The most brilliant marketing strategies (and the ones that garner the most profitable results) are the ideas that the average consumer doesn’t even realize are marketing ploys. Here are a few examples of this.
Have you ever seen women’s pens for sale? I have. Is there any reason why these oftentimes-regular black or blue pens are termed “women’s pens,” other than marketing? I can’t say for sure, but I assume many times not. Of course, some products really are designed for women, like women’s canes, shoes, and sometimes (notice; I did say sometimes) women’s scarves.
Another sneaky (but admittedly smart) marketing gimmick is when the same product is offered for a different price in different places. For example, take a bottle of mineral water. Check the price at a high end restaurant, now find out how much it costs at the supermarket, and then do your research and see how much you’d have to pay for it at a mall.
A sly marketing maneuver implemented at some clothing stores is the following: They install certain mirrors that make the person looking into them look slim and skinny. The person feels like, and is told by the sales lady that she looks “so good!” and comes home, puts on the outfit a day or two later, and simply can’t figure out how or why she looks so fat in it. Honestly, I think this gimmick is a bit nasty…
Recently, some major toothpaste company (my memory eludes me and I can’t remember which one it was; either Crest or Colgate, I believe) had a grand plan: Redesign the toothpaste tube so that more comes out in a squeeze. The next time people got their toothpastes, they were still used to giving a nice squeeze, and they used up the tube much faster than they ever did previously. Most people were totally clueless, never even realizing what had happened.
That’s just what a good marketing strategy is all about; subtle, yet smart.
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