Bathroom Blogfest 2010: On bathrooms stuck in the 60's and unrealistic advertising

For the past five years a group of bloggers - experts in marketing, customer experience and service, public relations, library sciences, museums, home & interior design, life, retail, flooring and healthcare - have been blogging about what could improve the overall bathroom experience for end users. What started as a group of 10 – 12 bloggers has this year expanded to 40. This blog fest has proved to be a real effective medium for accessing a diverse set of views on a subject in a short span of time. The content is rich with people posting pictures and their experiences around great looking washrooms and what is desirable. It happens every year in the last week of Oct. I am late in posting this – though have been contributing for the last 4 years and did not have the heart to break the chain J

“This year’s theme “Stuck in the 60s?” is inspired by Mad Men, the show that has captured the imaginations of many for its portrayal of life in the 60s when social and cultural taboos meant that many critical aspects of life – like bathrooms – were ignored, glossed over and treated dreadfully,” said Christine B. Whittemore, who manages the Bathroom Blogfest. “The result is that end users suffered. By calling attention to modern day instances that are “Stuck in the 60s?”, we can reinforce the value associated with being more responsive to the end user experience.

But what happens if for the end user – life is really still stuck in the 60s? For a lot of people living in India and South-east Asia, the reality is that their washrooms still have stone / cemented surfaces (as opposed to tiles). The sanitary wear is not always in ceramic…it could stone or some toughened fiber like material on which hard water creates white stains / patches. For a lot of these houses bathrooms are not about squeaky clean shiny surfaces or fresh fragrances. Stains and odors are a reality they live with and bathrooms are forgotten areas of the house – forgotten by everyone else except the woman of the house whose job it is to maintain the minimum standards of hygiene.

This is a fairly large segment of the market that currently is out of the loop of branded bathroom cleaners. They use harsh local products like chemicals to get rid of tough stains and the acrid smelling bleach to kill every other odor in their toilets. For a marketer this is a fairly attractive untapped marketing opportunity.

Where does the problem lie?

Current communication through advertising and to a certain extent even current product formulations do not acknowledge and address this reality. Adverts generally show aesthetically done up, fragrant smelling, spa-like, large bathrooms on which a mere spray and wipe ritual by the lady of the house and the magic of the product would restore it to its former pristine state. Consumers don’t buy this story and buy their product. For starters their bathrooms do not look like the one in the adverts. No matter how of the magic formula is poured – a dark cemented surface is not likely to transform into something else. For the few who even try such product – do not find much evidence of the product working. The ads talk about ‘shine’ as evidence or ‘germ kill’. Both these markers for product performance are difficult to believe. ‘Shine’ is an intrinsic property of certain surfaces and absent in others. Products cannot greatly alter this condition. ‘Germs’ are not visible. In the absence of a visible code for germs - consumers understand ‘germs’ in terms of ‘bad odor’. If a bleach like product neutralizes all odors – germs have been effectively killed. What is the need for a specialized branded cleaner then?

For a long time we have been given to believe – that advertising cannot be realistic. Things will only sell if advertising is aspirational. Aspirational yes…but how much is the question?

Food for thought: What is the brand’s outlay on advertising vis-à-vis product development? No amount of glib talk can compensate for a poor / irrelevant product.

You will find other bloggers contributing to the blogfest this year in the list below

Blogger	Blog Name	Blog URL
Susan Abbott	Customer Experience Crossroads	http://www.customercrossroads.com/customercrossroads/
Paul Anater	Kitchen and Residential Design	http://www.KitchenAndResidentialDesign.com
Shannon Bilby	Big Bob's Outlet	http://blog.bigbobsoutlet.com/
Shannon Bilby	Carpets N More Blog	http://blog.carpetsnmore.com/
Shannon Bilby	Dolphin Carpet Blog	http://blog.dolphincarpet.com/
Shannon Bilby	From The Floors Up	http://fromthefloorsup.com/
Shannon Bilby	My Big Bob's Blog	http://blog.mybigbobs.com/
Toby Bloomberg	Diva Marketing	http://bloombergmarketing.blogs.com/bloomberg_marketing/
Laurence Borel	Blog Till You Drop	http://www.laurenceborel.com/
Bill Buyok	Avente Tile Talk Blog	http://tiletalk.blogspot.com/
Jeanne Byington	The Importance of Earnest Service	http://blog.jmbyington.com/
Becky Carroll	Customers Rock!	http://customersrock.net/
Marianna Chapman	Results Revolution	http://www.resultsrevolution.com
Katie Clark	Practial Katie	http://practicalkatie.blogspot.com/
Nora DePalma	American Standard's Professor Toilet	http://www.professortoilet.com/
Nora DePalma	O'Reilly DePalma: The Blog	http://www.oreilly-depalma.com/blog/
Leigh Durst	LivePath Experience Architect Weblog	http://livepath.blogspot.com/
Valerie Fritz	The AwarepointBlog	http://www.awarepointblog.com/
Iris Garrott	Checking In and Checking Out	http://circulating.wordpress.com/
Tish Grier	The Constant Observer	http://spap-oop.blogspot.com
Renee LeCroy	Your Fifth Wall	http://yourfifthwall.com/
Joseph Michelli	Dr. Joseph Michelli's Blog	www.josephmichelli.com/blog
Veronika Miller	Modenus Blog	http://www.modenus.com/blog
Arpi Nalbandian	TILE Magazine Editor Blog	http://www.tilemagonline.com/Articles/Blog_Nalbandian
Maria Palma	People 2 People Service	http://www.people2peopleservice.com/
Reshma Bachwani Paritosh	The Qualitative Research Blog	http://www.onqualitativeresearch.blogspot.com/
David Polinchock	Polinchock's Ponderings	http://blog.polinchock.com/
Victoria Redshaw & Shelley Pond	Scarlet Opus Trends Blog	http://trendsblog.co.uk/
David Reich	My 2 Cents	http://reichcomm.typepad.com/my_weblog/
Sandy Renshaw	Around Des Moines	http://www.arounddesmoines.com/
Sandy Renshaw	Purple Wren	http://www.purplewren.com/
Bethany Richmond	Carpet and Rug Institute Blog	http://www.carpet-and-rug-institute-blog.com/
Bruce Sanders	RIMtailing Blog	http://rimtailing.blogspot.com/
Steve Tokar	Please Be Seated	http://stevetokar.wordpress.com/
Carolyn Townes	Becoming a Woman of Purpose	http://spiritwomen.blogspot.com/
Stephanie Weaver	Experienceology	http://experienceology.blogspot.com/
Christine B. Whittemore	Flooring The Consumer	http://flooringtheconsumer.blogspot.com/
Christine B. Whittemore	Simple Marketing Blog	http://www.simplemarketingblog.com/
Christine & Ted Whittemore	Smoke Rise & Kinnelon Blog	http://smokerise-nj.blogspot.com/
Christine B. Whittemore	The Carpetology Blog	http://carpetology.blogspot.com/
Linda Wright	LindaLoo Build Business With Better Bathrooms	http://lindaloo.com/

ladiesroom,

Two is company, three is …?

A while ago I got thinking about the number three. It’s recurring occurrence in myths and symbols.

Why do/es

• The genie grant you three wishes?
• A winner’s podium have three places?
• Hinduism and Christianity both have a holy trinity?
• Japanese mythology have three monkeys?
• Freud talk about three ego states – id, ego and super ego?
• Fairytales have three little pigs, Goldie locks and the three bears?
• And time get divided into three: past, present and future?

When I turned my attention to the television – I came across brands that promised three benefits. A new shampoo brand that mentions three benefits - Nourishment, Protection and Hydration.

Aqua Fresh toothpaste with its iconic three stripes signifying protection, cavity fighting and fresh breath

Tea brands that played around with strength, colour and aroma highlighting one or the other.

Of course there are products with fewer or more benefits though I have deliberately cited examples with 3 to try and see if there is any more meaning to it. Do they talk about three just because one is too little and two still not good enough? By that logic it could be 4 or 12 or any number of benefits that people could remember.

Then I realised: Three is the smallest number of co-ordinates required to enclose a geometrical space.

Two straight lines cannot enclose any space!

In this context therefore three = solid, real, substantial, complete.

In another context three represents the ‘middle ground’ between the binary extremes of black and white, of good and bad.

Life is not always about the extremes.

We are not happy with things that just have do-good benefits; we also want those products to make us feel-good. For instance, people had the option of a) having staple home cooked food that one did not always enjoy and b) feasting on the more alluring street / junk food that was not good for us and then there was c) Maggie noodle that gave people the third option – Taste Bhi Health Bhi. Similarly we understood cleanliness as being good and dirt as bad – again two extremes – until Surf Excel appeared on the scene occupying the middle ground by positioning Dirt as good.

In life we cannot always exclude the existence of a “grey “area - a 3rd option. Three then = balance, realism, the in between space.

So coming back to the question I started with – what do you equate three to?

brand communication, symbolism & number three,

Cross-posted on Chlog

Food for thought...

It’s been a year since I started blogging about Qual Research. The reasons I started writing about Qual Research were a) to grow in my own thinking and b) since I found very little being written about it.

My vision for this blog has been, to develop it into a comprehensive source of information on commercial qualitative research. Over the past few months I have realized that there are many related areas / disciplines that impact a researcher's thinking and contribute to her skill set & knowledge and a blog about qual research is incomplete without discussions on such related disciplines.

I would posting such thoughts here - half baked to begin with - in the hope that I learn something from the discussions they create.

Hope you enjoy these interesting bite sized portions!

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Today's FFT - Does communication differ on planet mars v/s venus ?

Susan writes about the gender genie - a gender-writing analyser that can read your blog content or any piece of writing for that matter and predict - your gender. I put in my blog content there and the genie decided I have a masculine style of writing. Maybe true.

Men and women do tend to write differently and even relate to / interpret communication differently. Susan's post touches up on the 'thinking' v/s 'feeling' preferences in men v/s women.
I wondered after reading her post - when communication is designed to target a specific audience - are these differences kept in mind consciously / intuitively by communication experts ? Would copy / creatives developed by a man appeal to the sensibilities of a woman as well as if those were designed by a woman herself?

For instance - I had a discussion with someone a while ago about the way marketing has been designed for lingerie brands. I had a hunch that there were two distinctive ways in which lingerie was being marketed - 1 seemed like an overtly masculine perspective reflected in the product line (loud colours, fish net stockings) and the store ambiance (raunchy looking models) - the brand that comes to mind is Ann Summers. The other seemed to take a feminine approach - pastel colours, where the mannequins looked elegant rather than overtly sexy - the kind that one would see at M&S.

Do you also see that as a gender difference in the way the two brands have been positioned ?

brand communication, gender differences and brand communication

iPod v/s Zune - wear the music v/s where's the music

No, those are not the official taglines to the Zune or the iPod campaign though for me, those lines summed up where the two brands stood and what they created for consumers - at a given point in time. The contrast could not be better timed.

The Zune and iPod shuffle were launched approximately 10 days from each other. The 'generation gap' between the products was apparent yet comparing the brands was a foregone conclusion.

While the iPod comes out...
The iPod has long enjoyed an iconic status. The white ear phones have over time became ubiquitous. A tell-tale sign of the popularity of the device and the brand. I read about kids (less fortunate than the ones who could afford an iPod) who'd paint their black ear phones white, to feel like a part of the cult of the cool. Then there was someone who just bought a pair of white earphones from eBay without ever owning an iPod. Its not difficult to guess why. It is no longer a device sported by music aficionados. It has acquired the status of a fashion accessory that people feel they must have. The conspicuous presence only fuels its popularity and sales further.

The iPod shuffle takes the whole idea of the iPod being a fashion accessory to the next level. While earlier generation iPods stayed ensconced within pockets and let the ear phones do the talking, the new generation shuffle is smugly perched outside.



The Zune goes in...
Contrast this with the close to 5 ounce Zune know for its bulk amongst other things. Its no surprise that the Zune would have stay content indoors (inside bags and pockets) for a while.
Visibility signals popularity and to that extent Zune takes a beating on account of its bulk. However the story does not end there. It only just begins. Since related to the issue of visibility is a feature that is touted as the product's raisons d'être - the wifi capability which makes the 'social' happen so to say. Now the problem is that though Zune did welcome people to the social, it expected consumers to create a social by themselves. Early adopters have been looking high and low for fellow Zuners to experience music transfer through wifi , though only very few have been lucky. Why? A combination of factors - visibility being one of them.

Its not difficult to imagine, that if people are on the go, it is highly likely that that even if they were carrying their Zunes with them the device in its current avataar is not conducive to being sported outside. I suppose the ear phones are not distinguishable either. With the lack of visibility the probability of tracing a zune user to wifi with becomes slim. Overlay this situation with the fact that keeping the wifi turned on all the time is a tremendous drain on battery - and what have you. Far fewer Zunes that are wifi enabled and a bunch of early adopters not getting enough chances to test the single most differentiating feature of the product. The subliminal message that consumers get as a result is that the product has not really take off in the market since they can't find people with it.

Notwithstanding the contrasts, what is common to both these brands is how - in both cases visibility has become a surrogate measure for popularity which in turn will influence sales - only consolidating the positions further.


iPod Shuffle,iPod v/s Zune,Zune,

Remaking adverts - reviving familiar elements in communication

Happened to see this old YouTube video today that I am sure most people, who grew up at about the same time as me in India, would remember. Before the advent of satellite TV, there was only one channel to watch. Those were the times with little clutter and media spend decisions simply revolved around getting the prime time slot. Consequently the range of ads and infomercials that we saw during those times enjoyed and still continue to enjoy, tremendous mindshare amongst consumers.

The video reminded me of an ad research I was part of some time ago, where a new brand entering the market targeted at kids, was trying to take the animation route to break clutter. Animation per se as a route could break clutter purely because of its novelty but there was something going against the ads that were being tested. The brand launch was going to be a global one and ads had been developed by an agency outside the country. It goes without saying that the situations depicted and the characters were alien to the audience. Each frame by itself was not difficult to understand but to decode the message behind the ad, they would have had to make the mental connection between the scenes which people were not able to ladder up in their mind.

When I saw the youtube video today, which happened to be an animation, I wondered why no agency has used elements from that video to develop any tv commercial around it? And logically extending that point, why don’t we see remakes of old ads.

Ads from the past, not only evoke the feeling of nostalgia associated with a brand and make us feel all warm and cozy about it but they also contain associations around brands that become indelible with the passage of time. Elements like…Mummy bhook lagi hai…bus 2 minute (Jingle for Maggi) or the swirling Nirma girl stopping the passer by are all too familiar. And who can forget Lalitaji from the Surf Excel ad?

And if you thought it was just the nostalgia factor at work, Caroline Whitehill talks about how brand associations get hard-wired over time in her write-up about how neuroscience is transforming research…

Why for certain familiar brands, people still talk about advertising campaigns from ten years ago…. Neuroscience has shown us that it takes a long time to create connections. But with repetition and over time, cells that fire together repeatedly become literally physically soldered together. Neuroscientists say 'cells that fire together are wired together'. This process takes at least two years and is known as hardwiring. 'Brand associations that are already consolidated in long-term memory cannot be broken off

We do see this happening albeit in a limited way - with the Close-up reviving their old ad jingle to kya aap naya close up kartein hain or Lyril continuing to show the lime freshness through the waterfall as their backdrop. But for every brand & agency team trying to retain elements in their commercials, there are a dozen if not more fresh communication ideas thrown at consumers everyday – which one would probably notice for the short while those are on air but fade away into oblivion in no time. What remains with us are the ones from a time by-gone. In many ways then old adverts are like music, the vintage classics are the ones that are timeless

advertising,brand communication,advertising research,