Day 16 Zen Vision:M Test Toyota small car or BMW Mini

I got an email today saying that the Zen is sold at the Saturn stores in Munich and if I did not see one on the shelves, I should just ask them to order it. I don't think so. First, I am a woman wandering into a technology store, that is not my domain. Second, Saturn is not a store where it is easy to track down someone to help. When I was in the multi media player section of the store, the aisles were croweded with people and it was not an environment which encouraged asking questions or loitering. Third, if I am unable to locate it in a store, I will order it online and have the product delivered to my house in approximately two to five days. If I am not going to get the immediate gratification of purchasing the product, I am going to just order it online and get a discount.

When I was doing the research for my business plan, I found many interesting articles about product placement in a store and how important it is that people see your product. One of the new techniques used to draw people's attention to products in a store is video displays. It seems that people will buy whatever is on the video display.

Originally, my business idea was to use soft sell commercials as fillers for music. Isn't that a fun idea.... Places like Mcdonalds where they have large video screens looping music videos could be used to show soft sell commercials to a captive audience. Mcdonalds franchise could make some serious money and retailers would be able to market to a known demographic.


One advertising campaign in Munich this last week was by Toyota. They covered lots of billboards with photographs of one of their new cars in a desert with people looking at it. I liked the ads but even with all that ad exposure I can't remember the name of the car. I remember the name of the company because I used to own a Toyota and I am familiar with the logo otherwise I would have just thought it was another small car for sale. Who cares. It isn't anything special and certainly not cute like the BMW Mini. If I am going to buy a car, I will buy the BMW mini because it is cute, comes as a convertible and did I already say it was cute? Look at how women shop. We buy things because they are useful, beautiful, feel good, smell good and make us feel good... does your product fit in any of these categories?