Rubbish at Winning Grand Slams...Quite Tasty at Marketing

For any of you who frequent Fitness First (and judging by the scrum at the Friday drinks/ chocolate trolley we should all be going more often), you'll no doubt have become as irritated as I have by the Compeed/ Caroline Wozniacki ads that seem to play on a permanent loop in the changing rooms. 

According to Caroline, Compeed are so good at protecting your feet from blisters that you can play tennis at the highest level in 6 inch high heels! (You can't). So impressed was she with Compeed, Caroline has now designed her own blister patch! (She hasn't).

As cynical marketing ploys go, getting a dolled up tennis player to push your blister patches is up there (down there?) with the best of them, I do however have to applaud this piece of innovation – digital vending machines in the ladies loos of bars and clubs.

As the blurb says…

"Johnson & Johnson's leading blister plaster brand is an ideal partner for Trendy Vend; its TV spot has the glamourous tennis star, Caroline Wozniaki, promoting the effectiveness of the product to a receptive and relevant audience. The instant vending system distributes the product to relieve clubbers at time of need and the high-end bar/club environment provides the exact target market for Compeed"

It's a spot on piece of marketing - have a look at this.

http://www.trendyvend.co.uk/files/videos/compeedv.html

(NB: You'll notice that in this particular club toilet there is the a complete absence of drunken 'laydeez', gossiping, re-applying lippy and slap, gossiping, taking drugs, screaming, gossiping, crying or generally doing anything other than the activity for which the facility was designed). 

But that's marketing I suppose. 

Matt