| Tuesday, November 29, 2005 |
21:39 - Retailers' dilemma
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So you know how retailers like Amazon.com and Best Buy and so on keep running ads where they mention "MP3 Players" as one of the things they sell? And they have to show some iconic graphic that communicates "MP3 Player" to the audience?
In many cases, retailers just use pictures of iPods these days, because no matter how you look at it, the iPod is the de facto standard "MP3 Player" right now, the one everyone is really asking for when they put "MP3 Player" on their Christmas lists. But not all retailers use iPods; some go out of their way to use non-iPod players and use non-brand-specific language when referring to them, in an effort to look non-partisan.
But in so doing, by bending over backwards to avoid looking like Apple shills, such retailers just end up looking more partisan.
Discuss.
UPDATE: Ah, the quandaries retailers face. For instance, suppose you're Round Table Pizza, whose menu still contains things like "Guinevere's Garden Delight" and "Montague's All-Meat Marvel"—yet it's been at least twenty years since you used the "King Arthur" theme at all in your marketing. It was already the company's anachronistic aunt-in-the-attic in the 80s. The theme is outmoded and all but abandoned—yet you're still called "Round Table Pizza", and it's the basis of all your branding, and the name people mentally associate with your particular style of pizza. What do you do? What do you do?
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Brian Tiemann
