So many product offerings (in any category) fall down because there’s a mismatch between what the manufacturer/producer says about their product and the actual product experience. A simple example…

Near our office in Pioneer Square is a soap store. I walked by it a couple of times when I finally noticed a cool retro package of soap called “Milk Glow“. Not only did the vintage milk truck and the promise of “Nourishing Goodness” hook me, but the “Vanilla Smoothie” variety of the Milk Glow soap made it impossible to ignore. I’m comfortable enough with myself to admit that I wouldn’t mind bathing in a giant vanilla shake. I think people would be coming up to me and sniffing me pleasantly all day. Then they would wander off with a strange craving for french fries.

With this weird scene in my head I wandered in and bought a bar of Milk Glow Vanilla Smoothie. A few days later at home it turns out that not only did the bar look more like an Oreo milkshake than any vanilla smoothie I’ve ever seen, but it smelled nothing like a vanilla shake. My olfactory palate is not developed enough to know what it was other than something floral. But vanilla was nowhere to be found. There was also nothing retro about the soup. I expected something very rectangular with hard edges and maybe a wide bevel framing the top of the soap and showing the logo. Instead I got a very aerodynamic modern soap shape.

It’s like the people making the soap, and the people describing the soap via the packaging and other marketing never spoke. Actually, I think they never met each other.

If the makers of Milk Glow had advertised this soap as some sort of floral bar then it might not have sold me, but it might have gotten someone else. Instead, not only did they not get the customer who would be happy, but they got a customer who will never purchase their products again. Clearly they have no idea what a vanilla milkshake looks and smells like. Poorly set expectations can be the death knell for a product. I know it’s just a bar of soap, but this lesson applies universally.