Creating buyer need - the lessons of snuggie

I saw an infomercial today for a ridiculous product called the “Snuggie” which is essentially a blanket with sleeves build into it.  Seriously, I’m not making this up - check out www.freesnuggie.com

What struck me about this commercial is that they manage to communicate two separate ways in which the features of a regular blanket are inferior to a snuggie (specifically, blankets can slip, and you can’t reach for things while you have a blanket over you).  Now I don’t know about you, but I have never experienced either of these problems, nor have I felt that there was a gap in the lap blanket market which was begging to be filled.

But the lesson I took from this, and why I think the masterminds (and I use that term loosely) behind snuggie’s marketing are right on the mark is that they not only explicitly describe the benefits of their product, but they attempt to create dissatisfaction with the incumbent product.

As you market your RPO practice, think about snuggie.  Do you CLEARLY describe the benefits of your services?  Do you describe your services in such a way that you create dissatisfaction with the status quo (usually internal recruitment function or employment agency?)

A few hints:

• If you are selling RPO then Better, Faster, Cheaper are not benefits - they are features.
• We developed a list of at least eight ways in which RPO is substantively different from and better than a contingency search firm - how many can you come up with?
• We developed a list of at least six ways in which RPO is substantively different from and better than an internal HR or recruitment function - can you think of more

From my understanding of the infomercial business, if the product doesn’t sell, they will stop airing the infomercials very quickly.  Given that snuggie has been running for a while, they must be selling the things and probably making millions.  Let’s take a lesson from the snuggie playbook and maybe we will all be so lucky.

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