Grassroots Lesson #2: Brand Power
After the spruiking I again got a job where I mixed with customers at the grass roots level. I couldn’t think of a worse market than the one I had next - small, screaming children with ice-cream dripping down their faces. My role? I was to be Sonic the Hedgehog at shopping centres, hospitals and special events. Sega’s Sonic versus Ninttendo’s Mario was right up there with the Coke v Pepsi brand tussle. Video games were getting huge household penetration, and I was right at the grass roots.

A large blue outfit that reached temperatures of 45 degrees celsius became my second home. My new peers were the other character performers - various poor souls paid to dress up as Smurfs, Noddy or Donald Duck. At any large shopping centre is a room where all the performers meet to get changed, receive CPR when they overheat, and flirt with each other. It turned out to be quite a steamy underworld of character performers. Keep that in mind next time you see a rather flushed Cinderella at Bluehaven.

I got a unique insight into the world of sales as viewed from the armpit of Sonic’s blue, spiky outfit. I first got a strong sense of the excitement that children have about brands during these sweaty hours. I got to meet kids who were dying in hospital and their last wish was to meet Sonic. I got to meet adults who were the victims of “pester power” and wanted to kill Sonic. But most of all I remember the pain I felt suffering for the Sonic brand. Of course if you have 50% of the market with you in a head-to-head brand war, then it only stands to reason that 50% will be against you. Painful memories included having hot soup poured into my shoes, a pen stabbed into my arm and my big black shiny nose swiped clear off my big blue face resulting in an urgent hedgehog nose-job.

When brands really work they are something to behold. They inspire outrageous customer behaviour at an almost religious level. The power of a successful brand translates into sales. Lots of them.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 7th, 2007 at 10:10 pm and is filed under Natural news, Sales advice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.