Catalog Doctor: Rules to Live By
8. Models sell products better ... except in two instances. First, models distract from food. Both people and food produce strong emotional reactions in consumers, so those two emotions compete with each other, taking attention away from the food that's for sale. Second, models can be a negative when the catalog's demographic is so broad that the wrong model type will cause readers to subconsciously think, "Oh, I'm not like that person, and therefore that entire product line is wrong for me."
Susan J. McIntyre is Founder and Chief Strategist of McIntyre Direct, a catalog agency and consultancy in Portland, Oregon offering complete creative, strategic, circulation and production services since 1991. Susan's broad experience with cataloging in multi-channel environments, plus her common-sense, bottom-line approach, have won clients from Vermont Country Store to Nautilus to C.C. Filson. A three-time ECHO award winner, McIntyre has addressed marketers in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, has written and been quoted in publications worldwide, and is a regular columnist for Retail Online Integration magazine and ACMA. She can be reached at 503-286-1400 or susan@mcintyredirect.com.
