Implied Benefit at its Best

Well. I just saw an excellent example of how someone used a functional reason to purchase with a strong implied benefit message woven in.

Crystal Light. Who’da thunk? And please don’t ask me what made me pay attention. I am not in the target market (I am not female).

Nor do I even like the crap (I only know because some women I know make it).

So. Anyway. They have this TV commercial I just saw.

Excellent example of selling a great benefit that is relevant and a consumer need and a consumer want AND without actually saying it out loud they meet the key category attribute (great taste). Awesome job Crystal people.

How? (you may ask…and even if you don’t I will tell ya)

“Water. Your body needs water …”

“Women who drink Crystal Light drink 20% more of it <water>.”

Well executed strategy.

People always know they don’t drink enough water. People want to drink more water. People don’t drink more water because…well…it has no taste. So. If people actually drink more water (20% more if we believe this) with Crystal Light I would imagine we would have to believe (perceive) it must taste good enough to actually drink 20% more liquid (and they never actually told us their product tasted good).

Even better?

I bet this is, at its worst, a parity claim. Shit. I don’t know. People who drink Kool Aid may actually drink 21.3% more water. But what I do know is that if I (assuming I were a woman) feel like I am not drinking enough water, I would be tempted to at least try good ole C Light. Oh. And just as I slammed Domino’s for trying to tell everyone “hey, we taste great now” I am applauding Crystal Light because all they are really doing is saying “hey, here is a REAL reason to try us” assuming if their stuff tastes like crap…well…then people won’t come back.

They get it.

Give me a functional reason to use your product. Let me judge whether the taste is good enough to repurchase the functional aspect. And, who knows, I may actually just like drinking it and damn the functional benefit.

Look. I may not like the actual produced execution (it’s just not my thing what they actually created) but the messaging is dead on. That I like.

Oh. The song being used is “The Feeling” by Sea Dragon. An okay use of a song. I say okay because I think the words are right and relevant, but I am not sure I would have chosen a different tempo. But that is being really really nitpicky.