I always enjoy marketing genius, that is unless I am the one paying for the marketing genius.
Take the example of shampoo. Marketing genius is the sales person who wrote the instructions on the side of the bottle, “Pour shampoo into your hand, apply to hair, lather, rinse and then repeat.”
The “repeat” part just doubled the sales of their shampoo. Genius.
And then there is the humble pencil. A tool that has served humanity for years and years and years. No problem.
Who decides that a “mechanical” pencil is an improvement on the pencil? You know what it is? It is a way to sell a lot more pencil lead. Anyone who has tried to use the thin pencil lead, the 0.5mm, will understand how you go through it. Write for two minutes, the lead snaps, click-click-click for some more lead, write, snap…
Marketing genius to turn something humble and simple into a plastic piece of garbage that consumes pencil lead refills like a tree planter at the buffet after just returning to civilization.
The one that really gets me going now is the stuff that every kid loves, that bubble solution that kids can dip the magic wand in, pull out and blow bubbles with.
Ever look at the bottles that crap is marketed in? Not a snowball’s chance in he double hockey sticks that the bottle will stand up. Add in the fact that the bottle is full of soapy water so the kid who is trying to hold it more than likely has a wet, slippery, soap-covered hand and you know that there will be tears.
Marketing genius.