“Marketing to the masses” was a little experiment I tried at home this week. To qualify, my personal definition of “masses” consists of a household of four – 2 sons (teenagers), my husband and myself. So within our home we’re influenced by a variety of marketing niches such as youth marketing, college marketing, and product marketing (just to call out a few).
Bed, Bath & Beyond had a great deal this week. Five bottles of scented hand wash for $5.00. Who could resist such an awesome buy? I stood in front of the display for quite some time trying to decide which five scents to purchase for our home. My main objective, and in a way was a marketing objective, was to buy the right scents so there would not be a huge battle at home over who was going to confiscate which bottle. (I know all of you with kids have been through this type of thing before so can understand my dilemma.)
Not knowing that Bed, Bath and Beyond would have this wonderful display of scented hand wash assaulting me the moment I walked into the store put me at a distinct disadvantage. Of course I had not done my market research on scented hand wash. In other words, I had not asked anyone at home which scent they might prefer. So as I stood there touching the bottles, picking some up, putting them back, I started questioning the marketing strategy of this soap company. For me, it would have been so much easier to have just one choice with one great price for one single product. Unfortunately though, that would not be smart for the soap company. Certainly they need to have a variety of scents to be able to “market to the masses.”
After spending way more time than I should have at the marketing display, I chose my five bottles. Later that day I put the bottles on the kitchen counter and proudly told everyone about my great purchase. Well, there was the small skirmish over 2 of the bottles – just as I knew there would be.
But to my surprise, it wasn’t over the scent, it was over an entirely different marketing aspect….it was about the COLOR of the soap that showed through the bottle!
Yes, market research is everything when “marketing to the masses” and marketing to your niche. I wonder if the marketing team at the scented hand wash company looked at both the scent and the color when taking into consideration their target market.
After the scuffle was over, I told the boys about the tough time I had choosing which bottles to buy. They both looked at me as if I was crazy and one said simply “Why didn’t you use your phone to take a photo of the bottles and send them to us. We could have told you which ones we wanted right away.”
So much for my “marketing to the masses” experiment. Go figure….
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