your selling proposition, you will become the leader in your category. Your competition will be reacting to you just to keep up and that posture guarantees you will grow and they will shrink. There are many examples of this kind of activity. Simply look at Tide, Southwest Airlines or Allstate Insurance. Relatively small, consistent and innovative changes in their products and services and their accompanying sales messages have kept them on top.

Kudos to the above brands…well done.

You don’t have to be a big company to do that; you do have to be smart and somewhat aggressive. Creating what’s next for your business will keep your target consumers’ interest and in turn their loyalty to you and…you will drive your competition nuts.

Good Luck,

Cheers, 

Keith Chambers

Keynote Marketing Speaker
Creative Marketing Consultant
(310) 473-0010
www.chambersgroup.com

follow my blog by clicking one of the links below

 

    

”WOW”

For years, marketers have been looking for “Wow”! They are referring to the reaction that a target consumer will have to something they perceive as a breakthrough. An example would be the first time you encountered a dry cleaner with a big sign claiming all of their chemicals were “environmentally friendly” … WOW! Or the first time you saw an ad for a Prius and they announced it would parallel park itself … WOW! Or when Tide added Febreze fabric softener to their detergent…WOW!

I first heard it from my clients in the mid 80’s and it became a cliché by the early 90’s. They also referred to it as “New News” but wow continues to prevail to this day. Beyond the wow factor I can tell you that it is far more important to determine exactly where, within your sales message, the target consumer is making the buying decision and treat it like the wow but I call it a Trigger. A Trigger by my definition triggers a purchase reaction to your sales message. A Trigger also by my definition does not have to be caused by a change in your product. It can also be a change in your sales message. You can create a trigger. You simply state something new about your existing product that appears as a trigger and there are many ways to create one.

If you have hung around me for more than five minutes you will have heard me site the example of 3M Sandblaster sandpaper. Let’s say you were clever enough to find a compelling benefit like “Less Work” for sandpaper and you added an Attribute driver like “Cuts 3 Times Faster” to it and voila, you have a trigger. In this example, we add “Cuts Three Times Faster” to the ‘Less Work” and together they become a trigger. It only becomes a trigger when they are joined together.

There exists a natural tendency for marketers to want to play up a trigger if they feel they have identified one. It is usually done graphically with a burst of color and large type shouting the information as prominently as possible. Unfortunately, my experience is that this is not the strongest way to use a trigger. In fact it is the wrong way to use it. Here is why.

While creating a Selling Proposition (sales message) it is smart to remember that it is no less personal than a conversation with a stranger on the street. In fact, the similarities are many and the differences are few. Notice that in a conversation with a stranger, you cannot treat them as you would a friend. You may be able to hug or pat a friend on the back but not a stranger. You simply do not have the relatedness required to do so. If so how does this translate to marketing?

I have observed for years, that all humans operate from “what’s wrong here”. That means they, you and I too, are looking for what is wrong. Notice when a stranger approaches and begins to talk for no apparent reason, you initially think they are after something and you become defensive. The same is true with a Selling Proposition when it is first encountered.

The solution here is that you should never start your sales message with a trigger, i.e.; if the first thing you see on the package is “Less Work”, consumers will challenge you immediately. The smart marketer will get related first by directing you to the Brand/Product name as an attention getting graphic, and immediately flank it with a Generic Descriptor. At that point the consumer is grounded and far less likely to disbelieve your trigger. Now, they are ready to be pitched. Move them on to the trigger, the Benefit/Attribute driver. The perfect sequence is first The Sandblaster/sandpaper…then…Less Work/Cuts Three Times Faster.

The learning here is clear. My concern is you will take this lightly. Be very clear, I now have volumetric research evidence that this insight is valid. This one is easy to screw up because many of us think we will be successful if we over shout out the key feature of our product over all other communication. If you do, you will likely suffer the consequences.

Good Luck,

Cheers, 

Keith Chambers

Keynote Marketing Speaker
Creative Marketing Consultant
(310) 473-0010
www.chambersgroup.com

ollow my blog by clicking one of the links below