Amusingly, in market research circles, “it’d be good for camping” is a synonym for “I’d never use it”.
When we do focus groups on new products, if a consumer is struggling to think of when she’d actually use a product, we will frequently hear, “well, it might be good for camping.” Which, unless she camps a lot (and, frankly, very few people camp a lot), means that she’d rarely, if ever, use the product, and is just trying to think of something nice to say about it.
That is funny. 'Cause I spend, literally, thousands of dollars every year on Stuff for camping! I’m camping for 25 days out of July, a week in May, a week in August, another four or five long weekends throughout the year…all car/camper camping, where I can bring lots and lots of Expensive Stuff with me. But I get I’m an outlier, so it doesn’t make much sense to base marketing decisions on my feedback.
We’ve always said that the only time “it’d be good for camping” would not be damning with faint praise would be if we were actually doing research on camping supplies.
Only for noobs. When you’ve been camping as long as this creaky old lady, the camping supply aisle becomes foreign lands. Too expensive, too unti-taskery, too specialized. I spend those thousands of dollars at Target and the dollar store, mostly, and haven’t been in camping goods in 10 years, except for new air mattresses.
But back to dry shampoo…I picked up some B2B last night 'cause they didn’t have any Suave. Works equally well, but I’m not sure about the scent on this one. I don’t immediately hate it, it just seems…off.