Just when you find the perfect moisturizer or the ideal shampoo it gets discontinued. Right?
Perhaps you spent a lot of time searching for just the right product only to have it disappear from the shelves never to return. Sure you complained, but that did little to get the manufacturers attention.
Now, thanks to social media like Facebook and Twitter, consumers are fighting back and this time, they’re getting heard! Customers that want certain discontinued items brought back are finding them again through select markets.
“It’s literally reshaping how the market is driven,” said Karen Grant, a senior global industry analyst with the NPD Group, a market research company in Port Washington, N.Y. “Social media is changing how products are being developed, marketed and launched.”
For example, in January, Pantene, brought back hair-care products that had been discontinued in the 1980s. They launched a “Back by Popular Demand” marketing campaign with a Facebook giveaway.
Another company, Bobbi Brown Cosmetics, a brand owned by the Estée Lauder Company, also ran Facebook campaign called “Bobbi Brings Back: Lip Color”. They asked fans to vote on their favorite shades of discontinued products. “The response was even higher than anticipated,” said Alicia Sontag, the senior vice president for global marketing at Bobbi Brown.
So the next time your favorite product goes off the shelf, go online!