I came across a good slideshow (yes, slideshow!) about marketing – “Future of Marketing and Advertising” is actually the title. It’s a frank, somewhat humorous take on what works in marketing now and the trend of integrating marketing into the product. The slideshow is full of good quotes from marketing greats and CEOs, ranging from Seth Godin to Steve Jobs. You can find the slideshow here: http://www.webmyc.com/blog/2008/06/22/future-of-marketing-advertising/. There are 91 slides, so if you don’t want to take the time to look through it, I’ll highlight it for you here. That’s just how nice I am! Ha ha.
Products that Integrate Marketing into the Product
The author, someone named Bob, uses some photos to show marketing integrated into the product. He uses an iPhone, a Wii (or at least I think it’s a Wii) and a Starbucks cup. All of these products have a marketable piece to them as is. The iPhone marketed itself because of all of its cool features, the Wii looks cool and you just have to see it in action to understand it and want it, and it’s much cooler to walk into work holding a Starbucks cup than an “am/pm” gas station coffee cup. But what if your product isn’t cool? What if it doesn’t have any neat functions? It’s kind of easy to market the iPhone, but what about a car tire or diapers?
How to Integrate When You Don’t Have a Cool Product
Bob’s answer is to add content. Add content so useful that people don’t know what they did before they knew your brand. Another answer is to engage people. Get people interested in your product and do something interactive that will get people’s participation. Each of these answers only has one or two slides, which to me means they aren’t as important as Bob’s answer of utility.
Utility means a brand that gives something back to the customer – the brand is helpful. Don’t just give people info about your product, give them info they can use in other parts of their lives. So, Huggies diapers, for instance, could not only include inserts about their diapers in their packaging, but useful info for new parents, like about preventing diaper rash or treating diaper rash; or how to feed babies solid foods. If Huggies gives parents something other than their diapers they can use, something useful like this type of info, then their brand just got stronger through their packaging.
Which one of these answers do you use? Like a lot of things in marketing, it depends on your audience. Bob says to conduct surveys, focus groups, 1-on-1 interviews and the like to figure out what your audience wants and needs. Whatever you do, just make sure you get the message across that your product is useful. If your product makes people’s lives better, you’ve done your job.
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