In my mind, I've always defined a "gimmick" as:
A product in search of a market.
In other words, there's no real need for the product – but they're trying to drum up support for it in order to create a market for same. Good example would be my all-time favorite in this category; the egg scrambler.
This was a device that someone paid some inexpensive market research on. Somehow, they determined that somewhere along about 3 AM, after an evening out on the town I would be sitting in front of my TV thinking "I really want to scramble an egg. But, I don't want to take it out of the shell!"
Now the logical thing to consider is this: just how are you going to cook then eat that egg if you don't take it out of shell?
A product in search of a market.
In other words, there's no real need for the product – but they're trying to drum up support for it in order to create a market for same. Good example would be my all-time favorite in this category; the egg scrambler.
This was a device that someone paid some inexpensive market research on. Somehow, they determined that somewhere along about 3 AM, after an evening out on the town I would be sitting in front of my TV thinking "I really want to scramble an egg. But, I don't want to take it out of the shell!"
Now the logical thing to consider is this: just how are you going to cook then eat that egg if you don't take it out of shell?