by Cat Matson
There is an ad on TV at the moment for a new range of sanitary products for women. They depict a woman spending a 'girlie' day with a beaver (yes, an animal beaver), with the 'punchline' suggesting that a girl's beaver is her best friend... and therefore you should take care of her with these new products.
Now, if this ad was selling something to men, it might be effective. But no self-respecting woman I know uses the word beaver let alone considers 'her beaver' her best friend.... (or am I really getting old and out-of-touch?!?!) I can only guess it's been designed by a bloke in an ad agency who thinks it's a clever play on modern day colloquialism. Problem is, that colloquail phrase is used by men... and they're generally not the decision-makers when it comes to sanitary products.
Apart from wanting to highlight the ridiculousness of such an ad, it raises an important point about understanding who you're talking to in your marketing efforts. There's a lot of beer ads at the moment that I think really hit the mark - because they really speak to their target market - fun loving men who like to have a laugh at themselves (and others around them). Likewise there was an ad doing the rounds recently for an online dating service, which listed the statistics of finding a single man, utlimately with a punch line suggesting there were a limited number of eligible single men, none of which were in the bar that our single girl was sitting.
The easiest way of understanding the psycographics of your market is to talk to them - in person - to find out what motivates them to buy your product or service. Better still, sell to people just like you - then you don't need to talk to others - you just know yourself what would have you buy.
And if you're hiring assistance to help in your marketing efforts, hire someone who has proven success in marketing to your market... or is a member of your target market - you eliminate the guesswork and you can talk the language of your market easily.
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