For RKS, the first million was easy.
At first they called it My First Shades, selling quality sunglasses for babies. And that went well, with forward-thinking pediatricians and opticians stocking and recommending them to parents. So the owners thought, “OK, let’s expand to toddlers and kids in elementary school. They need decent sunglasses too.” They called it MFS Eyewear then, and ramped up marketing.
And then nothing happened. What went wrong?
It turns out, the people who first bought My First Shades for their babies were already looking for eye protection for their kids. They knew what they wanted and recognized it when they saw it. When MFS Eyewear was rolled out to toddlers and older kids, it didn’t land. The parents who thought about sunglasses at all mostly picked up the garbage ones at the check-out line. There was no connection between how MFS Eyewear were marketed and how the parents thought about their needs.
“It’s time for Real Kids Shades” reframed the message, from sunglasses as a toy to sunglasses as serious eye protection. Advertising, point-of-purchase materials, a new website, product packaging, and printed pieces for doctors’ offices all reinforced the point.
Kids’ eyesight is a safety and medical issue, as real and important as sunscreen or bike helmets.
Parents and doctors got the message. RKS sales grew an order of magnitude, and parents and pediatricians started treating sun protection as important to kids’ eyes as it is to their skin.
