Wasting Your Marketing Dollars

Marketing is essentially about telling the market about your product. This is done primarily through advertising. Now I have taken a few breaks over the last week and been able to watch some television shows. During the commercials I saw Lowe's TV advertisement for their exclusive offer with Kobalt, the Kobalt Double Drive. The Bob Villa like pitchman made this look like the most amazing screwdriver on the planet with its double drive technology that drive forward when your ratcheting backwards. I was sold on this being the Christmas gift of the century. Well, tonight after a long hard day at the surplus shop I drove across town to the Hyde Park plaza and went to Lowe's store. I was amazed at how empty the parking lot was for a 200,000 square foot store, but I guess that could have been blamed on the fact it was a Monday. When I get in the store the friendly return clerk rushes to greet me. I tell her what I'm looking for and she beckons the tool expert. The tool expert tells me that they are sold out of the Kobalt Double Drive. All that expensive TV advertising to try to sell something that only brings in $20 (in comparison to an expensive air compressor) and they weren't even able to get me to buy anything. I walked out empty handed. The marketing did its job; unfortunately they didn't have the stock to back up the promotion. Now I got home and thought perhaps it was just that one store and I should be able to go online and try to find this product on their website. Sadly no, I was unable to find the product on the website. All that money gone into expensive television ads and they don't even have the product on their website. Local London TV ads can cost as much as $1,000 a piece for a 30 second spot. Given the tremendous expense it amazes me that a business would not make sure it has enough product in stock before launching the ad campaign. Marketers remember the next time you get dazzled by the bright lights of TV or the sound of radio think about the total cost and whether or not you have the stock or the distribution system to match the demand. By doing that you can turn advertising costs into net profits.