Marketing With Hats

As we strolled through France (at Busch Gardens, VA) my children were magnetically drawn to store fronts that displayed colorful, oversized, silly and furry hats.

These were hats that they would never wear after our visit to the park.

Where would you wear a three foot long cowboy hat? Where would you wear a furry-wide- brimmed-sombrero-like chapeau? How about a duck head?

No where! That's where.

But I will tell you the displays pulled them in like a super-powered kid magnet.

Every time we walked by, they asked for a hat. Someone at AB knows that this occurs thousands of times each day. Someone has watched consumer behavior and watched the hat rack pull in the parents of children like mine.

From a marketing and product positioning perspective, it was a glorious site to see. Place a high margin item (the foam cowboy hats have to be a steal) in a location that pulls in the consumer through their child - each and every time.

The other group that seemed to be a high consumer of the hat phenomenon was groups of kids. Cheerleading squads, church youth groups, etc. were walking around the park in hats that were not going to be worn much after the visit to the park that day. Product positioning and display drove sales that day. I watched it occur.

This is one item that we did not leave the park with, in my next blog, I'll tell you how water sold my kids on a dragon.