My wife is an art director, so when she went to a Marketing Forum talk she expected to be bored rigid by the usual case histories, graphs, charts, and numbers.
But one client told an amazingly creative story about the birth of a brand.
It started when he was working in Belgium, every day he had to try to sell margarine to people who didn’t want it, it was dispiriting work. To cheer himself up, every day he went to the same pastry shop and ate a delicious chocolate pastry.
Eventually it became clear to him: I don’t like margarine, I do like chocolate, I’m in the wrong game.
Doing what you love is always the best idea, so he quit his job and began working on perfecting a delicious, rich chocolate pudding. He worked on it until he had the perfect product, now he needed marketing: he needed a positioning, a name, packaging – a brand in fact.
So he went to see an agency and asked if they could do that for him, they said, “Leave it with us”.
So he waited. And he waited.
Three weeks later they hadn’t called him, so he called them. They sounded reluctant, “You’d better come in, there’s a bit of a problem”.
So he went to their offices. They said, “We’ve got some bad news we’re afraid, it looks like someone else has already done it”. His jaw dropped.
They said, “Yes, unfortunately virtually the same product, same positioning, everything. We’ve managed to to get hold of some pictures, if you promise not to let it leave this room we’ll show you”. He nodded.
They said, “You wanted a stylish, classy chocolate pudding, deliciously gooey, yet premium? Look, their’s is called Gu.
It’s got the German umlaut (two little dots) over the letter u so it looks like a smiley face. And it rhymes with ‘goo’ so it’s fun, but classy – a bit like Haagen-Dazs”.
The client’s face fell. He said, “I can’t believe it, that’s a great name.”
They said, “Yes, and look at the packaging: it’s dark, rich, elegant, indulgent and chocolatey, but also stylish.”
The client said, “This is terrible, how advanced are they?” The agency said, “Their sales force is ready to start selling it in. We’re worried because we think it will be very successful.”
The client said, “What do you mean, you think they’ll be successful? Of course they’ll be successful: it’s a brilliant product, a brilliant name, a brilliant pack-design, it’s exactly what I wanted, dammit”.
And he sat back depressed, thinking about all the success he could have had if only he’d done the idea first.
Then the agency smiled and said, “Well, if you really mean that I may have some good news for you”. The client said, “What?”
The agency said, “I made that story up, no one has actually done anything.
That was our presentation to you: the name, the packaging, everything.
If you want it you can have it.”
The client said he felt as if the sun had just come out.
Instead of the usual shuffling and humming and hawing, he just took everything as it was and went with it. Isn’t that great?
We never want anything so much as when we can’t have it.
So instead of selling the client an idea in a way that lets him think he’s got all the time in the world to fiddle with every tiny unimportant detail, they let him see what’s really important.
How will he feel if he sees a competitor has done it first, if he’s been beaten to market?
He won’t quibble about the serif on the typeface. He won’t worry that the background colour isn’t 100% perfect. He’ll just wish to God he’d done it when he had the chance.
What a great lesson.
Show the client the idea in a situation where he’d give anything to have done it, but it’s too late, someone else has got there first. It’s like a nightmare.
Then wake him up and tell him it was just a dream and he’s still got a chance to do it himself if he’s quick.
Instead of suspicion and hesitation he’ll feel gratitude and eagerness. He’ll be concentrating on the 99% that’s right, not holding everything up for the 1% that isn’t quite perfect.
You’ll have a client who wants to move things forward not hold things back.
By the way, the name of the client who told that story was James Averdieck.
He launched the Gu brand in 2003 and sold it for £35 million a couple of years later.
Wow!!!
This is so brilliant 😍😍👏👏👏
Would try it out.
Just a very good way to sell a brand, just splendid:)