marketing gone wrong

[cellio]

For certain commodities I have no brand loyalty and buy based on price or convenience. Thus, I recently bought a package of Scott Super Mega bathroom tissue, because with the coupon I had it was the cheapest per square inch and not known to be bad.

The rolls are huge -- too large to fit on a standard dispenser. Fail. But wait, they anticipated that and packaged an extender for your dispenser with the paper. This allows me to mount the rolls, but it's a little awkward and I don't plan to use that extender after the immediate need is gone.

Bigger is not always better, guys. Had Scott settled for rolls that comply with the standard interface, I'd be as likely as not to buy their product in the future. Now, however, they have acquired a small black mark; I will remember that it was Scott but might, in the future, not be able to remember if it was Ultra or Mega or Jumbo or Decadent or whatever, so better safe than sorry and I'll buy something else.

Is the chore of changing the roll really so distasteful that this is necessary for some segment of the market? (Do I really want to know the answer to that question?)

Comments

[geekosaur]

Charmin does the same thing, minus the adapter. (I got bit by this in my last purchase.) On the other hand, they give you some idea of how the rolls compare, so it's easier to know what to avoid.

[cellio]

Thanks for the tip; I haven't had Charmin in a while so hadn't noticed.

normal-sized rolls?

[brokengoose.livejournal.com]

I find that it's almost impossible to find standard-sized rolls any more. Even the normal rolls are "25% more than before!" I used to live in an apartment with a very shallow built-in bathroom tissue holder. Most of the time, the roll ended up on the back of the toilet.

Re: normal-sized rolls?

[cellio]

Yeah, the terms have shifting definitions. Remember what "small", "medium", and "large" soft drinks meant 30 years ago? The monstrosity of the half-gallon "large" (ok, maybe it's only a quart) hadn't yet been invented. In college I learned to shift from asking for a "medium" (or whatever) to a "16oz drink" (or whatever), which has the unfortunate side-effect that many workers don't actually know the sizes (or how to estimate).

Since I rarely do fast food any more this has stopped being a problem for me.

[http://users.livejournal.com/merle_/]

Dispenser extenders? Uhm...

The only innovation I truly love from the last many years of papery products was the half-length paper towels. Those are useful. Jumbo rolls, not so good. I have this magic power called a "shelf" that helps me out if the roll ever runs out.

[cellio]

Half-length paper towels are a big win for me. Yeah, before then I would just tear across the middle and hope for the best, but this is enough easier that I don't mind paying a few more pennies for it.

As for the dispenser extender, consider that the regular roll-holder is a cylinder, or (abstractly) a line. The extender works by putting "hooks" on each end, resulting in a shape sort of like a C-clamp. This means that the bulk of the roll is held an inch or so out from where it would otherwise have been. Since the force holding it in place no longer runs through the center of the roll, it feels a little wonky even though it's strong enough not to be pulled out of the holder.

[ginamariewade.livejournal.com]

Maybe it's because some people just crap a lot?

[alfiechat.livejournal.com]

I don't have that problem here in my house. I buy the regular rolls of Angel soft, because it frequently goes on sale for 2 packages of 24 rolls for 10 bucks, not a bad deal. Never tried scott tissue/

[steven.livejournal.com]

Are you kidding? Changing the TP spool is positively exhausting. You've no idea how much free time I've gained from the larger rolls. Bless those folks at Scott Tissue ...

OK, seriously, I think they've gone a bit overboard, but I do love the jumbo rolls of paper towel. I know it's not very "green" to use a lot of paper towel, but I do anyway; otherwise, I'd have a hamper filled with dishtowels every single day.

[rectangularcat]

well you know, the marketing people have to drive the plant engineer nuts with something...

when I used to work in a paper products plant (95/96), bigger tp and paper towel rolls were being considered on a trial basis - guess there is a demand for them... at that time too, they were looking at getting rid of Charmin Aloe and apparently a very loyal clientele (ie hemorrhoid suffers) started a letter writing campaign and they nixed that idea. *laughs*

Jumbo toilet paper

[tc-tick.livejournal.com]

I love the jumbo rolls and have holders that work fine with them. The spare roll is kept in a cabinet not reachable from the toilet and the backup rolls are in the garage -- the fewer changes the better.