The Backwards Halo
Well, Einstein was right about one thing. Everything is relative.
I figured it out when I was buying pajamas. Or was it the cereal?
No, it was the pajamas.
Kellogg’s had a mail-in offer awhile back on designer pajamas: send in a couple of box tops and something like $50 for a pair of Karen Neuberger pajamas. “Wow,” I thought. “Fifty bucks? Those must be some pretty fabulous pajamas.”
Or else a whole lot of postage & handling. Either way, it was the priciest SLO that I’d ever seen. It either made the cereal seem fabulously upscale, or it made Karen Neuberger look like she was slumming in the supermarket.
I should point out here that most women know about these pajamas. After all, they’re Oprah’s favorite.
But I had never heard of Neuberger and her designer pjs. Then again, I do most of my pajama shopping in my husband’s T-shirt drawer. So it’s no wonder that $50 for a few yards of flannel seems a little spendy.
Still, I must have been secretly impressed, because several months later when I was out trolling the department stores with my sisters, I noticed a rack of Karen Neuberger duds, on sale. For less than $50.
Immediately, my brain did two things. First, it assumed that these really were fabulous pajamas. Neuberger was legit, because here she was in a real department store, with her very own rack and her very own name on it. Designer pajamas. Who knew? (I mean, besides Oprah and millions of women across America.)
But even more important to my impressionable little brain was that Kellogg endorsement. Of all the pajama designers in all the department stores in all the world, they had to walk in with Neuberger. If the fabulously upscale cereal had picked her, shouldn’t I?
From there, it was a short leap for my brain to decide that less than $50 was a great bargain. If you can buy the jammies cheaper than Neuberger’s best friends at Kellogg can, pull out your checkbook.
Such reverse engineering of a brand halo would make even Einstein’s head spin.
Of course, the business side of my brain knows that it was Kellogg that was hankering for a little shine off of Neuberger’s hefty halo. Pick a pj designer that women admire, dress the back of the cereal box and make that quiet link between lounging in your fabulous pajamas and eating fabulous cereal.
But the shopping side of my brain saw the halo from behind. And the shopping side of my brain usually wins.
Jim Lucas, Draftfcb’s go-to guy for retail, says that retailers’ big job these days is “choice editing,” winnowing down the zillions of products so we don’t have to. They put just enough variety on their shelves that we feel empowered, not overwhelmed.
Cross-promotion is the assistant — and the antidote — to choice editing. The more visibility Neuberger gets outside the lingerie department, the better known she becomes — earning yet more space among the bathrobes and slips. (And making her halo even shinier for Kellogg.)
And if you have a brand that isn’t Oprah’s favorite? Make friends with a brand that the choice editors like, and you too could avoid the cutting room floor. Halos aren’t one-size-fits-all, but they’re pretty stretchy.
My husband likes the fabulous pajamas, too. Now he gets his T-shirts back. lP
Send your comments to Betsy Spethmann at [email protected]
