Could Germany's Portable Woman's Toilet Expand Plumbing Product Offerings?

Photo: KETS

I don't make this stuff up. I'm not that imaginative. I just pass it along. According to a story from Germany's Spiegel...

A German company says it has designed the world's first pocket urinal for women and claims it will put an end to nightmare encounters with filthy public toilets, time-consuming queuing and having to relieve oneself into yoghurt cups during car journeys.

The disposable Ladybag is a plastic bag fitted with absorbent polymers that turn urine into a gel. It's the size of a chocolate bar when folded. It has a wide opening and can be used squatting, sitting or standing. Its gel can absorb half a liter -- enough to process the average amount of urine per sitting -- but the bag itself can hold a whole liter in an emergency.

Yogurt cups during car journeys? Maybe the Germans are a little too efficient.

A package of three Ladybags costs a little more than $16 in Germany ($13 without the German value-added tax). Over 20 thousand have sold in the first year. A similar product for men, called the Roadbag, sells at the rate of 200 thousand a year.

I don't know whether anyone is planning on importing these into North America, though this seems like the type of product Shubee or M.A.R.S. might carry. If so, it might lead to add-on sales during calls.

Personally, I'll never be able to drive the Autobahn again without wondering... Nah. I'm not going there.

T-Shirt Marketing

Photo courtesy of Cosmic_Spanner

Jason Sadler came up with the idea of renting himself for part of his living. No, he's not renting himself in that kind of way. Pay the guy between $1 and $365 and he'll wear your t-shirt for a day. Jason's rental space sells out months in advance.

Jason's not simply wearing your shirt. He makes videos about wearing your shirt for YouTube and Ustream.tv. He's takes pictures wearing your shirt for his blog and Flickr. He posts on this blog and Twitter. He plugs your company in the blog and on his calendar.

Okay, so it's more than wearing your shirt and slouching around the house. Still, why pay someone to wear your shirt? Why not simply give your shirts to customers and prospects? They'll wear them for free.

When my wife was interviewing orthodontists, one of them gave my daughter a t-shirt. While we didn't select the orthodontist who gave Mackenzie the t-shirt, she wore it for several years. This is the equivalent of a homeowner selecting a different air conditioning contractor for a replacement, but allowing you to put a yard sign in the front yard one day a month for the next two years.

T-shirts are inexpensive giveaway items that help market your company. Why not give them away left and right?

By the way, come to the Service Roundtable's hospitality party at Comfortech and pick up one of our famous party t-shirts, while they last. We're also giving away a music CD you won't get anywhere else.

A Sticky Situation Could Be A Plumber's Opportunity

A 58 year old man got stuck in an Australian public bathroom. He got literally stuck. Someone applied a powerful adhesive to public toilet seats and this guy sat on it.

It's one of those things that's sorta funny unless you're the guy who had to go to the emergency room with a toilet seat glued to your posterior. The Australian police are not amused.

"I'm disgusted that a gentleman has had to go through that because someone thinks it's funny -- it's a sick joke," one official told the Australian Associated Press.

Probably not as disgusted as the hospital staff, who were tasked with deseating the victim. Fortunately industrial strength solvents solved the problem.

All of this raises the question, "Don't public bathrooms down under have the sanitary toilet seat covers?"

Guess not. Or, this particular shopping center in Cairns lacked them. But then, so do a lot of public restrooms, all over the world.

This seems to me to be the perfect opportunity for private labeling travel packs of toilet seat covers to use as a great ad premium. Leave them with customers after service calls or scheduled maintenance. Heck, sell them!

Branded travel toilet seat covers should be a perfect product for Mars or Shubee to offer plumbers. That's a hint guys.

And for the Australian plumbers reading this, take advantage of the Cairns incident to issue a press release to the local media announcing your offer of free disposable travel toilet seat covers with every service call.

Put Your Logo On Shopping Bags

I'm always looking for good ad premiums that are inexpensive and that homeowners will use. Peaden's Robert Wilkos came up with a brilliant way to keep the Peaden name in front up customers. After a happy call, he mails them a shopping bag with the company logo.

Personally, I would never bring my own shopping bag to a store. When I'm handed similar bags at a trade show, I usually leave them in the hotel room. However, as a marketer I can't judge the effectiveness of a promotion based on my preferences and biases.

It seems like every grocery store is selling reusable bags with the store logo. And while I think it's flat out silly to give the store $1 for a reusable bag when the store provides disposable bags for free, I have noticed people using them. Since the stores provide recycle bins for the disposable bags, I wonder if people buy reusable bags because they want to make a statement. If so, there's emotion involved and it's always beneficial to be associated with positive emotions.


Cost

Moreover, the bags are cheap. Depending on the quantity, the cost is around a buck a bag. Look around. You might find even better pricing.


Imprinting

What do you print? Your logo, your website, your phone number, your unique selling proposition, a promotional message, or anything else you want. Since the people who use the bags will handle them weekly, whatever you print will be burnt into the consumer's subconscious.


Usage

You can send the bags to your customers after a happy call or with a satisfaction survey like Peaden. You can also give them out at home shows (though I suspect bags given out at home shows will follow the route of trade show bags). Personally, I would assemble a promotional kit with product and service literature you want to emphasize, insert the literature in the bags, and hand the bag to customers following a service call. One of the pieces of literature should be a note suggesting the consumer use the bag when grocery shopping, followed by verbiage about your company's recycling methods.

(c) 2009 Matt Michel