Selling to the "Singletons"

People who live by themselves today are not alone. That's because 32 million Americans live on their own, including about half of all adults in New York City and Washington D.C. So we should find out what's wrong and push them to get married? Not if you want to make money. As Eric Klinenberg, a professor of sociology at NYU pointed out, these single people (whom he dubs "singletons") are spending more than those who are married. The average singleton spent $34,471 per capita in 2010, according to the federal Consumer Expenditure survey. Married people without children spent $28,017 and the highest-spending married people with children spent $23,179 per person. Klinenberg, who wrote the book Going Solo: The Extraordinary Rise and Surprising Appeal of Living Alone, wrote in Fortune last year that businesses are already targeting this growing demographic:

Home-improvement giant Lowe's (LOW) released a TV advertisement featuring a lone woman who is renovating her bathroom. Iconic car-brand Chevrolet ran an ad in which a single woman responds to a bad date by going for a drive in a Malibu with a female friend. Even DeBeers, which long pitched its diamonds as the embodiment of a couple's romantic bond, has sold a "right-hand ring" for unmarried women who want to treat themselves to elegant jewelry. Singletons are a rising presence -- and American business has only begun to respond.

So how should this affect our communication strategies? Here are a few ideas:

Target market: You often hear candidates running for office talk about middle-class families struggling to survive. But that excludes millions of people living on their own. Forget families or singletons: just call "them" people, residents, or men and women.

Logistics: Some people don't like communal tables at restaurants, but I do. If the goal is merely cosmetic -- i.e. to avoid the embarrassment of sitting alone -- then make sure you have a plethora of electrical outlets for mobile devices. If you want a more social atmosphere, then people at the table need to order together and share dishes. Not easy, but it works at places with great food in the south, like Buckner's Family Restaurant.

Message: Focus on the universal benefits of your product or service. Eat Life cereal because it's healthy and tastes good (not because Mikey likes it). Use this Ocean Breeze soap because it makes you clean. (Great thinking from Kermit the Frog). Even diapers today could be changed by a single man as easily as a married woman. So don't pigeonhole yourself. Use people, instead of family members, to communicate your message.

Do you have any ideas about how to reach, or not exclude, the growing market of people who live alone? Please share them below.

Toilet Paper Ads -- Brilliant or Full of ...?

To those who enjoy the bliss of the bathroom, an enjoyable read is just as important as a roll of bathroom tissue. And it is these two staples that seem to have inspired the creation of Star Toilet Paper: a startup that produces toilet paper with advertisements.

Since its founding in 2011, Star Toilet Paper has attracted a range of advertisers -- from restaurants to pet stores -- and received plenty of press (including a recent story in a New York Times blog). The toilet paper is free for merchants who use it in their bathrooms,  and the ads contain QR codes that customers can scan with their smartphones to receive digital coupons. But the company -- founded by brothers Jordan and Bryan Silverman -- hasn't generated much revenue over the past three years, according to The Times.

I suppose the reason is obvious: toilet paper is used to clean ourselves after going to the bathroom. No matter how clean a roll of toilet paper is, we associate it with its primary purpose. That's not to say that toilet paper ads don't spark conversation. At The Blue Note Grill in Durham, N.C., customers using the restrooms prefer the paper coupons over the the digital. “The toilet paper is a great gimmick for the restaurant,” the owner, Bill Whittington, told The Times. “On a busy night, we’ll see customers come out of the bathroom with a foot and a half of toilet paper, and everyone at the table will be looking at it."

The question is: what do they do with the toilet paper afterward? If they don't use it for a free dessert, I don't want to know. 

How are PR Consultants Perceived?

When I was a reporter at a daily newspaper, people who worked in PR were called "flacks," and those journalists who left to work in public relations were "going to the dark side." This was understandable. People in PR are often trying to shield their clients from the press, and instead of helping journalists, are giving them flak. (To learn more about the origin of flack and flak, check out this post from The Word Detective.)

I always thought the problem was just about common courtesy and about the way people in PR treat journalists. But there is also the issue of how people in PR treat potential clients. What are clients paying for? And what are the results? A restaurant owner wrote an interesting post about his experience with PR firms, and a follow-up piece about the benefits of social media. I think it sounds a little extreme, and there is a benefit to public relations when it's done right. But what do you think?