So I recently read an article on the UK distributors of Danish store, Tiger.
Tiger is often referred to as ‘Posh Poundland’ as it sells all manner of stuff.
Anyway, in 2005, a husband and wife – with no business experience whatsoever – decided to pour all the money they had into buying the rights for the brand in the UK.
They openly admit it was very difficult and they made many mistakes but 11 years later, they sold it for an estimated 40+ million pounds.
So far so good, but what really interested me was something they said at the end of the interview …
How brilliant is that.
It’s also a great lesson in thinking about your audience.
Too often, our industry defines audiences by the segment we believe are the most likely to want to buy our brand/product.
While that makes perfect sense, the problem is we are often end up being pretty generalistic in who we define our audience to be … often because our clients are petrified of putting limitations on their sales potential. The other problem with this broad audience approach is that it tends to end up being the audience for the whole category, which means we end up pitting ourselves directly against our competition.
What I love about this Tiger example is – albeit by lucky accident – they realised their was a very specific segment who were attracted to this product. A segment that liked it for reasons beyond what was expected, and yet was something that actively drove them to buy.
Now I admit it takes balls to do this.
It also takes absolute honesty.
And confidence.
But when defining audiences, it’s always worth remembering the motivations for purchase are often very different to what we would like to think they are. Of course we know this, but when in front of a client, it’s amazing how often we either temporarily forget or simply choose to ignore.
By being absolutely open to who could/should be interested in our clients brands, we not only stand the chance of making work that truly resonates with a particular segment, but one that automatically differentiates you from the countless competitors all trying to steal your share, which is why I still love the V&A London museum ad from the 80’s, where Saatchi’s [in their absolute pomp] realised the thing people liked most about the place was the cafe, which led to them running ad’s with the bravest ‘endline’ you may ever see …
