Fortune Cookie Marketing Advice

By Jerry Rackley

For all that Ralph Waldo Emerson was, he was no marketer. He famously said, “Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” I’d love to debate Ralph about this: what if you can’t sustain your mousetrap innovation rate? What if competitors lower their prices? How will you communicate your mousetrap differentiation to the world? Why will they care? My debate with Ralph will never take place, but this thinking persists.

The fortune cookie that came with my order of Kung Pao chicken this week contained much better advice – it’s pictured here. When meeting someone new, I often get asked what I do. I think I’m going to carry this fortune around in my wallet and pull it out in response to the vocational question. All marketers can answer this way: we don’t wait for others (customers) to find and open the metaphorical doors to our business; we light the path and open the door for the customer. In other words, it’s proactive, not reactive; intentional not accidental.

I had a memorable encounter with the “better mousetrap myth” mentality midway through my career. At the time, I was a marketing consultant, and a mutual friend had arranged a meeting for me with the CEO of a nanotechnology firm. His company was doing some fascinating research, spinning out innovations and trying to commercialize some of them. This CEO had a Ph.D. and was perhaps one of the most intelligent persons I’d ever met. As we talked, my mind was racing with the many possibilities for promoting his firm and its products. When the meeting began to wind down, I started to outline a strategy and some tactics I thought would succeed for his company. The CEO politely interrupted me and said, without any condescension in his voice, “if we need to do some marketing, I’ll buy a book about it from Amazon.com.” The meeting was over at that point.

As smart as that CEO was, he didn’t know what he didn’t know. He was enamored with his innovations, rightfully so, but also completely bought in to the better mousetrap myth. I used to believe it too, until the harsh realities of the marketplace provided a reality check. Products rarely succeed on their own merits. They need a kick-start and some nurturing to help them achieve a level of status and prestige that provides marketplace momentum. When products do achieve this level of success, many in the market observe that “the product practically sells itself” and wonder why the company would spend any money for marketing. As a marketer, when your product is talked about that way, you can simply smile and know that you’ve done your job well.

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