You are welcome to submit articles of interest to the newsletter. We may or may not publish them. Email your articles to media@cheshiregroup.com. Either embed them in an email or attach a Microsoft Word file, but in all cases please sign your email with your full name so that we can be sure who has sent us the information.
    We hope that you are continuing to enjoy The Better Mousetrap Online Newsletter. Many of the articles in this newsletter come from our book, Morsels from THE BETTER MOUSETRAP. Just click here to order your copy. Or visit our website at www.cheshiregroup.com so that you can learn more about The Cheshire Group and see samples of our work.
   

SHOULD WE PUT THE PRICE IN THE AD?
Make the judgment wisely.

The new product is being prepared for promotion and at some point—inevitably—someone will bring up the subject of price.
    "Should we mention the price in the ad?"
    You'd think, from the reaction this question gets, that it had just been suggested that the company president was sleeping with the head of the shipping department. Voices hush. People glance around furtively. And there is always at least one person who righteously clucks, "Oh, absolutely not!:
    Then out come the reasons why not:
    "Why scare them away before they get interested? Let them ask?"
    "The competition will find out what we're charging."
    "Let's tell them it's economical."
    The question "Should we mention the price?" is a good one, and there isn't a single , one-size-fits-all answer. So how do you know when to publish the price and when to keep mum?
    1. What is the context? If you are promoting economy, you must be clear what economy means. Therefore, state the price. At the very least suggest a price range:
    "Models start at $6,000.
    "Under $599.00"
    :Only $29.95
    If you tout economy as the benefit, then fail to pay off the claim with hard dollar facts, you can irritate or infuriate your prospects.
    If you don't want to publish the price, then don't claim economy as the major benefit.
    2. Does Macy's tell Gimbels? You can't keep the price of your product secret from the competition. They will know almost as much about your pricing as you do, and they know it just about as fast. So the argument about secrecy leaks like a spaghetti strainer.
    3. Is it a good price? If you've got a product with an eye-popping great price, by all means brag about it. If GM just figured out how to sell the Pontiac Grand AM for $10,000 and still make a profit would they say: "The Grand Am's new low price will surprise you. Ask us."
    4. What does your market expect? It wasn't so long ago that Detroit wouldn't dream of cluttering up an auto ad with price information. Now there are dollar signs all over car ads: downpayments, rebates, monthly lease costs, amounts due at signing. Price information is what car buyers want to see and what they demand.
    When price is your best benefit, promote it.
    But sometimes it isn't a benefit. So when do you avoid talking about it?
    1. When your price is higher than or equal to the competition's. When this is the case simply focus on other benefits.
    2. When you have a complex pricing structure. Quantity pricing becomes unwieldy to publish and no one expects it to be spelled out in promotional material. [Of course, you can always provide one quantity price and invite calls for specific quantities.]
    3. Where the price is changing rapidly. At times the price of computer memory has fallen quite rapidly and prices were outdated by the time they were printed.
    4. Be choosy. You might put the price in some product literature but withhold it in others. Price may be important in an informational flyer and inappropriate in an ad.
    Price is a judgment call. But make the judgment wisely.

WHIM ON A TUESDAY.
Never Stifle A Good Impulse.

"What struck me on a wet Tuesday morning as a moderately good idea made me famous," wrote David Ogilvy in Confessions of an Advertising Man. The moderately good idea involved ducking into a drugstore on the way to an ad presentation and buying for $1.50, an eye patch.
   Ogilvy & Mather had just gotten the task of introducing the Hathaway shirt to the national market. The young shirtmaker longed for the brand recognition that the Arrow Shirt Man had achieved for the Arrow Company. The catch was, Arrow had spent $2,000,000 for that brand recognition. Hathaway had only $30,000.
    Ogilvy's creative people came up with eighteen approaches. The eighteenth involved a model wearing an eye patch but this concept was regarded as weak and was set aside.
    David Ogilvy's spur of the moment purchase was a whim that revived the eighteenth concept. It also worked a miracle.
    The Hathaway people had the sense to let Ogilvy run with the concept and as Ogilvy himself said, "I just dressed the man in a shirt and an eye patch and photographed him in places where I'd most like to find myself: conducting the New York Philharmonic in Carnegie Hall, playing the oboe, driving a tractor, fencing..."
    Is there a morel here? There is if you want to construct one. How about...never stifle a good impulse.

WELL, SINCE YOU PUT IT THAT WAY...
Analogy Helps Make Your Point.

PROVERBS FOR THE MILLENNIUM.
Courtesy of Jack Murachver.

• Home is where you hang your @
• The e-mail of the species is more deadly than the mail!
• A journey of a thousand sites begins with a single click.
• You can't teach a new mouse new clicks.
• Great groups from little icons grow.
• Speak softly and carry a cell phone.
• C:\ is the root of all directories.
• Don't put all you hypes in one home page.
• Pentium wise: pen and paper foolish.
• The modem is the message.
• Too many clicks spoil the browse.
• The geek shall inherit the earth.
• A chat has nine lives.
• Don't bite off more than you can view.