Thursday, June 6, 2013

Will you buy your dad bacon for Father’s Day?


The folks at Oscar Mayer must have been putting in a long night when they came up with the idea of bacon gift boxes.  The three limited-release gift packs, available exclusively online, each contain 18-20 slices of bacon along with one of three gifts in a velvet jewelers box.  The three gifts to choose from are a stainless steel money clip, a pair of cuff links, and a multi-function tool.  (Lukovitz, 2013)

It certainly sounds like it might be right up dad’s alley.  What do you think?  Will you bite?

Lukovitz, K. (2013, June 5)  Oscar Mayer’s Men’s Gift Packs ‘Say It With Bacon’  mediapost.com.  Retrieved June 5, 2013, from  http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/201826/oscar-mayers-mens-gift-packs-say-it-with-bacon.html#axzz2VPCgXRI7


4 comments:

Unknown said...

The Advt. is definitely off the beaten track,supposed to tickle the taste-buds. Presentation is quite professional, but what one wonders is its social and cultural milieu. May be the other ad-dons like the cuff-lings and tiepins fill the gap and make it more pleasing and meaningful.Even though it may sound a bit weird ,nonetheless,the message is conveyed, that is targeted at a certain class in the society.

Unknown said...

Even while considering how little effort it takes to heat up a piece of bacon to a crisp, I'd still want to see a breakdown of how many men would cook their own bacon across income brackets.

I feel that the multi-tool targets 'men who know how to work with their hands,' which can break down to blue-collar laborers with a subgroup of technological hardware technicians (and then whoever else wants to feel like a handy man for their own benefit). I mention this because it isn't too hard to imagine that these men would be comfortable around a grill or a skillet, and willing to take the time to cook the meat and savor their work.

I want to say that the cufflinks segment off a subset of white-collar professionals, which works in principle... but I can only hope that the juxtaposition with bacon doesn't send some sort of mixed message. I hope that these professionals aren't baffled by this gift if they aren't usually the one who prepares meals in the family. I can only predict some sort of bewilderment when some father receives the gift box, extracts the cufflinks, regards the bacon, and hands the box off to his wife, saying, "I guess we're having bacon for breakfast?"

The money clip feels unfocused by comparison. The target within the subgroup of fathers doesn't seem as clear. I'm not very familiar with money clips, but because of their position as an alternative to wallets (which are ubiquitous), they don't seem to be helpfully segmenting the market (unless I'm missing something which is certainly possible). It's nice, and it's a way to broadly cover the target (fathers), but it doesn't say anything else, and so doesn't seem very effective.

The strategy here seems to want to capitalize on both the excitement generated by a nice gift AND some sort of universal enthusiasm for bacon. But I don't know if the strategy can GENERATE that enthusiasm for bacon, especially when the included gift is likely to outshine the bacon.

If my father were around, and I were looking at these gift sets, I'd be more likely to choose one of the included items and buy something in their category separately. So I suppose Oscar Meyer is good at selling non-meat products.

Unknown said...

I promise I'm not trawling for extra points.

After watching the accompanying spot on YouTube, their strategy seems to be more humorous than I anticipated. The positioning mirrors traditional marketing for Diamonds, but it's bacon. The ad seems to want families that like bacon so that they'll be in on the joke and still go along with it.

As far as retention of sales in their current market goes, this may still be hit or miss, depending on the pricing of the gift sets.

grace_legends said...

From my point of view, this kind of gift can work only as a joke. If my father is crazy about bacon and I want to make fun of it - I would maybe buy it. Otherwise - it's just a waisting of money.