Wednesday, August 29, 2012

You've come a long way, baby

I guess, it seemed like a good idea in that brainstorming meeting.

What if we made a pen specifically for women?

Women have smaller hands.

And the gals will love a pen that comes in pink and other pastel colors to match their outfits and make up!

Bic For Her? What year is this? Are there any women at Bic?

Whoever is in charge of marketing and innovation at Bic needs an intervention or at least to come out of his parent's basement and spend a little time with his sister's friends.

I'm not a huge focus group fan, but spending four hours with a few dozen women would have averted this disaster. I don't have too much of a problem with the actual product, but the inane, ham-handed positioning is classic internal team under-think.

The literal name and tagline, The Cristal reserved for women!, are lazy and uninspired.

They could have come up with a hundred name options that wouldn't have pigeon-holed the product and brought a deluge of derision to the brand.

Bic Tints, Bic Stylewriter, Bic Chic, Bic Vogue... Anything would have been better than "for Her!"

At least one good thing has come out of this product positioning debacle, the hilarious reviews on Amazon. Enjoy.

2 comments:

  1. Reminds of the old saying in the bike industry about marketing bikes for women: "Shrink it and pink it" - i.e, just make a smaller bike and paint it pink.

    Women (especially small women) will tell you there's a lot more involved in truly designing a bike for women than that....

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    1. There has always been a lack of intelligence and effort when it comes to developing products for and marketing to women. I'm just stunned that a company as large as Bic could be this tone-deaf in 2012.

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