Linda's Marketing Leverage Blog

From Yucky to Yummy: A great marketing tool

Stopping in to Walgreens to pick up a prescription today, I noticed something new on the counter...the Yucky Medicine wheel. This is one of those devices that you turn to find out information about each of probably 50 or more medications listed on the outside of the wheel. In this case, as you turn the wheel, it displays the Yuckiness Factor for each liquid medication in terms of taste.

The three choices in taste ratings (complete with emoticon-type icons) are:

• Yucky tasting
• More yucky
• Most yuckiest

For each medication, there is a second round of displays that indicates what additional flavorings are available to be added to the medication to make it more palatable (i.e., some are available in cherry and lemon, others in strawberry or pineapple, etc.).

Now we all know that there is no such thing as a good tasting liquid medicine--blechh! The folks @ Walgreens and the flavoring company have embraced this fact and turned it into a marketing tool. Instead of official-sounding, rational taste rankings like mild or moderately offensive, they go right to yucky and more yucky. Who can argue with that?

The goal is to convince patients and their parents to spend a few dollars extra to have a pleasant tasting flavoring added to their liquid medicine. (Medicinal flavorings are usually not covered by medical insurance, but paid for out of pocket.) What's a couple of dollars when you face the choice of feeding your child 10 days of most yuckiest medicine, three times a day?

BTW, the pharmacist told me that many adults take liquid medicines and they too try to avoid the yucky factor. So this marketing tactic works for adults as well as kids.

Great marketing, Walgreens. Makes you almost want to raise a medicine  stopper and say cheers! Well, ALMOST.

Let's Blame EVERYONE Else, Shall We?

The death of St. Louis Cardinals Pitcher Josh Hancock in an alcohol-related traffic accident last month really was a tragedy. But the lawsuits filed by his family afterwards have taken this beyond the ridiculous to the absurd.

Yesterday it was reported in SI.Com that Hancock's father, on behalf of Hancock's estate, has chosen to sue the restaurant/bar that continued to serve Hancock alcohol for over 3.5 hours. OK, that seems somewhat understandable--bars have a legal responsibility to not serve inebriated patrons.

But that's only the beginning. The lawsuit also names the towing company whose flatbed truck Hancock plowed into, the tow truck driver, and the poor hapless motorist who was unlucky enough to be working with the tow truck, after having stalled out because he was cut off by another vehicle.

This is IN SPITE of the fact that Hancock's blood alcohol was twice the legal limit, he was speeding, he was using a cell phone during the accident,  he was not wearing a seatbelt, and marijuana was found in the vehicle.

I'm sort of surprised the lawsuit didn't include cell phone manufacturers, the transportation department for the state of Missouri  for building such a poorly designed freeway, and perhaps the Columbian drug cartel for their role in providing illegal recreational drugs. But I'm sure all these parties--and more--can be added later. (And what about the estate of Abner Doubleday for inventing baseball, without which none of this would have happened?)

It's one thing to turn to the justice system for relief when one has been wronged, but in this case it appears that the one individual who was at fault, Hancock, suffered the ultimate consequence for a series of really bad judgments. It's a free country and adults should take responsibility for their actions. Nowhere has it been reported that someone put a gun to Hancock's head and forced him to consume large amounts of alcohol, drive, speed, be distracted and use illicit drugs--all without buckling his seat belt.

Rather than blame everyone else, when something goes wrong, let's put the blame where it belongs--with the person whose actions led to the series of events in question. Seems pretty sensible to me.

Marketing Leadership: Five Steps to Move Forward

Two weeks ago, I asked where is the marketing leadership? I firmly believe that global marketing leadership can be driven by us here in Silicon Valley. Check out the SVAMA Marketing Thought Blog for five steps to move the process forward...

Where is the Marketing Leadership?

We sit here in Silicon Valley in the hotbed of innovation and technology. The same fertile environment that in previous years spawned Fairchild semiconductors, Sun workstations and the Netscape browser has in its most recent incarnation given us iPods, Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Second Life, among others.

But where is the marketing leadership?


See this full post on the Silicon Valley American Marketing Association (SVAMA) Marketing Thought Blog...