Why Regional Relevance Matters: Weather

I just pulled the image above from today's weather forecast (image credit to The Weather Channel). I'm writing this post from the lobby of a hotel in Irvine, California (the yellowish/orangish 73 in the bottom left). My family is the pink 14 back in Cincinnati. After a 3am PST wake up call announcing a 2 hour delay for my son's school and then a 4am PST wake up call announcing school was canceled, I felt compelled to take a look at the difference in forecast. As you can see above, we are in very different weather places right now. And to top that, my social feed from Cinci is filled with kids sledding on their day off, while I look at palm trees and contemplate an iced coffee.

For marketers, some of this is obvious. The east coast and midwest is littered with ads for 4 wheel drive vehicles while I passed two billboards here in Cali for a convertible. It would be ridiculous for a car manufacturer to think about adding the convertible creative to the marketing mix at this point in Boston. However, I believe there are a number of marketing lessons that we can all learn from this regional weather variation:

1. What state of mind are your customers in? Have they just dealt with serious snow storms for the past few weeks? Are they itching to get outside and get away from the Netflix? Or are they relaxing on the beach while the rest of the country is digging out?
2. What do your customers need? I'm not talking about the product you are trying to work into their lives. Do they need a laugh? A life hack that involves your product (or not)? What can you give them that will be the value add in their lives at this specific point in time?
3. What do they want to forget about? Most times we are trying to remind them of something. Use this product every time you do this. Don't forget to add the this to that. But you know what, sometimes they just want to forget about something. If only for a brief moment in time. Can you provide that escape?

Weather has the ability to impact our mood, our productivity and our conversations. But you know what, its different for everyone, depending on where you live. Just another reason why regional relevance matters. And yes, for your marketing as well.

Alright, I have to go find a place that sells shorts and flip flops.

Have a great day all.