Brondell takes on a formidable design-and-marketing challenge - getting Americans to change their product interactions in the bathroom.

You walk into your bathroom and sit down on your Swash contoured and comfortably heated toilet seat. When finished, you simply press a button for a posterior or feminine wash and you are met with a warm, aerated water spray. You can dry yourself with the warm air dryer or pat-dry with a small amount of toilet paper. You leave your bathroom shower-fresh as the gentle-closing lid slowly lowers behind you. Swash-like products are providing over 20 million men, women, and children around the world a healthier, more hygienic lifestyle. The bidet is recognized for its superior cleansing qualities accomplished by using water rather than irritating, ineffective dry toilet paper.

No doubt it's comfortable, perhaps pleasurable, more hygienic and whatever other benefits you can imagine. And hey, the Japanese all use it (or a similar product). But something is badly missing in order to get this marketplace to use it. As their CEO says ''Once someone experiences one of our warm toilet seats and the warm-water bidet, there's no going back to the cold porcelain toilet." (article here)

There's nothing in their product or their website that begins to address the challenge of creating a new use model for a private, semi-shameful habitual activity that we can't even talk about. A PR foray gets them exposure today, but what will we see from them in 2 months or 6 months?

If this was every other blog that touches on marketing or advertising, you'd see my list of recommendations for Blondell. But please, isn't that a bit silly? I can see the challenges they have, but without understanding their company, and most importantly, the perceptions of their target customers (not my personal opinions) around the barriers to adoption, it's ridiculous to offer advice. Except to learn about the customers and find ways to reframe the offering to induce a change of behavior. Abstract as anything, I guess.

Any readers have any ideas, in the spirit of brainstorming, not expertise?