Show a ten year old kid using the product like a pro with limited effort on YouTube.
This idea hit me when my Xbox 360’s DVD-ROM drive crapped out, and I turned to YouTube out of desperation. At that time, I had to decide to either open up the box to fix it or not for fear of damaging it irreparably. I had just received Rock Band II for Christmas, so you can imagine how big of a decision this was for me. Then I stumbled upon a video of a ten year old kid opening his Xbox 360 with very little difficulty, and I had an epiphany:
If this 10 year old kid can do something that I thought may be hard, then there is absolutely no reason why I could not do it…
Call it a sense of pride, but I refused to be one-upped by some kid out there in YouTube land. So I manned up, spent an entire Saturday afternoon tinkering, and in the end fixed my Xbox 360. After that experience, I have been thinking about this phenomenon for some time, and have come to the conclusion that it might be the way to go for companies trying to hawk their wares in an on-line environment.
How a 10 Year Old Got Me to Spend Money
Case in point, I have owned turntables since 1996. I made the switch from analog decks: Technics 1200 mkIIs to digital turntables: Technics sldz 1200s in 2004 and recently started looking at solutions that would allow me to play songs directly from my computer. Enter the Numark NS7 and the Vestax VCI 300. After researching on-line and refining my personal requirements for my inevitable purchase, I stumbled upon this video on YouTube:
And that’s when I knew that I absolutely had to have a VCI 300. Not only is Dj Stereo Kid rocking the funky beat, but he’s mixing songs without headphones on, while doing, what used to be, complex tasks with the tracks he is playing. And he’s making it look ridiculously easy. So, by my newfound mantra: if he can do it, then I can do it because he’s just a kid and I’m some bigshot 32 year old white dude with an overactive sense of myself.
Contest Idea
The next time I’m in charge of launching a consumer product, I plan to have a contest where the age limit to enter is ten years old. I’ll give away free product to a bunch of ten and under kids so they can demonstrate how easy it is to use… especially the advanced features. Then those videos will live on YouTube forever, as well as my company’s blog, because my real demographic will consist of individuals who are much older than ten, who have expendable income and look for product demonstrations by ten year old kids on YouTube to make purchasing decisions.
Don’t everybody run out to try this before I get a chance to, either. It’s my idea…
There are many Chris Hall's in this world. This one blogs and tweets under the code name: hallicious.
