An Oldie But A Goodie, Baby!

Looking through some things I had stored away I found a small blanket box containing a soft knit baby blanket. On the box cover was a beautiful soft-pencil sketch of a mother and father holding a baby. Bold text beside the sketch reads:

To You

and

Your Family

with best wishes

compliments of

Brockville Drugs Limited

My mother had given me this many years ago, and I had completely forgotten about it. Presumably, this was a gift from the drug store to my mother at the time I was born.

Think about what a sensible thing it was for the drug store to give these blankets away. Hospitals seldom allow commercial advertising to be placed on their premises. But this is different. It isn't really advertising; it's a gift. Like a Trojan Horse, the gift box penetrates new mothers' defenses and introduces them to the drug store in a way they may never have thought about prior to becoming a mother. There are few better ways to reach new moms at the exact moment that they are likely to be thinking about all of the blankets, bottles and bottom-wipes they suddenly realize that they'll need.

In addition, as persuasion expert Dr. Robert Cialdini would point out, the approach takes advantage of the principle of RECIPROCATION. People tend to give back the kind of treatment that they receive. Even a simple gift has the power to ingratiate the giver in the mind of the receiver, causing them to want to reciprocate.

Do today's drug stores continue this approach? I don't know. Most of the old-time corner drug stores have disappeared, and the big box stores that have replaced them seem so corporate and impersonal to me. It's seems unlikely that they would get this involved with individual customers or families.

It's a shame, though. For those who want to reach new mothers, however, a short visit to the maternity ward with a present like this would seem to be a practice worth adopting.