Over the long holiday weekend, I took time to catch up on a number of articles that have been piling up on my "to read" file. Over the next few posting I will be talking about a wide variety of topics, but today I want to mention a comprehensive study which was done on the inside articles found in your average women's purse. Part ethnography, part qualitative and very informative, this hands on activity can teach us plenty.
What struck me about this study was the simplicity of it - stop 100 women in a mall and ask them if you can photograph the contents of their purses. Here are a few of the highlights quoted in the Ad Age article regarding this study (5/7/07 issue).
Loyalty Cards - recent research states that there are enough loyalty cards (1.3 Billion floating around the US) for each person to have 4 cards each...the average household having at least 10 cards. These women's purses were bursting with loyalty cards. The article posed the question - how much loyalty is there to go around? Can a person be loyal to 10+ places. From my experience with working with women, I say yes! I pull out my DSJ card when I buy my shoes, I pull out my Caribou Coffee card to pay for meetings over coffee. I have a favorite tea house I go to that makes the most incredible jasmine latte's in the world - holding their product in my hands is like holding a bouquet of jasmine flowers - wonderful and it gets me through our long Minnesota winters! Every time I pay for gas I give my loyalty/key chain to the cashier to earn points toward dollars off gasoline...am I loyal - you bet. BUT only where the product is excellent and the service can be depended upon - time and time again.
Promotional Items - many purses held these trinkets, but some were so worn that no brand remained visible on the item. If you are going to have them, better make them work double duty like my key chain, otherwise you risk the dreaded file "13" .
Cellphones - 72% of the purses had them BUT the women stated that they found them hard to find in their "life packed" purses.
Lotion - just over 10% had hand or body lotion from Bath & Body Works, only 2 had Jergens. As a business road warrior, I can tell you Bath & Body Works was one of the first to provide handy, purse size products for business women (who now comprise over 40% of all business travelers). They earned a loyal following among these women, and with the new airline rules about travel sizes every cosmetic, lotion, perfume...company should be following suite with smaller sizes of all their products.
Receipts - 85% of the purses had receipts.
PDA's - not in these mall shoppers purses, only 2 in 100 BUT 1/3 had a day planner and many more had numbers on slips of paper.....
So what can marketers learn from this type of exercise? Lets take several items (cell phones, receipt and PDA's) and the surveys findings and look at how this information can be translated into a word of mouth marketing campaign. Our first step in WOM planning is always making sure the product is one that stands out, does a great job and offers us something worth talking about. Today, cell phones are doing double duty as cameras and email and texting communications vehicles- there is not a lot of differentiation among the hundreds of phone BUT what else could they do to make our lives less cluttered? Just look inside the purse to answer this product design question. Is there a way to modify the cell phone so it can scan our receipts and store them by date for later retrieval? Of what about a way to make a wireless connection to the cash register and with just a push of the button, a transfer of dat could occur. What if a cell phone could act like an electronic Post It note so we don't have misc. papers with phone numbers, names etc. filling our purses with paper. These new features will give women something to talk about because they help them organize and store important bits of information and don't force them to invest their limited time and money on buying and learing a new piece of equipment . You are now ready to move to the next step - WOM campaign development. Beyond just a Word of Mouth Shout, you want to create buzz, have women experience your product and if possible, solve one more problem - cell phone retrieval. A good way to meet all of these goals would be to partner with a purse company to offer a "design your own purse" contest. Using social media tools, the campaign could provide electronic assets for purse designers i.e., a wide selection of purse handles and clasps, a fun selection of textures to drag-and-drop into your design etc. Promotion of this event could include a mobile component, a Second Life purse store, a walk down the runway showcasing the winning purse design on Project Runway...the campaign is only limited to the budget and imagination. Also, if the special occasions that impact purse sales are incorporated into the WOM strategy, an ongoing series of campaigns could be designed for Prom, Weddings, Holiday affairs etc. Both the cell phone manufacturer and the purse manufacturer would gain a perfect platform to continue to explore and listen to their female buyer's needs and who knows, a wealth of great product ideas to increase each company's bottom line.
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