BLENDER 2.5: FREEZER: How To Sell Heroin An Adventure in Modern Marketing Imagine heroin was legal... Just another product on the shelf... And it was your job is to make jaded consumers crave it... In ever-expanding ways? Pop Quiz: What do you do? Greetings, novice heroin marketers! I know what you’re thinking: “Sell smack? No sweat! Isn’t it, like, satanically addictive?” True enough, and that’s certainly a boon when it comes to courting consumers, but let’s look at the negatives: The product lacks family values. It’s short on convenience. It tends to kill. But a graver problem looms: unlike, say, Tide, heroin hasn’t been new and improved in years. And though classic heroin sells briskly in the underworld, suburban consumers want more. They love to be bewildered by new choices, especially slight, bullshitty variations on old familiar friends. In other words: consider product line extension. It’s how pop culture breeds. As Pepsi begat Diet Pepsi...as Rocky sired a feisty brood of sequels...so too can heroin fruitfully multiply—widening its marketing net—with a little help from you! So, let’s explore five exciting line-extension formulas and...SELL THAT SMACK! Strategy 1: Genderize Today, the most successfully genderized products exploit the belief that: a) Guys and gals have different needs when it comes to sopping up bodily excretions— here, we have sexed antiperspirants and diapers; b) Certain products are just born macho and won’t seduce dames without girlification—here, we have cigarettes (the slender Virginia Slims) and cotton briefs (Jockey For Her). Heroin for Her would help perpetuate this scheming tradition, targetting those women who sense that a mind-blowing narcotic just isn’t ladylike. Note: Genderization tends to focus on females. Rarely is an existing “feminine” product reconfigured for men, but the classic example—Marlboro cigarettes—is a highpoint in the history of manipulation. hyperlink = Diapers The sexed diaper craze began in 1987 when Proctor & Gamble, preying on the baby boomers’ tendency to overaccessorize their offspring, introduced Luvs for boys and Luvs for girls. Within two years, the brand had cornered 24% of the cutthroat diaper market. Nevertheless, P&G keeps innovating. Its latest line extension? Luvs Ultra Leakguards— “so good they protect both boys and girls!” Imagine that. hyperlink = Scheming Tradition Spin-off products that target a single sex aren’t new. In the ‘50s, for instance, the makers of Storz beer introduced “Storzette for women, a calorie-controlled beerette in a queen-sized bottle,” stamped with the womanly image of an orchid. Unfortunately, it was a failurette. hyperlink = A highpoint in the history of manipulation Though we know it as the he-man of cigarettes, once it was a sissy smoke. When the Marlboro brand was first sold in the ‘20s and ‘30s with the slogan “Mild as May” and a flaming red tip, it was perceived as (duh!) a femmy cigarette. No real man would touch the things and, in the prefeminist era, a female-only market was considered inadequate. So, in 1954, Phillip Morris hired ad man Leo Burnett to save this loser brand. His solution: an injection of full-strength testosterone. A new bold box. Cancer-resistant cowboys. Later, the mythical Marlboro region, where lonely Marlboro men do nothing except squint at cattle and smoke. Cool! Alienation! Both sexes totally fell for it, and the red-and-white box became a global king. Today, we do have “Marlboro Extra Lights,” which is a tacit way to say, “Marlboros For Her But She Gets To Keep The Horse.” Strategy 2: Create Nocturnal Versions Around 1974 or so, stress was invented. Soon after, the modern sleep-aid blossomed. First there were pure sleep-aids such as Nytol (cherished by experimental teens). The unusually anxious late ‘80s saw the stock market crash and the birth of Excedrin PM and Tylenol PM. These products, pushed with advertising budgets of up to $23 million, say to the consumer: “No, you’re not a paranoid, hypochondriac, late-20th-Century insomniac in the tradition of Marilyn Monroe...you just have a little headache.” Heroin PM offers a similar reassurance: “...you just have a little heroin addiction that’s robbing you of much-needed rest.” See how that works? hyperlink = Tylenol PM As life gets yet more intolerably hectic, expect surprising sleep-aid versions of other quality products: Rice Krispies PM Absolut PM L’eggs PM Cadillac Seville PM Hamburger Helper PM Puddin’ Pops PM J. Crew Relaxed Fit Chinos PM Grey Poupon PM O.B. PM (designed by a pissed-off, sleep-deprived woman gynecologist) hyperlink = Marilyn Monroe What you’re not. Strategy 3: Create Diet Versions This line-extension formula has come a long way. When Diet Pepsi was introduced in 1963—three years before Twiggy made anorexia mod—it seemed slightly martyrish to drink the stuff. Something your fat, aging mom had to do. Now, despite some notable failures, diet versions are as inevitable as Ace Ventura sequels, and even children order Diet Pepsi with no sense of martyrdom. (They ought to. According to the Center for Adolescent Obesity at the University of California, nearly one-third of six-to-eleven-year-olds are obese.) Americans currently spend about $35 billion each year on the diet industry. We even buy stupid shit like diet fudge. Given this, the job of selling Diet Heroin seems like a no-brainer. (However, see failures.) hyperlink = Twiggy Twiggy’s mod knees hyperlink = Failures This seems like a good a time to point out that between 80 and 94 percent of the 17,000 new products introduced annually fail. Extending a well-loved, highly addictive brand may increase your odds, but even so, flops abound. A notable diet-version bomb: the McLean Deluxe from Mcdonald’s. Remember? It was supposed to make fast food into fastidiously healthy food. Tasted like hamster food that had been peed on. I really didn’t like it. Yuk. Could I have another glass of water, please? Strategy 4: Exploit Environmental Guilt This is a double-whammy: the Heroin Enviropack offers elegant guilt relief, while coopting the goody-goody image of the green movement. That’s helpful, because, no matter how aggressively you market your benefit-packed line extensions, some gripers will still consider heroin....well, evil. The Enviropack proves, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that you care. Well, maybe not. In 1990, at the height of the green craze, a study by the Princeton, N.J.-based Environmental Research Associates found that 47 percent of consumers dismissed environmental claims as mere gimmickry. Luckily, most junkies aren’t so discerning. Strategy 5: Offer Added Convenience It’s e-zee to see the allure of convenience. It can transform a product that’s merely cute (popcorn) into a true stunner (microwaveable popcorn).Most important, it always heralds a “new and improved” future. (Consider the slogan for a pioneering roll-on deoderant: “The future is here, now—under your arms!”) When mass-merchandising heroin, you’ll want to jump on the convenience bandwagon. Otherwise, it might begin to seem like—gasp!—the drug of the past. If your first efforts don’t succeed, press on: the search for convenience has created some of the most regrettable products ever, but it has also produced many profitable classics. Perhaps the Heroin Pump is one. hyperlink = Some of the most regrettable products ever Highlights from the collection of the New Products Showcase and Learning Center (a.k.a. The Museum of Failures) in Ithaca, New York: • Campbell’s Fresh Chef Salads: Sealed in glass jars, they seemed more forensic than fresh; • Aerosol ketchup: Mist those fries for you? No thanks; • Toaster Eggs: These frozen scrambled eggs, designed to thaw and cook before they popped up, actually frightened younger children; • Edible deodorant: Convenient if you are suddenly stranded alone on an island and can risk sacrificing hygiene for nourishment. hyperlink = Profitable Classics 1847 Jell-o: Instant gelatin is an instant hit. 1927 Kool-Aid: Aids mothers; cools children; defines the modern “sugar high.” 1930 Twinkle Fingers: Known today throughout the solar system as Twinkies. 1937 Kraft Dinner: “Don’t huff, puff, and wheeze. There’s a main dish that’s a breeze.” Original price: 19 cents. 1937 SPAM: “If you want something grand, ask for SPAM!” 1942 Cheeri-Oats: “An oat cereal that’s ready to eat.” Evolves into Cheerios. 1948 Reddi-Whip: One of the first products to issue forth from an aerosol can 1953 Cheez Whiz: One of the first edible plastics, more or less. 1954 Swanson Frozen TV Dinners: The cuisine equivalent of raising the dead. 1965 The individually wrapped processed cheese slice: Because it’s really hard to slice spongy cheese so thin. 1965 Tang: The quintessential space-age brew; served on Gemini moon missions 1970 Hamburger Helper: The perfect food for the Decade of Shortages. Congratulations, novice heroin marketers! You’re on your way! Remember, though, that product-line-extension is a vast and glorious thing. Still left to explore: gullible demographic niches (Teen Heroin), cynical cross-merchandising deals (Pocohontas Heroin), and boggling taste variations (Almonds With Heroin) The only limit is your own creativity. See you at the supermarket! Caveat: The editors of Blender do not advocate the use of heroin—a dangerous, illegal, and annoyingly trendy drug—or suggest that it be marketed in the cavalier manner outlined here. ENDS