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July 9, 2009

Handkerchiefs vs Toilet Paper

Filed under: Gadgets — Tags: , — martinopia @ 7:54 pm

There are a lot of situations where expanding a brand to new products in even completely new markets makes sense. I have no problems at all with Porsche Design sunglasses (although I prefer my Ray Ban glasses ;-), McLaren polo shirts or even with Snickers ice cream (which is disgusting btw, just for the sake of the brand expanding idea). But there are things which just don’t work together.

To illustrate my argument here a short introduction into human anatomy:

marketingforbeginners.jpg

The fact that our nose is the organ for smelling does not mean that we do like all kind of smells. That’s exactly why Tempo chose menthol, camomile and aloe and not the typical toilet flavor for its handkerchiefs. And toilet paper is indeed heavily connected to exactly that kind of flavor. And that’s perhaps the last thing I’d like to have near my nose.

But that’s exactly what Tempo did when they launched a new toilet paper with the same brand as their famous handkerchiefs. A perfect example of how not to do brand expanding. Personally I give them 2 years at the most till the Tempo toilet paper will be history.

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