moriaritytk
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- Apr 19, 2001
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There has been a fair amount of discussion about place of video clips and free content and the problem of freeloaders. While the discussion never reached flame-level, it has gotten a bit testy. I hope to defuse the situation a bit by describing what we have here as a classic marketing case study.
Three concepts are critical. We’ll call them “buying triggers”, “buying alternatives” and “customer needs.”
A “buying trigger” is something that a producer gives away free to potential customers to give them enough information to make an informed buying decision. A “buying alternative” has developed when the producer gives away so much that people manage to satisfy a critical “customer need” without having to buy.
For example, the car dealer will take you for a test drive because the experience is likely to give you valuable information that you require to trip your buying trigger. However, if the car dealer agreed to come to your house each morning and take you to work, he would be providing a buying alternative. What you need is transportation. Getting rides from the car dealer isn’t the optimum way to meet that need, but, as a free alternative, it is better than buying a car.
Transfer these concepts to the tickling realm and the tension between the producers and customers takes on a less emotional and more academic flavor. Our “customer need” is for a surrogate tickling experience. We could all go out and round up nubile young women and tickle their brains out if we wanted. Kujman does. So do plenty of others that we never hear about because their fingers are too busy to spend time on the keyboard. It’s an option. For a whole host of reasons that we each evaluate individually, many of us have decided not to become serial ticklers but to fill our need by hitchhiking on the experience of others.
Ok, fine. That’s the classic scenario for commerce. Jeff and Kathy/Tickler In Black and Ana/Lucky Guy Andre ARE willing to be serial ticklers, and they will let us ride along if we’ll pay for their gas and a bit extra for their effort to pick us up. They tell us the price when they pull over and open the car door. We get to decide if the ride is worth the price. To do that, we need the equivalent of a test drive as our buying trigger. Primarily, we need answers to a couple questions.
“What does the woman or women look like” is the first question. Fair or not, surrogate tickling is a sexual experience and those often depend on the chemistry of attraction. We each have to decide if we would want to tickle the participants ourselves if we were there. Some of us have more demanding standards than others (she has to look like Pam Anderson, only all natural . . . oh, and with a Ph.D., too . . . and no tattoos), but as customers we can expect to SEE the women as part of a buying trigger. In a perfect world that won’t be the only consideration, but the world can be pretty imperfect. So be it.
“Is she/they ticklish” is the second question. This is tricky because ticklishness is a changing internal condition. There are, however, several manifestations from the filmed surrogate experience that will serve as buying triggers.
1. Self Report: While not totally reliable, it is the first level. On one of the FM Concepts videos, Julia Parton describes how hopelessly ticklish she is and the way she talks about it is absolutely credible (and very sexy). I’ve heard other models who don’t convince me a bit. Still, it’s a legitimate manifestation.
2. Laughter: This can be faked but usually not well. There is a certain character to a ticklish laugh that can’t be easily matched by a model laughing on cue. You can usually tell in a few seconds, unless there is a really good actress at work.
3. Begging: Also fakable, but the fake stuff is usually lame enough to spot. Most of us can spot pleas read off cue cards in a few seconds. The real stuff is often garbled, nonsensical or desperate–sometimes all three.
4. Struggling: I find this to be the most effective manifestation because it involves involuntary reactions. When a model’s whole body twists away and goes into motion at the instant a sole or underarm is touched, that is generally the real deal. When the struggling starts a few seconds later, that’s someone remembering they are supposed to struggle. Again, a few seconds tells the tale.
The last question we can ask to trigger our buying is “Does she really get tickled?” This is where the reputation of the company and/or the tickler comes in. Knowledge of the tickler and a description of the circumstances has to be enough until a customer can provide a review (more on that later).
To trigger our buying, producers should strive to answer these questions quickly, effectively and cheaply–and no more. Going much farther risks providing a buying alternative, and I think that’s what is too often happening in the tickling field.
Go back to our customer need. Most of us are in the market for a surrogate sexual experience that ends in (I’ll be tactful here) a release. At the point of release, the need is generally satisfied and there will be no buying. It makes no sense to pay money for what you can get for free.
That’s where the tension exists in the tickling world. As people of limited resources, we’d be foolish not to want to get enough material to get our release for free. Sure, a two-minute clip isn’t as good as a 60-minute video. It doesn’t have to be as good. It only has to be good enough. We’ve already decided to accept a watered down video version of tickling instead of the real thing. It's only a small downgrade to settle for a free clip in place of a video. We’re human, and we get along as best we can.
Producers can't reverse their customers' tendencies to want free stuff. But, they have to keep offering triggers instead of alternatives and they should get together on this point no matter how they might disagree in other areas. They need to experiment so they can STOP before a buying trigger crosses the threshold to become an alternative, and that’s exactly what they are doing now. It has nothing to do with generosity or how much they care about the community. It’s about finding that point where they give us enough to help us decide what to buy without giving us so much that we don’t need to buy. That's marketing.
Magic Touch’s clips are clearly too long and comprehensive–they’re alternatives. RealTickling tried to pull back from offering an alternative in the Hotel Tickle clip. The audience squawked–partly because they didn’t want to see a buying alternative disappear and partly because the compromise clip was just a little too choppy to be useful in answering all the buying trigger questions. Was there laughter or struggling or begging? I think so, but it was hard to evaluate.
Here are my suggestions, producers, for what they are worth. You certainly don’t need to take my unsolicited advice, but you do need to find reasonable buying triggers and resist all pleas to provide buying alternatives or you will not be able to stay in business.
TEXT: Continue to provide the rich descriptions that you use to promote your videos, including the personal asides and back-story. Magic Touch is tops here, followed by RealTickling. Some of the other producers are missing opportunities to provide buying triggers here. Rarely will more text about a video serve as a buying alternative. It usually just whets the appetite.
PICTURES: Use fewer pictures and keep them pretty small. The goal of the pictures is to reveal how the models look and show how they are positioned to receive the tickling. A few good stills can show the faces contorted with laughter or the bodies writhing in the throes of a struggle. I think it’s a mistake for Magic Touch to have the thumbnails expand to a bigger size, since they can be assembled into an acceptable buying alternative. At most, blow up some big pics of the models from the interview or from some non-tickling scene. A big picture of the fully-dressed model NOT being tickled is a trigger, not an alternative. Try to avoid showing nudity or semi-nudity for free. For some folks, that serves as a buying alternative right there.
CLIPS: Clips can be buying triggers if they help us answer the key questions about laughter, begging and struggle, but we only need 5-7 seconds of tape for that on each participant. If you want to produce a longer clip as a buying trigger, load it with the interview material. Magic Touch always has a good teasing interview. RealTickling’s “Ticklish Guest” had a great interview segment where Jacqueline Lick talked about how her feet rated about a 25 on a 1-10 tickling scale. That kind of info makes a customer want to buy the video rather than unzip with the clip. I wouldn’t include more than 15 seconds of tickling material in any clip. Again, avoid nudity or semi-nudity if possible (although you can describe the heck out of the models' nude bodies in the text).
REVIEWS: This is where the untapped potential is. Customer descriptions of videos that answer the key buying trigger questions should be promoted, maybe even linked to on your sites. I think that forum members are willing to provide such reviews and have offered some, but we need structure to make the reviews more useful to the community. I ordered Magic Touch’s new Angelica video the day it came out (based on the interview pics of the model, the small pics that I evaluated to show struggling, and the description of her not-quite-serious pleading). Once I get a look, I’ll post a review, and, more importantly, a review structure that others can use if they want to give the community more standardized review information. Maybe that will be helpful, maybe not. It seems worth a try.
I’ve rambled on a long time, but it seems like members of a community should be willing to share their knowledge and experience from outside the tickling world that may have relevance inside. That’s all I tried to do. Your debate is welcome.
Three concepts are critical. We’ll call them “buying triggers”, “buying alternatives” and “customer needs.”
A “buying trigger” is something that a producer gives away free to potential customers to give them enough information to make an informed buying decision. A “buying alternative” has developed when the producer gives away so much that people manage to satisfy a critical “customer need” without having to buy.
For example, the car dealer will take you for a test drive because the experience is likely to give you valuable information that you require to trip your buying trigger. However, if the car dealer agreed to come to your house each morning and take you to work, he would be providing a buying alternative. What you need is transportation. Getting rides from the car dealer isn’t the optimum way to meet that need, but, as a free alternative, it is better than buying a car.
Transfer these concepts to the tickling realm and the tension between the producers and customers takes on a less emotional and more academic flavor. Our “customer need” is for a surrogate tickling experience. We could all go out and round up nubile young women and tickle their brains out if we wanted. Kujman does. So do plenty of others that we never hear about because their fingers are too busy to spend time on the keyboard. It’s an option. For a whole host of reasons that we each evaluate individually, many of us have decided not to become serial ticklers but to fill our need by hitchhiking on the experience of others.
Ok, fine. That’s the classic scenario for commerce. Jeff and Kathy/Tickler In Black and Ana/Lucky Guy Andre ARE willing to be serial ticklers, and they will let us ride along if we’ll pay for their gas and a bit extra for their effort to pick us up. They tell us the price when they pull over and open the car door. We get to decide if the ride is worth the price. To do that, we need the equivalent of a test drive as our buying trigger. Primarily, we need answers to a couple questions.
“What does the woman or women look like” is the first question. Fair or not, surrogate tickling is a sexual experience and those often depend on the chemistry of attraction. We each have to decide if we would want to tickle the participants ourselves if we were there. Some of us have more demanding standards than others (she has to look like Pam Anderson, only all natural . . . oh, and with a Ph.D., too . . . and no tattoos), but as customers we can expect to SEE the women as part of a buying trigger. In a perfect world that won’t be the only consideration, but the world can be pretty imperfect. So be it.
“Is she/they ticklish” is the second question. This is tricky because ticklishness is a changing internal condition. There are, however, several manifestations from the filmed surrogate experience that will serve as buying triggers.
1. Self Report: While not totally reliable, it is the first level. On one of the FM Concepts videos, Julia Parton describes how hopelessly ticklish she is and the way she talks about it is absolutely credible (and very sexy). I’ve heard other models who don’t convince me a bit. Still, it’s a legitimate manifestation.
2. Laughter: This can be faked but usually not well. There is a certain character to a ticklish laugh that can’t be easily matched by a model laughing on cue. You can usually tell in a few seconds, unless there is a really good actress at work.
3. Begging: Also fakable, but the fake stuff is usually lame enough to spot. Most of us can spot pleas read off cue cards in a few seconds. The real stuff is often garbled, nonsensical or desperate–sometimes all three.
4. Struggling: I find this to be the most effective manifestation because it involves involuntary reactions. When a model’s whole body twists away and goes into motion at the instant a sole or underarm is touched, that is generally the real deal. When the struggling starts a few seconds later, that’s someone remembering they are supposed to struggle. Again, a few seconds tells the tale.
The last question we can ask to trigger our buying is “Does she really get tickled?” This is where the reputation of the company and/or the tickler comes in. Knowledge of the tickler and a description of the circumstances has to be enough until a customer can provide a review (more on that later).
To trigger our buying, producers should strive to answer these questions quickly, effectively and cheaply–and no more. Going much farther risks providing a buying alternative, and I think that’s what is too often happening in the tickling field.
Go back to our customer need. Most of us are in the market for a surrogate sexual experience that ends in (I’ll be tactful here) a release. At the point of release, the need is generally satisfied and there will be no buying. It makes no sense to pay money for what you can get for free.
That’s where the tension exists in the tickling world. As people of limited resources, we’d be foolish not to want to get enough material to get our release for free. Sure, a two-minute clip isn’t as good as a 60-minute video. It doesn’t have to be as good. It only has to be good enough. We’ve already decided to accept a watered down video version of tickling instead of the real thing. It's only a small downgrade to settle for a free clip in place of a video. We’re human, and we get along as best we can.
Producers can't reverse their customers' tendencies to want free stuff. But, they have to keep offering triggers instead of alternatives and they should get together on this point no matter how they might disagree in other areas. They need to experiment so they can STOP before a buying trigger crosses the threshold to become an alternative, and that’s exactly what they are doing now. It has nothing to do with generosity or how much they care about the community. It’s about finding that point where they give us enough to help us decide what to buy without giving us so much that we don’t need to buy. That's marketing.
Magic Touch’s clips are clearly too long and comprehensive–they’re alternatives. RealTickling tried to pull back from offering an alternative in the Hotel Tickle clip. The audience squawked–partly because they didn’t want to see a buying alternative disappear and partly because the compromise clip was just a little too choppy to be useful in answering all the buying trigger questions. Was there laughter or struggling or begging? I think so, but it was hard to evaluate.
Here are my suggestions, producers, for what they are worth. You certainly don’t need to take my unsolicited advice, but you do need to find reasonable buying triggers and resist all pleas to provide buying alternatives or you will not be able to stay in business.
TEXT: Continue to provide the rich descriptions that you use to promote your videos, including the personal asides and back-story. Magic Touch is tops here, followed by RealTickling. Some of the other producers are missing opportunities to provide buying triggers here. Rarely will more text about a video serve as a buying alternative. It usually just whets the appetite.
PICTURES: Use fewer pictures and keep them pretty small. The goal of the pictures is to reveal how the models look and show how they are positioned to receive the tickling. A few good stills can show the faces contorted with laughter or the bodies writhing in the throes of a struggle. I think it’s a mistake for Magic Touch to have the thumbnails expand to a bigger size, since they can be assembled into an acceptable buying alternative. At most, blow up some big pics of the models from the interview or from some non-tickling scene. A big picture of the fully-dressed model NOT being tickled is a trigger, not an alternative. Try to avoid showing nudity or semi-nudity for free. For some folks, that serves as a buying alternative right there.
CLIPS: Clips can be buying triggers if they help us answer the key questions about laughter, begging and struggle, but we only need 5-7 seconds of tape for that on each participant. If you want to produce a longer clip as a buying trigger, load it with the interview material. Magic Touch always has a good teasing interview. RealTickling’s “Ticklish Guest” had a great interview segment where Jacqueline Lick talked about how her feet rated about a 25 on a 1-10 tickling scale. That kind of info makes a customer want to buy the video rather than unzip with the clip. I wouldn’t include more than 15 seconds of tickling material in any clip. Again, avoid nudity or semi-nudity if possible (although you can describe the heck out of the models' nude bodies in the text).
REVIEWS: This is where the untapped potential is. Customer descriptions of videos that answer the key buying trigger questions should be promoted, maybe even linked to on your sites. I think that forum members are willing to provide such reviews and have offered some, but we need structure to make the reviews more useful to the community. I ordered Magic Touch’s new Angelica video the day it came out (based on the interview pics of the model, the small pics that I evaluated to show struggling, and the description of her not-quite-serious pleading). Once I get a look, I’ll post a review, and, more importantly, a review structure that others can use if they want to give the community more standardized review information. Maybe that will be helpful, maybe not. It seems worth a try.
I’ve rambled on a long time, but it seems like members of a community should be willing to share their knowledge and experience from outside the tickling world that may have relevance inside. That’s all I tried to do. Your debate is welcome.
