After Tesco

Last weekend I tried something very challenging: to spend the weekend in the local Tesco car park! I discovered that they rent out space in their car parks to businesses wanting to display their products, so I signed up with risk assessment and all to a two day campaign - which cost £600!
I had high hopes of interestingTesco customers and using Tesco's incredible customer profiling system to discover the demographics of my buyers. However, although we had a fair amount of interest I have only had one enquiry, which has not yet resulted in a sale. Most of the weekend was spent hanging around trying to keep warm, although the miserable wet and windy weather on the sunday did prove the point: the washing on the lines stayed dry.
It was an expensive piece of advertising then, but at least it put the Rotaire name and the product in the minds of thousands of people who otherwise may not have known about it, and next time their washing gets soaked they may look it up. It was fascinating to see the operation at close hand, a constant flow of shopping trolleys in and out of the store, the busy times and the less busy times - there was never a slack period. The car park nearly always full, the lively people going in, and the same people coming out devoid of interest, looking at the pavement. A large number thankfully used ther own bags; others emerged with six or eight of the things. Despite the weather, many went shopping in tee shirts, obviously coming from overheated houses to a heated car and a heated shop woth barely any contact with the outside world. Truly it was a watering hole for the masses.
As Edison once said, "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." It is a very steep hill to climb if you want to introduce an entirely new concept.