Best Practices for Marketing Product Features
by Graeme Newell
Highlights:
- Companies tend to define success as beating a competitor even though winning a customer should be their aim. This has lead to a flood of feature-comparison marketing that overwhelms potential customers with information.
- Don’t brand your product’s features; instead, show how those features demonstrate the brand.
- Don’t kid yourself into thinking that your product feature is special. Odds are, you’ll need to wrap that feature in a tested creative vehicle such as metaphor, special effects, or comedy.
By its very nature commerce is competitive, and that means companies are going to gauge success by comparing themselves to other companies that sell similar products. It has always been strange to me that two competing companies may both have abysmal sales, but as long as one company is beating its competitors, they call it a win. Check on any executive’s desk and you will typically find acres of competitive data but surprisingly little information on actual customers. Most companies can tell you every move made by a competitor, but their depth of knowledge about customers is usually limited to general sales data.
This preoccupation with rivals is one of the driving forces in marketing today. Because company executives are awash in competitive data, competitive tunnel vision bleeds over into marketing. Managers begin to think that customers compare features the same way that they do.
The takeaway test
So let’s try something: Take a gander at this ad for a laundry product. Watch this ad first, and then move on to the next paragraph.
Okay, quiz time. What were the three products shown in this ad? Which one was judged the best? What had stained the shirt? How did they change the product formula? What was the name of the special power? Name the other dried stains the detergent removes. What were you asked to “trust?” That commercial had your full attention and you probably still can’t answer most of my questions. Did you notice the pace? It comes at you like machine-gun fire. This is the quintessential competitor-obsessed ad. It is all about beating a competitor, not the customer’s experience of laundry.
Neutrogena does a side-by-side comparison of each product’s packaging in this ad. However, what you’ll notice is that it spends no time talking about the customer’s primary reason for buying this product – the perks of looking younger. We see this happen all the time. The marketing regresses into a spitting match between two rivals as the customer simply passes them both by.
The trick to great feature marketing is not to brand your features, but let the features demonstrate your brand. Start with the customer experience of your brand, then show how your features affirm and improve that brand experience. Miracle Whip features product haters disgusted by the taste in this ad, with one man saying the product “tastes like lotion.”
This Miracle Whip ad shows big trouble on the home front because he loves Miracle Whip and she despises it. Miracle Whip has built a renegade, mayo-hating brand, and the product’s sweet taste is a banner for revolution. The feature demonstrates the brand.
Nike doesn’t brand the company’s clothing in this ad. They start with the brand of tenacity and determination, and then show how their products empower that brand.
Cheetos clearly establishes the cheesiness of the snack in this ad, but the product feature is firmly grounded in the customer-focused priority of subversion and sticking it to the man.
Some innovative companies are lucky enough to launch truly innovative products with new and different features. For these lucky few, marketing is fairly straightforward – just put the product on camera and show customers exactly what it does. This Dyson vacuum ad does just that. No need for a lot of explanation.
Apple just wound up the iPhone and let this commercial do the dazzling.
Unfortunately, most products aren’t like this. Most feature improvements are incremental at best. While company insiders can kid themselves into believing the new features are revolutionary, most potential customers greet the innovation with a big yawn.
The executives at Remax deluded themselves into believing their web site was revolutionary. This truly forgettable ad shows a generic real estate web site and boring scenes of family moving. This mind-numbing ad lacks appeal because it proves Remax and its features are just like the rest of the real estate herd. This is one of the most important lessons in feature marketing – don’t ever forget that most features are not intrinsically valuable to potential customers.
So what can Remax do? It needs to sell its web site. What should it do if it isn’t that different? In cases like this, the marketer must bribe potential customers. Here’s how the bargain goes – you listen to my sales pitch about my feature, and I promise to entertain you for a few seconds. But before this deal can happen, the company must wholeheartedly acknowledge that its product is not scintillating and that it must add some bright lights and Hollywood to its product message.
H&R Block wants to sell its tax service that gets customers a fast refund. They were smart enough to realize that this feature is not very interesting. This fun ad talks all about the speed of a refund but uses the fun of an at-home, wind-tunnel metaphor. The sales pitch is made palatable because it hitches a ride with entertainment.
This ad for rival tax company Jackson-Hewitt has your full attention as you intently wait for the punchline to the joke.
Special effects are one of the most powerful bribery vehicles. New Balance keeps you intently staring at those shoes for a solid minute and clearly imprints the company’s environmental message into your mind in this ad. Comedy is the other primary bribery vehicle.
Value City pays the bribe with a chuckle and leaves you feeling good about a sales pitch in this ad.
This Snapple ad keeps your interest with a fun, rhythmic farce.
There are two important things to remember with feature marketing. First, don’t kid yourself into thinking your feature is more noteworthy than it is. Odds are, you’ll need to wrap your feature in a tested creative vehicle such as metaphor, special effects, or comedy. It is not enough just to say what you do or explain why your product is better. Never forget that the marketing game is show business first and information business second.
Second, remember that the commercial must entertain the customer and not the client. Far too many companies create ads that entertain the help, and ignore the people who actually buy their product. This ad for United Airlines was built upon a fantasy of how the company likes to see itself, and ignores the grueling customer reality of air travel. Don’t ever buy into your own PR.
If you enjoyed this article, you might enjoy this article on core components that should be in every marketing campaign.
