I have written before about my admiration for the skills of the advertiser, so when I discovered I had a relative in what must be one of marketings biggest challenges, I just had to go and investigate.
The relative in question sells ice: party ice; he sells ice for a firm that well, makes it. Apparently there are only three leading brands of ice in Europe and his firm makes all of them - which in turn raises its own questions but let's not get distracted.
I was initially aghast to discover that such a product even exists, until I was put in my place by our Australian relative who said that any self respecting Antipodean would not be seen dead without their cool box packed almost to the brim with party ice into which are plunged 'tubes 'o lager' - apparently you wouldn't want a warm beer. I did try to correct her but she was immovable on this point.
Anyway, I set to wondering how the varying brands of ice compete with each other, and to be honest, I ended up a little disappointed. The principle seems to be: 'It's just ice, buy it if you like'.
Still, it didn't stop my imagination running riot when it came to the potential plethora of ways in which you could reward your loyal staff at Christmas. You could give them all vouchers - for Iceland; or what about taking them to a show - High School Musical, On Ice of course. Or what about the different musical tracks you could play in the factory: Cold as Ice, by Foreigner for example.
Then it hit me - the obvious marketing niche. The North Pole is constantly whining on about how it is melting, so why not simply sell them some fresh ice to replace it. And with the scale of this global warming it's obviously a growing market, you could ship the stuff out by the ton - even better, fly it out there: it would be quicker so wouldn't melt as much.
Here's a thing: I wonder whether the excellent people at Fuel My Blog might like to approach the company for product reviews by our esteemed team of reviewers?
Just in case you think I'm not taking this seriously enough and in the process doing my relative an injustice, here's a link to their website so you know which variety of ice to buy in the supermarket. Just don't be disappointed when you get it home to find you have a bag of water.
4 comments:
A friend tipped me off - We need Ice reviews..waterproof packing..I'm on to it!
Of course every party needs ice! Warm beer! Yuk! And when you go camping or picnicking or swimming, you buy ice to keep your drinks or butter and milk and eggs cold... Otherwise they'd only last a day or two in the HEAT down here. It's 8.30pm and I'm just off for my walk around the park. I missed the 6.30am window of opportunity. LOVELY AND WARM today - must water the STRAWBERRIES and MANDARINS when I come back. It got up to 30ºC today, and has plummeted to 27 now that the sun is going down.
I can see I'm going to have to don my wholemeal sweater and talk about real ale soon.
Then I'll explain the difference between cool and cold.
Real beer is cool.
Ban Katherine from commenting! We're expecting 8 inches of snow tonight!
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