Let me share with you what was likely the best concept of my 60-plus marketing career. It happened in the fall of 1974, your product may be someone else’s premium. Example - My client at the time, McDonald’s Restaurants of New England had just introduced breakfast as new day part. Target audience - Men 18-34. At the same time, local Boston company Gillette introduced a new product - the Gillette Good News Disposable Razor. Target Audience - Men 18-34. A match made in marketing heaven - Free Good News with McDonald’s = a free disposal razor with every breakfast entrée purchase.
We negotiated the deal for a fall promotion test, resulting in a National Promotion in the spring. Results? 23 million razors distributed at McDonald’s, which became the number one breakfast restaurant in America as a result. I was awarded McDonald’s first ever Marketing Achievement Award at the 1975 National Agency Convention as a result. Still proud to this day.
Fast forward to present day. Here is a headline and sub-headline in the February 13, 2023 issue of Ad Age Magazine, page 10 - “Inside the Super Bowl’s hottest ad trend - brand partnerships. Netflix joined forces with Michelob Ultra as Molson Coors hooked up with Draft Kings”. The article was written by reporter Adrieanne Pasquarelli. Read it.
Read more: History repeats itself at the Super Bowl - Mar 2023
I am currently reading a new book, The Carbon Almanac. There are multiple authors sharing their knowledge about global warming. The forward is by Seth Godin a renowned marketing expert. I was immediately drawn to a section of the introduction called “The Tyranny of Convenience”, which has inspired my February Morsel.
Evan Williams, a co-founder of Twitter put it this way, “Convenience decides everything”. It put my brain in gear. When we make decisions about marketing ideas or direction, should we ask this question…“If we go ahead with this, what affect does our action have on the convenience of our audience”? (My question). It seems to me this is a good measuring criteria. Convenience is a key attribute of making me buy from Amazon (for instance), because I save travel time for shopping, and I get free shipping as a Prime Member.
Convenience is not a factor, of course, if my hobby is making pottery or some other art pursuit. Or if I am a die-hard creature of habit and resist change of any kind in my life. Inconvenient actions are built into the humanity of many of us. We embrace inconvenience (like to churn your own butter? Go for it.). But people who gravitate toward the “convenient” choice decidedly outweigh those that don’t.