A pomegranate.
To the right is a pomegranate. I've walked past these things several times in the grocery store but never picked one up, mostly because I didn't have the slightest idea how to eat it.
Now, the POM folks have been trying to market these weird little things to Americans for a long time. "Heart therapy!" they say. "Full of anti-oxidants!" These health messages don't make the pomegranate particularly compelling. "Tastes great!" would seem to be the best selling point for a piece of fruit, and if you have to fall back on "heart therapy!" it sounds like medicine. "This thing is gross! But it is good for you!"
"Tastes great" and "heart therapy" fail in exactly the same way. They are marketing claims, and as marketing claims they're easy to dismiss. Tastes great? Who says. Heart therapy? Yeah, right.
But a pomegranate found its way into my shopping cart last Sunday. Why? Because the point-of-sale display had brochures describing how to peel and eat a pomegranate. I didn't need to know the history of pomegranates. I didn't need to know about health benefits. I didn't need to know its cultural legacy.
I needed to know how to prepare a pomegranate. With a brochure in hand reassuring me that I would not arrive home with a strange fruit and no clue, I was willing to pay $2.00 to find out for myself if it tasted great. (It does.)
Several years into a fancy marketing campaign, someone apparently thought to themselves: you know, this fruit is a little weird looking. I bet people are intimidated by not knowing how to prepare it. Maybe if we tell them how to prepare it, they will buy more. That person went beyond sloganeering and design to what I actually needed.
Good job, POM. Maybe you should put those instructions front-and-center on your website?
I grew up eating pomegranate’s every fall. It was and still is a treat that my mom & I shared.
I always called them “red messy things” & therefore that is what my 5 yr old calls them now, although she has not acquired the taste for them just yet.
I have never been swooned by the ad campaigns simply because of the price of the pom & other pom type products.
You are right, it comes down to the basics: how do I eat it/work it/use it?
The why is simple: A. it’s not a chip, it IS right next to the bananas – so you know it has to be good for you. and B. it is only out 1x/yr so you assume it is something special right there.
Thanks for the post – I am going to get one this weekend!
-jen
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Posted by Jen Harris on 11/14/08 at 10:44AM