You know Her: she’s a great customer. She ADORES plants, devours every issue of Better Homes & Gardens, and spends Her winters pining away for the first signs of spring thaw so she can eagerly attack Her garden plans. She drives the nice-but-not-too-nice car, knows your staff by name, and wouldn’t dream of shopping for Her garden anywhere else.
Um, yeah. There aren’t 10% of Her out there anymore.
NewsFlash: She’s already cheating on you. And if she isn’t, she will.
Honestly? She likes you well enough, but she’s gotten bored with you, the spark just isn’t there anymore. She used to be surprised by something new each time she came in, she was inspired by your lush and lavish displays.
The recession-era you: with paint from two seasons ago, staff reductions, and merchandise constriction, well, you’re a little less alluring.
You’ve become predictable, and not in a good way.
She’s already shopping at Nordstrom for Her shoes but Costco for Her paper towels. She’s smart enough to see the grower’s truck when it stops at the Big Box store on Tuesdays with fresh product, which, golly – looks fairly much the same to Her eye.
She’s using more coupons these days, because austerity is ‘in.’ She’s savvy enough to price shop the essentials online. And even if you’re closer… well, your staff are more harried and distracted than ever, your parking lot is tight, she can’t get to your store after work…
Can you make Her feel special again? Can you give Her the thing she values most – Her TIME – back? Can you delight Her? Make Her life easier? If not, then you’re just 5% better than the other guys – and they’re 20% cheaper.
And she’s smart enough to do the math.
Creator’s Commentary: Kellee Magee of the ANLA gets most of the credit for this one; she wrote all of the copy. I came up with the concept: I thought it would be provocative to suggest that the target consumer of our industry, an upper-middle class, suburbanite Baby-Boomer female…was disappearing, never to come back. I stole this photo from somewhere and added the caption: “Is she an endangered species?” Kellee did the rest, and she said it much better than I could have! She really nailed it, I think…when I re-read it, it scares the pants off of me. I believe Kellee wrote the copy on a vacation flight to Hawaii. That’s dedication!
The photo was quite small, so it took some work to make it suitable for poster-sized printing. I put a lot of stuff into it: curves, blurs, film grain and a vignette. I kept her face and particularly her smile pretty bright, but her flesh grows gradually pale and grey, so that her hands look almost like she’s dead. I put the black bar over her eyes because I thought it was cool. It dehumanized her, objectified her, and made it seem more ominous. Also, I guess I felt slightly guilty about stealing the image! ~Art
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