To be completely transparent, the pitches in Season 14, Episode 5 of Shark Tank did not wow me. However, the one that stood out to me the most from a marketing perspective was the Marker Parker pitch. As someone with a lot of experience babysitting young kids, I know how easily things like marker caps can go missing. So having a base to keep the marker caps all in one place would be very useful. Not only would it make cleanup easier for kids, but it would also be financially beneficial to parents who would spend less money on replacing dried-out markers.
During the episode of Shark Tank, Amy Leinbach and her daughter Marlo pitched their product, the Marker Parker, to the sharks as “the perfect spot to park your markers.” The Marker Parker is a holder for markers that retails for $15 (and costs $2.71 to make). The way the product works is by you pushing the markers into the Marker Parker base (cap side down), which grips the marker caps tightly. Once the markers are secured into the base, when kids are ready to use them during playtime, only the drawing part of the marker is removed (leaving the caps safely secured in the base). Amy Leinbach described the Marker Parker as ergonomic, with a squishy texture that makes it easy for kids to grip and a playful design that encourages kids to use the base to put away their markers. The current design works for broad-tip markers but Amy has tweaked the design to also make the Marker Parker suitable for fine-tip markers as well.
What gap does this product fill? Anyone who is around kids often enough knows that marker caps can go missing in the blink of an eye. The Marker Parker fills a need in the market for something to help children and their parents keep their markers and marker caps together in an easily transportable system.
What process does this product make easier? The Marker Parker makes it easy to not lose marker caps because the caps remain in the holder the entire time, and only the drawing part gets removed. This means cleaning up and putting away markers after playtime gets simpler and overall less stressful trying to find scattered marker caps.
Why should consumers not only want this product but feel that they NEED it? Consumers, especially parents or those who work/deal with younger kids should want this product because it makes cleaning up markers a breeze. No more looking under crevices trying to see if the cap rolled under there. No more having to shell out money for new markers due to the markers drying up when losing caps. The Marker Parker is a practical product, that is beneficial to both children and adults.
This product could best appeal to consumers, specifically kids, by offering the Marker Parker in different colors and fun patterns for the base combined with brightly colored packaging. This way kids would be more excited to get the product if it came in their favorite color. Also, offering different shape configurations for the base, such as a heart or star-shaped configuration. And while I don’t think a $15 price point is outrageous, I think lowering the price would make the product more appealing. Especially when parents can buy a new pack of markers for as low as $3.
