Can "Marketing" make a Commodity Sexy?
One of the most challenging things we have to do in marketing is to sell products that are often viewed as uninteresting. To get people to consider buying a product we need to get their attention. Well, some products, especially B2B products and some consumer products do not seem very attention-worthy. So, marketers ofen need to "make them sexy".
An article is Business Week discusses Seagate making disk drives sexy. They think they have hired the person to do it. The article "Can Seagate Make Disk Drives Sexy?" The product line is called FreeAgent "data movers".
From the article, and your understanding of the products, do they have a chance? How should they do it?
Gene A. Wright
posted by Gene A. Wright @ 3:56 PM
2 Comments:
I think if this strategy is going work, they need to change the focus from what the product is (and the technology it uses) to what it does for the customer. If they tell the customer how this product will make their life better, how it will do more for them, how it will make their life easier or even more fun - they may have a chance. However, I personally think this is going to be a hard sell. The microchip industry is already considered by the industry to be a commodity and it is hard to change that image once it is established. It would be like making soybeans or oil sexy. Their best strategy would be to relate their product to the OEM product, which would be seen as sexy - like the iPod. Then they may get the consumer requesting their product, similar to the Intel ads.
With sleek product design and attention to human factors/usability, any commodity product can be made "sexy". Dyson has proven this works with a product as commoditized as a vacuum. Seagate might be able to do this with their drives, but Lacie may have already beat them to it with their drives, like the Skwarim (http://www.lacie.com/products/product.htm?pid=10802) and
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