Image vs. Audience

When you launch a new product, you’ve already done a lot of homework. You need to know what image your product is going to convey and what audience you plan to target. And you’ve done your homework to make sure you know your potential customers: their likes, dislikes, what works within their age group and income bracket.

But sometimes the image you want to convey conflicts with the one that actually comes across to your customer. Or maybe it misses the mark. Oops. What do you do then?

First, depending on how bad the reactions are, you want to start with damage control. That may include pulling any offending collateral or ads. Or it may just mean that you adjust your tactics in the next round. Tweak a few words here and there to get closer to your ideal image. It depends on the uproar.

The main thing you should focus on is trying to avoid the situation where you offend your potential customers, even if it means changing your product image just a little. Which would you rather have: an inflexible product image or people actually buying your product?

Let’s say you launch a new candy product and your target is women from 18-49. You start hyping the product with words like cheating, guilty, pleasure and “don’t tell.” You think it sounds racy and exciting. Clandestine. Forbidden.

Meanwhile, your audience is thinking, “Oh great, here’s yet another company telling us we need to feel guilty about having a bit of chocolate. We should hide it and sneak around. Because it’s bad. Because we’re bad.”

So, is that what you were going for?

It’s possible that you really do want the young, adventurous souls who think the product sounds fun, new and interesting. Something different. Or maybe you wanted those women, but others as well.

You can tweak some of your wording. You still use the words sexy, naughty, and ménage. But you soften it a bit by adding flirtatious, nice, and celebrate. It might work. Or you might have to adjust a little more and soften the words. Try things like indulge, rich, smooth or savor.

You’ll have to keep working at it until you get your image to match up to what your audience wants, while still trying to be unique enough to set yourself apart from your competition. But you can do it, right? Tell us if you’ve run into misjudging your audience. Or maybe you’ve seen it happen? Did the company tweak its message, or just stick to its guns? And did that work?

image: Newscom