Aug 23, 2020
The strategy of “limited edition”
The excellent marketing strategy to attract customers.
Brands create their limited edition products as a tactic approach. Special edition or limited edition is intended to attract more customers by providing a new, unseen look to the products. This creates an exclusive selling of products for a limited time only. This strategy is prevailing in almost all industries now, from make-up products to foods and beverages. The theory of ‘limited edition’ has changed the future of many brands, those which were struggling has managed to get into track with this strategy.
So, how does this work?
Marketers use a wide range of ideas to create limited edition products. Throughout the time, it’s understandable that they have wisely used human emotions to create limited edition products.
Festive seasons
Most of the people go for shopping with family and friends during festive seasons. A wide variety of offers and discounts are available during this time. Brands design their products according to festival and make it very much attractive to catch attention of customers. We, the customers as a psychological animals gets attracted to this and buy it. Holiday-themed designs and holiday packaging creates an emotional connection with consumers.
For example, each holiday season, brands like Starbucks, McD etc… create beautiful cups and boxes with beautiful attractive Christmas elements as they evoke wonderful memories.
Sporting goods
Creating a limited edition product can give your product prestige. Most of us are sports lovers. Football fans, cricket fans, basketball fans and many more. We wait for days and nights to get autograph of our favorite players. Many brands already get signed their products with famous players and sell it in the name of special edition. As their fans, we the customers will pay anything to get the product. This strategy works excellently for clothing companies, especially shoemakers and sometimes the limited edition products will have more sale than their regular products.
When Puma launched its Luxury Edition Puma King shoe, it created a futuristic black and gold with fancy materials. Puma created just 999 boxes and not only the shoe but the boxes became collector’s items.
Challenging logos, prints
Brands team up with celebrities and release a special edition product which gives a small challenge or similar things to consumers. This kind of branding strategy will attract consumers and is a form of entertainment.
In 2012, when Pepsi can featured legendary Michael Jackson after his death with dancing in one of his signature moves. This even made non regular soda drinkers to buy Pepsi.
When it comes to basic economics, everyone knows that scarcity can lead to an increase in demand and a greater sense of value for an item. That’s the foundational idea behind limited edition products. Although there are many more ways of selling techniques, advantages of using limited edition as a strategic marketing tool, are expensive for both the company and the consumers because of the small volumes. When brands differ in quality, companies show that only the high-quality brand may gain in comparison to a scenario where there are no limited edition products. A low-quality brand may offer a limited edition product as a defensive strategy, to gain back the value of their product. Therefore, brands cannot avoid introducing limited edition products because they face a Prisoners’ Dilemma.
