Functional vs. Familiar
October 29th, 2006 RachelI clipped this post about a Douwe Egberts promotional item (created by Pink Eye) yesterday, and I’m glad I waited a bit to post on it. The initial reason for the delay is because I was searching around to find one up for sale. Nope; looks like this was a marketing stunt only with no further plans to bring it to market.
Bummer.
But the reason I’m happy to have waited is because the comments that have come up since the initial post, though few, raise interesting points.
Here’s what Lewis had to say:
Tumblers have been around for ever that are easier to carry and, I
suspect, keep coffee hotter longer than these cups. You are correct:
this is a marketing stunt not a product benefit. In effect, students
are being manipulated and exploited for their eagerness to be seen as
hip or cool.Students are buying an inferior product in exhange for satisfying a
desire. Nothing wrong from the students’ point of view ;as I believe
they know what they are buying and why they are buying the cup, but not
a product nor a marketing strategy with legs. Instead, we have a fast
grab for the dollar.
Now, I checked out Lewis’s blog and he’s got a lot of interesting things to say about marketing and business. But aside from what’s pointed out below his comment on the cup post (it wasn’t for sale, it’s promotional), I think it’d be a bit extreme to say students are being “exploited” because they want to be cool. Most students I know are too busy/frantic to do anything other than the following:
1. Go to campus
2. Go to nearest Tim Hortons/Dunkin Donuts/Starbucks/Second Cup (or whatever…)
3. Mutter coffee order
4. Walk away with paper cup filled with steaming hot “focus” for the 3 hour lecture ahead.
$10 thermos mugs were used once or twice, then forgotten at home or under a chair in a classroom. Preparing the coffee at home means time that’s not spent studying or sleeping…Personally, I’d be much more apt to call a student lazy/self-centered than to assume they’d be so easily manipulated by a marketing tactic like a freakin’ coffee mug.
But then there’s me - the girl who spent twenty minutes trying to find this mug online, credit card in hand. Recently de-student-ified (for now) and a big fan of jumbo coffee/tea mugs. They don’t sell the amazing Pier 1 Imports mugs anymore, which bear a striking resemblance to the one above. If I were still a student, I would have loved to have a real mug instead of a thermal mug thing (I personal can’t stand them…something about the handle, just doesn’t work for me) or a paper cup in my hands for that 9am film class. It may not be very handy in the car, but in weighing the functionality (I agree with Lewis that the thermal capabilities are probably lower) against the familiarity of that shape in the morning…I’ll take familiar and comfortable any day.
P.S. - I wonder if anyone cared this much about the actual benefits of, or strategy behind, stress balls.
