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What am I? A Salad?
Stand back! I have a banana in my pocket and I'm happy to see you
I hate advertising. I mean I really hate advertising. I'll go out of my way to avoid ads on TV shows, movies, and the web. If I want something, I'll do the research and go out and buy it. I'm already buying way too much junk I don't need, and I have a weakness for ads. So I don't "do" ads.
Which means that when I pick up a new brand there had to be some kind of sneaky marketing at work.
It started, innocently enough, with my 12-year-old son. We were watching a uniquely manly movie --- one of the early James Bond flicks with Sean Connery -- when we got to a bedroom scene.
I hate watching bedroom scenes with my kids around this age, because you never know what kinds of conversations might be coming. Not that I discourage good parental conversations about sex and such. Talking about your sexuality and romance and such with a trusted parent is essential for a healthy adolescent life.
After all, that's why you have a mom.
So we're watching these beautiful women come on to James Bond and them "hooking up" as kids call it, when my son looked at me and said something I'll never forget.
"Looks like he must be using that Axe stuff, dad," he said
Axe stuff? After some research with my consumer product expert -- my wife -- I realized that there was some new brand out there for men's hygeine -- soap, shampoo, deodorant, that kind of thing.
A few months later, I was having unprotected TV -- that's TV with the commercials still in it -- when an Axe commercial came on. The guy uses the stuff in the shower and then has to fight supermodels off for the rest of the day. This stuff was that powerful.
Well, at 43 I don't need to be fighting supermodels off, thank you. Although it would be good practice to have to fight a few of them off. Just to keep morale up, mind you. Plus the wife liked it.
So then it became a running joke around the household. If I saw a cute girl walking by, I say something like "It's a good thing I'm not wearing my Axe today. Been a little tired of having to fight the honeys off"
After a few months of this, here I am in the supermarket last month looking for some soap for the shower. Suddenly the thought hit me -- what if I really try out this Axe stuff? It'll be great fun. The next step in the joke, right?
What do you know? I like it. And my wife likes it too, which is a good thing for those of us who aren't really James Bond. Heck, I even visited my 70-ish mom in Florida this weekend and she was commenting on how good I smell. I think I caught some of the other old ladies at the retirement village giving me the eye as a walked by.
Man if Joanna ever gets a whiff of me I'll be forced to break the poor girl's heart
But I can't help notice that this stuff smells like food. All of it. So I have some old shampoo. It's "French Vanilla". Then I have some old conditioner that's "Honey Almond". Then I got all of this new Axe stuff which also smells like something that is good to eat.
What am I? A Salad? Am I taking a bath or stocking a buffet?
I'm not sure how to take this marketing lesson and apply it to my next startup. There has to be some lesson in how much money and time it takes to get market penetration -- this process went on for months. There's also a lesson in here about social networking: I basically received a recommendation on hygiene products from my teenager. There's probably a lesson in how old geezers like me want to feel young and virile -- I mean, those who aren't already young and virile like I am. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that even though the product is marketed heavily to teenagers, that they're just the entryway into a much larger 20/30/40/50-something market.
Perhaps there is even a lesson in what girls want.
From what I can tell, it looks like James Bond must have smelled something like a cross between a chocolate fudge cake with extra icing and fresh-baked cookies with ice cream. I know I'm walking around smelling something like the unholy progeny of a fruit salad and a tropical drink.
I think I've figured it out.
Girls just want to have lunch.
This reminds me - my gym changed its brand of shower gel last week and the new stuff smells like coconut cream. It smells DELICIOUS. I wanted to eat myself.
Good thing they didn't include silverware in the shower rooms.
What's next? Food that smells like soap?
Okay guys. I have been flying all day and it's been bugging me because I haven't been completely honest with you. So here's the punch line, which I was too ashamed to admit:
I used to have one shampoo and one soap -- usually just a bar soap.
Now my shower looks like a spice rack: I have 10-12 bottles of different "flavors" of Axe. The Axe guys managed to take a consumer that was low-end and happy and turn them into a power user. In fact, my entire concept of washing products has changed from one-size-fits-all to a flavor-of-the-day approach. I'm like an Axe maniac.
If I could take that ability and apply it to other web products, like search, it would be awesome. How is it that some products are able to break new ground in a _very_ mature market whereas other products fight it out for 2 percent?
Yes, you are a salad.
I must admit I used to be an Axe addict... that's only because their commercials were the only ones reaching me back in the 90s, in Romania's post communist period... got rid of it after a few years and although I still like their ads, ok, I love them, I switched to Armani Code and I reckon it will be for quite a while!
I deal with ads on a regular basis. I sometimes create them, mostly for online purposes and I must say that sampling is the only reason I would buy anything! Starting from a deodorant up to a Ferrari! :)
Ads only reach me on a professional level... I simply look at an ad and I see the brainstorming behind it rather than the message! Try that for a while, train yourself to see that and you should be safe! :)
LOL! You do smell yummy, which kind of makes me think you don't smell like salad (which I like, but not that much). I think there are special phermones put into that Axe stuff...you didn't tell me about the older ladies giving you the eye! I can't take you anywhere! Fortunately, Shamu was immune:)