Worst Product Name... Ever!

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Why on Earth would anyone choose (assuming no torture by a sadist from one of the former Eastern Bloc nations [i.e., Turdistan], or the promise of a hunting trip with Dick Cheney) to name a product or service Monitis? It sounds like a disease. It rhymes with Colitis, Bursitis, Arthritis and a whole host of __itises.

As the author (having destroyed all of the opposition) of The Mad Marketing Tactics Blog, I have to go on the record as saying that that name will most definitely hurt the sales of the product. Names are critically important in marketing and branding -- especially if they are either favorably or unfavorably associated with other product names or words in common usage. If you name a product (with due credit to Piriform) something like CCleaner, it sounds wholesome, useful and efficient. It is a clever hybrid of C drive and Cleaner. It actually describes what it does.

But then there's Monitis.

Here's what WebProNews had to say in a brief advertisement of Monitis (you can try it for free!), which sounded to me, and perhaps to other people, like getting a chance to audition herpes -- or worse. It even has a "moan" in it. Yet, the way the product is described, perhaps it is something great that just happens to have a horrible name; sort of like Smuckers jam. But then, they had an excuse, because it was a family name. And they even promoted a mildly self-deprecating campaign -- "With a name like Smuckers, it has to be good." It helped to boost sales, and once people tried it, they continued to be loyal customers. Let's see how Monitis fares:

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Please remember that I do not endorse the product. Nor do I seek to defame it. It might be good, it might be bad. But none of that matters. The only thing that matters to a marketing and branding professional is that the name stinks. Period.

Thank you as always for reading me, and for sharing my articles with your colleagues, cohorts, comrades, co-conspirators and connections through your ever-increasing use of the various social media platforms. And when I say thank you, I mean it sincerely.

Douglas E. Castle for The Mad Marketing Tactics Blog and for CFI Business Growth 

I'm actually a very friendly, approachable, engaging fellow. I don't have Monitis, either.

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Marketing Made Simple For Early-Stage Companies: 3 Steps and 3 Targets

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Get Them Gawking...Get Them Talking...



Early-stage marketing and promotion of ideas, products, services and people are crucial things. Fortunately, they require only three critical steps. Complete those and you are off to branding, building and filling orders (or filling your calendar with engagements).

Here they are (The Big 3) as they relate to your target audience*:

1) GET THEIR ATTENTION;

2) GIVE THEM A CALL TO ACTION;

3) ENGAGE THEM - FASCINATE THEM.

* As an early-stage enterprise, your three targets are generally: A) angel investors, venture capitalists, credit enhancement sources (all collectively, "capital'); B) prospective distributors, affiliates or licensees (all collectively, "distribution channels"); and C) thought-leaders, experts, gurus, publishers, influencers and credible third-party sources (all collectively, "trend makers") to spread (i.e., buzz, re-tweet, blog about) your idea and needs into NEWS and DEMAND.

Review: Do the 3 Steps For Each Of Your 3 Targets...

1) CAPITAL;

2) DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS; and

3) TREND MAKERS.

Faithfully,

Douglas E Castle
http://aboutdouglascastle.blogspot.com/
http://www.tnnwc.com/

p.s. Read (and study) what follows...

The MPower Escape Case™

NEW PRODUCT PROFILE – July 22, 2011

Description Of Product: The ideal "James Bond" office-in-a-box solution for every entrepreneur, professional and corporate executive, MobileLogic's sleek, versatile, case-solved travel case is the ultimate attaché to immediately organize, consolidate and carry all of your communications and information gear (including those cords, chargers, portable drives, and the rest of your stuff) and to charge it all up while you're waiting between meetings. The magic is that this case consolidates, organizes and integrates your gear into itself, like a second skin. Of course, it’s ergonomic, durable, weather-resistant, shock-resistant and high-utility, as well as sexy.

Designed And Manufactured By: NewVision™ Mobile, Inc., trading as MobileLogic™. The company is an early-stage developmental enterprise which is in the process of negotiating $1.25 million in capitalization (in order to initiate production), and is entertaining discussions with prospective master distributors having established market channels in order to address the global markets.

Inventor, Founder and CEO: DJ Sherman, an understated but wildy-enthusiastic entrepreneur who has been bootstrapping the company for more than two years, and has obtained financing through friends, fans, and true believers in the quality and integrity of the product, as well as its Founder.

Product Sneak Preview: The company, a TNNWC client (website: http://www.tnnwc.com/), has what must be the world’s most hilariously entertaining preliminary website (its actual site is being developed now) at http://www.case-solved.com/. We would suggest that you visit it, AND THEN COME RIGHT BACK HERE. When you’ve stopped laughing, continue reading, please. We know, we know – the website flash presentation should be on YouTube.

The Market: The retail consumer market is international, comprised of all mobile information and communication device users who have to travel to go to appointments, to meetings, to conferences or on other trips. These people must have their offices with them at all times. With the increase in telecommuting, flex-time employment, device dependency, social media domination and constant interactivity, and with the heartless-but-real expectation that every business person has to be accessible and have access to all of his or her “tools” all of the time. The market is phenomenally large and growing, and also includes students (early-adopters) and other technophiles-in-the-making.

The product will be available in a standard version and a premium version, each with its own sub-market. The standard version, which will be manufactured in several different color patterns, will likely sell for $89.00 to $109.00, whereas the premium version will likely sell for $289.00 to $309.00.

Company Status: Company has engineered its product design, and is the process of obtaining new artist renderings of finished product. The product will be built in the United States, and in excess of fifty full-time employment opportunities are expected to be created within the next 2 years. For further information, contact Stuart Pressman of TNNWC at 888.317.6498.

Tags, Terms, Labels, Categories and Keywords For This Article:

• business opportunities
• case-solved
• D. J. Sherman
• Early-Stage Ventures
• Engineering
• Entrepreneurial Business And Growing Companies
• Entrepreneurs creating jobs
• Ergonomics
• GADGETS and APPLICATIONS
• Innovative People
• New Companies
• New Products
• Techno Trends
• TNNWC NEWS RELEASES
• Visionaries
• marketing, getting their attention, entertainment, humor,  engagement, D.J. Sherman, Mpower Escape Case, high-utility,

MAD MARKETING TACTICS™ !

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NOTICE: This article is Copyright © 2011 by author Douglas E Castle with all rights reserved. It may be republished without permission provided that it is published in full, with all hyperlinks and exhibits left intact, and with full attribution given the author. This article does not contain or constitute medical, health, psychological, legal, regulatory, investment, securities, financial, tax, or any other form of professional advice -- the reader acknowledges and accepts this disclaimer. Further, the reader indemnifies and holds harmless both the author and all publications in which this article appears of any damages, claims, loss, responsibility or liability emerging from the reader’s utilization of any information contained herein.

About This Author: Further information regarding this author’s professional experience, expertise and service offerings can be found at ABOUT DOUGLAS E CASTLE

Other Blogs And RSS Feeds By This Author: A comprehensive list of blogs and RSS feeds on various subjects written or moderated by Douglas E Castle may be found by clicking on the orange icon below.

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The SNUGGIE Strategy

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THE “SNUGGIE” STRATEGY – LAUGH AT YOURSELF ALONG WITH YOUR VIEWERS: JOIN “IN” ON THE PERCEIVED JOKE.

The article portion which follows was excerpted from the New York Times. As you read it, you may wish to imagine the song from the short-lived “Macarena” dance craze playing in the background:

December 21, 2010

Lots of Laughs, and Even More Sales

By ANDREW ADAM NEWMAN

IN the fall of 2008, when the Snuggie, a blanket with sleeves, was introduced in an infomercial, it was mocked by television hosts including Jay Leno and Ellen DeGeneres and went viral, garnering millions of viewings on YouTube and spawning hundreds of parody commercials.

Consumers purchased about four million Snuggies during the 2008 holiday season, according to Allstar Products Group, its maker. Typically, a success story for a kitschy infomercial product would end there, with the Snuggie going the way of items like the Clapper (“Clap on! Clap off!”) and Pocket Fisherman (“The biggest fishing invention since the hook!”).

But not so for the blanket with arms, which, from a marketing perspective, turns out to have legs as well.

By the end of 2010, the company will have sold 25 million blankets, the equivalent of one for about every 12 residents of the United States, and Scott Boilen, president of Allstar Products, which is based in Hawthorne, N.Y., says there is no indication that sales are waning.

“The Snuggie has revolutionized the way people think about blankets,” said Mr. Boilen. “People are collecting multiple Snuggies — it’s like a shirt.”

To encourage such collecting, there are now 15 styles of the Snuggie, including one with a nylon shell for outdoor use, a Sherpa model with thick white lining, a smaller version for children, and a large version for couples, with three armholes — one to be shared. There is even an expanding line for dogs, including a wearable Snuggie and a blanket-topped dog bed.

The original spot for Snuggie followed the standard infomercial format: state a problem, and then present the product as an ingenious solution.

“Blankets are O.K., but they slip and slide, and when you want to reach for something, your hands are trapped inside,” says a voiceover in that first infomercial, as an actress fidgets under a small throw when the phone rings. “Now there’s the Snuggie, the blanket that has sleeves. The Snuggie keeps you totally warm, and gives you the freedom to use your hands.”

New Snuggie commercials have a less overt sales pitch, featuring a group of actors of all ages wearing Snuggies while enthusiastically singing modified versions of holiday songs, like “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” (“We wish you a Snuggie Christmas, and a hands-free New Year.”), and “I Have a Little Dreidel” (“Oh Snuggie, Snuggie, Snuggie, stay warm, keep your hands free, I think I’ll buy a Snuggie, this Hanukkah for me. Oy!”).

The brand will spend an estimated $12 million in advertising for the holiday spots. Last year, Snuggie spent $34.8 million in advertising, according to the Kantar Media unit of WPP.

For the first time, the ads are appearing not only on cable, but also on network television, most notably during the broadcast of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on NBC. And while the newer ads may be as corny as the original, they are not, by any standard measure, infomercials since they are only 30 seconds long and do not seek a direct response from consumers — namely that they call a toll-free number to order now (“while supplies last!”).

Instead, the new spots indicate either that the product is “Available at retailers everywhere!” or mention retailers by name.

The Snuggie has, in fact, evolved nearly completely from a direct-response brand to a retail brand, with about 95 percent of current sales coming from bricks-and-mortar retailers including Wal-Mart, Kmart and Walgreen’s, according to the company.

Infomercial products often find their way onto retail shelves, but Thomas Haire, editor of Response Magazine, a trade publication that covers the direct-response industry, said Snuggie was unique.

“Getting into retail is not rare anymore but becoming a strictly retail brand is pretty rare,” said Mr. Haire. “Usually even if something is successful at retail they still want to sell it as direct response, but there is no ‘call now’ push left on Snuggie’s TV ads.”

Critical to the success of the Snuggie, Mr. Haire said, is that when it was so widely ridiculed for looking silly, the company did not flinch.

“If they got touchy about it and said, ‘This is a really strong product and you shouldn’t make fun of it,’ then I think it would have faded away,” Mr. Haire said. “But they were able to laugh at themselves, and I think the American consumer sensed they were in on the joke, too.”

####

The article’s message is a very important one: If your ad campaign is perceived by the viewing public as ridiculous, and your product (as well as the commercial) is being lampooned by celebrities despite its possible merits, you have already succeeded in getting everyone’s attention - this is good news, if you leverage it properly. 

The way to keep their attention is to laugh at your own commercial masterpiece (disasterpiece?) right along with the crowd, and to carry the joke even further – perhaps even to point of absurdity. Your product might not be as ingenious as you had originally thought – but it might pick up enormous sales momentum as a novelty, instead.

Whether it is seen as a utility or as a silly novelty, the sales will ring up and the revenues will roll in. If your ad campaign is inadvertently funny, learn to go with it. Humor is a wonderful branding mechanism. Even when it happens by accident.

Remember Ron Popeil’s “Veg-O-Matic?”

I rest my case.

Faithfully,

Douglas Castle

http://www.douglascastleblogosphere.com/

http://aboutdouglascastle.blogspot.com/

MAD MARKETING TACTICS™ !
Get MAD... Get CRAZY... Get MOVING... Get ATTENTION!
Visit us at http://MadMarketingTactics.blogspot.com



Tags, Labels and Terms: Mad Marketing Tactics Blog, The Snuggie Strategy, Branding,  humor, novelty incentive for sales, laughing all the way to the bank, Douglas E. Castle, TNNWC News Releases, absurdity sells, riding the tide of viewer opinion, The free celebrity/ comedian "anti-endorsement", getting their attention, leveraging mistakes for fun and profit, TNNWC Buzzworks, Gist Video, advertising, mirth marketing, the Macarena, Zen Marketing - Being "One" With Your Audience, trends

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