Page 72 - 100 Great Marketing Ideas (100 Great Ideas)

32 EDUCATE YOUR
CUSTOMERS

When a product is new, and often when it isn’t, people need a
certain amount of help in working out how to use it. This goes
beyond including an instruction manual—sometimes there are
circumstances in which the product might be used differently from
the way it has been used in the past. For example, Heinz Salad
Cream is now promoted as a recipe ingredient, as well as for its
original use as a salad dressing.

Showing the product in use is one thing—showing it in the use
context is another, and sometimes people need to be given a whole
new idea for an activity involving your product.

The idea

During Britains’s post-war boom of the 1950s and 1960s, Rowntree’s
chocolate manufacturing company were looking for a new way to
shift chocolate. They came up with the idea for a chocolate-covered
after-dinner mint. The only problem was that people were not (at
that time) in the habit of giving dinner parties at home. Socializing
usually took place outside the home, in pubs or coffee bars, rather
than over a home-cooked meal.

Rowntree’s therefore had to show people how to have a dinner party.
The early advertisements for After Eight mints showed people
enjoying a dinner together, with the hostess bringing food out
from the kitchen and the guests complimenting her on the meal.
The concept of an after-dinner chocolate did not exist prior to After
Eights, and in fact for most people the idea of having a dinner party
did not exist, either.

100 GREAT MARKETING IDEAS • 63