Sep 28, 2007 0
Pitching Instructions
REI’s most recent marketing email tries hard to fill the void between back-to-school and holiday shopping. Too early for winter sports and too late for summer camping gear, October is not a great month for hard goods. To drum up excitement, the retailer has landed on one of my favorite come-ons, the create-a-category marketing initiative. This season’s newest category: the three-and-a-half-season tent. Here’s the blurb from the email:
“Our all-season, lightweight REI ASL Tents bridge the gap between backpacking and mountaineering tents.”
It’s on strategy for the season. We’re nearing the end of the three-season tent window and the majority of REI’s customers just aren’t willing to pony out $400 for an expedition tent. So there’s some sense in creating a category to fill that niche.
On the other hand, it’s a pretty small niche. My guess is that most campers hearty enough to go winter camping are hard core enough to beg, borrow or steal their way to a real mountaineering tent. And anyone not at least a little skeptical of an “expedition lite” tent is probably going to be spending fall weekends watching football. Still, REI gets a A for ingenuity.
The next thing you know, somebody will invent a category of outerwear for the gap between raining and not raining. They might even call it “soft shells.”