I am often aghast at how easy it is to sell malarky, yet how difficult it is to sell common sense. Even to marketing decision-makers, who ought to know better.
Imagine you were a marketing consultant retained by company selling cheese in the United States. Suppose you had an idea: your client could package the stuff in a resealable plastic bag.
Not so fast. Before you up and say, “Why not sell cheese in resealable plastic bags,” consider ways of making your idea look like it’s worth more money. Maybe you could cloak your idea in language about “cracking the code” of the American cheese buyer. And maybe you could invoke an analogy. Let’s see… in Europe, people don’t refrigerate cheese; they keep it at room temperature, whereas Americans refrigerate cheese. Aha! There’s your analogy! In Europe, cheese is symbolically alive; but in the U.S., cheese is dead! Americans store cheese in a body bag (the zip lock bag) which they place in a morgue (the fridge). There’s your analogy. And, you can use it to claim you “cracked the code.” And to think you almost blurted out, “Sell cheese in resealable plastic bags, duh.”
If you think this sounds absurd, I agree. But this tale comes straight from recent marketing history. I just described the actions of a high-priced marketing consultant. Last I heard, he had a waiting list of eager clients hoping he will “crack” a “code” for them.
To be clear, we favor selling common sense at the RESPONSE Agency.
—Steve Cuno
Imagine you were a marketing consultant retained by company selling cheese in the United States. Suppose you had an idea: your client could package the stuff in a resealable plastic bag.
Not so fast. Before you up and say, “Why not sell cheese in resealable plastic bags,” consider ways of making your idea look like it’s worth more money. Maybe you could cloak your idea in language about “cracking the code” of the American cheese buyer. And maybe you could invoke an analogy. Let’s see… in Europe, people don’t refrigerate cheese; they keep it at room temperature, whereas Americans refrigerate cheese. Aha! There’s your analogy! In Europe, cheese is symbolically alive; but in the U.S., cheese is dead! Americans store cheese in a body bag (the zip lock bag) which they place in a morgue (the fridge). There’s your analogy. And, you can use it to claim you “cracked the code.” And to think you almost blurted out, “Sell cheese in resealable plastic bags, duh.”
If you think this sounds absurd, I agree. But this tale comes straight from recent marketing history. I just described the actions of a high-priced marketing consultant. Last I heard, he had a waiting list of eager clients hoping he will “crack” a “code” for them.
To be clear, we favor selling common sense at the RESPONSE Agency.
—Steve Cuno
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