So this title is a little bit of a play on words really, let me warn you that there is very little information on removing tonsil stones in this post it is more to do with the selection of products that are currently available and how they are promoted.
Tonsil stones are a global issue and statistics show that around 25% of randomly sampled population had tonsil stones, in many cases the people who had them were totally unaware of them as they were identified using xrays.
Just because someone does not know they have tonsil stones does not mean that the stones are not doing any damage/causing bad breath/impacting your life, you are better off without them!
25% of people is a lot of suffers, when you think of what is basically a cosmetic medical market (think hair loss/cellulite etc) there are a huge number of products that spring to mind but nothing comes to mind for tonsil stones and this is mainly because the condition is still one that is not widely discussed.
There is a gap in the market for an informational solution lead campaign
There is a serious gap in the market here which could be seriously exploited, the companies with a natural assumed advantage here, the big oral hygiene players are missing a trick.
Push Vs Pull
All the people doing marketing theory at the moment will have heard of push vs pull and how pull marketing is the future. Rather than having stuff shoved down our throats 247 by media outlets (think TV advertising or radio) we are told that the truly interested people are the ones who search out the information for themselves (pull the information to themselves rather than have it pushed to them).
This is true to an extent
If everyone who knew they had tonsil stones knew that they had this problem and also knew what the problem was in addition to its name then pull marketing would be the most effective approach for the sale of tonsil stone products, however, it has been proven many people with tonsil stones don’t know they have them. Of the portion of people who do have tonsil stones many ignore them (who would not ignore them if they knew what they were and the impact that they were having on their bodies) and of the ones who do try to take action may cannot find the information that the need to treat the problem.
The Corsodyl Example!
Corsodyl monthwash has been around for a very long time but it was never a market leader, even though it had been around for longer then Listerine it had never the market share owned by Listerine, however, recently things started to change.
Most people were aware of Corsodyl (market awareness/top of mind as the theorist like to call it) but they were chosing to buy Listerine, however, Corsodyl did have one advantage and that was that it is specifically designed to be used by people with bleeding gums….. but people did not know that.
Following the TV campaign shown above sales of Corsodyl increased and they also captured some sales from Listerine, the marketing hook was clever as the campaign had a two part effective message:
- Get the attention of people whos gums bleed
- Inform them that there is a product exists to address bleeding gums
This same logic could be used to sell products that exist to combat tonsil stones but it would need to go a little further. Think of the above 2 steps as doing the following:
- Get the persons attention
- Tell them about the product
The tonsil stone advertisement would need to have a little more focus on step 1 and include an educational element, the approach should be:
- Get the attention of people who have tonsil stones but without using the words “tonsil stones” at this stage
- Highlight some of the negative effects of tonsils stones
- Introduce the product that could be used to remote/treat/prevent tonsil stones
There is really a gap in the market here and the first company who steps into that gap could well own it for a very long time. It has been established that a huge number (up to 25%) of the world population has tonsil stones, I am amazed that no one has stepped up yet but it will happen!
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