Day 22 - Confusing Marketing

Marketing departments spend many hours grappling over packaging design to make sure that their product catches your eye.  They develop a catch phrase that they hope will positively affect your purchasing decision; five words or less in which they can convince you that you cannot live without this item.  Lately I’ve spotted some of these phrases that make me think ‘many hours’ is being generous, and that perhaps they didn’t grapple so much as have an early morning epiphany that really should have been rethought once the veil of sleepiness had worn off.

For example, Brut Cologne declares proudly, “It smells like a man.”  This seems like a self-defeating slogan to me.  The fact that he smells like a man is the very reason I am attempting to purchase cologne.  So that he smells good, and no longer like a man.

Today in the store, there was a giant sign hanging over some cleaning products with the enticing phrase, “As Seen on TV.”  How is this a selling point?  I see lots of things on TV, most of which I don’t want happening in my home.  Hurricane Irene has dominated the airwaves for days, but I don’t think it’s a clever marketing reference for ceiling fans.  Or even generators.

I saw a bag of potato chips that displayed proudly, “New Bag Size.”  Does that mean it’s bigger, or smaller? I didn’t have one of the old bags with me for comparison.  Not that it would have mattered.  They didn’t claim to be supplying me with more chips…just a different sized bag.  For all I could tell, they meant that they had made the bag larger for my gripping convenience.  Or maybe they made it smaller so that the usual large empty chasm of bag at the top of my chips was eliminated.  Either way, it did not entice me to shell out the three dollars and ninety nine cents.

And I saw a book on the stands that touted, “First Time in Print.”  At some point, that’s all of the books.  Was there really not one thing within that book that they found interesting?  Of all of the things that they could think of to sell me on reading this novel, they settled for ‘We’ve Put It On Paper Now.’  What was it before it was in print that they feel ‘in print’ is an improvement?  I suppose the convenience of not having to call the author and get a blow by blow of his story idea is a plus, but I wasn’t aware that this was an option.  Perhaps I’m shopping wrong.

I spotted this slogan on a can of Campbell’s soup: “Great for Cooking.”  Well, it’s soup.  I think most people already figured out that it’s great for cooking.  In fact, it’s any other use that has me stumped.  Maybe they should list THOSE things.  “Great for Pipe Bomb Making.”  NOW you’ve got my attention.

And on the packaging of my baby food, it says “Good for Babies.”  Same problem.  I already knew that use.  It’s conveniently right in the name…BABY food.  But I suppose I’m glad that it is food that is good for my baby since I will be feeding it to him.  I mean, it’s not called ‘good-for-baby food’, so I appreciate the reassurance.  Maybe the ‘not-good-for-baby baby food’ product is in a section of the store that I have overlooked.  I’ll be more careful from now on.