In case you hadn’t noticed, it rained a lot in June. Officially, it was the wettest one since records began.
I don’t know why that should have surprised me. A quick check back over recent years shows June’s weather is incredibly changeable: take 1975, for example. June 2, 1975 saw a Derbyshire-Lancashire cricket match abandoned for the day because of snow. Three days later, and the country sweltered in near-record heat.
Given our weather, how on earth should companies market seasonal products? I don’t mean Christmas trees and Easter bunnies I mean icecream and raincoats. Products where the window of opportunity can slam shut in seconds. In the 90s Tokyo had vending machines dispensing hot drinks in winter, cold drinks in summer. That’s fine when the weather’s predictable, but what about the UK?
Well, obviously you can cross your fingers and hope, but a far more attractive option is repositioning. Some products can do so in the blink of an eye. An umbrella is a sunshade. Other repositioning takes time, and money. Over the course of some years, Lucozade became a drink for athletes, not a drink for the sick, whilst FedEx changed from airfreight to overnight deliveries. Clearly, there can be a brand issue at stake as well. On the other hand, if your product is flexible enough and your brand robust enough, there is a solution.
It’s snowing in June in Derbyshire? In minutes, you can use email to reposition the tennis racket you sell as a snowshoe. Think electronically. With daily papers, it’s simple to create ads that seize the day. But email and banners can allow you to seize the second if you’re quick and inventive enough. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m just going to see if I can reposition Britain’s rain as a way of avoiding sunburn. You never know it might just work.
