I escaped the snow of Cincinnati this week to join an agency event down in sunny Buenos Aires. The meeting is a gathering of the WPP agencies in South America that work with Procter & Gamble. We are sharing our work and discussing how we can better meet the needs of this important client. I was invited to share our work on this Marketing with Meaning platform, as well as help advise the group on digital marketing. While it is interesting to see several presentations, the biggest benefit is to actually get face-to-face feedback and build personal relationships that will drive mutual success.

Unfortunately, I’ve got less time for a carefully crafted blog post here, but I wanted to take some time to share a few interesting and relevant news items that I’ve been collecting over the past week. Enjoy!

You Touch It, You Buy It

I discovered a study this week that showed that people who touched an object were significantly more likely to purchase it, and pay more for it. It seems that physical contact with a product leads people to begin to picture how it fits into their lives and they develop an attachment for it. This is another reason why product sampling or car test drives work very well. At the same time, I’m a little concerned that the “meaning” in this case is artificially created-in other words, too manipulative.

More Meaning at the Airport

Krista Neher shares some meaningful marketing that she discovered on the road recently on her blog. I specifically love the Little Tikes branded play area in the Cleveland airport. Anyone who has traveled with children and experienced a long flight delay will agree that these play areas are lifesavers. Like Samsung’s recharging centers, Little Tikes is solving a problem, but it goes farther by actually allowing kids and parents to experience its products directly.

Infomercials Work

I’ve written very often in this space about the decline in relevance of television commercials. But I have to admit that they still work incredibly well for some products and services. In fact, you might be surprised that the most successful commercials are… infomercials. About six years ago I spent a lot of time understanding infomercials as I was launching new products. In developing some of these ads myself, I found that they tend to score very high in copy tests. The reason? People are genuinely interested in new products, and will stay tuned to see what they are about.

Products such as OxiClean, the Pasta Pot, and now the Snuggi all succeeded through extensive demonstration and a straight-up product pitch. Infomercial products are also interesting in that they are directly linked to sales. Media is bought and adjusted based on responses and orders, and companies will keep buying media as long as they make a profit. In other words, if you keep seeing the same infomercial, it means the product is selling well. The true winners eventually show up in traditional retailers such as Walmart, which, in turn, unlocks demand from millions of people who have seen the ads, but were uncomfortable placing a direct order. Expect to see a lot more infomercials in the months ahead, as big advertisers cut back.