Imposter Packaging

Personal care product packaging that evokes emotions associated with popular foods and beverages may not hold water.

You reach for those bars of soap and sniff on them, and they remind you of your favorite foods – enough to want to take a bite. There are liquid soaps filled in cartons which at a glance look like fruit juices. I recently spotted a brand of shaving cream labeled as ‘Coffee Shaving Cream’ that is probably trying to find appeal among the caffeinated.

It’s the real-world equivalent of click-bait, gimmicks in the appearance and other sensory aspects of a product such as fragrances, shapes and colors. While they might catch one’s eye in a store, they risk not being taken seriously. They also may be an accident away from being abandoned or becoming a legal or public relations nightmare, no matter what the fine print on the package says.

What can marketers learn from such imposter packaging? There are probably many unwritten commonsense rules in product differentiation through packaging and their sensory experience. Let us consider a few.

1. If a product that’s not meant for ingesting can be mistakenly consumed as a drink or food item because of its packaging, placement or appearance on a retail store shelf, tell your designers to not go there with their design. The color of liquids in clear bottles is equally important – absolutely do not make it look like a popular drink, and hope that your customer is not color-blind.

1. Do not assume that all your customers will read and understand labels on your clever packaging. Task your designer to come up with graphics, signs and symbols to communicate warnings or usage instructions on the packaging. Run your designs by children – they have a refreshing way of looking at the world without biases. Show the design to the elderly; they have seen too much of the world. Find a happy medium between those two opinions.

1. If you want to differentiate your product, create a unique design for your packaging that becomes your brand’s signature. Do not cut corners by using milk cartons to package soaps, chemicals and oil-based products. Not only is that deceptive to the customer of a soap, but also disappointing for the connoisseur of milk or juices.

1. One way to differentiate your packaging is to make it easy to be opened by arthritic customers with perhaps a self-contained opening tool, and child-proofed where needed.

1. Make art that doubles as packaging so customers will covet it. Make it reusable for multiple purposes so that empty packages do not end up in landfills. Give your packaging a life beyond the expiration of the product it carries and your return on branding investment will improve dramatically.

If you are in the business of selling non-food products that smell like popular foods, consider adding a warning label for your customers: “This product may cause hunger pangs in those you meet. For best outcomes, avoid meetings before lunch hour.” 

Comicon as a Catalyst

 

Other than serendipity, there are few shortcuts to making a brand beloved, but there’s a catalyst.

There are too many characters in the world of comics, animation movies and anime to track, so observing the crowds outside a Comic Con (or Comicon) is usually a guessing game for me. My ignorance notwithstanding, the strong sense of belonging that a Comicon fosters among its attendees leaves me in wonderment. After all, it seems like a lot of effort (and pocket money) for teens to buy or make costumes, travel, stay at a hotel and spend two days in character.

The fervor at Comicon ought to be the envy of, and inspiration for, every business organization that aspires for longevity and timelessness of its brand.

I do not know if the pair in Ketchup and Mustard costume was paid by Heinz; perhaps Colonel Sanders wasn’t an attendee but just a walking ad for KFC. However, both were extremely popular.

To see attendees dressed up as their favorite comic characters or to see them don the persona of their favorite anime characters is fascinating from an industry perspective. The conference naturally begins to feel like a carnival even before one walks in. For the conference organizers, keeping attendees entertained is simply not an issue. Attendees aren’t camera shy. They instantly get into character and pose for other attendees to take pictures. The playfulness in every human interaction is infectious. The various vendors who have set up their exhibition booths also seem to have fun while also doing business. Nobody seems to notice or wince at the prices of the tee shirts and stickers, but I digress.

Comicon held a powerful lesson for marketers.

There is immense value in personification of a brand. A personified brand finds it easier to become a part of pop culture. There is value in making a brand’s perception as a playful and friendly one among the next generation. It is in their future (as consumers, employees, influencers, shareholders, or suppliers) that a brand must find a place.

Personification of a brand is easier when manifested as a mascot.

In any college football game, there is the official mascot that engages in goofy acts to get a cheer from the crowd. It gives the college’s brand a distorted but relatable human form. Commonly seen in tire industry commercials and in fast food brands, a mascot helps memory recall.

The holy grail for any brand is to be entrenched in the collective memories of families for generations. Seeing personified commercial brands parading around at Comicon is a clear signal that a brand has become a household name. That lowers various costs such as the cost of customer acquisition and the cost of hiring a workforce that embodies the brand’s values.

A mascot mingling at every Comicon might be the catalyst that a brand needs to start turning iconic. More importantly, mascots can be birthed by any company irrespective of its industry.

Selling Sleep

 

Picture credit: Elizabeth Lies on Unsplash

Mattress makers may be giving themselves reasons to lose sleep with their marketing.

They say a clear conscience guarantees sound sleep. I’ve seen laborers sleeping soundly on a piece of cloth spread across rocky surfaces after a day’s work in the hot sun. I have seen perfectly healthy people toss and turn on the plushest of mattresses. Sleep is complicated. Mattresses need not be.

Mattresses are getting commoditized, thus giving rise to brand marketing. Ever since mattresses started becoming brands, there seems to be a struggle for differentiation.

Mattress marketing is getting increasingly complex in its messaging. Some mattress brands emphasize how a mattress conforms to the contours of the human body on it. Some use the imagery of the spine and the risks to health from bad sleeping postures. Some brands sell shopping and shipping conveniences. Other brands highlight their product’s construction similar to how automobile tire companies try to sell their products based on superior technology and cross-sectional pictures. Mattress brands also wade into couples therapy territory with a tailored feel to each half of a mattress.

The more complex the messaging, the harder it becomes for a buyer to be surefooted about a mattress.

In other words, the more marketing dollars used to promote mattresses, the more complex the messaging gets, and the more difficult it will become for mattress companies to sell. The last thing that the greatest mattress companies want to deal with is the analysis paralysis of confused consumers.

From a consumer's point of view, some introspection might help mattress makers position themselves for a higher trajectory in marketing. Some questions might help.

Can a mattress manufacturer follow the model of Gilette’s razor blades? Innovate on the mattress toppers and accessories, something that can be changed out every few years with more innovative versions.

Can the mattress manufacturer reposition itself as a productivity tool? After all, a good night’s sleep is not the end but the means to an end; a good night’s sleep ensures a more productive day and a better quality of life.

Could home builders add mattresses and furniture to their offering because, after all, a mattress needs a bed, which in turn needs a room?

Can a mattress company create complementary product lines for incremental uses, from dorm rooms to sleeping under the stars, much like apparel brands that allow for mix and match combinations and accessories?

Can a mattress brand be positioned as a wellness product or a medical product?

Can a mattress manufacturer become a sleep-and-sensory-experiential offering instead of a one-off product sale?

Would it help a mattress manufacturer to strip away all the marketing noise about its value proposition and instead focus on stories of sleep deprivation? In sleep deprived cultures, would such messaging bring greater clarity about the need for the product and create brand gratitude?

Addressing these questions while crafting a marketing strategy might help mattress makers think bigger. After all, they are selling something precious and priceless – sound sleep.

The Cinderella Customer

Resorts that use the fear of missing out to sell memberships must fear missing out on digital age customers.

The resort was a marvelous machine that hummed day and night. I had recently watched a documentary called ‘Secrets of the Mega Resort’, so I simply had to slip away from a family event to understand the sales and marketing at such a resort.

The booking desk for the ‘presentation’ promised me a 90-minute process. I had my timer ready, but they told me I had to go through two registration desks before I could start the timer. I tried to nudge them along, but they insisted on printing out the forms. It turns out that the back of the printouts become part of the working papers they use to explain complex pricing by masterfully writing numbers upside down when seated across. After being passed on from desk to desk, the fourth person I met was the 'tour guide'. She wanted to drag out the process by including a lunch hour, but my timer was on.

I took the liberty of rearranging their sales workflow.

I asked to first see their best room, then talk to a customer, followed by pricing. I was driven in their ‘Cinderella carriage’ (a better golf cart) to a faraway section of the resort to see a luxury suite with a stunning view of the ocean, chef included. On my way out, I stopped a passerby who turned out to be a ‘member’ who loved his scheduled vacations and in there was a compelling testimonial from one workaholic to another. For pricing it was another building. We crossed a massive hall buzzing with salespeople pitching prospective customers. I was soon handed off to another impressive salesperson who didn’t care for my compliments about their sales machinery but was focused on assessing my purchasing power, inclination and impulse to buy. I was upfront that I do not make impulse purchases. Then another handler appeared and advised me curtly that I will never be returning and won’t get their special deal again. He pointed me to the final handler symbolically positioned near the toilet for my dismissal.

Resorts can do better with their marketing:

• Wallpapers in other rooms showing the best views from member suites to encourage inbound inquiries.
• Account managers, not handlers. Train all staffers to subtly weave sales pitches within conversations.
• Use the time with a prospect to open up a lead pipeline to their contacts.
• Compress the tour and complement with direct email marketing.
• Make prospects your brand evangelists even if they don’t buy immediately.
• Celebrate your members, publicly, with their permission.
• Build a community of your members.
• Bundle products like event services, insurance, air-tickets and ride-share.
• Straightforward pricing like Costco to prevent buyers’ remorse.

My time was up. I was their Cinderella customer. My carriage disappeared as my timer chimed. I was left to find my way back from the far end of the resort but left wiser.

Luxury brands need some bureaucratic love.

This article was written on February 21, 2021.

Luxury retailers can learn pandemic-responsiveness from the U.S. Passport Office.

One of my favorite luxury brands, considered the bellwether of innovation, seems to be struggling to cope with the pandemic-related stress on its systems. While I arrived on time at their retail store for a repair-appointment, it took 30 minutes before I was allowed into the store. Not surprisingly, I enjoyed exemplary service from Edward, their knowledgeable and earnest technician. The retailer is, after all, known for setting the gold standard in customer care. However, COVID-19 has required a reconfiguration of their in-store experience. This seems to have tripped the luxury brand.

When I arrived for my appointment, I walked enthusiastically into the store, only to be blocked by the outstretched arm of an intimidating security guard. He asked me to wait in one of three lines formed outside the store. The saga of my repair appointment continued to unfold over the next two weeks as I had to revisit the store a few more times and wait in line.

At each successive visit, my wait time and the choice of the line in which I was asked to wait varied. The security guards outside the retail store were totally in charge of the brand’s luxury experience, improvising rules. My wait time depended on primal skills, like the use of body language when the guards were making a visual assessment to decide my fate, projecting confidence through sustained eye-contact with the influencer guards, my use of persuasion to be allowed to choose the shortest line, and walking up to eloquently reason with them that it was unfair to make me wait in line on each visit for the same repair order especially when the technicians had clearly said I would be a ‘walk-in’.

Humor notwithstanding, for a luxury retailer to trust its brand in the hands of guards from a private security agency seems reckless. What customers first encounter almost resembles crowd control by bouncers outside some seedy night club.

In contrast, consider the Passport Office. Pre-pandemic, it was a chaotic room stuffed with families carrying wailing kids while the officials calmly shuffled papers and expired passports. During the pandemic, my visit to renew my passport was a markedly better experience than that at the luxury retailer. I walked in at the appointed hour. People waited their turns in the parking lot. The bureaucratic brand trusted its system, and more importantly, its customers.

Bureaucracy is not often associated with creativity. Luxury brands that pride themselves on building a brand perception of cool creativity do not want their brand to be associated with anything ‘bureaucratic’. However, a well-oiled innovation machine can get derailed when not built upon reliable systems that allow creative work to forge ahead. A robust bureaucracy provides for flexibility, just like expansion joint gaps that accommodate expansion of railroad tracks in hot weather. Bureaucracy fosters the dependability that luxury brands need now.

Rethinking outside the box

Ecommerce companies ought to redesign their services for the last mile first and stop boxing shoppers into a corner.

Our penchant for instant gratification through ecommerce has resulted in an issue that is not discussed enough. Homeowners Associations (HOA) are grappling with an interesting direct-to-consumer business (DTC) induced problem (and a new revenue opportunity) – shipping boxes thrown in the trash without being broken down can result in penalties for homeowners.

Retirement communities seem to be facing this challenge because the elderly or those with arthritic limbs are physically unable to break down shipping boxes. There is at least one recycling company that offers a service to break down boxes for something like $3 per box, as I recall. Free shipping isn’t free because of this lurking lingering cost.

Some of the boxes are nearly indestructible, making for a mini-workout every time you try to break them down – both physical and mental workout because if you want to be effort-efficient, you must deconstruct the box in your mind before you can flatten it for disposal. Some trash collection services are refusing to accept unflattened boxes. Mobility-impaired residents, especially in retirement communities must wait for stronger neighbors to do them a favor and help break down shipping boxes. Boxes build bonds.

Amazon got rid of many vacuum sealed products that required industrial strength tools to unpack. Still, 43% of their deliveries are in boxes. Their Frustration Free Packaging (FFP) initiative seems to focus on materials being recyclable, not on the ease of their disposal.

How does one effect change when online shopping is a way of life? The industry should have focused on the last mile delivery first. Changing that would be difficult in the west, though ecommerce stragglers like India seem to be getting it right because home delivery has been prevalent long before ecommerce.

There may be some unexplored solutions. The packaging industry could raise awareness through conferences such as Pack Expo, the premier industry conference by Packaging Machinery Manufacturers Institute (PMMI), the trade association for packaging and processing technologies. One-touch collapsible boxes must become the norm, not just one click shopping.

Simultaneously, social commerce influencers could talk about box disposal after a shipment has been received, including ergonomically sound ways of breaking down a box.

Changing shopping culture is not easy but educating buyers may be possible if reviewers who post unboxing videos could append a segment on box disposal after they unbox products.

The other stakeholders who could help with the remnants of an ecommerce delivery could be the shipping company. Offer a haul away service for empty boxes the following day and repurpose the boxes. Offer unpacking services and same day haul away.

These changes in the supply chain will require stewardship from ecommerce leaders like Amazon and Walmart, packaging industry advocacy groups and last-mile delivery organizations.

Until then, box breakdown businesses could be the new newspaper route for DTC era kids or an additional service for their lawn moving clients.

When Real Estate Marketing Gets Unreal.

 

Real estate marketing at its creative best is getting to be as worrisome as creative accounting.

Just as a shoemaker can’t help but see the world as a place inhabited by shoes carrying people around, a marketer can’t help but see the world as collections of word clouds, conversations as communication, and explanations as messaging. When real estate happens to be an area of curiosity, one can’t help but wonder how real estate marketing could be improved for the well-informed buyer by borrowing ideas from other industries.

Here are 7 suggestions for improving real estate marketing from the perspective of an informed buyer.

The only constant in the lifecycle of a property must be a real estate company – yours. Think that buyers are custodians of a property until they or their future generations sell it. Sales then become an outcome of long-term business development, not a one-time transaction.

The supplies must be better than samples. Wide-angle photography makes spaces look disappointingly smaller in real life. Add realism in listings and make the realtor’s brand authentic while attracting better quality leads.

Build domain expertise in real estate properties. Develop ‘Frequently Asked Questions’ for your real estate listing. Build domain knowledge about a locality, and about specific properties, thus increasing the valuation of your real estate company.

Try account-based marketing. The real estate company’s true measure of success is in getting repeat clients and referral sales.

Gotcha pricing is short-sighted. Avoid opaque, gotcha pricing through methods such as splitting a landed property and listing the (now) less desirable property at a lower price while offering the adjacent land at a steep price.

Research like you are the buyer. Be forthcoming in listings with all the information that a savvy buyer can research and obtain on their own. Buyers will appreciate that you saved them precious time. It helps buyers build confidence in the listing and in a realtor’s credibility.

Redefine move-in condition. What you see must be what you can get. Provide the option to sell a home with the staged furnishings included.

These suggestions will not impact the budget of a realtor, but they call for a shift in mindset. It is one of those things that money can’t buy. It will encourage a real estate company to build, nurture and grow client lists for account-based marketing, and be valued somewhat like a dental practice or a primary care physician’s practice.

Account-based marketing will also fortify realtors against ‘For Sale By Owner’ (FSBO) listings. Introduce to the industry the concept of a third-party service which guarantees safe physical access into such FSBO properties. Trust-as-a-service could be disruptive.

A traditional real estate agent’s matchmaker role brings the most critical piece in these high-value transactions – trust. Unreal marketing erodes that trust. Real estate professionals must adopt lessons in brand marketing from enterprise or industrial sales – not used car sales.

(Photo by Ian MacDonald on Unsplash)

A consumer show in every town.

Few can travel to Consumer Electronics Show or New York Toy Fair, but the idea of a local consumer show is not far-fetched.

This venue is open every day. Registered attendees wave their credentials as they walk in. The bright lights symmetrically lining the ceiling make them lose track of time. Aisles after aisles of products are displayed seductively as in a consumer show, except attendees can put them in a shopping cart if they choose. Then there are the sounds and sights of goods being moved on forklifts one must dodge, endure the occasional announcement on the public address system, walk mesmerized by the high-resolution images on the giant television screens and the glistening electronics on display, the food court to rest and refuel, the sampling stations of products on sale that appear fleetingly. Lastly, there are the sore feet that attendees take home. All of these make it almost like a consumer show, yet it is not one because attendees line up at the checkout counter and cart away goods bought at the show.

Having spent time understanding trade shows, I can't unsee a convention center whenever I walk into a Costco. Perfectly positioned to be a captivating permanent consumer show, here are suggested changes to complement and enhance Costco’s current member-experience. 

• The sensory experience in Costco is primed for a consumer show. Add a carnival-like playfulness and shopping is no longer a chore. 
• Give indie bands a chance to perform in the parking lot and enter the music business.
• Allow manufacturers into aisles to stand by to explain their products in person or via video conference while capturing consumer reactions in person.
• Costco already holds live demos of products like cookware. Add a catwalk to the clothes section, running every few hours.
• Allow manufacturers to buy the privilege of giving away tchotchkes and stickers.
• Open up a section of the floor at a Costco for product launches, and live stream it on social media to compete with shopping TV channels, making shopping more inclusive for those who can’t leave home.
• Grow an audience with themed book signing and book readings by authors.
• Welcome teens to creating social media content while shopping, thus going beyond the traditional families who spend a good part of their weekend at a Costco.
• Add a raffle at participating ‘stations’ to even out traffic, subject to gaming laws, of course.
• Add a conference component with high quality programming to build a community that bonds over inspiring content versus fleeting conversations at a tasting station, or while waiting in the checkout line.

Costco, through experiential shopping, could prepare for its next generation of members, building not merely a mailing list but rather a community of brand evangelists, and get to escape velocity to shake off comparisons with discount retailers.

Making Your Trade Show Booth Go Places

How can you get maximum visibility for your trade show booth? By taking it around. Virtually.

Over the weekend, I had the pleasure of hosting for dinner the president of a large industrial manufacturing company with an international presence. Great conversation, great food, and I must add that it is always very refreshing to talk to someone who does not keep checking a blackberry in mid-conversation.

Part of our conversation veered towards trade shows (of course). He said that his company is preparing to exhibit at a trade show coming up soon, where they put up an exhibit, meet industry professionals face to face, gather a lot of business cards which get swiped into a CRM system and then.... once the trade show is over, his sales force goes back to the office, analyzes the leads and sends them literature and brochures via snail-mail, along with a thank-you note. He said it was very expensive. He also thought that it is possible that it may be considered to be not a very environmentally friendly way of follow-up. He thought that the 'green' angle was a legitimate one to consider when following up after the trade show.

An alternative that I brought up which he liked, was to

• set up a stand-alone virtual booth
• we can customize it to look just like the real trade show booth your visitors see at the convention center, to help them remember you by association with the real-world experience
• with a few point-click actions, load that virtual booth with relevant rich-media content, literature, slide-shows, videos, and even add ways to provide direct and instant contact with relevant product managers
• in the thank-you emails after the trade shows, include a link to the virtual booth
• iTradeFair.com has the capability to make your virtual booth 'to-go'.

Here are the advantages as he saw in them:

• It is highly cost-effective
• They can send a lot of relevant content neatly organized, along with the thank-you note, without bulky attachments that normally get trapped by firewalls
• It is 'green'

Here is the other advantage that I mentioned to him:

• Your virtual booth can be forwarded to people within the visitor's organization, who could not make it to the trade show in person. Your message and your virtual booth, if engaging enough, assumes a viral quality about it.

If you are a company that needs a virtual vehicle for very targeted information that can be changed on the fly without the need for an IT expert, then the technology is available for your use. If you do not do trade shows but just need an info-vehicle, use it like Perry Lawson & Associates have done - as a virtual office and embedded on any chosen web page (see the embedded virtual booth with live clickable icons, in the first paragraph of this blog post).

Your virtual booth can literally go places!

Right hat at the right time

The (original) name of the blog (fimarkepreneur) does seem corny but in a way it describes the twists and turns in my life starting as a financial accountant, a cost accountant, a marketer, and an entrepreneur.

Each of these callings are representative of a certain mindset. When the various functions blend within a single role, it is an amalgam of mindsets and behaviors, a multi-faceted attitude and an interesting management style. One learns to appreciate the importance of attention to detail, the joy of seeing perfectly balanced books, the adrenalin rush of releasing a new product or service out into the market and the perpetual curiosity that makes one see opportunities in every problem. The hard part is to know the right time to switch to the right hat - to think like an accountant and count beans, soar like a marketer and spread one's wings, or dream like an entrepreneur and figure out how to make that castle stay up in the air until one is able to make it a reality. Any confusion in the choice of hats could prove counterproductive.