Know-How Exchange : Strategy

Sophia-
We have been de-germed to smithereens. All it is doing is making us more neurotic about germs, not lessening our fears. If you want to take a stand in the cream and soap market, hit it where we hurt. The economy has put huge stress levels into our lives. I have noticed my women friends have more problems with their skin than ever. Red splotches, dried hands, flaking, peeling iips. All from stress.
I would add some kind of calming agent, aromatic, to the skin cream and promote it as a de-Stresser. The cold of winter also adds stress to the skin, including wind burn.
Call the product PEACE.
I see a minimalist approach, very white, very clean, very classy, but affordable. Comes in a jar, but also has small vials (like eye drops... you could put wings on either side and call them little angels) that can be carried in a purse for daytime application.

I don't know where you live, but even the use of the word degerming would turn people off here. There are many antimicrobial products there, but really, all we want is clean, healthy skin. The picture I get with degerming is from that Sally Field movie, Norma something, where she was scrubbed down after exposed to something nuclear.

Co's like Philosophy have products called Peace and the like-- so you probably don't want to go there. But there is something to be modeled from. Same with Bliss Spa and Aveda. If you bring up their marketing you will see how they focus on ingredients.

The vision I see is taking skin like the earth-- from dry cracked winter to moist dewey spring skin. A lot of images can come from there.

Is there anything remarkable about your soap? Organic ingredients? Interesting packaging? Third party tested for any claims you're making? A favorite of a specific spa or niche?

The problem with making health claims is that they're usually regulated by governmental organizations (FDA, for example).

To connect with winter, focus on what makes winter different from other seasons: dry skin, colder temperatures, flu season, reduced exposure to sunshine, etc.

You are clearly asking the question of the wrong group. We are not your primary target audience. What you need is some carefully designed consumer research that probes for the unmet needs of your primary target audience.

Further, that audience is NOT the whole family. It's the person who makes the purchase decision for the whole family -- probably the female head-of-household. And it's probably an even smaller sub-segment of that group, including those who live in a "winter climate" and/or who are extremely concerned about health/germ-free living.

If you plan to compete against some well-established players who really know their target audience well, then you need to identify a narrow sub-segment of the audience and get to know them even better than the competition does. Maybe that's the germ-freaks, or maybe it's not ... but you can't just expect a bunch of marketing folks to give you an answer to a critical question like the one you're asking without some solid consumer research going-in.

I think we do you a great disservice by suggesting ideas that have absolutely no connection to what your primary target audience thinks, wants, needs or would value. And you don't do your client any favors when you suggest promotion ideas without a clear definition of the target audience and some insights regarding their most important unmet needs.

I spent several years as a Brand Manager at Procter & Gamble working on bar soap and cleaning products, and I know we would never have accepted this kind of approach without some confirmation that the ideas would satisfy a legitimate consumer need.

My suggestion: Get the client to share some consumer research on the topic, or tell them you need to conduct your own research, if they want a "real" solution to their problem.

Any other approach reeks of "amateur marketing."

Do not use the word degerming or nourishing, since it's always been used in your company. You may use the word "moisturizing". It moisturizes the skin of the whole family especially during the cold winter days that makes the skin dry. Frequent hand washing may cause the skin to get dry. A moisturizing hand wash would be good especially during winter.

The same bar or wash in a new packaging would also be a good marketing strategy.

Something edgy???

Medical Fact; Our skin is our bodies largest organ!


Anything here for you?

If it fits with Michael's buyers template it could be adifferent attention getting angle especially for male/beer drinkers .....