Alex Woodruff Biz Buzz

Grabbing attention at the point of sale (PoS) can be crucial in some markets. Especially highly competitive ones, where the first place the customer encounters you is not in the media – as you’d hoped – but standing on shelf, next to all your competitors just before the purchase decision is made. In such instances, [...]

Hope in a bottle I stumbled across this product in Italy. Not a familiar sight on shelves in the UK or Germany, but apparently marketing execs in the States hope it will pull in the mums. It has a totally clear benefit: the baby will sleep. As it says on the US website, “There’s nothing [...]

Photo of German catalogue – similar to UK promotions. As you’ll know if you’re a regular reader, I do like spotting benefits – or mocking products that fail to state their benefit. I see Tchibo have been thinking up nifty kitchen gadgets to help me cook my autumnal mushroom harvest. May I introduce you to [...]

New parents often get showered in presents. And, having less time than ever to respond, then have to work out how to say thank you. Now a Japanese company has come up with an answer. Rice. Rice? Ok, not just any rice, but rice in an adorable piece of packaging: a picture of your dear [...]

Continuing my series from the MBA course on brand names that say what they do, I recently came across this New Zealand brand made by Beauty Engineering Forever (http://www.bee.net.nz/). Quoted by other marketing website (such as this one) as an example of an Eco-Iconic brand, I was more impressed with it’s slap-bang-this-is-what-I-do approach to branding. [...]

The Action part of AIDA is important when it comes to finally getting someone to do something (ie, buy). One approach is to let people try the product for themselves. Like test driving a car (by which time advertising for awareness and gaining interest should be under the bridge). Try me. Break me… This product [...]

While many German retailers try to cut costs and make customers feel like cattle (especially discounters like Aldi and Lidl), others have worked out that customers like to feel comfortable in their surroundings. If they do, they tend to buy more. One of my favourites is DM. Good on them not only for some great [...]

Brand bibles: cast in stone? As my students will know, I strongly recommend coordinating brands in the long term by setting up what I call a Brand Bible (what others seem to call a Brand Manual). The reason I recommend one: marketing Johnnies are by nature job hoppers and continuity is a constant pain in [...]

Need some sexual relief? Try this. Source: company website screenshot Well, some product manager was obviously slightly challenged in thinking up a name for this product. Perhaps, so involved in the product world, benefits, consumer needs, USPs and competitive positioning, everyone involved – from R&D to the packaging designers and marketing department – forgot to [...]

On the last MBA course we discussed companies that expect you to go to great lengths just to take part in a promotion. A bit like the mineral company that expects you to drink huge amounts of water just to get a stuffed toy, here is another promotion that really does ask too much of [...]