Sampling Stories

A few weeks ago, I was grocery shopping. On the aisle where the hair care products are, I encounter the Cream Silk promo girl.

She is the stuff of Product Managers' nightmares.

She's simply standing there hugging a bunch of sachets close to her chest. She stares endlessly at the shelves before her as shoppers wheel their carts past her. Maybe she's practicing telekinesis? I dunno but I certainly hope those products move with all the staring she's been doing.

She decides to approach one shopper and gives out 2 sachets. She then stuffs an entire blanket of sachets onto the shoppers' arm with a vague explanation that everything was free.

I approached her and ask what those sachets were for. I promptly get 2 sachets with an equally vague explanation that they are free samples.

I asked her about the blanket of sachets and she thrusts them into my arms as well. I asked again if she was sure the entire loot was free and she says yes.

"Sampling lang ho 'yan." (They’re free samples.)
"All of them?!" She nods enthusiastically.

Naturally, I grabbed everything unable to believe my good fortune. I would've poured the whole shelf into my cart except people would stare. Do you know how much a bottle of Cream Silk costs?! I could only envy Cream Silk's enormous sampling budget.

When I reached the counter, the cashier informs me that my blankets of sachet weren't free. Sigh. It was too good to be true.

Someone at Cream Silk's marketing department forgot to orient their promo agency and promo girls thoroughly.

As opposed to Nescafe's sampling booths. They've got the most energetic promodizers, it makes you fear caffeine.

"Ma'am, try niyo po ang Nescafe. Masarap po siya." (Ma'am, try Nescafe. It's delicious.)

And before you know it, you've got a cup of brewing coffee right inside your nostrils. Sinus, meet Nescafe.

Have I told you about the Magnolia Chicken person? He has such a funny way of selling chicken that I could just stand there for hours watching him. The boy will become the next big star, I can feel it.

To reward him for his entertaining repertoire, I bought 2 whole chickens and many bags of various chicken parts. I do not know what to do with all that chicken seeing as I don't know how to cook. But if only for his great promotional skills, the boy deserved it.

Sampling is a very good way to induce trial and re-trial.

Often, however, a sampling campaign's success depends on its promodizers. Finding these promodizers is like auditioning for American Idol. Some have it, some don't. Consider yourself lucky if you've got 4 talented promodizers out of 20. The rest are just there to waste your budget.

Word to the wise: It pays to conduct frequent trade checks when you've got an ongoing sampling campaign.

Labels: Cream Silk, Magnolia, Nescafe, sampling

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